St. Paul’s United
Church Sunday, September 13, 2009
Taming our Tongues!– Rev. David Mundy
Proverbs 1:20-33
James 3:1-12
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
It must be a dozen years ago or more that I took my car to the
muffler shop and then looked around to see where I would spend the next hour
while they did the work. Since the muffler place was at a busy intersection, it
will come as no surprise that there was a doughnut shop nearby, one of a chain
with the initials Tim and Horton.
I knew that my morning newspaper, a cup of coffee, and an
apple fritter would get me through my wait but I never got around to reading.
Instead I was entertained by a couple at a nearby table. Almost from the moment
I sat down I was aware that they were not what you would describe as a happy
pair. In fact, I discovered, as did virtually everyone else seated in the shop,
that they were formerly a couple, rather than currently a couple.
She was definitely more expressive, shall we say, than he was
and she managed to cover a lot of territory in a relatively short period of
time. We heard about how difficult it was to survive financially since the
breakup which had occurred several years before. She thoroughly critiqued his
skills as a parent when he had custody of their teenage children and she had a
little left over for his current partner.
He kept up his attempts to get to the issue that had brought
them together in what was probably meant to be a neutral and public location,
but she was obviously more than willing to carry the conversation. I looked
around at one point and noticed that hardly anyone else was talking and it
might have been my imagination but it seemed as though everybody was leaning
toward this one conversation.
Since that morning years ago I have noticed how often
conversations in these sorts of settings tend toward the nasty and the vindictive.
People are on break from work and they are into the office politics while
chewing on their french fries. If you were asked what
body part can do more damage, a tongue or a fist you’re initial response might
be the fist, but honestly that might not be true. The tongue is a muscle and
its impact can be far more devastating than the force behind a physical punch.
Ask the staff of women’s shelters about the power of the tongue to demean and
degrade a person.
Did you notice that the passage from the letter called James
was about the effects of a nasty tongue this morning? During these few weeks of September our
epistle or letter readings will be from this book of James, whose authorship is
a bit of a mystery, even though the book bears the name of a particular person.
Tradition says that this James was the brother of Jesus, which is curious
because Jesus is only mentioned twice in the letter. I have grown fond of James
through the years with its emphasis on practical down-to-earth faith. Last week’s
reading asks a series of probing questions:
What good is it, my brothers and
sisters, if you say you have faith but do not have works? Can faith save you?
If a brother or sister is naked and lacks daily food, and one of you says to
them “Go in peace, keep warm and eat your fill, and yet you do not supply their
bodily needs, where is the good of that? So faith by itself, if it has no
works, is dead.
There is an edginess to James that
can make us a little uncomfortable and demands our action as Christians. Today’s
reading asks us to remember that the way we speak and the language we use can
be very powerful, both for good and for evil. James refers to a nasty tongue as
“a restless evil, full of deadly poison.”
James also uses several interesting metaphors to point out
that the tongue may be small but it is mighty. There is the bridle in the horse’s
mouth, and the rudder on a sailing ship. The final image of a spark which
starts a forest fire probably strikes a chord with people living in California
and British Columbia who have seen wildfires rage through their regions this
summer, threatening homes and livelihoods.
How important is language to our everyday lives? “Actions
speak louder than words” we sometimes say, but often speech is a form of
action. We take for granted the ability to communicate with one another through
speech, although as we hear a young child form his or first words we are filled with delight. When someone loses the gift of
speech through a stroke or some other debilitating event we are aware of how
restricted life can be without the ability to communicate through words.
Now that we are losing our arrogance about other living
creatures we are realizing that humans aren’t alone in being able to
communicate through fairly complex sounds and there are animals such as chimps
and parrots which are capable of learning English words and stringing them
together in sentences. But it does seem to be humans alone who are able to use
language as a tool to build up and unite, as well as a weapon to tear down and
destroy.
A few moments ago I used the word “evil” to describe the
negative effects of speech and you may have wondered if that wasn’t a bit
strong. Consider, though, the potential for words to undermine relationships.
To use this metaphor of the tongue, I will offer you three different ways in
which words can be destructive. They are the
Angry Tongue
Complaining Tongue
Gossiping Tongue
During the summer I spoke on anger and the way angry speech
can be hurtful and blaming. It can also become a daily way of being, in we are
not careful, rather than an occasional outburst. Unfortunately some of you have
lived in relationships where you are constantly in a defensive mode because of the
critical words of someone you want to trust and love.
The complaining tongue is powerful as well. James seemed to
realize that complaining is contagious and nasty the way a virus can be. We are
all concerned about the possible effects of the H1N1 virus this Fall. Complaining can be the deadly pandemic of Christian
communities: once it gets started it is difficult to get the spiritual hygiene
in place to stop it. If one person starts complaining, it tends to spread.
Earlier this summer one of our daughters came home from work and mentioned that
she dealt with a customer who seemed intent on complaining about what seemed to
be a minor concern. She commented that one “hard-core” complainer could affect
the tone of the whole day.
Then there is gossip. Gossip is so tempting because it gives
us a feeling of power to be “in the know.” But of course gossip is rumour and
conjecture. It doesn’t have to be accurate or truthful and often it is absurdly
wrong. We know the phrase “If you can’t say something nice about someone,
don’t say anything at all” and every once in a while I do the funeral for a
person who I’m told never uttered an unkind word about anyone. Those people are
truly a rarity. You might remember that in the movie Steel Magnolias one
of the characters who haunted the local hair salon offered “If you can’t say
something nice about someone, come sit next to me!”
That twist on the old axiom is funny, but gossip isn’t. Gossip is cowardly and
nasty because the gossipers rarely have the courage to address the subject
face-to-face.
If we agree that anger and complaint and gossip aren’t God’s
intention for our lives, then how do we tame our
tongues? The good news is that having a
care about our speech is one of the most straightforward ways of changing our
lives for good, and for Christ.
We need to be thoughtful in the way we use language,
appreciating that our words can be the rudder that steers us toward right
relationships and healing. Last November I went to an exhibit in Washington,
D.C. which anticipated the 200th anniversary of the birth of
American president Abraham Lincoln. As I’m sure you know,
Lincoln was considered a great orator, holding audiences spellbound by his
speeches. I discovered that Lincoln didn’t simply have “the gift of the gab.” He
was so aware of the effect of words that he often agonized over his addresses,
writing and rewriting until he had penned what he really wanted to say. In this
day of often careless, throwaway words, we can be reminded that what we say
matters. We don’t have to write speeches that affect the course of a nation,
but our words matter.
We can also cultivate what we might term the encouraging
tongue. Often one of the first words children say is “no” because they hear it
so often as a necessary warning about their activities. The challenge is to
figure out how our use of words can be an emphatic “yes” in our interactions
with others, whatever age they might be. What if we all committed ourselves to
one act of verbal encouragement and gratitude in each day?
I began with a story this morning, so I’ll end with one as
well, although this one is more recent. In August I stopped in to see our
oldest member who turned 103 years old on September first, an amazing woman who
can still carry on a conversation. And what a tongue she has on her – in a good
way! She is one of the most gracious people I have ever experienced, always
pouring out praise for the people who care for her and for family and
friends. I told her what a good person
she is and she responded by telling me that she was shaped by a loving,
Christian family, and that life has been filled with goodness – she can’t think
of anything to complain about.
Now, this is a woman who is now shaped like a question mark
because of arthritis and she can’t hear very well. She is old enough to
remember both world wars. She suffered the death of her beloved husband and a
son. But that old tongue of hers can’t waggle out a complaint. I find her
tremendously inspiring and an encouragement to be a better person of faith. I
don’t know if she has ever read the book of James, but she certainly lives the
message.
We can all tame our tongues and become people of encouragement
and hope in Christ’s name. This is worth saying!