Strength for the Journey, a sermon based on 1 Kings 19: 4-8 and Ephesians 4: 25 - 5: 2, preached on August 11, 2024

Many years ago, in a small European village, the priest decided it was time to teach the town gossip a lesson. I don’t know what it was that finally pushed him over the edge. Whatever it was, he had had enough, and so he asked the town gossip to come to the church, where he led her up the stairs to the steeple There, he cut a slit in a feather pillow, handed it to her, and asked her to empty it out. She did. She shook the feathers out from the pillowcase. Some didn’t go far. They just hit the roof and glided down along the shingles to the gutter, but others were caught by the wind, and they went far and wide, over the tops of houses and through the streets of the town. Pointing to the empty pillowcase, the priest then said, “Put them back. Pick up all those feathers and put them back into the pillowcase.” “That’s impossible,” the town gossip said. “It can’t be done.” The priest agreed. “You’re right,” he said, “And your words are the same. Once you’ve whispered a rumor to your friend or your neighbor, you have no control over where those words go next. You can’t get them back, and your words have swept through the streets of this town like those feathers, damaging reputations for years.” After that, the town gossip changed her ways, but this morning I ask you: Why did she gossip in the first place? My friends, nearly 2,000 years ago, the words of our second Scripture lesson were written. Since then, have we gotten any better at using our words to “build each other up?” That’s what the Apostle Paul urges us to do this morning: Put away falsehood. Speak the truth in love. Be angry, but do not sin. Let no evil talk come out of your mouths. Be imitators of God. That’s the word we’ve read this morning. Yet, judging the state of our nation by the headlines or my social media feed, some days it appears as though we have only gotten worse about using our words since the Apostle first penned these words to the Ephesians. A member of our church sent me a joke yesterday that the legion of evil spirits Jesus sent to inhabit that herd of pigs in the Gospel of Matthew must have jumped out of those pigs and landed on Twitter. I read the headlines, and I scroll through my social media feeds, and I wonder, why do we talk this way to each other? Why do adults today violate the standards of speech enforced in our preschool? If we won’t allow the children of this church to call each other names, then why are we doing it? Why do we spread rumors? Why do we put each other down? In traffic, why are we so quick to honk the horn so aggressively? I think it was my mother-in-law who forwarded an email to me about why it’s good to be patient while driving. I wonder what it was about my driving that inspired her to send me this email. The email was about how, when we’re on the road, we don’t know where the person in front of us is going. It may be that the driver in front of us is driving so slowly because he’s on the way home from a funeral and is wiping tears from his eyes. Likewise, we don’t know why the couple is moving so slowly down the grocery store aisles. While we’re trying to get in and out of Kroger as quickly as possible, it may be that the couple slowing us down is taking their time because they just heard the news that she only has weeks to live, and so they’re trying to savor every moment. My friends, we don’t know what kind of day our neighbors are having. We don’t know what kind of day the bus driver or the garbage man is having. We don’t know if our mail carrier has been bitten by a dog or if the waitress just heard she was rejected from another graduate program. We don’t know what kind of battles the people around us are fighting, so be kind, the email said, and that’s lesson of our second Scripture lesson. Build each other up. We can’t mirror the standard of speech out in the world. We’re not supposed to imitate the world. We’re called to be imitators of God. Likely you’ve heard all this already, so think with me this morning about why it’s so hard to do these things. Why is it so tempting to say, “If you don’t have anything nice to say, come sit by me.” Why is gossip fun to hear? Why do we lash out at strangers? Why are we rude? Why are we attracted to politicians who slander their opponents? Sometimes, we are our worst selves just because we’re hungry. I love our first Scripture lesson. It’s the story of Elijah, who needed a snack. He had been running and running. He was so tired, he fell asleep under a broom tree just after saying, “It is enough; now, O Lord, take away my life.” Have you ever felt that way? Sure, you have, and notice how God responds. God responds the way my mother did when I came home grumpy after a day at school and an afternoon of baseball practice. “How was your day?” she’d ask. “Fine,” I’d say. “Tell me about it. What happened?” “Nothing,” I’d respond. Then she’d say, “Why don’t you get yourself a snack, and then we’ll talk.” Likewise, the angel of God said to Elijah, “Get up and eat, or the journey will be too much for you.” There’s so much wisdom in just that statement, so my friends, if you ever catch yourself saying things to your neighbor that we would not tolerate in our preschool, have a snack. If you ever catch yourself losing your mind over an email you just read, and you hear yourself typing a response more loudly than usual because your fingertips are slamming down on the keyboard, take your lunch break. One of the greatest technological advances that I can think of in recent years is this feature on our email program at the church. After hitting “send,” you can “undo send” for a few minutes just in case you think better of it, and so to the question of “Why don’t we use our words to build each other up?” part of it is because we’re hungry or tired. We’re not so different than infants who cry when we get tired or hungry or wet. When I make the mistake of riding my bike on a rainy day, I walk into the house in a bad mood because I’m wet. Our physical state affects our emotional state. That’s not my opinion, that’s science, and it’s Scripture, so before you speak, have a snack, stop, and think it over. Take your time in using your words, for once your words are out of your mouth, they are like feathers taken up by the wind. That’s just how it is. If you’re really needing to criticize somebody, if you’re really wanting to knock someone off his pedestal, look at your feet and consider the ground you’re standing on. My friends, we can’t build each other up if we’re not standing on solid ground ourselves. If we’re trying to leave someone out of the circle, it’s likely because we don’t feel like we belong. Life is this competition, it seems sometimes. When I was a kid, I thought that it would get better once I was grown. It’s not. Parents are as nervous at the parent meeting as the kids are on the first day of school because adults are not as different from children as we like to think. We adults get hungry and grumpy and throw temper tantrums. We feel insecure and worry if we’ll be included. Christians, we can’t help others feel good about themselves if we don’t feel good about who we are. That’s why I remind you on Sundays at the very end of the service: Remember who you are. If you notice yourself losing your temper or spreading gossip, take a nap, have a snack, and remember who you are. We are on a journey to the Kingdom of God, and we need strength for that journey. Stand on the truth, and then you’ll have the strength to put away falsehood. Rejoice in the promises of God, and then you’ll be able to build up your neighbor. Remember who you are, and then remind your neighbor who she is. My friends, we won’t be able to be true imitators of God until we experience His love for ourselves. Last week, I remembered this moment in the Metro State Women’s Prison. I was a chaplain intern there one summer years ago. It was a hard summer because my eyes were opened to realities I hadn’t ever considered before. There was one woman who asked to meet with me because she was afraid God was going to send her to Hell. “What got you thinking about that?” I asked her. She told me about this dream she had, this memory that was coming back. There was a campfire, and around the campfire, she remembered doing things that she regretted and men who took advantage of her, and so she asked me if I believed God would send her back into that fire. I told her that I believed she had already been to hell, and that Jesus came to save her, not send her back to the place she’d already been because I believe that Christ has saved us from condemnation, and as Christ loved us and gave Himself up for us, let us be kind to one another. I see such kindness in our preschool. This little preschool student invited me to his birthday party last week. His birthday is in February, his mom told me, but I’m looking forward to it. Just that invitation reminded me of the joy that we are promised in Christ Jesus our Lord. Remember that promise. Remember His love. And love one another. Amen.