Ye have heard that it was said of them of old time,
Thou shalt not kill; and whosoever shall kill shall be in danger of the judgment:
But I say unto you, That whosoever is angry with his brother
without a cause shall be in danger of the judgment:
and whosoever shall say to his brother, Raca,
shall be in danger of the council: but whosoever shall say,
Thou fool, shall be in danger of hell fire.
Matthew 5:21-22
On Wednesday Premier Doug Ford sent MPP Randy Hillier to the party penalty box (suspension from caucus) for speaking gibberish. I would suggest that Hillier is an expert at gibberish but I would end up convicting myself with my own blog. It is purported that as a group of people challenging the government's new autism support guidelines were leaving the legislature Hillier dismissively said "yada, yada, yada." Ford decided that this was crossing a line into inappropriate behaviour and suspended the controversial MPP for his "disrespectful comments." Hillier admitted using the nonsense phrase but claimed it wasn't directed toward the protesters. It was so odd to see this as "breaking news" on Twitter and to read Hillier's formal response.
Strangely, it got me thinking about Jesus. In the Sermon on the Mount in Matthew Jesus says "sure murder is bad, but when you say "yada yada" to an adversary you're one step away from a deep dive into hell", or something along those lines. As with the other startling contrasts here in Matthew 5 Jesus is challenging our assumptions about violence, which includes words. It appears that contempt and verbal abuse are serious stuff to Jesus.
When I went looking for the passage I realized that the version I had in mind was the venerable King James, which I've never used regularly in my life. Yet the word "raca" stuck in my mind as the original for "fool" which is found in other translations and paraphrases ("idiot" in The Message.) Snooping around I discovered that raca, which is in the ancient Greek manuscript, is not a Greek word. The speculation is that is a reference to the Aramaic word reka, which literally means "empty one", but probably meant "empty headed," or "foolish."
Is Jesus really equating physical murder with mean-spirited speech? It's doubtful, but as Jesus concludes these thoughts he says, according to The Message paraphrase, "the simple moral fact is that words kill."
While the Hillier incident may prove to be a yada yada in a teacup, it is a good reminder about disrespectful comments and character assassination. It is so tempting to overstep the bounds of decency on social media and we know that many people are emboldened by anonymity. Apparently Canadians fit the stereotype of being nice folk, even on Twitter, but lots of us have a mean streak just the same.
Perhaps choosing to "mind your mouth" is an important spiritual practice and Christian witness which should be moved up the depth chart of all our lives and ...yada, yada, yada...
Linguistics experts Bryor Snefjella, Daniel Schmidtke, and Victor Kuperman
determined Twitter language mirrors Canadian and American national stereotypes
after analyzing nearly 40 million tweets. (JD Howell, McMaster University)
Finally, beloved, whatever is true, whatever is honorable,
whatever is just, whatever is pure, whatever is pleasing, whatever is commendable,
if there is any excellence and if there is anything worthy of praise, think about these things.
Keep on doing the things that you have learned and received and heard and seen in me,
and the God of peace will be with you.
Philippians 4
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