We heard with our own ears, O God, our forebears have told us the story of the things you did in their days, you yourself, in days long ago.
To plant them you uprooted the nations;
to let them spread you laid peoples low.
No sword of their own won the land;
no arm of their own brought them victory.
It was your right hand, your arm
and the light of your face; for you loved them.
It is you, my king, my God,
who granted victories to Jacob.
Through you we beat down our foes;
in your name we trampled down our aggressors.
For it was not in my bow that I trusted
nor yet was I saved by my sword:
it was you who saved us from our foes,
it was you who put our foes to shame.
All day long our boast was in God
and we praised your name without ceasing.
Yet now you have rejected us, disgraced us;
you no longer go forth with our armies.
You make us retreat from the foe
and our enemies plunder us at will.
You make us like sheep for the slaughter
and scatter us among the nations.
You sell your own people for nothing
and make no profit by the sale.
You make us the taunt of our neighbours,
the laughing stock of all who are near.
Among the nations, you make us a byword,
among the peoples a thing of derision.
All day long my disgrace is before me;
my face is covered with shame
at the voice of the taunter, the scoffer,
at the sight of the foe and avenger.
This befell us though we had not forgotten you,
though we had not been false to your covenant,
though we had not withdrawn our hearts;
though our feet had not strayed from your path.
Yet you have crushed us in a place of sorrows
and covered us with the shadow of death.
Had we forgotten the name of our God,
or stretched out our hands to another god
would not God have found this out,
he who knows the secrets of the heart?
It is for you that we face death all day long
and are counted as sheep for the slaughter.
Awake, O Lord, why do you sleep?
Arise, do not reject us for ever!
Why do you hide your face
and forget our oppression and misery?
For we are brought down low to the dust;
our body lies prostrate on the earth.
Stand up and come to our help!
Redeem us because of your love!
Reflection
You make us the taunt of our neighbours,
the laughing stock of all who are near.
Among the nations, you make us a byword,
among the peoples a thing of derision. [Psalm 44]
Sticks and stones may break my bones but names will never hurt me. These words have long echoed around school playgrounds. Recipients of verbal bullying, shaming, and name-calling have had recourse to the shield of this assertion that jibes, criticisms, and comments are readily repelled. Yet, we know from experience that this is an untruth deployed to bring false comfort and to shrug off pain and injury inflicted by opponents.
Words can be weaponised: they can readily undermine or even destroy a reputation expressing or concealing truths and falsehoods. Words can inflict hurt or soothe injury. As asserted in Sirach 28:17 [RSV], the reality in life is that ‘The blow of a whip raises a welt, but a blow of the tongue crushes the bones’.
Physical wounds heal. The bruise pales and vanishes; the cut may grow a scab, nasty looking, but soon giving way to healthy regrowth. Plasters conceal the damage for now; aches and pains wear off. Damage to our feelings, sense of self-worth, and confidence tend to linger. Outwardly, the damage may fade and disappear, but the hurt we feel inside endures.
Gossip, idle chatter, intentionally hurtful, can be rooted in malice, defensiveness, or a desire to put someone down or assert power over. The damage need not be deliberate; it can be inadvertent. Careless Talk Costs Lives warned the wartime poster. Careless chat and comment have potential to hurt, even to ruin lives, so we are counselled that ‘to watch over mouth and tongue is to keep out of trouble’*
Free speech is generally held to be a public good, to be defended from public authorities and the powerful. Yet, is freedom of speech without boundaries? Is there an imagined freedom from “hurtful speech”? Is “hate speech” not only hateful but harmful to our shared humanity? And does that sharedness imply a capacity and a duty to imagine empathetically what it is like to be on the receiving end of speech that hurts?
* [Proverbs 21:23, Good News translation].
Prayer
Words are things of little cost,
Quickly spoken, quickly lost;
We forget them, but they stand
Witnesses at God’s right hand,
And their testimony bear
For us or against us there,
For us or against us there.
Oh, how often ours have been
Idle words, and words of sin!
Words of anger, scorn and pride,
Or desire our faults to hide,
Envious tales, or strife unkind,
Leaving bitter thoughts behind,
Leaving bitter thoughts behind.
Grant us, Lord, from day to day,
Strength to watch and grace to pray;
May our lips, from sin set free,
Love to speak and sing of Thee,
Till in Heav’n we learn to raise
Hymns of everlasting praise,
Hymns of everlasting praise.
[John G Fleet, The Church Sunday School Hymn Book (London: Church Sunday School Institute, 1848)]
