The Futility of Gossip

For relationships to exist, there must be communication. To be related to someone means to share something (a last name, a set of experiences, a piece of land) and to communicate literally means to hold in common. As a result, where there is no sharing, nothing held in common, there is no relationship. One of the most powerful, but ordinary practices held in common is speech. We communicate, we hold in common, we share by speaking and listening to the speech of others. Your closest friends are almost invariably the ones with whom you speak most deeply. Your levels of conversation reveal the level of friendship.

One of the cruelest forms of communication in speech form is gossip. Another's expense becomes the source of sharing for (at least two) others and a new relationships is built on the back of someone else. The person who is talked about is sacrificed for the sake of relationship between the gossipers. You see this all the time: inter-office politics, schools, administrations, and churches.

The amazing thing about gossip is that it will generate new and sustain old friendships. There are friendships that hold in common the practice of sacrificing another person. Sacrifices will allow (small and large) communities to live in peace, at least temporarily. There is one significant problem, though. The New Testament is clear that only one sacrifice is of eternal efficacy: that of Jesus of Nazareth, the Christ. His is the only back on which a lasting community will be built; all other relationships built on sacrifice other than his will not last: they stand condemned and should be repented of.