Putting Words in God's Mouth - Weekday Homily Video

Today we continue with our ongoing reflections on the Book of Genesis. I titled my reflection as “The dangers of putting words into God’s mouth.” This is what we see Eve do when he interacts with the Serpent in the Garden of Eden.  

Crafty Words

The Evil One approached Eve and craftily asked her “Did God really tell you not to eat from ANY of the trees in the garden?” Propaganda starts by slightly twisting the truth, slightly distorting the truth. The hearer is made to question what they heard or read or made to doubt their interpretation of the information. That is what the serpent did. God did not stop Adam and Eve to eat from ANY of the trees. He actually allowed them to eat from ALL the trees EXCEPT ONE. The motive of the serpent was to cultivate Eve to start believing that God was selfish, was mean, and did not have the best interests of Eve and Adam at heart.

Cultivation Theory

The Cultivation Theory was introduced in the 1960s by Media Scholar George Gerbner. He argued that repeated exposure to a particular media interpretation of social reality influences the viewers or consumers interpretation of reality. For instance, if you see violence all the time on TV, you develop a mean-world syndrome. You think the world is full of violence. “Cultivation” starts with emphasizing or de-emphasizing particular aspects, distorting one word, carefully throwing in an inaccurate phrase and intentionally repeating it several times. The serpent did the same, it suggested an interpretation to Eve that was false, it put words in the mouth of God.  

Twisting Words

Eve caught the distortion and said - “We may eat of the fruit of the trees in the garden; it is only about the fruit of the tree in the middle of the garden that God said, ‘You shall not eat it or even touch it, lest you die.’” The first part of Eve’s response was accurate, “We may eat of the fruit of the trees in the garden; it is only about the fruit of the tree in the middle of the garden.” The second part of her answer “You shall not eat it or even touch it” is inaccurate, it is putting words into the mouth of God.  

Part of what causes challenges in our faith is putting words into the mouth of God, or reading things into the gospel. We have a deposit of faith, free of error, that sometimes you hear people give an interpretation that is inaccurate, or a mischaracterization that suits themselves. “Follow your heart”  or “follow your conscience” is one of those misinterpretations. It ends being “follow your ego.”  Putting words into God’s mouth was at the very beginning of the fall of humanity and it continues to be.  

Distortions Ruin Relationships

We are aware that many relationships between friends, spouses and co-workers have suffered because of the sin of putting words into other people’s mouths. We either refuse to hear what they are saying or simply choose to distort what they said and impute motives or interpretations that are inaccurate.   

Today may we ask the Lord to heal our imperfect hearing and imperfect speech so that we can listen and speak the truth more accurately. May we ask the Lord to pronounce “Ephphatha” upon us so that we can listen to Him and to others better, especially those we live with, in our families.

• Today’s Readings

• Father Fred's inspirational homily was recorded live during Mass at the Father Peyton Center this morning. You can view the Mass (and the Rosary at the 30-minute mark) on the Family Rosary YouTube page. 

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