Taming the Tongue

Scripture Lessons: Isaiah 50: 4-9 and James 3: 1-12, NT page 230 Sermon Title: Taming the Tongue As you know, on Tuesday morning Chris Handy died. Her funeral will be this Saturday afternoon, her visitation will be at 1:00, and what I’m sure will happen at the visitation especially, is what happens at so many visitations – there will be tears, but there will also be laughter. That’s because we’ll be doing what we are supposed to do, what most people hope will happen on the day of their funerals – we’ll be telling stories about a woman who made us smile and who made us laugh and you can’t celebrate the life of a woman like that with only tears. I’ve been around death enough to know that laughter is almost always right there beside it, which on the one hand seems so strange, but on the other hand seems absolutely perfect because at the time of death we are compelled to tell the stories and you can’t have stories without laughter. That was the case with the death of my grandmother. When my grandmother died my grandfather asked me to speak at the funeral and everyone in the family pitched in to help me. Soon the challenge became choosing a story that would be moderately appropriate to tell in church. Someone wanted me to tell about how she would always wear hose. With every outfit – certainly with a skit, but my grandmother always wore hose so she wore them with sweat pants and even once my mother claims that she wore hose with her swimming suit when they went to the beach. There are so many stories – and when we tell them it’s as though the dead are right beside us. We’ve been here in Columbia for nearly five years now and I have heard so many stories about Hoose Crozier and Dr. George Mayfield that I feel like I know them even though they died before we got here. I feel like I have heard at least one Wanda Turner story every day since the day of her death – so many that when I think of her I don’t see so much the frail frame in the hospital bed that I saw so often near the end, but the firecracker, full of life and full of truth who told me over and over again that I might become a decent preacher if only I didn’t talk so fast. I miss her. I miss all of them – but they are not so far when we tell the stories. There is power in our words. And this power is not unknown to Christian thought. There is a theologian at Eden Theological Seminary in St. Louis named Damayanthi Niles who said that stories are the baskets that we use to carry our relationships. It’s as though our words weave the cloth that holds us together, and these words are so strong that even at the grave we can laugh for we know that there is a power stronger than death, that love will always bind us, and that with our stories – as though they were magic spells - we know that the words of William Faulkner are true: “The past isn’t dead, it isn’t even past.” Some will say that they’re just words. Just stories, but they are powerful – and like all other power laid at the feet of humankind, you have seen it used for good, but also for evil. So the whole William Faulkner quote goes like this: “The past isn’t dead, it isn’t even past. The burden of our past hangs heavy in the present.” The burden of the past is with us too, right there with the stories that make us laugh. The words we spoke years ago linger because our mouths are like feather pillows – once they rip open the words are swept by the wind and there is no hope of collecting all of them ever again – the words we whispered might be heard by far more people than we ever wanted. And as these words spread, they gather steam and take on power to ruin reputations. The word slander is related to murder, in that slander is using words to murder a reputation and destroy someone’s standing in a community, and so “the tongue is a small member, yet it boasts of great exploits.” “If we put bits into the mouths of horses to make them obey us, we guide their whole bodies,” says the book of James, “Or look at ships: though they are so large that it takes strong winds to drive them, yet they are guided by a very small rudder wherever the will of the pilot directs. So also the tongue is a small member, yet it boasts of great exploits.” Here the metaphor is clear – just as the bit, only a few inches long, can control a whole horse and just as the rudder can control a giant ship, so the tongue, 8 muscles and 4 inches, boasts of great exploits. And just what are these great exploits – the author of James doesn’t have to tell because we already know. In 1615 Galileo wrote to the Grand Duchess of Tuscany, “I do not feel obliged to believe that the same God who has endowed us with sense, reason, and intellect has intended us to forgo their use.” He wrote that phrase in a beautiful letter in which he quoted Scripture and Saint Augustine, but the letter also got him in a lot of trouble because the Church knew that his words were the beginning of some great exploits and indeed they were. The same is true of Lenin’s words – in 1917 he wrote that “Freedom in capitalist society always remains about the same as it was in the ancient Greek republics: freedom for the slave-owners,” and that idea so succinctly articulated spread, giving credence to verse 5 of our second scripture lesson: “How great a forest is set ablaze by a small fire!” Words do that – whether good words or bad words, those who speak have to be careful about what they say, so our second scripture lesson begins this way: “Not many of you should become teachers, my brothers and sisters, for you know that we who teach will be judged with greater strictness.” Think about that teachers – the power that you actually wield is almost as great as the power that parents think you wield. A student need merely report to her parents that she learned about Islam today in school and in no time the school board is calling an emergency meeting. Parents get concerned, and the concern, while too often rooted in fear that politicians are ready to take advantage of, is certainly understandable because every one of you remembers something that your teacher taught you no matter how many years ago it was. That’s the case with me. In my second year of college I rollerbladed into class one day as a joke. It was the day of the test, and I rolled up the aisle, sat down in my desk, took the test and rolled right back out again. A few days later my professor returned the test. He had marked it with a D and a note asking me to come to his office that afternoon, preferably wearing shoes and not rollerblades. I sat down in the chair opposite his desk and he asked me, “When Joe, are you going to start taking yourself and the gifts God has given you seriously?” Now those words from my teacher mark a change in course for my life, and maybe the change didn’t come all at once, but certainly those words were the beginning of recognizing that college had more to offer me than a good time, that maybe I possessed potential to rise above my office as the class clown, and so I began to study harder, to consider my appearance, and to take myself seriously. “Not many of you should become teachers, my brothers and sisters, for you know that we who teach will be judged with greater strictness.” The words of a teacher have power – teachers are influential – and we don’t have to wonder whether or not James is right when he says that teachers will be judged with greater strictness because we already know that it’s true and we know that what’s true for teachers applies to preachers as well. In the great preacher and teacher Barbara Brown Taylor’s commentary on this passage from the book of James she wrote: “Preachers wise enough to know that they preach chiefly to themselves will spend some time praying this passage before attempting to interpret it to their congregations.” This passage from James offers a hard word for preachers. And I wish that it only offered a hard word for preachers who aren’t me, but unfortunately that can’t be the case. I’m proud that a couple of my best sermons have been published, but I could easily compile a book of sermons that I wish now had never seen the light of day – (and I bet my friend James Fleming would help me compile it). I’m not proud of everything that I’ve said. The hard truth is that I have to be mindful of what I say. And not only that, I have to be mindful of what I say all the time, not only when I’m behind this pulpit, for no spring can “pour forth from the same opening both fresh and brackish water,” no fig tree can “yield olives, or a grapevine figs” for nature doesn’t work that way. The preacher cannot tell the truth one day, a lie the next, and expect the congregation to know the difference. The preacher cannot abuse with his words one day and expect words from the same source to bring comfort the next. Or, to use the words of James chapter 3 verse 10: “With [the tongue] we bless the lord and Father, and with it we curse those who are made in the likeness of God… My brothers and sisters, this ought not be so.” We cannot pray with our words in this sanctuary only to leave and disrespect our waitress at Cracker Barrel over Sunday lunch. You cannot think for a moment that this makes any sense or that God can tell which instance represents the real you. You cannot pray for your sister in one moment, then whisper about her the next. Your empathy won’t truly heal a wound if your concern is passing and only lasts until you have a chance to call a friend to tell him how you really feel. Now I wish I were always the example here. I wish I were perfect and I’m not, none of us can be. If we could be than there would be no need for the grace that our Lord Jesus Christ provides, but we don’t honor such grace if we don’t work each moment to be better. So I’m in the pulpit today ready to say something here – let me be an example, not as one who has always embodied an ideal but as one who longs to be a spring of fresh water. I want my words to give life and healing and peace. So I’m calling on you to join me as I pledge to take seriously the power that my words have. Join me as I pledge to use my words to tell the kind of stories that bring honor to all. Join me as I do my best to use my words to strengthen my relationships and not to tear them asunder. Let your life inspire the kind of stories that will fill this place with smiles and laughter whenever you are remembered. Amen.