Sermon for Epiphany IV C

Preached at St. John’s Lancaster 3 Feb 2013

Jeremiah 1:4-10
Psalm 71
I Corinthians 13
Luke 4:21-30

Words really do matter. As today’s lessons underline, they have the power to enrage those who hear them, and they have the potential to transform lives. Sometimes they are from God. And sometimes they are not. Sometimes they are grounded in faith, hope, and love. Sometimes they are motivated by fear, disrespect, and stupidity. Today, I would like for all of us to consider the words we have used in the past week, and honestly ask ourselves whether there is evidence that our words were from God or of our own purpose and invention. My reason for examining such a personal topic is to lead us all to affirmation in those areas where we are thinking and acting like Jesus, and to lead us to repentance in those areas where we are not. For you see, If we have truly given our lives over to Christ, and accepted him as Saviour and Lord, he transforms us from what we were into what he calls us to be. In the power of the Holy Ghost, we are made able to change our ways and more perfectly reflect his glory. I hope these few observations will help us all, and that includes me, to examine our own hearts and offer ourselves a more perfect sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God.

Are the things you say true? From the ten commandments to the tragic story of Ananias and Saphira, truth telling is enjoined in the scriptures. It is not always popular, as today’s Gospel lesson points out. And sometimes people refuse to accept it from unexpected sources, as the Old Testament lesson illustrates. But it is the default setting for all Christian conversation. Now I imagine most of us here are not liars, but probably many, if not most of us, have been known to finagle the truth a bit from time to time. Perhaps we withhold a few details to make ourselves look a little better, or to give ourselves an advantage in business or some social relationship. Perhaps we on occasion remain silent in a way that hurts another person or fails to give them the information they need to make a good decision. According to the Catechism found in the back of our Prayer Book, if my silence brings ill to another person, it is just as bad as an out and out lie. And that brings us back to the initial thing we must consider about the words we speak. They should always be true. That is not to say that I must say everything I know to anyone who asks me. There may be a good reason for saying “no comment,” or “I’d rather not discuss it.” But a lie, a half truth, or silence which allows evil to come to another is always wrong.

And what about the motive behind our words. Faith, hope, and love ought always to motivate our statements as followers of Jesus Christ. Our failure in this area is often betrayed by our tone, our body language, our choice of vocabulary, and our rhetorical style. If I am pushy, or accusatory, or threatening, or condescending, or disrespectful, or if I practice those sophistic tricks like mischaracterization of an opponent, character assassination, illogical and non-sequential development of an idea, name calling, or changing the subject to one similar but different, I have probably left faith, hope, and love completely out of my conversation. When is the last time you raised your tone, or repeated yourself endlessly as if your hearer was stupid, or threatened a person, or implied ill motives in someone for which you had no hard evidence? I would submit that when we as followers of Christ discuss or argue in such a way, we have walked away from the high ground modeled and commanded by our Lord.

And while we are on the topic of motives, we should ask ourselves if our words are necessary and helpful. Some things may be true, but to bring them up again only hurts some poor person for whom Christ died. I don’t mean that we shouldn’t report a crime to the police because we don’t want to hurt the criminal with our factual report. But I do mean that there is nothing to be gained by bringing up past adulteries, or betrayals, or bad decisions which have been forgiven by God and with which the people directly involved have come to terms. The name for such conversation is gossip, and it is hateful to God because it ignores his grace and destroys the lives of the people he loves.

And no good talk about language and words would be complete without a short discussion of humor in our lives. Some of the funniest things I have ever heard are absolutely reprehensible. They are reprehensible because they trade on the misery or misfortune of someone for whom Christ died. They are reprehensible because they perpetuate social myths and unwarranted stereotypes which divide us and set us against each other. They are reprehensible because they hurt the feelings of people who already feel like outsiders. Now I should add a note of explanation here. We live in an era where a lot of people have skin that is way too thin for their own good or for the good of society. They are adept at getting offended on behalf of other people for more reasons than I can count. But the fact that some folks need to toughen up a bit does not give the Christian license or excuse to have their laughs at the expense of someone else’s misfortune, or appearance, or situation. I imagine all of us have laughed at something in the last week or two that we knew we shouldn’t be laughing about. By so doing, we have driven a wedge between people and probably felt better about ourselves because we imagined we had someone to look down on. We all know that is wrong, and a grave disappointment to God, our heavenly Father.

We started this discussion by saying that our words should always be true. And as we end it, I think we should probably return to a positive injunction. When God spoke to the young Jeremiah in our first lesson, he told him that the words he spoke would be from the Lord. We have every reason to believe that God will give us this same gift. In fact, we have a distinct advantage over Jeremiah and the people of his era when it comes to the Word of the Lord. You see, he listened intently to the voice of the Spirit and sought to discern which voices were false and which was truly the voice of God. Surely, there were wise friends and mentors around him, and he did have some of the books of the Old Testament. But God has given the Bible in its entirety to you and me. As we prayerfully read and meditate on its precepts, the Holy Spirit gives us wisdom not only about how to apply the Word of God in our own conversation, but about how to consider our own word choice so that our conversation will be more like God would have it to be. Regular and prayerful Bible reading will be used of God to change our outlooks, and the opinions we have about ourselves and others, and the words we choose to use. As we truly live into the Bible, we will be less likely to use it as a source of proof texts to argue our points, and more likely to apply its clear injunctions and modeled attitudes to every situation and every relationship we encounter.

A couple of quick closing hints are in order while we are talking about words. Twitter, Face book, e-mail, texting, and the like have transformed the way we interact with each other, in some ways for the good, and then well, sometimes not. Never, under any circumstances send any composition instantly until you have thought about it and considered its full implications- like a chess master would consider a tournament move. Once you click on send, you must live with the consequences, and your comments belong to the world in whatever form anyone chooses to edit and forward them.

If you are mad or feeling attacked, it is ok to walk away from the discussion and simply say that you need some time before you respond. You don’t owe anyone an immediate response under high pressure. It only leads to misunderstanding, broken relationships, and tragedy.

Well, I think that is enough for today. I hope that everyone here will join me during our prayer of confession in naming silently at least one way in which you have used words in the past few days to hurt or control another person, or to attack or belittle someone made in God’s image, or to otherwise speak in a manner that you know was not pleasing to God. I give it you on the good authority of Scripture that he will hear our prayers and forgive us our sins, through Jesus Christ our Lord. AMEN.