Deo Gloria
Sermon for August 11, 2019
Pastor Martin Bentz
Text: Exodus 20:16
Theme: Protect Your Neighbor’s Good Name!
Isn’t it terrible? Each year thousands, sometimes even millions of acres of beautiful forest are burned to the ground because someone was careless with their campfire. Sometimes it’s a beautiful area of forest in one of our national parks that ends up being torched. Sometimes it’s a wooded area in a nature preserve or a wildlife refuge. Sometimes the fires threaten people’s homes. Sometimes they threaten people’s lives. And what’s even more disturbing: sometimes those fires are no accident. They were set on purpose. Sometimes people actually go out and deliberately start such fires, deliberately destroying thousands of acres of trees and wildlife, deliberately putting people’s homes and their lives in danger.
And I would guess that each and every one of us sitting here this morning has done it. Let me read for you what James writes in the 3rd chapter of his letter:
Consider what a great forest is set on fire by a small spark. The tongue also is a fire, a world of evil among the parts of the body. It corrupts the whole person, sets the whole course of his life on fire, and is itself set on fire by hell. All kinds of animals, birds, reptiles and creatures of the sea are being tamed and have been tamed by man, but no man can tame the tongue. It is a restless evil, full of deadly poison. (vv. 5-8)
No, we may not have been careless with matches when we were out camping, but have we been careless with our words? Have we at times started terrible, raging fires by the things we have said? Sure, it may have only been a tiny spark here and there—sometimes no bigger than a single match. But that’s all it took to get things started. And the damage we did to someone else and his reputation was enormous.
Yes, this morning we’re going to be talking about the 8th Commandment and the way God wants us to use our tongues. And the main truth God wants to impress on us in this commandment is that we are to protect our neighbor’s good name.
What do you think of when you hear the name Bob Schroeder, for instance, or Brett Kruschke or Emily Armstrong? Do good things come to mind or things that aren’t so good? What you think of when you hear someone’s name, what you know about that person from what other people have said is that person’s reputation. Naturally, you would want other people to think good things of you. You wouldn’t want other people to think you’re a dirty, rotten scoundrel when you’re not. God doesn’t want that either. That’s why he issued the 8th Commandment. God wants to protect your good name. He wants to protect my good name. He wants to protect other people’s good names as well. “A good name is more desirable than great riches,” it says in the book of Proverbs.(22:1) Indeed, having a good name is a great blessing. And God gave us this commandment in order to protect that blessing. God doesn’t want other people to say bad things about us and ruin our reputation, nor does he want us to say bad things about others and ruin their reputation.
Specifically, God says in this commandment that we are not to “give false testimony against our neighbor.” Obviously, that’s something we would do in court, which is also where we could do the most harm. If a neighbor of ours was on trial and we were called to testify and while we were on the witness stand, we told lies about our neighbor—things that were not true—and we said we saw him doing things he didn’t do, our neighbor could get into a lot of trouble. He could end up being fined and even spending time in jail. And everyone else would think he was some sort of criminal.
We have a prime example of that in the Bible, don’t we? When Jesus was put on trial, the Pharisees brought many false witnesses to testify against him, some who said that he was going to destroy the temple and rebuild it again in three days. And when he was on trial before Pilate, the Pharisees told their own lies about him. They said that Jesus was a trouble maker, that he went around stirring up the people, that he opposed paying taxes to Caesar, and that he claimed to be a king. And look what happened? Even though Jesus was falsely accused, he ended up being whipped and beaten and ultimately sentenced to death.
So, first of all, if we are called to testify in court, God wants us to tell the truth about our neighbor. Likewise he wants judges to decide cases fairly and impartially, no matter who it is that is on trial before them—someone rich and famous like Martha Stewart or some poor, beggar off the street. And no taking bribes either. Similarly, he wants lawyers to present the facts of the case in a fair and honest manner so that justice is upheld, not so that their guilty client gets off scott free or someone who is innocent ends up being convicted.
God doesn’t just want us to be careful what we say about our neighbor in the courtroom, however. He wants us to be careful what we say about our neighbor in the break room at work, in the cafeteria at school, in the narthex at church, at the coffee shop, when we’re at a party with our friends, anywhere. It’s always wrong to lie about someone else, to say things that we know are not true. “You know, I think Bobby cheated on that test. I mean there’s no way he could have gotten an “A” on his own. He must have cheated.”
The same is true of gossiping. “Did you hear Cindy got busted for speeding? Yeah, that’s what Susan said. Serves her right. She thinks she’s so cool in that new car of hers. Oh, and did you hear about Becky? Sandy said her parents grounded her because she stayed out with her friends last Saturday till after midnight.” Gossiping too is wrong.
But let’s say that it was true. It isn’t, but let’s say that it was: that Cindy had been busted for speeding and Becky had been grounded for staying out too late. Why should I be telling someone else? Is it helping Cindy any or Becky for me to be telling others? No. Will other people think good of Cindy or Becky because of what I told them or will they think less of them? Am I protecting Cindy’s good name and Becky’s good name or am I harming their reputation? Even if what I say is true, if what I say to others does harm to someone’s else reputation, I have no business saying it. Sometimes you’ll hear people say, “I probably shouldn’t say this, but….” They’re right, they shouldn’t say it. And neither should we. If we don’t have good things to say about others, then we probably ought to keep our mouths shut. And the same holds true for posting things on social media. If I don’t have something good to post, I probably shouldn’t post it.
I’d like to share with you a story I ran across recently. I think it illustrates what we’ve been talking about pretty well:
A middle-aged pastor in a small farming community had been falsely accused. It was a vicious, scandalous story, and it swept through town like a prairie fire.
“Have you heard about the pastor?”
“Can you believe it?”
“He oughta leave town.”
“You’d never think such a thing to look at him, would you?”
“Guess he had a lot of us fooled.”
“His poor wife.”
After a period of time, however, the rumor was found to be just that…an ugly, empty rumor, without any basis in fact. But the damage had already been done. Many people in the town had believed every word and were now reluctant to revise their opinions. (“Well, there must have been some truth in it, or why would everybody be talking about it?”)
Some time later the couple who had spread the rumor became convicted of their sin and went to the pastor to apologize. Confessing they had known it to be false all along, they asked the offended man for forgiveness.
“Of course I’ll forgive you,” he replied. “But could I ask you to do something for me, something that might seem rather strange at first?”
Relieved that the pastor was willing to forgive them, the couple readily agreed to do whatever he asked.
“All right,” he said, “here is my request. I would like you to go home and butcher one of your chickens, pluck out all of its feathers, and put the feathers in a bag. Could you do that for me?”
They nodded yes; they could certainly do that. But it seemed so strange. Was the man asking for a chicken?
“Next,” the pastor went on, “I’d like you go throughout town, and at each corner, scatter some of the feathers from the bag. Then, take the remaining feathers and climb to the top of the old city water tower—you know, the one by the feed store—and scatter those to the wind. Could you do that?”
They were mystified by this point but nodded in the affirmative.
“Fine,” the pastor said. “Oh, and there’s one more thing. After you’ve finished scattering all the feathers, I’d like you to go back through town and gather them all up again. O.K.? Make sure you pick up every one you dropped and every one you scattered to the wind, and put them all back in the bag. Make sure that none of the feathers is missing, and then bring the bag back to me. Could you do that?”
The couple just looked at him. “Pastor, that’s impossible,” the man said. “The wind will have blown them all over the county.” And suddenly the seriousness of what they had done began to sink in. Yes, they could be forgiven, but undoing the damage was another story.
Rather than use our tongues to do harm to others, God’s will is that we use our tongues for good. In Ephesians, ch. 4 Paul says, “Therefore each of you must put off falsehood and speak truthfully to his neighbor”(v. 25). First of all, we are to speak the truth and to do so in love. We don’t tell lies about our neighbor or our classmates or the people at work. We don’t gossip about them and spread ugly rumors. In fact, we don’t even tell other people things that are true if they hurt someone else. We speak the truth, and we do so in love.
Likewise if we hear someone gossiping about someone else or running that person down, we defend them. “You know, I don’t know where you heard that Cindy got a ticket for speeding, but I talked to Cindy this morning and she told me she had not been stopped for speeding. And besides, that isn’t even like Cindy. I’ve ridden with her before and she’s always careful to drive the speed limit.” Or “I don’t know if what you’re saying about Becky is true, but it sounds like you don’t know if it’s true either. So we probably shouldn’t be talking about it. And besides, what happened between Becky and her parents is really none of our business.” That’s what Luther says in the explanation to this commandment, isn’t it? “We should fear and love God that we do not tell lies about our neighbor, betray him or give him a bad name, but defend him, speak well of him, and take his words and actions in the kindest possible way.”
But what about when someone sins against us, when someone does something mean to us or says something nasty? What do we do then? Jesus tells us in Matthew, ch. 18:
If your brother sins against you, go and show him his fault, just between the two of you. If he listens to you, you have won your brother over. But if he will not listen, take one or two others along, so that “every matter may be established by the testimony of two or three witnesses.” If he refuses to listen to them, tell it to the church; and if he refuses to listen to the church, treat him as you would a pagan or a tax collector. (vv. 15-17)
If someone says something mean and nasty to me, I don’t go and tell everyone else. “Did you hear what so and so said to me? Can you believe it? What a jerk!” No, I go and talk to him about it, and hope that he will see his sin and repent. If he won’t listen to me, then I take a friend along with me, or maybe one of his friends, and go and talk to him again, again hoping that he will see his sin and repent. If he refuses to listen, then I go and talk to the pastor or one of the elders, and have them go with me and talk to the person, and again hopefully he will see his sin and repent. You see, the goal is not to crucify the person, to show him you’re right and he’s wrong, or even to get even. If someone has done us wrong, our goal is to correct them privately and lovingly and hopefully lead them to repentance.
So, are you a fire starter? Do you enjoy fanning the flames of the rumor mill? Do you like to be in on the latest gossip? Do you have a sharp tongue, one that is quick to criticize others and run them down? Do you always speak the truth in love? What about when someone does something mean and nasty to you? What have you said to them? What have you said to others? You’re guilty, aren’t you? So am I. We haven’t obeyed God’s will when it comes to the 8th Commandment. We haven’t always used our tongues for good and not evil. In fact, sometimes what we said did a lot more harm than good.
I know someone, though, who did obey the 8th Commandment, someone who never lied about anyone else, someone who never gossiped, someone who always spoke the truth in love, someone who when there was a problem, always went directly to that person and never to anyone else. Yes, Jesus obeyed the 8th Commandment, obeyed it the way you and I should have. He did so as our Savior. And when he suffered and died on the cross, he paid the penalty for all our sins against the 8th Commandment, all our lies, all our gossip, all the nasty things we have said to and about our neighbors. How grateful we are to Jesus our Savior!
So how do I show my gratitude to Jesus for all that he has done for me? By putting a tight rein on my tongue and being very careful the way I use it. The apostle Paul sums it up pretty well in Ephesians, ch. 4: “Do not let any unwholesome talk come out of your mouths, but only what is helpful for building others up according to their needs, that it may benefit those who listen”(v. 29). That’s what the 8th Commandment is really all about. Instead of setting fires, God’s will is that we use our tongues for good: to help put fires out and to protect our neighbor’s good name. Amen.