Minding Our Own Business

Sometime last year, my colleague at the office who had been married for over 16 years came to speak with me. She was really desperate because one of her next door neighbours had, to all extents and purposes ruined her life. According to her, her neighbour, an elderly man, had spread the rumour that he had seen a young man enter her house while her husband was away, and that he had even seen the two of them in her matrimonial room, which overlooks his kitchen window. When the lady’s husband got wind of this, he became furious, and was now threatening to divorce her.

Now the whole incident was merely a figment of the neighbour’s imagination! The lady in fact found out that the “young man” who had repeatedly come into her home was her son’s 15 year old friend, and that the “sighting in the room” was none other than a spicy prefabricated addition to make the whole story sound more real.

Why is it that we feel inclined to pry into other people’s business? Why do we feel the urge to express judgment on other people, which are often without any real basis? Why do we indulge in the guilty pleasure of gossiping?

According to social psychologists, the reason we do it is that, during our evolutionary development, learning a much as we can about the members of our immediate social group increased our chances of survival. Knowing who might betray you, who could be counted on to provide help, or who was available as a mate, gave you an edge over your contemporaries at a time when people lived within smaller and more immediately connected social groups. But what about now, when survival isn’t such a dicey proposition for most of us? Is it perhaps a remnant of genetic heritage for which we are not to blame?

In the book of Proverbs, the Bible clearly indicates the sinful nature of ‘gossip’, and gives us some interesting advice: “A gossip tells secrets, so don’t hang around with someone who talks too much” (Proverbs 20:19); “It is foolish to belittle a neighbour; a person with good sense remains silent. A gossip goes around revealing secrets, but those who are trustworthy can keep confidence” (Proverbs, 11:12 – 13); “A troublemaker plants seeds of strife; gossip separates the best of friends” (Proverbs 16:28).

Over the years I’ve heard several messages concerning the subject of gossip, slander and judgmentalism. Some teachers have described it as so rotten. Affirming that at the beginning, it seems to be something enjoyable and fun, like a piece of candy. But at the end it fills the heart with bitterness, and it also poisons us.

Still on the subject of understanding the pernicious nature of gossip, I am reminded of the following story I had read concerning a preacher. A woman acknowledged that she spreads gossips and would like to know how she could atone for her sins.

He said the only way she could atone for her sins was to take a feather pillow to the top of the highest building in the land, rip it open, and scatter the feathers to the four winds. This probably was not the kind of atonement this woman, or any of us, would have been used to. But his instruction didn’t end there. He gave her a second, and more, difficult task. He told her to come down from the building and collect all the feathers that had been dispersed throughout the town. The poor woman, of course, couldn’t do it – and that was the point the preacher was trying to make in order to underscore the destructive nature of gossip.

When we detract from others in our speech, our malicious words are scattered abroad, and cannot be gathered back. They continue to spread dishonour and division in people’s minds days, months, and even years after we have spoken them, as they pass from one tale bearer to the next.

Thus, as believers do not let your words ruin others, their careers or personal relationships; remember that if you are talking about people behind their backs, your words say more about you than about them.