Two little kids, aged eight and six, decide it’s time they started swearing. So, the eight-year-old says to the six-year-old, “Okay, I’ll say ‘hell’ and you say ‘damn” All excited about their plan, they head downstairs, where their mother asks them what they’d like for breakfast.“‘Aw, hell,” says the eight-year-old, ‘gimme some Cheerios.’” His mother yells him off his chair sending him bawling out of the room. She then turns to the younger brother, “What’ll you have?” “I dunno,” quivers the six-year-old, “but I’ll be damned if I say Cheerios.”
Cursing like a sailor was once only done by, well, sailors. They were the ones with the salty language. Now, everybody adds salt to their speech and the verbal seasonings have multiplied significantly. It used to be that saying only two words was the worst of cursing; damn and hell. The literal curse of it was if you were actually cursing someone as damned to hell. It was once the most shocking thing to say, the most shocking thing to do. But of course, the very shocking thing of damning someone to hell is the basis of religion. People who invented religion and invented a hell for those dissenting from it, have always been damning people to hell. It is in their job description. They imagine hell as a separate physical territory, opposite of heaven. Both are walled off with guards to keep people where they belong. Pastor Robert Jeffress, a man of religion, curses like a sailor; “Jews are going to hell,” “Mormonism is a heresy from the pit of hell,” Catholicism is a “cultlike pagan religion … the genius of Satan.” Jeffress speaks often and assuredly of hell, heaven, their walls, and who belongs where. He did so specifically after Pope Francis recently commented on Jeffress’ presidential friend, Donald Trump, who is intent on building a wall. Francis, who himself believes in hell, advises we “build bridges not walls.” “Builders of walls sow fear and look to divide people.” Jeffress, faithful to his job description, responded by saying, “God is going to divide people one day. The Bible says… God is going to divide the righteous from the unrighteous and only the righteous will be allowed inside the wall of heaven. The rest will be outside the wall of heaven for all eternity.”
It has never been the cursing of a deity that damns people to hell in an afterlife. It has always been the cursing of people like Robert Jeffress who damn people to hell in this life. Jeffress’ speech exemplifies Jesus’ Gospel warning about unfruitful people who he compares to “thorn bushes’ and “brambles.” We get caught up in them though neither they nor their words are fruitful. As Jesus reminds us, “from the fullness of the heart the mouth speaks.” Let our hearts bear fruitful words.
Prayer: Spirit, I vow to be fruitful of speech.
Question: Who am I cursing these days and what fruitful words can I utter instead?
March 03, 2019 Gospel Luke 6:39-45 Eighth Sunday in Ordinary Time