Proper 19.B.24
James 3:1-12
The Rev. Melanie McCarley
Sara, the church gossip and self-appointed supervisor of the church’s morals, kept sticking her nose into other people’s business. Several congregants were unappreciative of her activities, but feared her enough to maintain their silence.
She made a mistake, however, when she accused George, a new member, of being an alcoholic after she saw his pickup truck parked in front of the town’s only bar one afternoon. She commented to George and others that everyone seeing it there would know that he was an alcoholic.
George, a man of few words, stared at her for a moment and just walked away. He said nothing.
Later that evening, George quietly parked his pickup in front of Sarah’s house…and left it there….all night.
The epistle of James includes the longest passage in the Bible about the role of speech in the life of a Christian. “We all stumble in many ways,” says James; only the person who has “tamed the tongue” can claim Christian maturity. It’s not easy. Humanity, James observes, has tamed the world of nature, “but no one can tame the tongue.”
At first glance, human speech seems innocent enough. After all, the tongue is such a small part of the body. But its small size belies its powerful influence. James compares the tongue to a bit that controls a horse, or a rudder that steers an enormous ship. The tongue, he says, can even burn like a raging forest fire, incinerating everything that it touches. It corrupts both the subject as well as the object of speech. What we say to one another, James writes, can be “full of deadly poison” that kills.
True enough. Yehuda Berg writes: “Words are singularly the most powerful force available to humanity. We can choose to use this force constructively with words of encouragement, or destructively using words of despair. Words have energy and power with the ability to help, to heal, to hinder, to hurt, to harm, to humiliate and to humble.” James, I believe, would agree.
I suspect each of us bears more than one scar from words which have cut deeply over the years. How many of us have internalized self-hatred that resulted from repeated criticisms from a parent? How many of us still remember cruel taunts heard on the playground? Judgements rendered by teachers, coaches or supervisors have probably all made a mark. Now, consider this…how many of us still remember a compliment made by an elementary school teacher even though it was made many decades ago? Or words of encouragement spoken by the people who love us best and know us most deeply. Words matter.
Words are powerful. They create worlds. In the Book of Genesis, the world is created from the Word of God who spoke creation into being and pronounced it Good. In the Gospel of John, Jesus is referred to as the Logos—the Word of God—a word bringing light and life to the world.
With our words we name the world and each other, and in some sense our naming creates a genuine reality. That’s powerful. Words create reality. Once our speech and narratives take hold, they have a tremendous power for good or evil. They can exclude or embrace, heal or humiliate, lift up or tear down. We would do well to ask ourselves, in what kind of world do we want to live? One that is filled with thanksgiving, blessing, reconciliation and love, or one reflective of rancor, disappointment, rage and blame? In no small way, that world is a product of what comes out of your mouth.
Chip and Dan Heath write, in “The Power of Moments” about Kira Sloop, an awkward 11-year old with a terrible set of teeth, out of control curls and very low self esteem who looked forward to only one class in school, Chorus. Sloop had a powerful voice and a flair for the dramatic. She loved singing. Early in the semester the students were arranged into groups, and the music teacher walked over to her, listening, frowning, and learning in closer. Suddenly she stopped the song and addressed Sloop directly: “You there. Your voice sounds…different …and it’s not blending in with the other girls at all. Just pretend to sing.” The comment crushed her. Sloop says: “Chorus was supposed to be my favorite thing. My family said I could sing, but the teacher said I couldn’t. So I began to question everything.”
Then, in the summer of her seventh-grade year Sloop attended a camp and surprised herself by signing up to participate in chorus. The teacher noticed she was mouthing the words, and asked her to stick around after class. She invited Sloop to sit next to her on the piano bench and the two of them began to sing together in the empty room. Time went by, and then the teacher took Sloop’s face in her hands, looked her in the eyes and said: “You have a distinctive, expressive and beautiful voice. You could have been the love child of Bob Dylan and Joan Baez.”
As she left the room that day Sloop felt as if she’d shed a ton of weight. “I was on top of the world,” she said. Then she went to the library to find out who Joan Baez was.
The words we speak create the world in which we live. It’s worth considering that the words we speak reveal more about us than about the recipient of our speech. So when we hear toxic talk (and it’s everywhere these days), the kind of talk which ridicules others, bullies, belittles and lies; talk which spouts hatred, baits people with taunts and does its best to tear down, criticize and destroy; these words says more about the person speaking them than it does anything else. It tells you what is in that person’s heart. It tells you about the kind of world they are working to create.
Know this, each one of us are filled with power—with the power to use our words to bless or curse, to wound or heal. Listen carefully to what you say this week—and to what you hear others speaking, consider the world you want to be a part of creating, and, with the guidance of the Holy Spirit, help to speak it into being. In Jesus’ name. Amen.