You can spread mayonnaise, disease, depression, rumors, lies and bad news. Of the six, only mayonnaise can be spread without doing any harm and, if it is “Dukes Mayonnaise," can actually do a little good. I can think of many other negative things that a person can come across, and a large number of them are highly contagious. However, good health, harmony, good words, truth, and good news are neither spreadable, nor will they have a beneficially contagious effect upon a person.
A person can catch many diseases by contact and airborne contaminants, but good health is not contagious and cannot be passed on to someone else. A diseased parent can surely pass many illnesses to other people in the family, but as much as a parent might wish otherwise, they cannot pass along their good health to a sick child. Likewise, disharmony can begin with something as minute as a single misspoken germ of a word and escalate in a matter of minutes into a shouting match where more and more words are said that should never be said. Harmony, however, is taken for granted, and we act like it is no big deal, and of little consequence. One person’s disharmony will grow into a dividing wedge in a family until every member of the family has chosen a side. One harmonizing individual in a family will not positively impact the disharmonious family nor spread healing from one member to another in the same way that disharmony will corrupt and be spread like a cancer.
A gossiping person can tell us multiple half-truths and lies, and we will tell the next person we meet what we have heard. I once told a rather forgetful neighbor a juicy bit of gossip. Before we parted ways, he remembered the gossip but forgot that it was I who had just told it to him. He proceeded to tell me that he had heard some real gossip, and he then repeated to me details of the same episode I had passed on to him, complete with a new chapter I had not previously heard. The story had grown in the few minutes we had talked and was a little bit juicier. Bad news spreads and enlarges and suffers much harmful embellishmen and elaboration.
But you can spread all the good news you want, about any person, and when the story gets back to the originator, the story will not have grown any larger and, if anything, will have become depleted. Actually, good news is not spread nearly so quickly or thoroughly as gossip. Gossip will be remembered and good news will be forgotten.
The point I want to make is that evil and licentious talk, disharmony, and wickedness are more popular than good news and righteousness. Evil and wickedness have the advantage over goodness and righteousness.
There is a reason for this inequity. Evil is usually shallow, thin, and lightweight. It is easily spread and remembered for years. Evil takes on a life of its own. Goodness, however, has to be acted upon every day and requires a conscious decision, a depth of spirit, and a courageous stand.
When faced with a decision between good and evil, a person has three choices: to choose good, to choose evil, or not to choose. To choose goodness will bring about a good result, but a person can serve evil by either choosing evil, or by not choosing at all. Evil has the advantage of being the comfortable and easy choice for most people. Being apathetic and never mounting the courage to take a stand serves only the evil in our world.
If you place a rotten apple in a barrel of good apples, all the apples will eventually turn rotten due to the influence of this one bad apple. Place a good apple beside one single rotten apple, and the good apple will turn rotten, as opposed to the rotten one becoming fresh again.
Even the very word of God, in the hand of a terrorist, racist, or person with an agenda, can become a tool of a spreading evil. It only requires a little twisting of minute verses taken out of context, and suddenly, the God of grace and mercy has become the God of revenge and retaliation.
Doing godly acts, taking stands due to love and righteousness, daily choosing to serve God with acts of justice and kindness are always conscious decisions requiring courage and a conscious choice. Serving evil may require a choice but is usually the easy way out resulting from apathy, laziness, cowardice and unrighteousness. Choosing to serve God is not within a lazy man’s grasp.
Rev. Dan Martin is pastor of First UMC, Hendersonville. He can be reached at moose1953@hotmail.com
