September 13, 2009
The Fifteenth Sunday after Pentecost (Year B)
Proverbs 1:20-33; Psalm 19; James 3:1-12;
Mark 8:27-38
When I was a girl, there was a popular saying, “Sticks and stones may break my bones, but words will never hurt me.”
How many of you have heard that expression? And how many of you know from personal experience how blatantly untrue it is!?? Words can often be far more damaging than a klunk on the shin with a stick – or even a baseball bat!
So, it’s always good when scripture agrees with us, or our life experience tells the same story as scripture because this week scripture does indeed say something about the power, both positive and negative of words.
The most powerful reality of Word is, of course, Jesus, the Word made flesh. In Jesus we have the only example of words matching action that I know of. His word and his ways were consistent, something few of us can claim. Most of us try to make them consistent but invariably we all fail.
So we have Jesus who is Word and action made visible.
But we also have in the scripture this morning more words of James that tell us of the power of the tongue.
Think about your tongue. It is, as James suggests, a relatively small portion of our bodies, and, truthfully, it is really not at all an attractive part of our bodies. But like all of our actions, how we use our tongue, to form words, to make a point, to soothe, to reconcile, to greet, to comfort, to express love, can make it very attractive just as using it in ways opposite of these can bring permanent damage as hurtful as any stick or stone.
As the reading from James goes on to say, the tongue can be a fire or it can be a restless evil, a deadly poison, as easily as it can be the means to great wisdom that wise teachers impart to others. And as we all know in this age of Google and Wikipedia, words can be accessible on any subject but not necessarily accurate! So we need to be wary about how we accept the word we hear or read. Let us always consider the source! Is the tongue fire or love?
This morning at the ten o’clock service we will bless and commission our church school teachers for this upcoming year – Barbara assures me it is not too late to still volunteer. And it seems to be quite amazing that the lectionary once again follows what we are doing even though the lessons were chosen years ago by a committee far, far away!
Our teachers teach our children, and us, using words, of course, telling stories about the wonder and marvel of the Word incarnate, Jesus. They also use their lives and their willingness to care for and be with our children while we worship here. They, in teaching, give life and form to the kind of servant ministry that Jesus is speaking of in today’s gospel, the ministry of carrying one’s own cross, of losing one’s own life and replacing it with a life framed and formed by the eternal Word made flesh. They are servants to our children.
It’s almost too obvious to say but words do have great power, we know. So we need to try to be careful with them! We all know their power and how easily they can be misunderstood. We all say things at times that someone hears very differently from what we intended! Last spring Sheila Heen led a workshop that taught us precisely that. We hear with our own ears of experience and we use words that do not always express what we are REALLY thinking.
As I stand here talking with you about what I understand in the readings this week, each of you is listening to me and forming your own thoughts and responses based on your own experience. Each of you will pick up on a word or two, a thought, that may or may not have been mine when I spoke, and you will go off in your own private world of words to reflect and think, maybe even to make out the grocery list or perhaps wonder if you should teach church school or maybe even remember when your words did not match your actions. Some may just bask in the wonder and glory of being in the company of these folks in this lovely place with hymns and prayers and thankfulness that someone else is teaching the kids this year!
Whatever your individual thoughts are, they are private. You may share them or not as you chose, and rarely can anyone force us to say things we do not want to say. Yet, when we express words out loud, they become public. They do not belong to us any more. They belong to the world to do just as you are doing now with your own thoughts and words in your own minds based on your own experience, faith and, maybe even something as mundane as how much sleep you got last night!
Our task as people of faith is to make sure the public words we use, the ones we send out for others to hear and use and interact with as their own, reflect the kind of fire our faith demands. Our challenge as Christians is to strive to maintain that consistency between word and action that Jesus lived, and we try to emulate.
To lose one’s life for Christ is to bring greater and greater consistency between our private thoughts and public words and actions. Teaching, training, praying, our private thoughts into consistency with our faith is probably even more difficult than always being consistent in word and action!
I do believe God knows the whispers of our minds and the terrors of the negative fires that burn within us as well as the goodness and holiness that resides in each of us. We might be able to hide the broad range of our thoughts and feelings and fires from each other, but we can never hide them from God.
So the teachers we honor this morning have a huge task in front of them. It is to teach the stories of our faith which are the outward and visible signs of the inward and everlasting faith that becomes the compass for the lives of our children and youth. The stories will be told with words. But the stories will be remembered and owned by our children because of the care and attention they receive as people from their teachers, the actions that match the words! It really doesn’t matter how much the teachers KNOW. What matters is how much they CARE about our children. And as you meet those who will be teaching, you will recognize that care. We are truly blessed to have them, and to have Barbara as their mentor and chief cheerleader.
We will also bless the back packs of our children, and brief cases and purses of any adult who wishes to participate. And as we do, it is my hope that we will remember the two edged sword of the Words we use, that we will be praying for words that fire us with love for each other, words that fire us with a burning desire for wisdom, and a congruency of word and action, and most of all for a fire that lights our souls and calls us to follow where Jesus the Word incarnate has so boldly led us.
Amen.
The Rev. Dr. Gale Davis Morris
Church of the Good Shepherd.