How and when to breach a dam . . . or not

Before the Beginning

Starting a quarrel is like breaching a dam;
so drop the matter before a dispute breaks out. (Proverbs 17:14)

Proverbs counts among the books we call Wisdom Literature in the Bible. It often reads like a grandma babysitting us as children and reciting for us her homespun maxims in response to our naughtiness: “If you can’t say anything nice, don’t say anything at all!” It’s easy to argue, “but that was then and this is now,” but much of grandma’s wisdom was won over millenniums of human experience and, most likely, her personal experience of offensive words cutting like a hot knife.

Despite the perceived advantages offered by our post-modern sophistication, neglecting traditional wisdom persists as folly.

But maxims and proverbs generally contain only a grain of the truth. They also contain or omit a flip-side truth that the unobservant might easily miss. “Woe to him who so fears controversy that evil doers remain unchallenged, their perfidy undisputed” isn’t the proverb next to 17:14; I just made it up. It should probably be there. There will always be occasions when “breaching a dam,” i.e. starting a quarrel, is the righteous thing to do. Solomon didn’t say this, I don’t think, but would probably agree with the un-wisdom of citing a proverb, maxim as the whole truth on a given subject.

It’s always been fundamentalism’s particular failure that it refuses or is unable to break from categorical thinking and acting, as if 17:14 read literally would represent the whole truth on the subject of, say, congregational relations. It was, after all, the gist of Jesus’ quarrel with the Sadducees, the Pharisees, the Scribes and the teachers of his time, this persistence of theirs to maintain that “not picking corn, not healing on the Sabbath” was an “whole truth” about the Sabbath, for instance. And that they could pick out scripture passages to prove it.

So when grandma said, “If you haven’t anything nice to say, say nothing at all,” she didn’t simply mean that you should either fawn or shut up. Being a wise woman—not unlike Solomon—she probably meant that we should feel and own the wounds of verbal cruelty and govern our tongues as we would hope others would govern theirs toward us. Love your neighbour as yourself, in other words.

17:14 serves best as a warning: be aware that the consequences of starting a quarrel can be momentous, even disastrous and if you’re not prepared to see it through to a reconciliation, best let it go.

I think Solomon and grandmas everywhere could agree: if scripture is our guide, then it follows that the only true test of wisdom is that every deed, every word be governed by love for God and our neighbour. Every Sunday School class, every sermon, every blog and podcast shares one and only one goal: teach us how to love God; teach us how to love our neighbours; help us still the urge to quarrel with, to exploit, to neglect, to despise that which God has created.

And—oh my—we still have so much to learn. And so few wise teachers.

A friend loves at all times,
and a brother is born for a time of adversity. (Proverbs 17:17)