Christian Living

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When Gossip Flies
© 2008

by

Stephen A. Peterson


During a high school age religious education class in an Oklahoma City area Catholic Church school, an ugly rumor about two of the volunteer religious education teachers became the talk of the class and soon of the church community. Voices of condemnation of the two teachers’ alleged misbehaviors followed thereafter embarrassing them though nothing had been proven. A week after the initial spreading of the rumor, the pastor of the church, who was also the director of the school’s religious education classes, read the Biblical story of the adulterous woman, in which Jesus challenged the crowd that any person present had committed no sin against God to throw the first stone. One by one, those who wee present to stone the woman to death dropped their stones then left the area.

Following the pastor’s reading of this story, the class fell silent. It was so quiet one could have probably heard a pin drop on the classroom’s carpeted floor. Having brought a basket of medium sized pebbles, the priest urged each religious education student in that class to take one and to carry it in their pocket or purse for a month. He encouraged them to carry the pebble as a reminder of the importance of the truthfulness; the damage gossip generally has as well as their own personal sinfulness. And any time they felt the urge to damage or bring harm to another person, they were instructed to reach into their pocket or purse, touch their pebble then ask themselves if they were without sin.

It is so easy to destroy a person one does not like, know or understand with gossip, false witness or information based upon an untrue story then judges one’s character on the basis of such information. Psychologists and other behavioral specialists contend no person having lived through childhood is immuned from another’s gossip or not been responsible for the continuance of gossip. This is why gossip, false, inaccurate testimony and judgments are so destructive to persons and society alike. Gossip and false testimony are serious enough such that these behaviors are shunned by all societies and cultures as universally dangerous and unacceptable behaviors. On this day, let each person who reads these words find a small pebble or stone to carry in their pocket or purse as a reminder that we are not to irrationally or unjustly pass illicit judgment upon others.

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