Teaching and commentary by our pastor, the Most Rev. Francis J. Christian

REFLECTIONS

Watch your tongue! That admonition is one of the strongest made in the short Letter of James which is one of the most practical of the New Testament writings. The third chapter is devoted to the power of the tongue. James is not so much concerned with abstract questions like the tension between freedom of speech and community values. His focus is the concrete effect that certain types of speech have on the speaker and the community. For example, James is well aware that loving one’s neighbor is not compatible with running them down in what one says about them, sometimes behind their backs. For him nothing short of murder is more harmful than destructive talk, even if it’s true. Gossip travels, feeling get hurt, and loyalties are betrayed. Sometimes, lives are destroyed. A thousand years after James wrote his letter, St. Thomas Aquinas devoted five separate questions in his Summa Theologica to “injuries inflicted by words”: reviling, backbiting, tale-bearing, derision, and cursing. It seems to be eternally true as James says “no human being can tame the tongue.”

We see this in ourselves, our families, our schools, our workplaces and even in our church. Ours is a society that delights in revealing everything about everybody. And oftentimes the information that is revealed is demeaning and damaging and something we don’t really need to know. For example do we need to know whether the “health problem” of a particular movie star is only anorexia nervosa or whether it also included addiction to cocaine? And are all the details of a politician’s messy divorce truly relevant to his fitness to serve in the Senate? And is the next door neighbor’s problem with her children something I should share with the rest of my friends? When to speak and when not to speak can be a difficult decision. We know that silence can be used to conceal injustice, and that truth telling can sometimes be a necessary liberation. But what’s the difference between fraternal correction and the sinful reviling of another person? When does speaking result in a building up – even when it involves painful truths – and when does it lead primarily or only to a tearing down of something or someone with no other good being accomplished?

One thing is for sure. We need to have careful control of our tongues. The good we can do and the damage we can do from a simple word is immense.

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