October 24, 2009

• Living on the crusts of hearsay or crumbs of rumor

  I like to eat; you do not achieve and maintain a body of this size without feeding it regularly.  There are very few food groups I don’t like.  I like restaurant food and I like my own cooking.  I like meals and I like snacks.  I even like crusts and crumbs.  But I do realize that not everything I eat is good for me.  Much as I like snacks and desserts, I know I cannot live a healthy life if they are all I eat.  I eat way too many snacks and part of why I eat so many snacks is because they are generally easy, they do not require a lot of time or effort to prepare.   Tearing open a bag of chips or popping a bag of corn doesn’t require any forethought or planning.  Living on the crusts of hearsay and the crumbs of rumor is the same.

   

  Hearsay and rumor are the fast food snacks of communication.  Someone comes to us with a story of what is happening at work, at the bar, in the community, or at the church and we just eat it up right out of the bag.  We don’t have to take the trouble of checking with the sources of this tale, we don’t have to consider all the possible reasons this might be happening, we don’t have to wait while we think through the truth of the story or the possible impact of the story.  We just consume it and, like good social people we put the snack out for everyone else to share.  The same is true of a good rumor, we just pop it open and pass it around.  We don’t have to consider what went into making the rumor, it is like a communal flask, nobody really owns it or has control over it, everybody gets to experience the thrill of passing this rumor around to everybody else.  We don’t think about who has the right to share the rumor or the consequences of our passing it along.  If somebody gets hurt by the rumor, it isn’t our fault, we didn’t create the rumor, we just passed it along.  It is very much like after a party when somebody drives drunk and has an accident.  Nobody at the party feels responsible, after all they didn’t make the other drink, they just shared what they brought to the party with everyone else.  Hearsay and rumors are not healthy food for anyone and particularly not healthy for a congregation.

   

  We have had the experience of being fed someone else’s hearsay.  We have had the experience of being like Bartimaeus, crying out for mercy and being told by others not to disturb God with our petitions.  If we believe their hearsay, we will go away despondent and believing we are outside of God’s love and healing grace.  Or, we can take the time to keep seeking to hear God say, “Come to me.  What can I do for you?”  The only way we will know what God desires to do for us is if we take time to feed ourselves on the word of God.  I am aware that many, maybe all of you wish we wouldn’t read all three texts from the lectionary each Sunday morning.  However, I ask that we read all three texts because I think there is value in our hearing the way God has revealed God’s self to us over time.  I use the texts as support that what I am saying in my reflection isn’t just hearsay, I have researched the story, I have allowed it to cook in my mind and soul, and I have asked the Spirit to season it so it is good food and not crusts or crumbs.  I choose The Message Bible paraphrase because I want us to hear the words in new ways so we will think about the stories in new ways.  It is like preparing a food we are very familiar with but changing up the ingredients a little bit.  We can fall in love with the stories all over again.

   

  I can assure from my own experience, when I spend too much time with the snacks of hearsay and rumor, my soul becomes sick, my spirit becomes weary, and I lose sight of the wideness in God’s mercy.  Amen.

  • 2:28 pm
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