Sermon Title: "Talk Like a Christian"
Date: September 13, 2009
Minister: Rev. Charles Ensley

Lesson:  James 3:1-12

A man lived in a highland village in Scotland.  He passed along a story about another man that he didn’t care for.  At the time, he thought the story to be true.  When the story got around the village, it utterly destroyed the man.  His family, his job and his integrity were all devastated by the rumor mill.  He finally had to leave town — a ruined and defeated man.

In time, the fellow who passed the story along discovered that the rumor was false.  He had helped to destroy an innocent man with his tongue.  He went to his pastor and said, “Pastor, I have destroyed a man with my words,” and he told the whole story.  “Please,” he said, “I am sorry — can I be forgiven this sin?”

The pastor told the man that this was not so simple, and told him to take a bag of feathers and place one in the front yard of every house in the village.  Although the fellow thought this to be a strange request for a pastor to make, he really wanted forgiveness, so he followed the instructions to the letter.  At last he came back to the pastor and said, “I have done all that you asked; may I now be forgiven?”

“Not yet, my son,” the pastor replied. “You must first retrace your steps and bring back to me every feather you placed in the village!”  “But—I could never do that!” the man exclaimed.  “The wind has carried the feathers away!”  “Yes,” the pastor said, “and in like manner have your careless words destroyed an innocent man!”

How could James know the reality when he wrote:  “How great a forest is set ablaze by a small fire!  And the tongue is a fire.” (3:5-6)  The Station Fire burning in the Angeles Forest has consumed over 160,000 acres, all because of a small fire that began, perhaps set intentionally by an arsonist.  And if a fire can blaze to do damage to such a huge area, so too can the tongue do if it is spreading gossip or untruths, even if unintentionally.

Back in the early ‘80s, when we lived in New York, Peggy was at a meeting of her hospital chapter where she asked her friend how the new rector was doing at her Episcopal church.  Either he or his wife—I don’t remember which—had a son from a previous marriage.  Peggy’s friend asked how our church handled that.  “Handled what?” Peggy asked.  “Well, with Charlie being married before,” her friend replied.

Imagine my surprise, my shock to have Peggy come home that evening and inform me that I had been married before!  I said the marriage must have been so horrible that I blocked it completely out of my mind.  Now, my congregation knew I was not married before, for they had received a biographical introduction when I was called to the church.  But, for some reason, it seems that certain people in town thought I was married before.  At least it wasn’t malicious gossip about me that was circulating.

Doubtless someone here is thinking, ‘Why is Charlie preaching on this today?  What is he addressing in our church?’  Nothing that I am aware of, I’m happy to say.  I just thought it would be worthwhile to continue our walk through the epistle of James.  While we know not the circumstances that caused James to address the issue of the damage done by wagging tongues in today’s lesson, he does come at it from a historical perspective.

“All of the wisdom of the ancient Mediterranean world, both Greco-Roman and Jewish, agreed on certain points concerning the power and perils of speech.  From the sages of ancient Egypt, through the biblical books of Proverbs and Sirach, to the essays of Plutarch and Seneca, there is a consensus that silence is better than speech, that hearing, not speaking, is the pathway to wisdom, that speech when necessary should be brief, that above all speech should be under control and never the expression of rage or envy.  The mark of the wise person was above all control of speech.”  (Luke T. Johnson, commentary on James, The New Interpreter’s Bible, Vol XII, Nashville:  Abingdon Press, 1998, p. 203)

To talk like a Christian, we need to speak to other people with a full awareness that they are created in God’s image.  A key verse from Proverbs 22:2 I used last Sunday was, “The rich and the poor have this in common:  the Lord is the maker of them all.”  Whoever we encounter is a person breathed into being with the very breath of God himself.  There is a holiness built into each human being, a sacredness that comes from their Creator, and we miss an important aspect of their existence when we overlook this quality if we choose to dismiss or demean them with curt, cutting or caustic remarks.

Would you ever attempt to talk in a discouraging, deceptive or destructive way to the Lord?  While we may lash out at God in frustration or anger over some tragedy over which we have no control, generally our respect for God is far too high to routinely speak to God in such a derogatory manner.  So why would we behave this way toward our brothers and sisters?

Joseph Stowell has written:  “Recent studies tend to disprove the saying many of us grew up with:  ‘Sticks and stones may break my bones, but names will never hurt me.’  Adults polled said they had gotten over most of the physical pains of childhood.  But many had never recovered from the hurtful words, names and labels that had been placed on them.  Physical wounds heal, as is evidenced from the scars we carry.  But verbal wounds frequently refuse to close, oozing pain and keeping us tender and vulnerable.

“We must be constantly aware that our words carry an impact.  They affect our children, our students, our spouses, our friends, our neighbors, and our business associates.  That’s why God holds us accountable for ‘every careless word’ (Matthew 12:36).  Yet controlling the words that come out of our mouth is a huge challenge,” Stowell concludes.  (Joseph Stowell, The Weight of Your Words, Moody, 1998, p. 15)

One time-honored way of dealing with gossip is called the “three-filter test.”  Some say it dates all the way back to Socrates.

•  The first filter is Truth:  Are you absolutely sure the statement is true?

•  The second filter is Goodness:  Does the statement say something good about another person?

•  The third filter is Usefulness:  Is the statement useful in some way?

It’s not necessary for the conditions of all three filters to be fulfilled.  For example, a statement may be true and useful but may still say something bad about another person.  While it could hurt the other person, there may still be some value in saying it.  For instance, if that person’s actions were hurting another person, or if they were engaged in some illegal or dangerous activity.

The three-filter test is most useful when none of the three conditions is fulfilled.  Then it’s easy to discard the statement as mere gossip.

There can be little doubt that language has tremendous power to influence, to teach, to sway ones opinion.  With communications available today through radio, television, Internet, something said on one side of the world can be heard at the opposite side instantaneously.  Something posted on the Internet, even this sermon, can be read immediately by anyone anywhere in the world with Internet capability.  For that reason, we need to choose all our words, whether written or uttered from our mouth, with care.

If, as James had led us to reflect in today’s passage, human language is such a potent instrument for the continuation of God’s creative work, both in the church and in the world, several corollaries suggest themselves.  The first is that we pay attention to the language we use.  The language of faith is not something that can be taken for granted; it must be nurtured.  The second is that, even as we preserve the language of faith against forces in the world that diminish the role of faith, we must work to keep our language open to the mystery of God’s self-disclosure.  Perhaps the United Church of Christ’s current slogan, God is still speaking, serves as a most potent and effective reminder of that which was uttered by our religious forefather John Robinson as the Pilgrims set sail for the New World:  “The Lord hath yet more light and truth to break forth from His holy word.” 

Finally, those who have the special task of shaping theological language within the church—not only the academicians at the seminary, but we parish preachers and Sunday School teachers—bear the greater responsibility for keeping the language of faith alive.  We are charged with translating in an understandable way the rich tenets of our Christian faith—not by confounding you with words like eschatological or ecclesiastical or exegetical—but by sharing the Good News of Jesus Christ, the promise of Eternal Life through him, the everlasting love of God, and the charity of loving your neighbor, and speaking kindly and fairly of him or her, whether or not you agree with them.

“The tongue is a fire,” said James.  The question is whether it will burn down our communities and churches or whether the word of God’s wisdom, speaking through us, will provide light and warmth for everyone.