“A Word about Words” - August 30, 2015

James 1:17-27

            Have you ever heard someone say that they “lost their religion” with somebody?  That’s a phrase you hear down South that means “losing your temper”.  It’s also the title of an R.E.M. song and it’s interesting to me that the song talks about saying too much or too little (“Oh no, I’ve said too much / I haven’t said enough…”), because the Letter of James makes the point:

“If any think they are religious, and do not bridle their tongues but deceive their hearts, their religion is worthless.” [James 1:26]

Losing your religion and loosing your tongue go together.  Speech is all too often the vehicle for harm. 

Today we pray for the people we will send off to school next week.  The power of words is one of the earliest lessons that they learn. 

“Sticks and stones will break my bones, but names will never hurt me.” 

Really? If that were true, that rhyme would never have come into existence, let alone have become one that every child learns.  Names hurt.  “Hey, there, Fatso!  How’s it going?” or “You doofus!” or “Chicken legs!”  That sort of thing stays with someone well beyond childhood, building into them the message, “There’s something wrong with you.  You are not good enough.  You are lacking.  You will never measure up.”  In time, most people overcome the playground insults, but some people never do and most of us can probably at least remember something that found its way into a first-grade heart and still stings.  It’s right that we pray for people we are sending off into the jungle of the playground.

One would hope that adults would treat each other better.  That doesn’t always happen.  Alice Roosevelt Longworth, Teddy Roosevelt’s daughter, was a Washington hostess for many years and had a needlepoint sampler hanging in her parlor that said, “If you can’t say anything nice, come sit next to me.”  The novelist Evelyn Waugh had an ongoing professional rivalry with Winston Churchill’s son Randolph.  He was asked to comment when Randolph Churchill had had surgery and a tumor was removed that turned out to be benign.  His response was, “Leave it to modern medicine to find the one piece of Randolph that is not malignant and remove it.”  I confess to my own admiration of a zinger like that for the sheer creativity behind it – as long as it’s aimed at someone else.  I can joke about my height, but I’d rather you didn’t do it too often.

Another problem with speech is that words come out of our mouths so fast sometimes that we don’t always know the harm that they can do and most of it (I believe) may even be inadvertent.  For example, it’s easy to use terms for people’s jobs that don’t give them their full due.  It sounds sort of picky, I’ll admit, but it makes a difference.  A maintenance worker is often someone with a broad knowledge of electrical work, plumbing, construction, and so forth and has to know state safety codes and proper procedures for handling hazardous materials as well as where to find the trash bags.  That deserves a better description than “janitor”.  I know I fall into using the term “church secretary” for what is actually a position with a lot more complexity to it than folks realize, and I should be more careful to say, “Administrator.”  I won’t even go into those times when the word “just” comes into things like “just a housewife” or “just a classroom aide” or “just a mechanic”.

Speech flows even more swiftly when people are angry and with even less thought.  That’s when words are used deliberately as weapons.  James warns about that.

“You must understand this, my beloved: let everyone be quick to listen, slow to speak, slow to anger; for your anger does not produce God’s righteousness.” [James 1:19-20]

I read a lot of news online, and it used to be that I would also read the comments at the end of the articles.  I don’t do that so much anymore.  If the writer says anything at all controversial you can be certain that someone will jump on the author right away and someone else will spring to the defense and then those two and possibly others will end up in the verbal equivalent of a bar fight.  That does no good.  If we are about producing God’s righteousness, as James puts it, we have to choose our words carefully, and maybe choose not to speak at all at times of hurt and anger. 

The gospels describe the brutality of Jesus’ torture and death in very direct terms.  When Pilate took Jesus out in front of an angry mob that was demanding his crucifixion, John tells us that Pilate himself took the whip to Jesus [John 19:1] before handing him over to soldiers who would slam a thorn of crowns on his head and slap him around for fun. [John 19:2-7]  Then Jesus was taken back into the Roman headquarters for Pilate to interrogate him again.  Tell me, honestly, that in such a situation you or I would not be filled with absolute rage and want to scream the anger and the pain back in Pilate’s face.  Yet John says, when Pilate continued to question him,

“Jesus gave no answer.” [John 19:9]

There’s an African-American spiritual that says,

“They crucified my Lord,

and he never said a mumbalin’ word;

they crucified my Lord,

and he never said a mumbalin’ word,

not a word, not a word, not a word.

They nailed him to the tree,

and he never said a mumbalin’ word;

they nailed him to the tree,

and he never said a mumbalin’ word,

not a word, not a word, not a word.

He hung his head and died,

and he never said a mumbalin’ word;

he hung his head and died,

and he never said a mumbalin’ word,

not a word, not a word, not a word.”

If there was ever anyone who had the right to cry out in angry condemnation, it was him, but he did not do that, even in the most extreme pain.  It was Jesus’ silent courage and patience under suffering, all for love even of his enemies that really and truly worked the righteousness of God. 

            For those who seek to follow him, it likewise is not their words but their works that speak the plainest and are heard the best.

“If any think they are religious, and do not bridle their tongues but deceive their hearts, their religion is worthless. Religion that is pure and undefiled before God, the Father, is this: to care for orphans and widows in their distress, and to keep oneself unstained by the world.”  [James 1:26-27]

Nobody is saying that’s easy.  Then again, how many things that are worthwhile really are?

            Enough said.