Church on Morgan
When You Open Your Mouth
[MUSIC PLAYING] From Church on Morgan, a United Methodist congregation whose desire is to be a reminder of the beauty of God and each other. This podcast is a collection of Sunday teachings inspired by the revised Common Lectionary and recorded weekly in Raleigh, North Carolina. And now a moment of silence before this episode begins. [MUSIC PLAYING] God made the words of my mouth and the meditations of our hearts be acceptable in your sight. Oh Lord, our rock and our Redeemer, amen. This morning, we're in James chapter 3. Two weeks ago, James 1, last week James 2, today James 3. Next week, Tim's Adventure. We'll see what he signs up for. James writes this, "Not many of you should become teachers. My brothers and sisters, for you know that we who teach will face stricter judgment awkward. For all of us, make many mistakes. Anyone who makes no mistakes in speaking is mature, able to keep the whole body in check with a bridle. If we put bits into the mouths of horses to make them obey us, we guide their whole bodies, or look at ships, though they are so large, and are driven by strong winds. Yet they are guided by a very small rudder, wherever the will of the pilot directs. So also is the tongue, a small member, and yet it boasts of great exploits. How great a forest is set ablaze by such a small fire, and the tongue is fire. The tongue is placed among our members as a world of iniquity. It stains the whole body. It sits on fire the cycle of life, and is itself set on fire by hell. For 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. A restless evil full of deadly poison. And with it we bless the Lord and Father, and with it we curse people made in the likeness of God. From the same mouth comes a blessing and a curse. My brothers and sisters, this ought not to be so. Does a spring pour forth from the same opening, both fresh and brackish water? Can a fig tree, my brothers and sisters, yield olives or a grapevine figs? No more, consult water, yield, fresh. Friends, this is the Word of God for us, the people of God. Thanks. So this morning, for just a few moments, I want us to add James' guidance here. I want us to observe, to notice, to pay attention to this topic of our speech, of the words that we use, of the role that language plays in our life together. And if you set what we read down for just a moment, and you were to kind of take a survey of what is it that we say collectively, what do we tend to say about words these days and about our speech, here would be my read, here's my take, here's what I hear when we talk about words. We say things like, talk is cheap, talk is cheap. And we, for example, there's a couple of different studies that kind of try to get at, how many words we use in a day. But it's somewhere between six and like 15,000, depending on how old or apparently younger people talk a lot more, older people we just sort of get worn out. But at some point in your life, you were probably dropping 15,000 words a day on the people around you. And eventually that gets down to about 6,000. Most of us speak at somewhere around 150 words per minute. That's how many words we're just dropping in a minute. And so we step back from kind of that realization. And we just sort of say, this world's got enough words. We've had enough of words. And talk is cheap. In fact, sometimes when we put something in a placeholder for speech in and of itself, we say blah, blah, blah. This is how we understand and value words. Blah, blah, blah. I was at a seminar just a couple weeks ago where somebody shared the statistic that I've heard many times before. You probably have as well. But it was about communication. And they were saying in communication this thing that we're participating in together, you and I, I've got something inside of me and experience a perspective, a reality that I'm going to work really hard to sort of get inside of you. And the space between us is communication. And as they've studied it, this is what they've noted. And you've likely heard this. But that only 5% of what's happening between you and me is words. That 30 some odd percent of this is actually tone. And another 50% is body language. Which is why, honestly, at a week like last week where I worked really hard to say just the right thing and not something else and say this, and not say that people could still hear something totally different than what was inside of me. And so we look at words and we go, words are only 5% of what's even happening in the room. Words fill our entire lives. Talk is cheap. How many people say one thing and do another? In fact, right now in our political landscape, the commentary I probably hear most often about the situation is, I really don't care what either candidate says. I am voting for their policies. Words do not matter to us. And if you were to kind of show up in my office with that sort of frustration and go, I'm sick of living in a world where words are cheap, talk is cheap, nobody backs up what they say. Where can we go to find a voice who will call us back to a disciplined life where our behaviors and our actions really matter? The person I would turn you to is James. And so my assumption, our assumption, if you spend any time with James, is you'd open to the third chapter and he would go. Now, you heard me saying the first, don't just listen to a good sermon and do nothing about it. Live this thing out. Don't just say nice things about the poor or whatever. Keep warm and well fed. Do something about it. So you get to the third chapter and you go, you told me he's talking about speech. I'm pretty sure he's going to say words are cheap. Show me your receipts, right? And he says the exact opposite. James looks at our speech and he says, no, I'm very clear that I believe our lives actually matter. The decisions, the actions, the choices, the behaviors, they add up to something significant that we need to pay attention to, that God is deeply interested in. It just turns out that one of the behaviors God's most interested in, that matters most in this life, is what we say. He gives us three or four really beautiful images. Here's the first one. He says, do not underestimate the power of your words. This is what our words are like. Our words, he says, are like a bridle, like a thin metal kind of piece that gets put in a horse's mouth. This wild beast that weighs hundreds of pounds, maybe a thousand, you put this simple metal piece in its mouth and you can direct the entire course of this wild animal. He says, that's what our speech is like. It's so small, you could almost not see it, and yet it has the power to direct entire lives, to shape the direction of people's futures and where they go and where they don't go. Growing the metaphor even larger, he says, it's like a ship, so large. The countless people, families, communities, imagine one of those cruise ships today, whole cities could take residence on, that requires sort of the massive power of the wind and to move it just an inch. And yet there's this tiny little rudder, this little metal piece in the back that just by moving it an inch this way or that way, can direct an entire community somewhere. Says, this is what your speech is like. Our words matter. They create futures, they shape worlds. Destinies are directed by the very things we say. And so while it may be true that only 5% of what's happening in this room right now are the words that I'm using, apparently it's a really big important 5%. In the message paraphrase, Eugene Peterson, his take on this, his translation of this, I think is especially vivid. This is what verse four through six sounds like in the message. He says, a word out of your mouth, it may seem of no account. It's just a word. Sticks and stones could break our bones. Words will never hurt me. It's just a word. A word out of your mouth may seem of no account, but it can accomplish nearly anything or destroy it. It only takes a spark, remember, to set off a forest fire. There's an image in my mind. It's like someone driving down the highway and flicks their cigarette out. That's all it takes. And an entire forest fire can be burnt down. He says, that's what a careless or a wrongly placed word out of your mouth can do. By our speech, by the things we say, we can ruin the world. We can turn harmony to chaos, throw mud on a reputation. We can send the whole world up in smoke and go up and smoke with it. James says your words actually really deeply, profoundly matter. I don't know what examples that pulls out of you. I mean, for me, just immediately, there's moments. The one that's most heartbreaking is I have a friend, a dear friend, who years ago, in the midst of a really painful, ugly, difficult situation, somebody lobbied a false accusation about him. I was just kind of a gotcha, dirty. I'm gonna get my way, move. And it was the kind of accusation that once it's been spoken out loud, there is no court that can ever clear your name of it. Just saying it in a room and other people hearing, will forever stain your identity in your life and anyone who overheard it. There's no court that can clear it. There's no, it's just always gonna be a suspicion in the back of someone's mind. We've seen people's entire lives be shaped, transformed, broken, ruined, just from a misplaced, careless word, an accusation, a false accusation. James says this is the power of our words. They shape worlds, destinies, families, communities. Our words even shape us. I was talking to Carrie this week about this text, it's a member of our church. And she was saying, yeah, I read this thing not too long ago from this woman who was just kind of noodling on, riffing on that moment that happens when you're in traffic and somebody cuts you off and then you unleash like just a spew of like vitriolic hatred, a vengeful, like just condemnation at the windshield, right? By yourself. And she said, you know the obvious kind of reality of that is that the person who cut you off didn't hear a word of it. They weren't harmed in any way by your speech, but someone was, you were. That in your own speech, as you practice dehumanizing, another person made in the image of God, something in your own world was being shaped and created in that moment. Our words like shape worlds, they shape us. What we put in our mouth, what we say deeply matters. And to make matters worse, James says, here's the real kicker, more often than not, the way we use our words isn't creating worlds, it's destroying them. The vast majority of what we use our speech for is evil. He says this because our tongue is the last thing in creation to have been tamed. He kind of makes this point where he goes, look, human beings have been able to tame every creature on earth. Anybody watching chimp crazy? That's okay, you don't need to, but it is bizarre. It's about a woman who lives, has tamed, chimp, lives with them. Dare I say, even breastfed them. Now you wanna watch. (audience laughs) We have tamed every creature. You can put a saddle on an alligator somewhere, I'm sure of it. But he says the one thing, the one beast, the one animal that's never been domesticated in human history is our tongue. No one's figured out a way to tame the tongue. You start to sit underneath these realizations, so observations about our life and our speech, and you wonder if it's not wise that all of us just make a vow of silence right here and now. And truth is James gets pretty darn close, right? I mean, he opens the whole text by saying, not many of you should seek to be teachers. I mean, my initial attraction to this text this week was just that verse. I'm like, I love the fact that I'm gonna have to stand up and the first verse I'm gonna read to them without irony is, not many of you should seek to become teachers, right? And that those who do will be judged more strictly because of it. This is why, this is why. To stand in front of numerous ears and souls and to put words into the world is a very holy, awesome, terrifying responsibility. People's entire lives can be shaped and ruined on the other side of speech. It's why every once in a while, I'll have somebody come up to me and be like, listen, brother, I got a word I need to drop on our people. I'd like to preach. What do you think about that? And I'm always like, not a chance. (congregation laughing) It's like, if you are that excited and fired up and ready to go with some kind of violent word you have for these people, you don't understand what you're handling. There isn't a kind of a respect of what's taking place here, right? And what I wanna remind you of is I'm not the only teacher in this room. There are many of you who are like literal educators. Countless students have sat on the other side of your speech, some of you eight hours a day. Their entire lives being shaped by what you're saying or not saying to them. Some of you run companies full of employees whose entire lives hang on the balance of what they hear you say or not say about them and their work. Church on Morgan, we have a number of like digital native types in here. We have some influencers even in our midst who I hate to remind you. But that follower count our human beings. Some of you have over a hundred thousand people who are listening to your speech every single day. Worlds being shaped and formed. The obvious recognition that needs to be made though is that if our words have that power and while it's true that at least it seems to me to be true that more often than not, we do use it carelessly and destroy worlds with them. The possibility remains that these words could be used to create and redeem and restore and heal. That this is also true. One of my favorite shows on television, I think I've talked about it before, but it's not for the faint of heart, but it's called Couples Therapy. And it was on Showtime. Now I think it's on Amazon. It's this woman who's just an incredible therapist. I mean, just like Yoda therapist. And she works with couples and they've all agreed to have their sessions filmed over a season, a few months. These couples, they come in and more often than not, they do not like each other, they are not talking, they are dug in, resentment has grown, they are in a standoff, right? And as they sit in that room and she listens to them speak, one will create a destructive world with their speech, harming the other and then the other will do the same and it will go back and forth and back and forth. And you will be convinced there is no possible path forward for these two human beings. At least not one that's fruitful or helpful in any possible way. And yet somehow, not all the time, but many times as you hang with the series, you watch her begin to take a word or a phrase or an image and set it between these two people. And somehow, words, we're talking about words people. Words can bring a couple together and to communion and unity who'd been divided for decades, just words placed inside of a room to bring that kind of healing. This is what words can do. One of my favorite examples I came across this week, I was flipping through Instagram just kind of like, how are people using words right now online? What are, what's kind of our, and someone in our community posted this and if you're interested in it, I can connect you to them. But apparently, like in two weeks, there's this event taking place in Raleigh called Pitch Night. And Pitch Night is an event for single folks and their friends. And here's the concept, is that this is for single people who are interested in engaging in a relationship or finding somebody. What's going to happen is, if you're willing to go along with it, a single person's friend will get on the stage and pitch their friend to the room. (audience laughing) So, my friend who shared this said, "Hey, Raleigh, if you're single, like me, "and you're interested in being in a relationship, "this is going to be a beautiful event. "And even if you're not, I dare you "to find another gathering this year "that will be as moving as the presentations "you're about to hear." Right? We get to do that with our words. Just imagine, like your best friend telling a room of folks, you would be so lucky to know this human being. Let me tell you what you will never get on a swipe about this soul made in the image of God who stands here tonight. Vulnerable, open to the possibility of love. This, too, is what our words can do. And so, this is what James says. This is the crux of it. How? How can it be? How could we be people who've lived long enough to know what it's like to live on the other side of a devastating word? One of the questions we asked our huddles this morning volunteers was like, "Can you remember the meanest thing "that was ever said to you? "Or the best thing that was ever said to you?" And like, if we sort of shared around some of this, I mean, the things that some of us are still caring stuff that somebody said to us in third grade, right? That how can we know the destructive, life-flattening kind of ability of our words? How could we have lived that, experienced that, been on both sides of that and be the kind of people who've been in a room and watched someone get blessed and loved and life spoken into and reconciliation happened by using words? How can we know both of those and ever use it to curse when we know the gift of using it to bless? This is James' question. Why do we do this? How do we do this? And it gets to this sort of reality for us that like at the end of the day, we are a bit of a mystery to ourselves. Are we not? We can know things that rationally, yes, I don't understand why I ever would speak a careless word knowing I agree with most of what you've said so far this morning. So yeah, I am unsure why that would happen. This is what James points out to us. He says, and he's not the first and he got it from Jesus' brother. But he says, he reminds us that our words, they don't come from anywhere. We don't make them up out of nothing, that our words have a source, that they start somewhere. It says it's like you can't dip a bucket in the ocean and pull up fresh water, and you can't dip a bucket in a well and pull up salt water. There's like a source from which this thing is coming. So it is with our language. You know, you've never spoken a word in your life. You've never spoken a word that you didn't first hear. I went 20 years of my life and I never used the phrase y'all, not once. I now have to check every email to make sure I didn't overuse it, right? I moved to a place, I heard it, I heard it, I heard it, I heard it, I said it, right? There's not a word you've ever spoken that you didn't first hear. And this, my friends, is a very vulnerable insight that I hesitate to even equip you with if I didn't know that you already knew this. But every time we speak, I speak, you speak, we're giving away a major tell. That person who's never satisfied, who's always critical, who everyone lives on the other side of their judgment, that word that they're speaking into the world is the word that echoes in their heart. The person who's spewing hate hates themselves. The judgmental are judgmental of themselves. Those who feel like everyone else around them is ugly, considers themselves that way. The reverse is true. Those who show up in your life generously, who have an easy time telling other people they are beautiful and interesting and special, have that voice inside of them. This is why just say something nice, stupid, like won't work, right? This is why as much as we were tempted this morning with our kids upstairs to be like, only say nice things. Like that is not our story. We are not behavior modification people. We don't think that you can transform, like I just want to remind you, right? But we're living on the other side of grace, transformation, it's an inside-out deal. As Anlamat says, it's always an inside job. You want your speech to be different, your source has to be different. You want the bucket to pull something different out, the well has to have different contents. So how do we hear something different inside ourselves so we could say something different to those around us? This week is, I couldn't help but go with it, how does Jesus use words? Well, first of all, our story is that the entire world was created with words. Just a reminder, these things matter. And then the title given to Jesus in the gospel of John is that he was the very word of God. That's the power of Jesus' life. He's like a well-placed word. To stretch the metaphor, I would say when I look at Jesus' life and ministry in the gospels, he's like Orna from couples therapy. He's like the greatest counselor ever. In fact, we aren't the first people to say that. That's one of the names given to God is counselor, right? The kind of counselor who listens to our salty speech, non-judgmentally, but listening for the tell, listens long enough to compassionately and empathetically go, if that's what it sounds coming out, I can only imagine what it sounds like on the inside. Hearing that, filled with compassion, again and again, Jesus places a fresh word inside of people. Giving them a new voice to listen to for themselves and a new voice to speak from to others. This, by the way, is why we're here. It's what we're up to in this room. It's why we gather every week. It's so that we might hear the voice we most need to hear that it might change that inner dialogue in us, that we might become the sort of people who can do the same for others. So, Church on Morgan, my prayer for us this week is that we would do that. But before we speak, we would listen. That we would listen for God's voice. That we would hear that loving, forgiving, gracious, merciful voice, speaking to all of our judgmental, harsh criticism and anger and hate. And it would change the way that we talk to one another, which would change the world. The name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit. Amen. Thank you for joining today. If this episode has been meaningful to you, would you take a moment to share it with a friend? To support this ministry or learn more about our community, visit us at churchonmorgan.org. (gentle music) (gentle music) (gentle music) (gentle music) [BLANK_AUDIO]
The good news about words. A sermon for the 17th Sunday after Pentecost on James 3:1-12 by Rev. Justin Morgan.