From the Preacher's Desk:

As I was giving the announcements Wednesday night, it occurred to me that there were two things I had never heard announced at church. First, I have never heard anyone say, "That is one ugly baby." Second, I have never heard anyone say, "That food that was served at the fellowship meal was just awful." (There used to be three of those, but I have now heard someone say that the singing didn't sound very good.) And so I got to thinking: if (notice that I said "if") the food had not been good at the fellowship meal Wednesday night, would I have said so?

No, of course not.

It is understood that tact requires some things not be said. Using our completely hypothetical situation of the food at a fellowship meal being less than appetizing, it is likely that the best course of action would have been to have said nothing at all. Truthfully, there are some things that do not need to be said. But occasionally, we do not follow that good advice, and we end up complimenting or even praising those things that we despise. We end up smiling while gritting our teeth, and hoping that our insincere attitude is not discovered. Unfortunately, there are two biblical principles that apply to such situations. One is called lying and the other hypocrisy.

In most such instances, there is not an initial intent to lie. But it frequently happens that when you desire not to hurt someone else's feelings that our tongue just sort of takes on a mind of its own. You might start out by frantically thinking of something, anything nice that you can say, and then the flowery, flattering words just begin to spill out. And for some reason, you can't seem to stop. And before you know it, in your innocent attempt to bolster someone's spirits, you have condemned your own. You are in a bad situation, not really sure how you got there, and certainly unsure of how to get out.

How, you might ask, does this make one a hypocrite? The common definition of a hypocrite is somebody who says one thing, but does something else. Sure, it is bad enough when we end up lying to someone for whom we care, even if it was done with the motive of sparing them pain and anguish. But too often it does not stop there. Too often, these indiscretions become a topic of conversation among others of like mind. And too often, as we enter into these conversations, our tongue once again takes on a mind of its own. Whereas earlier one might have stretched the truth to compliment, later the truth gets stretched to condemn. If we tell friend A how nice they look, then tell friend B how horrible friend A looked, that makes us: a) liars; b) hypocrites; and c) just a bad friend all around.

We all remember the advice given to us by our mothers and grandmothers: "If you don't have anything nice to say, say nothing at all." As with most advice, it is more easily spoken than practiced, but practice it we should.