Thoughts from Mark "Hat" Rackley

“You shall not misuse the name of the Lord your God, for the Lord will not hold anyone guiltless who misuses his name.

• Exodus 20:7

“Do not blaspheme God or curse the ruler of your people.

• Exodus 22:28

“‘Anyone who curses their father or mother is to be put to death. Because they have cursed their father or mother, their blood will be on their own head.

• Leviticus 20:9

“Again, you have heard that it was said to the people long ago, ‘Do not break your oath, but fulfill to the Lord the vows you have made.’ But I tell you, do not swear an oath at all: either by heaven, for it is God’s throne; or by the earth, for it is his footstool; or by Jerusalem, for it is the city of the Great King. And do not swear by your head, for you cannot make even one hair white or black. All you need to say is simply ‘Yes’ or ‘No’; anything beyond this comes from the evil one.

• Matthew 5:33-37

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.

• Ephesians 4:29

We all stumble in many ways. Anyone who is never at fault in what they say is perfect, able to keep their whole body in check.
When we put bits into the mouths of horses to make them obey us, we can turn the whole animal. Or take ships as an example. Although they are so large and are driven by strong winds, they are steered by a very small rudder wherever the pilot wants to go. Likewise, the tongue is a small part of the body, but it makes great boasts. 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 body, sets the whole course of one’s life on fire, and is itself set on fire by hell.

• James 3:2-6

Boilerplate

I’m Harold Dykstra.  I’m retired, but I go to food bank distributions all over Tracy and talk to people that need someone who will listen to their story.  My time is well spent.  A police lieutenant suggested that I write down the conversations that I had with an angel.  I did not know she was an angel at the time.  The angel, for a little over a year, indwelled a life-sized posable action figure my children bought me, so that I would not be perceived as travelling alone.  And in a way, she was training me for what I do while talking to the needy.  She probed my heart to find out what I believed and how I express love for others.  She changed my life.  Since she was a doll that had come to life, we came up with the term ‘other living.’  She was not a human, an animal, or even a plant, but she was definitely living, and very vibrant.  Oh, excuse me, angels have no gender, but the angel indwelled a doll named Bountiful Babs.  After seeing the angel in that form for over a year, I cannot see her in my mind in any other form.

This Week’s Question

In the last episode, Babs visited the Amish.

But a few days afterward, I made my last sales call while we used a centralized location between Pittsburgh, PA and Cleveland, OH.  Babs met the friends she had made at the hotel the year before, and the entire week was filled with smiles and laughter.

But Babs was angry when I got back from the last sales call.

Babs muttered, “Harold, I have been ‘other living’ for a little over a year, and one thing has bothered me from the beginning.  All the dirty language, Harold.  You call it cussing, instead of cursing.  As you say, it is coarse language that goes beyond proclaiming a curse.  You say most people who wish God’s condemnation on someone really have a low opinion of God.  So, telling God to bring down a curse is something they believe would never happen.  It is obvious in that they bring condemnation on themselves in the process with their lack of belief in the words that they say.”

I nodded, “Please, Babs, you are upset.  Let’s make this our Bible study tonight.”  Babs smiled, a weak smile, but she always recovered easily.  She sat in her comfy chair, this time with an ottoman for her feet rather than a recliner.  I slid the little round table over and moved the lamp so that she could read her Bible while I pulled out my Bible on the table.

“Okay,” I started. “Exodus 20:7 gives the Third Commandment to not misuse God’s name.  But in the person you are talking about, probably just one person, what did he or she say?”

Babs said, “Well, the F-word was in every sentence, and the S-word was in most of them.  But he angrily shouted the name of our Lord and Savior, and I only say ‘Jesus Christ’ reverently.  But I noticed that in one sentence, he proclaimed God’s curse on his customer in three different ways, the person that he works with, the plant where he works, and the corporation that the plant is a part.  All three were condemned.  And he referred to the person who was his customer as a person who had sexual intercourse with someone’s female parent.”

I mused, “That last one makes no sense unless they are more specific.  For my wife and I to have Wilhelmina, we had to do that.  My wife was the mother of Morris at the time.  But, if I went from house to house and tried making babies with all the other mothers, then that’s just wrong.”

Babs giggled, “Leave it up to you, Harold, to find a way of taking coarse language and make excuses for it.”

I shrugged, “I am just saying under controlled circumstances, it is what God praises and wants us to do.  Once, I stopped a tirade of cussing against me by bringing that up.  I told the guy that I did not appreciate the rest of those words, and it was one after the other, but I am rather proud of my wife and I in that we, at least at the time, were still romantic in bed and we enjoyed each other’s bodies.”

Babs asked, “What did the guy say?”

I snickered, “For one, his tirade was completely defused.  But after a thirty-second pause, he called me a thing associated with being stupid, I think with your S-word attached.  But, hey, the fight was out of him by that point.”

Babs asked, “What had you done to deserve the abuse?”

I looked at the ceiling for a few seconds.  “I lowered the price of a uniquely designed repair part.  If I lowered the price of something that we sell hundreds of each year, then the entire industry will want the reduced price.  But since there was an inflated price on the engineering effort in designing this large-sized widget, or can you call it a widget when it weighs a couple of tons?  Sorry, I lost my train of thought.  As it turned out, we made money on the little project. And due to our low price, we sold four more later that year.  And most of the engineering from the first one was done already.  So, the tirade was just telling me to not change a price unless I cleared it with him.  He used the horrible language as emphasis words.  That’s why I said that a lot of the people put no importance on their language.  They use the gutter language, as I call it, to raise themselves above the other person, when it really lowers their overall standing with a more intelligent crowd, in that they could not intellectually express themselves without the language and still be heard.”

Babs sighed, “Yes, when they cuss, they are rather loud.”

I shook my head, “No, Babs, they do not just yell while cussing, they think no one listens unless they cuss.  They think, ‘Oh, he is using emphasis words.  We should listen to him.’  But many that hear this person’s shout are thinking, ‘This guy is cussing.  He must not be that smart.  His company must not be that smart for hiring such a troglodyte.’”

Babs scrunched her nose, “Troglodyte?”

I smiled, “A troglodyte gets its origins with a cave man, but it mostly refers to someone who is unsophisticated.  Other terms might be a knuckle dragger, meaning ape-like.  Not very smart.  Does that paint the picture?”

Babs smiled and nodded, “Yes, I thought his angry tirade showed a lack of intelligence.  After all, what is the saying about the dog biting?”

I chuckled, “A dog does not bite the hand that feeds it.  This guy was saying his customer was stupid.  Yes, I get your point.  The customer may use another old saying.  ‘Your check to pay you for your services has been lost in the mail.’ “

Babs giggled.  “But Harold, why did you ask me what he said?”

“I see three levels of cussing.  All three are discouraged in the Bible.  Jesus was our example, and He never used bad language.  But misusing any of the names associated with God is the worst.  I like the way you say it that the man was proclaiming God’s condemnation on things or people.  That is misuse of one of God’s names.  Blurting out Jesus Christ in any other way than reverently, that is misuse.  Words like Hell can be offensive. Stating that someone should go to Hell is like condemning them, so in extension that would be misuse because God is inferred.  Then what I put in the word play category, you have Darn and Dang instead of what you heard.  You have heck instead of Hell.  Instead of saying God, you might say Golly.  Those words might be quaint.  They might be socially acceptable, but it may be a matter of what the person’s intent was in saying it.  Of course, you can darn a sock.”

Babs interrupted, “But what about the S-word.  I caught you saying the S-word that one time.  You asked if you could say ‘crap’ but I didn’t like that.  You refused to say ‘feces,’ because in a moment of fright or anger, it does not come off the tongue very well.  You settled on ‘excrement,’ but I never hear you saying it.”

I sighed, “I have tried to curb my tongue in such times, and when I said it a car changed lanes and I ended up in the ditch.  Luckily we did not get stuck, but we could have.  But those words, like the S-word and the F-word are used to punctuate the situation.  They have nothing to do with misusing God’s name, but they should be avoided also.”

Babs asked, “But other than the Third Commandment, where does God say for us to avoid certain types of language?  This is a Bible Study, you know.”

I smiled, “We could start with Exodus 20:7, The Third Commandment, but then, in Exodus 22:28, we must not blaspheme God nor curse the leader of the people.  As it says in the New Testament, God allows that leader to be in that position, so cursing that leader means that we are cursing God.  In Leviticus 20:9 we should not curse our parents.  Same idea as the country’s leader, but more personal.  We are a gift from God to our parents, and that type of cursing will be dealt with.”

Babs said, “I just happened.  I guess.  I am not born of man and woman, so should I never curse the toy manufacturer?”

I gave her a side look.  “Babs!  You would not curse a flea!”

Babs scrunched, “Oh, yeah!  You’re right!”

I sighed, “So, the Commandment talks about misusing God’s name.  ‘Cursing’ is frowned upon and forbidden in many cases because only God can curse, from a standpoint of eternal condemnation.  Okay?”

Babs smiled, blinked, and nodded.  “So, now we get to the Sermon on the Mount.”

I laughed, “I have no notes here.  But maybe you have developed a means of reading my thoughts, but yes.  When Jesus taught about oaths, He said to avoid them.  Humans make an oath for some offices, to join the military, giving testimony in court, or to get married, but in everyday life and including these government established oaths, Jesus is telling us that any oath given before God is a binding oath.  It is simply better to not make an oath.  We can simply state the truth and answer yes or no, depending on which is right.  So, curses? Stay away from them which loosely includes telling someone to go to eternal damnation or proclaiming God’s condemnation upon them, as you were saying.  And we should be judicious with our oaths to not put ourselves into a bind regarding a conflict between our life and our oath.”

Babs scrunched her nose again, “But what about your second and third tiers of bad language?  Saying something close to a bad word, but changing it a little and then those naughty words that do not relate to God?”

I nodded, “Ephesians 4:29 says that our lips should be used in building people up and never used for talk that is unwholesome.”

Babs giggled, “That covers it pretty well.  And you didn’t even mention James 3.  The tongue, that little bit of the mouth that gets you humans into all kinds of trouble.”

I smiled, “And sometimes when you do not expect it and even times when we do not intend any harm.”

Babs closed her eyes and smiled.  “I love you, Harold, but you are not perfect on keeping your tongue in control.  I have heard you croak every now and then.  That makes you part frog, and frogs use their tongues to catch flies.  Do not think for a skinny minute that I would kiss those lips after you ate flies.  Yuck!”

I got up and walked around the little table.  I leaned down and kissed her on the forehead.  “Okay, a frog breath kiss for your forehead.”

She opened her eyes. “Hey!  On the lippies!”

I huffed, “Wait!  You said you would not kiss me on the lips because I had frog breath.  I think the next Bible Study will have to be one about telling the truth!”

Babs said, “We already had a lesson on truth back on Groundhog Day.  I just wanted you to prove you aren’t part frog.  ‘Other living’ beings cannot always tell, you know.”

I snickered, “Just friends?”

Babs smiled and said, “Just friends!”

Then we did a peck on the lips, nothing romantic at all.

Then Babs put her fingers to her lips, “Oo!  Icky!  I think I have fly wings on my lips!”

She jumped from her chair and gave me a hug.

Credits

All these conversations remind me of my conversations with my wife.  We would talk about anything and everything.  And most of the time, it sounded like a discussion in a Sunday school class.

My wife gave me the argument not long before she passed away that we both said “crap” far too often.  Each of us knew what the other was thinking.  Not really.  I had been saying “crap” for so long that I rarely thought of the other word.  But I think her life in the last years, during her open-heart surgery and then kidney failure, taught me a lot about preparing for the next life.  Not that I am anywhere near where she was on that path, but you start to learn about yourself and what is truly important.

Soli Deo Gloria.  Only to God be the Glory.