Using Your Tongue

James 3:1-12 [Mark 8:27-38; Psalm 19]

Have you ever said something and suddenly found your hand flying up to cover your mouth, as though you could shove the words back in?

I have.

Words of anger.

Truths that didn’t belong where I said them.

Or just plain stupid mistakes.

Words are risky things.

Mitt Romney knows something about that this week – about the way what you say can start a firestorm of trouble, a hurricane of words and statements and arguments and criticism. 

Even if you meant to say that.

He’s not the only one. 

Every candidate and most appointed leaders in the world know this (at least everywhere there’s a free press.) And every free press knows this. Many of you know this experience as well as I do, and James the apostle clearly knew it, too.

“All of us make many mistakes.” he says.  And “every species of beast and bird, of reptile and sea creature, can be tamed and has been tamed by the human species, but no one can tame the tongue!”

Think about your tongue for a moment.

Think about its power to shape words – which it does without your conscious direction.  Think about its power to direct your body, your attention, even your whole self.  If someone else got hold of your tongue and pulled – just that tiny bit of you – the rest of you would come along. 

It’s a small but powerful part of the body, and it shapes the world, too.

Year after year, Republicans and Democrats try to shape our experience of today and our plans for the future by the words they choose and the way they use them. 

Our own words about ourselves and our families create “the smart one and the funny one;” our words and their words create the family pariah (or piranha), and the office power-broker.

A few wrong words can break a friendship, and the three little words, “I love you,” spoken honestly, deeply, and often can heal all kinds of injury or create a new future.

When we call God “Father” and “Lord” over and over, we relate to God as a powerful man instead of as, say,  a mother or an artist. There’s a difference between the titles “Messiah” and “prophet,” between death and resurrection as defeat or as salvation – all the questions raised in Jesus’ conversation with the disciples that we heard today.

And James points out that our words about others affect our relationship with God, too.

He marvels at the way our tongues can bless God one minute, and curse a human being – made in God’s image – in the next minute.              How could it not affect our relationship with God to tear down God’s image in another person – even in the most annoying or politically scary person we know?

You and I live in a world where the tongue sets fires every day and hour.  With a cable network for every point of view, an online world where the people we “talk” with are far away and unfamiliar, it grows easier and easier to say inflammatory things. 

Anyone with a Facebook feed or a Twitter account – or for that matter, anyone who reads “Speak Out” in the Lombardian – knows how easy it is to say something destructive about neighbors, the cable company, or any government official or political candidate.

And those words: words we speak, words we hear, words we write and read,

words that spark anger and hate, separation and disgust,

all those words break down our image of God and our ability to bless.

And we need that ability to bless.  Because just as words can destroy, they can also build up.  Words can create a powerful, hopeful future.

Even political words:

“Ask not what your country can do for you, but what you can do for your country.”
“The only thing we have to fear is fear itself.”

“It’s morning in America.”
“Yes, we can.”

Those are words of blessing, words that create a world of commitment, and courage, and abundant possibility.  Those words build a new and better world.

So do simple words, like “I love you” or “I’m so happy to see you.”

Calm words in the face of panic, grateful words in the midst of loss; words of thanks and praise for everyday gifts like a helpful clerk, a well-behaved child, a good and easy friendship.

All those are blessings. Blessings that shape our selves and the people around us into the beautiful image of God, words that create a hopeful future and a joyful present.

In the biblical tradition, words of blessing offer praise, and invite God to create growth and abundance; to infuse grace into the world and the ones we bless.

It’s our job, yours and mine, as followers of the Messiah, and as the image of God,

to bless.

To use our tongues to start a fire that gives light to the world, rather than burning it.

To use our tongues to build up, not to tear down, to heal those wounds that other words have left.

So in honor of James,

in honor of a country that shouldn’t be divided by words,

and in honor of God’s word made flesh,

let’s start the blessing, now.

Let’s start by blessing one another, today.

You’ll need a partner for this.  Find someone.

You’ll offer your partner a blessing.

Start by saying something nice.  Not about what they’re wearing, but about what they do or who they are.  If you don’t know your partner well, remember that you know she is made in God’s wonderful image, that you know he is a beloved child of God.

Then ask God to strengthen that beauty, to increase that grace and that love.

If no other words come to you, use the blessing that God taught the people of Israel:

            May God bless you and keep you;

            May God shine light on you and be gracious to you;

            May God look favorably on you and give you peace.

***

Take that blessing with you, and pass it on.

Practice words of blessing this afternoon,

this week, at home and at the office,

online and in your heart.

Offer up the prayer from our psalm today:
“Let the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart be acceptable in your sight, O Lord, my strength and my redeemer.”

Because the power of your tongue will change the world.

So let it bless, and build up,

and light up the world.

And may the blessing of God our Creator, who spoke the world into being, and of Christ the Word Incarnate, and of the Spirit who gives breath to our words, be among you this day, and remain with you always. Amen.

One Hundred Percent

James 2:1-17; Mark 7:24-37

Imagine a high school lunchroom, on the first day of a new year.

Two new girls arrive. One is wearing an ordinary t-shirt and jeans; the other is wearing official US Olympic gear and a gymnastics gold medal.

What happens in the room?

That’s an easy one, right?
All the attention swooshes instantly to the gymnast. There’s a space for her at everybody’s table, a crowd forms – the rest of the students want to get to know her, to be friends. No one is really paying attention to the other new girl.  She’s on her own to find a place at the edge of the crowd.

When a celebrity walks into the room it doesn’t mean anything about what we think of the ordinary people, like the other new girl, right?  In fact, there’s a good chance the other new girl is just as excited to see McKayla or Jordan or Gabby at her school as anyone else in the room.  It’s a normal distinction between the exceptional and the ordinary.

But it’s exactly what James is talking about.

We heard rich man and poor man in James’ letter today, and it makes perfect sense that James would be mad at people showing favoritism to the rich in church.
We already know – we’re Christians, we pay attention – that God loves poor people just as much as rich people, maybe more, and we should follow Jesus’ example of loving everyone.  But our own first, unthinking, reaction would probably be different if the next two people to walk in to Calvary were one of our neighbors from PADS, and Brian Urlacher

James is talking to a community that would very reasonably assume that someone showing up in gold and fine clothes has earned all they have, is righteous and well-loved by God – in other words, the kind of people you’d like to have in your neighborhood.  And the belief that wealth demonstrates character and the question about how to respond to poor people in our world are alive and well in our own culture.  Any 15 minutes of election coverage will tell you that.

So it’s not as simple as it sounds.

James is pointing out that we make distinctions all the time.   We get excited about celebrities, read books and stories about the success of Steve Jobs or Bill Gates, or get entertainment out of watching Donald Trump fire people. 

When we do these things, we judge others.

And James suggests that when we’re more impressed by fame, fortune, athletic awards and TV air time than by the simple image of God in our next door neighbor,

we’re failing that “love your neighbor as yourself” commandment.

Think about it:
How many of you are famous? – raise your hands.

How many are rich?

How many of you are in the top one percent of anything that you do?

If we pay more attention to the folks who are rich, and famous, and on the top of their field than we do to the next person we happen to meet, the people who are ordinary, like us, then we’re failing to love as God loves

and we’re not respecting ourselves enough.

Americans love the top one percent – not because of tax brackets, but because we love winners.  The ten out of thousands who make it to American Idol, the Olympics, or the top of the Fortune 500. Success – fame, fortune, and first prize – for any of us, maybe all of us – is the American Dream.

It’s a great dream. But it’s not the gospel.

The gospel is about the 99 percent.  Or better yet, the 100 percent.

Think about the story we just heard, when a foreign woman turns up and begs Jesus for a miracle for her daughter. And Jesus says, “You can’t take the children’s food and throw it to the dogs.”

It’s exactly the insult it sounds like.  But Jesus is also expressing the reasonable priorities of someone who can’t do everything at once. He’s going to start with Israel, the people chosen to bear God’s word in the world, before taking on all comers.

Then the gospel is revealed when the nameless woman talks back. 

“Even the dogs eat the crumbs,” she argues.

There is already enough she says. 

Enough for the rest of us.  Enough for one hundred percent at the same time.

And she wins the argument.  Jesus gives credit to her logic and her words when he heals her daughter.  There’s enough.  Enough for one percent to be one hundred percent.

Then Jesus heads further out into Gentile territory, and starts healing and feeding folks beyond the obvious people of God. That woman is exactly right.  There is already enough for everybody.

That’s when we come back to loving your neighbor as yourself.

Have you ever decided not to take your private trouble to God in prayer because it just wasn’t important enough?  Because hurricanes and cancer and someone else’s needs were more important?

How does that reflect on God’s love?

Listen to the Syrophonecian woman:
Even the dogs eat the crumbs already.  There’s enough, now, for the least important to be heard and seen and fed.

Have you ever gone out of your way for someone important at the expense of your spouse, or your co-workers, or even yourself?

It’s what we often have to do to succeed, let’s be honest. It’s normal.

But how does that reflect God’s values?

James and the Syrophonecian woman tell us the same thing:

 The least of us – the everyday people, the 99 percent – matter equally with the “important” people, the top percent.

Our faith works when we are so confident of enough that we feed the hungry and shelter the destitute out of our own resources,

and it works when we spend God’s time on the ordinary people.

When we turn off the newsmakers on the TV in order to listen to and care about the ordinary news of our grandchildren, our very average neighbor, or the relative you’ve stopped listening to because they never stop talking.

Our faith works when we turn our attention, and God’s, to the banal, ordinary needs for respect and connection that each of us have, in our prayers for ourselves, in time spent with others, and in hundreds of little, ordinary ways.

None of the “Fab Five” Olympic gymnasts go to Glenbard or Willowbrook.  And in each of those high schools are hundreds of kids who won’t ever win a game, get the highest grade, invent the next iPhone or become President.  Your high school class was the same.

Our faith works when we love those neighbors as ourselves,

and we love ourselves with one hundred percent of God’s love,

because there’s already enough,

and when we stand up for that, everyone wins.