Proper 19, Pentecost 16, Year B September
13, 2015
James
3:1-12
O God, because without you we are not able to
please you, mercifully grant that your Holy Spirit may in all things
direct and rule our hearts; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and
reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and for ever. Amen.
“Sticks and stones can break my bones,
but words will never hurt me!” My mother taught me that rhyme the first time
that I came home in tears from some kindergarten meanness. I was supposed to
repeat it as a jaunty reply that would put the bully in her place. I don’t know
if I actually ever used it, but I do think that knowing the rhyme brought me a comforting
sense of power over my tormentors. We have all heard this little phrase, so
common on the playgrounds of America. We learned it from our parents and our
teachers. But it is a lie. And the power that it gives us is illusory. Words do
hurt, sometimes more than sticks and stones and even broken bones. They wound,
and they lead astray. They exaggerate and tear down. Turn on the TV and listen
to our politicians, even to some of our preachers. Listen to the twisted words
on the tips of our own tongues. Today’s Epistle from the book of James cries
out to me a stark truth that I do not find in the well-known playground rhyme.
James starts by addressing teachers. As a
teacher and a preacher, I am well aware of the precarious position that I take
every time I stand before you, my throat wrapped in the white collar of divine authority.
The prayer that I say before every sermon is probably my most heartfelt of the entire
week, because I know all too well the likelihood that my words might wound,
that they might cut too close to someone’s heart, that they might damage
someone’s faith in God, or at the least, that they might roll flat and useless under
the pews. I bet that there isn’t one of us here today who can’t remember both the
pain of some cutting, stinging word from a priest or teacher as well as the bright
joy of a life-giving word from such a mentor. One of my worst parenting
failures happened in my role as a teacher at the school my children also attended.
Part of my job was to teach the eighth graders how to write their first
research papers. When my daughter Maren was in the eighth grade, she had chosen
to do her paper on some aspect of Shakespearean drama. I had gathered the whole
8th grade class into the auditorium, where the librarian had
arranged a variety of books and resources on the stage. I was waxing eloquent
on how to choose the right materials to begin research when I spied a book on
Shakespeare in the pile before me. I quickly grabbed it, talking a mile a
minute, and exulted, “Maren, here’s a book for YOU!” Unfortunately, the whole
title, which I hadn’t taken the time to reflect upon, was Shakespeare for Dummies. The
whole class roared with laughter, and my daughter, who suffered already from
the pangs of fourteen-year-old insecurity, was wounded to the core. I hadn’t
meant to insult her or to embarrass her, but my foolish and hasty words on that
stage carried a sharp edge that my later protests and excuses could not soften.
“We who teach will be judged with greater strictness,” indeed.
Gossip, too, is a less public weapon, but
equally impossible to withdraw, once it has escaped our mouths. There is such a
fine line between sharing news and sharing judgments. It is so easy to let
those harmful little stories and rumors float past our lips: at Coffee Hour, in
the kitchen, around the water cooler, in the parking lot, at clergy gatherings.
The Church, despite our good intentions,
is so often a breeding ground for gossip.
I’ll never forget the sermon scene from the film Doubt. The priest tells about a well-known gossip who is directed to go up onto her roof with a feather pillow and a knife. Slashing open the pillow, she watches as thousands of feathers fly up into the wind and fill the sky above her head. Her priest then directs her to go and pick them all up and put them back into the pillow. “That’s impossible!” she gasps, “They’re everywhere.” “Such is gossip,” answers the priest. “You can never take the words back once they’ve spread.” Flying feathers ... just like James’ tongues of flame leaping wildly from tree to tree in a forest fire—Such images make clear the destructive and unstoppable force of our most poisonous words.
I’ll never forget the sermon scene from the film Doubt. The priest tells about a well-known gossip who is directed to go up onto her roof with a feather pillow and a knife. Slashing open the pillow, she watches as thousands of feathers fly up into the wind and fill the sky above her head. Her priest then directs her to go and pick them all up and put them back into the pillow. “That’s impossible!” she gasps, “They’re everywhere.” “Such is gossip,” answers the priest. “You can never take the words back once they’ve spread.” Flying feathers ... just like James’ tongues of flame leaping wildly from tree to tree in a forest fire—Such images make clear the destructive and unstoppable force of our most poisonous words.
What are we to do with our words, then?
Where is the good news in James’ rant against the human tongue? Are we supposed
to remain silent, perhaps? When my son Alex was in preschool, the teacher
approached me with concern about my son’s delayed speech. Surprised, I asked
what was wrong. His speech seemed developmentally on track to me. The teacher,
with the kind and patient voice used for parents in denial, informed me that
Alex almost never spoke, instead using sign language and pointing to get his
needs across. “What is he up to?” I wondered with relief, since he talked
constantly at home. Later, I asked Alex why he didn’t talk at school, and he
looked up at me with big, worried eyes and confessed with a sigh: “I’m afraid
that if I open my mouth, bad words will come out.” Apparently another child had
been getting in trouble for using inappropriate language, and the teacher’s
reaction had made a big impression on my sweet 3-year-old. Is my young son’s guilt-stricken
caution what James is asking of us?
I don’t think so. Language, after all, is
a gift from God. By the power of the Word, God made and still sustains all that
is. “’Let there be light!’ God said. And there was light.” “In the beginning
was the Word …. And by the Word all things were made.” Made in God’s image, we
too are given the power of words, the power to name the rest of creation, the
power to testify to what God has given us, the power to bless and even to create.
According to James, the trouble comes when we use the same mouth to bless God
that we use to curse our brothers and sisters who are also in God’s likeness.
God gives us tongues so that we can speak words that build relationship with
God and with our neighbors. When we use those tongues instead to tear down
relationship and to deny the likeness of God in our fellow human beings, then
we are as far from our created purpose as is a fig tree that produces olives, or
a spring that flows with both fresh and alkaline water at the same time.
Archbishop
Desmond Tutu once explained how even the God-filled words of prayer and
scripture were misused by Christian missionaries in South Africa to oppress,
rather than to uplift God’s creatures:
When white settlers first
came to South Africa, they had the Bible and we had the land.
“Let us pray,” they said. So we folded our hands, closed our eyes and prayed.
When we opened our eyes, we had the Bible and they had the land.
Later, in the horrors of
apartheid and then in its aftermath, both whites and blacks often turned their
words on one another, accusing and attacking and brutalizing. Echoing James,
Tutu states that “to dehumanize someone is to commit blasphemy by dishonoring the
image of God in that person.”[1] When we turn our words
against one of God’s creatures, we have not only harmed our neighbor, but we
have blasphemed against the Creator himself. It took listening deeply to the
profoundly painful stories unveiled in the Truth and Reconciliation Commission
for the wounds of tongue and flesh in South Africa to begin to heal.
The Suffering Servant in our Isaiah
reading would agree. Rather than attack, this Servant “sustains the weary” with
his words. Before speaking, he listens. He listens first to God and then to
others. He truly listens, “as those who are [willing to be] taught.” He listens
even though his listening leads to his own suffering. He remains open and
vulnerable with the Other, refusing to hide his face, even from any fiery words
of insult that might be thrown at him. Psalm 12 says of God’s Word: “the words
of the Lord are pure words: as silver tried in a furnace of earth, purified
seven times.” I have never seen precious metals being refined, but I know that
only intense heat and mighty flame can transform ore, melting it, changing its
form completely, and allowing it to float freely to the surface. It is no coincidence
that the Word of God, the Christ who creates and gives life, must pass through
the crucible of the Cross. It’s no wonder that Jesus preaches in today’s Gospel
that the Son of Man must undergo great suffering before he rises. It’s no
wonder that he tells us, too, that to follow him, we must deny ourselves and take
up the cross. Our best words are those that float upwards through lives that
have been tried in earth’s furnace, through lives that have been burned and
bruised in the fight against oppression and want. Without lives broken and refined
in the service of justice and mercy, open to the pain of our neighbor, our
words grasp at a power that they can never truly own.
In a cartoon clip by Brene Brown, a little
sad fox with a dark rain cloud over his head is stuck down in a hole. A deer-like
creature comes by, pokes her head down the hole, and says all the wrong things.
“Uh huh, OK, Want a sandwich?” she chirps, her mouth full. Painting a silver
lining around the little fox’s raincloud, she responds, “At least it’s not
worse!” And she skips merrily on her way. On the other hand, a friendly bear
climbs down into the hole, listens to what is bothering the fox and pictures a
similar sadness in his own mind, feeling the fox’s pain. Then he hugs the fox
and says, “I don’t have any idea what to say, but I’m sure glad that you shared
with me.” It is the sense of connection, says Brown, that helps, not the words
that are spoken.[2]
Maybe we should be teaching our kids to
chant, “Words can burn and bones can break, but Love holds on forever.”
[1]
Quoted by Desmond Tutu in a conference on “Religious Human Rights in Global
Perspective” at Emory University, October 1995 and cited in Don C. Richter, “Growing
Up Postmodern: Theological Uses of Culture,” February 22, 2000.
[2]
Brene Brown, “The Power of Empathy,” found at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1Evwgu369Jw.
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