Whispers and Flames

Fire scares me; it has for as long as I can remember. For most of my life I refused to light a match unless it was one of those 10” fireplace matches. Only during the last five years or so have I learned how to strike a match from a matchbook by folding over the cover for protection between my fingers and the flame.¹ I hate lighting propane grills because I’m convinced one day a mushroom cloud blast will blow up in my face.

When I was in junior high, my best friend — at the time — pushed me into a fairly large fire pit. I was standing with my back to the fire and he thought it would be fun to see my reaction. Though I hopped out quickly — unharmed — I was hopping mad.

Yet in spite of a few bad experiences and for whatever inbred fear I have toward fire, fire still fascinates me. I am a man, after all, and men and fire are meant for each other. We’re supposed to know how to build a fire, even starting a fire by rubbing our bare hands together in the pouring rain if we need to. And the biggest reason we need fire is so that we can cook our red meat over that fire.

Some Christians are very comfortable around fire, and I’m not thinking of the pyromamiancs among us. I’m thinking about those who are comfortable, not with actual, physical fire, but with the fire of of gossip, slander, and drama. Fire is a terrific image of fighting and bickering and rumors and squabbles and scandals. Fire is an especially apropos illustration of drama.

A recent, growing and glowing², trend of drama disturbs me. Though it always crouches at the door ready to rule us (think Genesis 4:7), I have witnessed drama eating up more hearts and more talk and more time the last couple months than is right (or necessary) for Spirit-filled Christians, or at least those who make that claim.

What I mean by drama is acting and performing or speaking in a way to get a reaction, to make a scene, to get a rise out of someone by exaggerating the situation. Drama often takes place openly and publicly, but the primary stage for the drama I’m considering is found in private conversations and secluded lunch tables and instant messages and Facebook walls. Drama takes something true and exaggerates for effect, or perhaps takes something presumed true or even untrue and gives it a life of it’s own. Whether a main character, a supporting actor, or a stagehand, participation in this kind of drama fans the fire.

Most of the drama I watch is petty, with conversations and chitchat and reactions characterized by excessive attention on trivial matters, especially with small-minded or spiteful attitudes. Pettiness is the art of living small, taking the unimportant and peripheral and blowing it out of proportion. Much of the petty drama is plain old gossip, casual conversation about other people with little constraint, typically involving details that are not confirmed as being true.

This trend burdens and bothers me so much that I decided to preach on “Whispers and Flames” from Proverbs 26:20-22. Over the next few days I want to blog through these verses in order to expose the dangers of whispering, to encourage control of our tongues in public and private, and to remind us all to stop the drama and extinguish the fire.