Proverbs 26 – Friday 

18 Like a maniac who shoots deadly firebrands and arrows,

19 so is one who deceives a neighbor

   and says, “I am only joking!”

Proverbs 26:18-19

There’s a popular show on HBO called Game of Thrones.  And whether you’ve ever seen it or not, it has become a meme factory.  And there’s one line that is currently making the rounds on social media: “When enough people make false promises, words stop meaning anything and then there are no more answers.  Only better and better lies.”  

Like the boy who cried wolf, this proverb is a warning that words are powerful.  Although we want to believe that only sticks and stones can break our bones, words can often cripple us in a way that no wound ever could.  I think it is probably fairly rare that we intentionally fire hurtful words at those around us (although when tempers flare I have unfortunately found a sharper tongue than I ever expected in my mouth).  What is really dangerous are the words we throw at someone else veiled in jest.

I learned this from Andy Cisneros, but in every piece of sarcasm there’s a little nugget of truth.  Something real about the thing we’re pretending to say but really meaning.  While we may find them easy to move past at times, sarcastic words erode away at us like water through a canyon.  They’re poison pills wrapped in sweetness and given in bitterness.  

We may not consider ourselves to be con men – deceiving our neighbor intentionally – but we deceive ourselves and shoot arrows at our neighbor when we pretend that the words we say don’t have weight to them.  This proverb encourages us to become people who use our words wisely, to mean what we say, and to engage with each other genuinely so we can build a better community together.

-Graysen Pack