But I Was Just Watching Out For Them…

1     Peter 2:1

Rid yourselves, therefore, of all malice, and all guile, insincerity, envy, and all slander.

According to the Google, slander is to “make false and damaging statements about (someone).”  And Peter says don’t do that.  Sounds obvious, does it not?  This runs against everything that the Christian is supposed to stand for.  Love, truth, grace, all that sort of thing.  But, of all the things that Peter calls upon his readers to rid themselves of, this might be the hardest to even see.

One of the joys of the Christian walk is the change that it brings to our lives, lives once governed by sin and evil, sadness and brokenness, these things change as love and grace, joy and healing take over.  But as these changes work out in our individual lives, we see these changes working out in the lives of our neighbors and fellow parishioners as well.

And not everybody changes the same way we do.  They do not change at the same speed with which we change, they do not change in the same manner in which we change, they may make changes but fall back into old patterns, they change things we may not think need changing, and they do not change things that we are convinced need to be changed.  And because we are a tight knit community, seeking to build one another up, we feel the responsibility to observe what our neighbors are doing, and, in turn, offer our advice and commentary.

Such is the nature of the human beast.  We are a community-oriented being.  And it is into all those nooks and crannies of the lives of our fellow Christians that we can quickly cross a line from ‘helpful mentor’ to ‘meddling ignorant’. 

A couple in the church gets a divorce and nobody knows why, for sure, so the sanctity of marriage becomes the subject of the day.  No one knew about the abuse.

A girl in the youth group dresses in a very provocative way, inspiring associations of dressing patterns and sexual promiscuity.  A ‘helpful’ member of the church seeks to intervene.  No one knew the young woman was an aspiring fashion designer, creating her own clothing to symbolize that a woman can dress as she wants.

During coffee hour, a select group of families gathers together and proceeds to slander, roast, comment on, and otherwise verbally abuse anyone and everyone in the church that does not meet with their approval.  No one else goes to this coffee hour, because of the trash talking, so the clique carries on for years without check.

And they all thought they were doing what they should be doing, in the name of Jesus.