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I’m not much of a text-messager. I mostly use my mobile phone’s text-messaging service to make sure my best friend David (who works the late shift at a television station) is awake before I call him. I’m all thumbs when it comes to texting; it takes me about two minutes to compose a single-sentence message.

There are, however, two text messages in my out-box. Both were sent to David, and both begin with the phrase “Guess who ...."

Photo by Elizabeth McBride

I don’t want to be overheard spreading juicy tidbits about friends and acquaintances. Nor do I want to wake up David just to tell him that I saw so-and-so out with so-and-so. Rather, I’ll take two minutes to write the message, then wait expectantly for the “ping” that means David has received my message and his curiosity is piqued.

Better yet, he’ll call and start guessing to whom my juicy tidbit refers.

If I had good news to share, I’d call. If I were sad, I’d call. But if I’m only spreading gossip, well, that’s hardly worth a phone call, right? I could wait until morning to call. But…. my news might not be quite so interesting in the morning or I might not be feeling quite so scandalized. Or vindicated. Or full of righteous anger.

By morning, I might have put things in perspective.

These two bits of tasty gossip — as far as I know — went only as far as David. He lives 1,500 miles from me (and the subjects of my messages). It’s unlikely my rumor-mongering will ever be discovered by anyone who cares. Although, if for some reason, my mobile phone is the only artifact uncovered in a future century’s archeological dig, then all that remains of so-and-so is that I saw him out with so-and-so. It would be a pathetic addition to the historic record.

Then again, quite a few of our ancestors in the faith have found themselves the victims of unfounded gossip.

Take Mary Magdalene, for example.

A woman with a past
She was dead some 500 years before unsavory rumors about her even started. Yet today, reading her name fills us with a little subversive thrill. Ah, yes, Mary Magdalene. She’s an interesting character, we think.

During different periods of church history, Mary has been pegged as a sort of lowest common denominator. She ranked about as well as tax collectors. Just a few pegs above Judas Iscariot.

What are the words that come to mind when we hear her name? Saint? Apostle? Friend of Jesus? Not likely. Those are the adjectives that come to mind only after we’ve dispensed with "prostitute" and "woman from whom seven demons had gone out" (Luke 8).

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Faith Reflections by the Rev. AmyJo Mattheis

The book of James speaks of the power of the tongue, “…a small member, yet it boasts of great exploits. The tongue is placed among our members as a world of iniquity…” (James 3: 5-6).

With our words we can change the way others look at someone, build a reputation or tear one down. Our stories can shape the truth about a person, a place, or an institution.

Gossip is talking about someone when they are not present and cannot hear, defend, or explain. Gossip can be true, false, or (most often) a mixture of the two. The point of gossip is most often to tear apart, break down, and hurt. Gossip has the effect of making the gossiper, the one with the information, feel powerful and experience a sense of control over others.

Even within the church, stories and gossip about the life of Mary Magdalene have circulated in ways that alter the truth of the power and dignity of this woman. Mary Magdalene has wrongly been portrayed as a prostitute, the lusty, long-haired temptress anointing the feet of Jesus in Luke’s gospel. Gossip has regularly confused her with the unnamed woman being stoned for adultery.

Gossip from the tongues of the Church Fathers has dismissed or denigrated strong female models of truth and commitment to the Jesus way of living. The Christian church has long upheld the view that women are gossips, creatures of idle chatter and meaningless conversation. Martin Luther, in his simple and compelling Christmas book, speaks of Mary, the Mother of Jesus, as a well-grounded example for other women, especially in the Gospel of Luke. It is in Luke where Mary travels to see her cousin Elizabeth, who is surprisingly with child as well. The author of Luke adds that Mary “went with haste” to see her cousin.