Rhythm of Life: Swearing as a Spiritual Practice
I realize this is shocking. But I swear. And sometimes a lot. And you may be thinking “Sweet Baby Jesus! Good, kind pastors….do not f*king swear.”
Pastors are here to help you be good and most of us have had good defined in particular ways. Even my iphone has a sweet little church lady who autocorrects a lot of my texts to DUCKING. Swearing is such a strange feeling and taboo, maybe you remember the first time you did it or maybe you heard elementary school classmates say “oh he said the S word” and assumed it was Stupid. But somewhere along the way we learned it’s bad, objectively bad to swear.
Pastors, and good people for that matter, are supposed to be sweet and gentle; all sugar and no spice.
For a long time being a Good Chrsitan has come with a list of good behaviors. The list starts with No. No Swearing, no dancing, no drinking, no tattoos, no loving your body or another person’s body, no dressing as witches for halloween or letting your children read books that drive them to sourcery, no parties unless they are a bible study, no rock music, no laughing…unless it’s a good clean Christian comedian. There are probably more behaviors that raise eyebrows for some “Good Christians”
And to this I say, meh. Do these kinds of lists really inspire anyone, other than the mayor in the movie “Chocolat” and every ‘Karen’ ready to call the police.
We can be more faithful than a good behavior list.
Philippians 3:8
More than that, I regard everything as loss because of the surpassing value of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord. For his sake I have suffered the loss of all things, and I regard them as rubbish, in order that I may gain Christ
You know that word….RUBBISH. Well Paul is a little more colorful. It’s Shit. And it’s not dung like a National Geographic special or a formal excrement or a medical BM. It’s Shit. Which I will call a turkey sandwich in front of the kids.
Paul is talking about everything that mattered to him before he wanted to live the way Jesus lived. Everything that was status worthy and valued, everything that made him feel powerful…all of that is Shit. It’s all shit compared to his new experience of being awake and alive, his new passion for following the way Jesus lived. Everything before is Shit.
Paul uses strong language for strong feelings. And he doesn't write to the Correnthins who are struggling to follow Jesus and say you guys are Shit Christians. Can’t you F*king do anything right. To the folks he loves and leads he is writing poems about love. Love is patient and Love is kind, love is not envious, boastful or rude.
Paul the Saint, the hero of all good chrisitans curses in the bible and we can’t translate it as Shit because, this does not fit with our understanding of what a good christian might do.
Which raises the question of why we think some words are off limits. Some words are not good for Good Christinas to use. I think it’s because we like short hand, we liek ease and it is easy to make a list of good and bad behaviors rather than really think deeply about what you are doing and why.
See Paul is swearing here, but he isn’t swearing at somebody, he is communicating with deep raw emotion.
There are academic studies and folks who research swearing. Timothy Jay has studied swearing for 40 years as professor emeritus of psychology at the Massachusetts College of Liberal Arts. When used appropriately, swearing can be an emotional release and a coping strategy for pain. It is deeply emotive, raw communication and supports what might be hard to express. Among close friends and community it can be a way of being honest and authentic, that one is comfortable enough to use language that could be judged negatively in another setting. The research found that swearing, in particular ways, can even be creative and a sign of intelligence.
“People often swear when they are stressed, faced with a challenge, or are otherwise experiencing an increase in the activation of their sympathetic nervous system. When people swear, they experience a release, either slight or significant, in physiological and psychological stress,” Dr. Kyle Zrenchik, PhD, co-founder of All In Therapy.
Dr. Richard Stephens, a senior lecturer in psychology at Keele University suggests, “Used in moderation, swearing can be an effective and readily available short-term pain reliever if, for example, you are in a situation where there is no access to medical care or painkillers. However, if you’re used to swearing all the time, our research suggests you won’t get the same effect,” he said.
Jesus doesn’t necessarily say Sh*t but he does get plenty angry and deploys strong feelings and emotions that we don’t always translate quite so well. In Mark 1:40-45 he is mad, this usually translates Moved with Pity or Moved with Compassion but Scholar Obery M Hndricks in The Politics of Jesus links the word to anger and even snorting made like a horse filling its lungs and expressing its full power. Jesus filled with anger heals a man and then sends him to the temple to do what is required. He is angry at the leaders. In Mark 3: 5 Jesus is angry and grieved at the religious leaders for their hardness of heart and he heals a man’s withered hand. The same thing happens in 10:14 when Jesus gets “indignant” with the disciples for not letting children come to him.
Jesus is snorting mad. You don’t see that in a lot of religious art.
Angry, sorting JEsus is not the image we have on a lot of stained glass. In the post Constantine Christianity, the Lamb of God becomes a sweet little lamb, servant of the empire's power. But if we take a second look, we see that sweet little lamb will flip some tables, tell folks to their face that they are abusing their power and he will call the demon by name. That “Prince of Peace” had a mentor who called the powerful snakes (Luke 3:7) and he works for peace through justice. Angry Jesus flips tables in the temple and Angry
In Matthew 23, Jesus says Woe to you, Scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites with a tone that I think matches that emotive, raw energy and perhaps even language the modern researchers are talking about.
“Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you tithe mint, dill, and cumin, and have neglected the weightier matters of the law: justice and mercy and faith. It is these you ought to have practiced without neglecting the others.” (Matthew 23:23)
“Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you clean the outside of the cup and of the plate, but inside they are full of greed and self-indulgence.” (v25)
“Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you are like whitewashed tombs, which on the outside look beautiful, but inside they are full of the bones of the dead and of all kinds of filth.” (v27) (Matthew 23 sounds a lot like Micah 3:9-12)
The prophets Jesus read issued woes and curses on greedy people and warring nations. Jesus does too. He gets angry. He gets vocal. Even snorts. But he is never snorting at the disciples when they once again messed up or didn’t get it. He is not angry at the vulnerable people around him seeking healing. He is not angry because someone questioned him or didn’t respect him or someone said something he didn’t like. He is not angry because of his ego. He is angry because the world is so wildly unjust.
We have issues with anger.
We are not taught to recognize it, to understand it and to manage it. So we either minimize it or we are ruled by it and we harm others by our emotional immaturity.
This is where swearing is bad. This is where rage becomes harm, when we are moved by ego and not by compassion. This is where we use our voice to make someone small feel even smaller. This is where words hurt and harm and make painful marks. This is where we see parents abuse their kids. This is where supervisors abuse their staff. This is where the big folks bully the little folks. This is where swearing is definitely something Good Church people should be concerned about.
Marge Piercy offers us poetry about a Just Anger.
A good anger acted upon
is beautiful as lightning
and swift with power.
A good anger swallowed,
a good anger swallowed
clots the blood to slime.
The world is full of Shit that should make us snorting mad. Everyday things happen and the best response to the news may be, “you have to be ducking, kidding me.” We face hard things and deep heartbreak and raw, real emotions. Calling the “demon” by name like Jesus does. Growing our emotional maturity to respond with anger that transforms the world. That’s faithful and that is hard.
More Reading:
The Politics of Jesus by Obery M. Hendricks, Jr.
https://www.nbcnews.com/better/health/when-cursing-good-your-health-ncna843776
https://www.cnn.com/2021/01/26/health/swearing-benefits-wellness/index.html