Words do hurt, sometimes more than sticks and stones and even broken bones. They wound, and they lead astray. Words can exaggerate and tear down. Think of the misleading words that have convinced millions of Americans not to get a Covid vaccination or wear a mask. Think of the violent, angry words that saturate all of our social media feeds: the horrible insults that we adults type so easily into our phones; the destructive, bullying comments that teens are tempted to share over the Internet. The power of these loaded words is destroying individuals and tearing up the fabric of our society. Vice-President Harris recalled in her 9/11 speech yesterday that the spirit of willing teamwork on that plane heading to Pennsylvania twenty-years ago is sadly lacking in today’s world. Today, planes are full of insults and disdain, rather than cooperation. Today’s Epistle from the book of James cries out to me a stark truth about words that I don’t 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, with my throat wrapped in the white collar of divine authority. The little 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 very least, that they might fall flat and useless to the ground. I bet that there isn’t one of us here today who can’t remember the pain of some stinging word from a priest or teacher. I bet that there isn’t one of us here today who can’t also remember 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. That’s when I spied a book on Shakespeare in the pile before me. I quickly grabbed it. Talking a mile a minute, I exulted, “Maren, look! Here’s a book for YOU!” Unfortunately, the whole title, which I hadn’t taken the time to read, was Shakespeare for Dummies. The whole class roared with laughter, and my daughter was wounded to the core. I hadn’t meant to insult her or to embarrass her, but my foolish words on that stage carried a sharp edge that my later protests and excuses couldn’t 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’s so easy to let those harmful little stories and rumors float past our lips: at Coffee Hour, on the prayer chain, 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.
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. I was surprised. 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, he only expressed his needs by pointing. Later, I asked Alex why he didn’t talk at school, and he looked up at me with big, worried eyes. He 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?
Quiet introverts like me might wish it were, but silence isn’t what God wants from us. Words, used rightly, are precious. Writer and Holocaust survivor Elie Wiesel tells the story of a young Jewish boy who asks how the world could remain silent during the horrors of the concentration camps. Wiesel responds to this boy’s question by promising never to be silent when and wherever human beings endure suffering and humiliation. “Neutrality helps the oppressor, never the victim,” he writes. “Silence encourages the tormentor, never the tormented.” In the face of evil or oppression, we need words to stand up for what is right. Yes, we we’ll make mistakes when we speak. We should own those mistakes and apologize for them. But we shouldn’t let our fear keep us from intentionally and deliberately choosing words that express real solidarity.[1]
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. The psalmist sings: “the words of the Lord are pure words: as silver tried in a furnace of earth, purified seven times.” I’ve 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’s 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 Jesus 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. Writes one preacher, “I found myself wondering what the world might look like if we spoke to each other …[in words filled] with our mortal fragility, resolute with reverence for the aliveness in us and in each other, this grand shared mystery.”[2]
In a world so divided by hatred, so filled with misunderstanding, so free to lash out in cruelty, maybe we should be teaching our children to chant, “Words can burn and bones can break, but Love holds on forever.”
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