Sticks and Stones will Break my Bones
Psalm 12
In a blog post entitled “Pay Closer Attention to your tongue,” editor and blogger Sarah Dubbeldam writes this:
Some days I wish someone would invent a human muzzle. An invisible one, of course – triggered only by negative emotions, ones with the intention of producing a negative outpouring of words. Ideally, it would non-awkwardly stop gossip, slander or discouraging words from flowing out of my mouth the instant before I opened it. I don’t know about you, but I find myself saying horrible things about people that perhaps I disagree with, or believe things opposite of me, or maybe have slip-ups in character. They are comments that if repeated in their presence would ruin all credibility I ever built as a “loving” human. And while we might not see the word vomit coming, we sure feel it.
We aren’t kids. We have been talking for years and years. We know the feeling of our heart on one shoulder saying: don’t do it, remember what you said about her last week and how you felt when you saw her? And our mouth on the other saying: Get it out! It feels great – and added bonus: you will feel better about yourself after, too! A common human experience – it’s as if our mouth is detached from our body, like a runaway kid with a hobo stick and sack, going down its own path while our heart is walking down another.
The tongue. With the words created by our tongue we build others up, speak the truth, and convey knowledge. And we tear others down, lie, mislead, and destroy.
I started my ministry career in youth ministry, and I usually had a team of 10 or 12 adult volunteers who worked with me, and one thing I always did was at the start of the school year I’d get them together for training. And one activity I’d always do is have them go around the circle and introduce themselves as if they were in the 8th grade, so they’d have to go back and remember their school’s name and who their teachers and friends were and generally what it was like to be an 8th grader. And every time I did that, I would have 30, 40, even 50 year old men and women in tears as they recalled the pain they felt because of the words of their classmates. The damage done doesn’t always go away as we mature.
Words. They can build up, and they can destroy. They can serve as a healing balm, or a as weapon of mass destruction. Sadly, the use of the tongue to destroy is not limited to elementary, middle, and high school campuses. It’s present in college dorms, in professional offices, and it runs rampant in corporations around the world as money- and power-hungry employees do anything they can to get ahead of their coworkers and win the next promotion. It’s present in the church too – in the gossip line that masquerades as a prayer chain, in the spats between factions within the church, and in power plays seeking control of church direction and programming.
In the 12th Psalm, David looks out at a world that seems to have gone to hell in a hand-basket. At a world in which we use words are used to hurt – and destroy – one another. He knows well the lament of St. James in the New Testament epistle that bears his name:
“Look at the ships also: though they are so large and are driven by strong winds, they are guided by a very small rudder wherever the will of the pilot directs. So also the tongue is a small member, yet it boasts of great things.
How great a forest is set ablaze by such a small fire! And the tongue is a fire, a world of unrighteousness. The tongue is set among our members, staining the whole body, setting on fire the entire course of life, and set on fire by hell. For every kind of beast and bird, of reptile and sea creature, can be tamed and has been tamed by mankind, but no human being can tame the tongue. It is a restless evil, full of deadly poison. With it we bless our Lord and Father, and with it we curse people who are made in the likeness of God. From the same mouth come blessing and cursing. My brothers, these things ought not to be so.”
Turn with me to David’s lament about the tongue in Psalm 12.
David looks out at the world, and it just seems to him like there are no godly people left. Like the world has gone to “hell in a handbasket.” It just seems like everywhere he turns he gets bad news. Evil seems to be winning, and he’s not really sure how this all figures into God’s plans for him and for the world. But I find it interesting that the evidence he points to is not crime, not physical violence, but the words that people use.
Look at V. 2. It’s been said that the eyes are the window to the soul, but it’s no less true that the mouth is the window into the human heart. Jesus, in Matthew 12:34 said “How can you speak good when you are evil? For out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaks.” In other words, whatever is filling your heart will come out through your mouth. And when David looks around he sees evidence of unholy hearts in the words people use, because he understands that our character is carried from our hearts to our mouths by a direct superhighway. “Out of the overflow of the heart the mouth speaks.” Our language reveals the character of our hearts.
Now, we’re not talking here about what we today might call cursing. We’re not talking about culturally agreed upon “dirty words” that nice sophisticated people aren’t supposed to use. What we’re talking about here are words used to harm others, as individuals but as a group. Using our words to hurt people like “them,” whoever “them” is. Sadly, in the church, our focus on the words we use is almost exclusively on not cussing, by today’s definition of cursing, which isn’t the biblical definition of cursing anyway. And we say nothing about those who use their words to hurt other individuals and groups. I’ve been in church meetings where Arabs were referred to as “rag heads” and Asians as “slant eyes” or “gooks.” I’ve heard people in churches talk about talking someone down in price as “Jewing them down.” We look down on and speak poorly of the poor and those are struggling right now. That kind of speech, and the derision behind it, is much closer to the biblical definition of cursing someone. Biblically, to curse is to wish or pray for something bad to happen to an individual or group. It has nothing to do with what we today call “cussing.”
Look at V. 5. David looks around and sees a people who use their tongues as a tool to manipulate circumstances in their favor at the expense of the vulnerable. God’s heart is always bent toward the underdog. You’ve heard me preach about that over and over again. We are always blessed to be a blessing to others. The Old Testament law for the people of Israel made it very clear that Israel was to be marked by a generous concern for the poor and needy among them, for the fatherless orphans and husbandless widows. For the poor and the downcast.
Deuteronomy 10:18 (who preaches from Deuteronomy?) says that God “executes justice for the fatherless and the widow, and loves the sojourner …” Who is that? The non-Israelite living among them. “… giving him food and clothing. Love the sojourner, therefore, for you were sojourners in the land of Egypt.” This isn’t referring to people just passing through, by the way. They were in Egypt for hundreds and hundreds of years. Psalm 68:5 says that God is “Father of the fatherless and protector of widows.” And James brings the same theme to the church today in the New Testament. James 1:27 says “Religion that is pure and undefiled before God, the Father, is this: to visit orphans and widows in their affliction.” This isn’t an isolated concept in Scripture. It’s a central theme.
And David looks out at a world bent toward the rich and the powerful and their exploitation of the weak, and knows God’s heart for the underdog, the weak, the forgotten, the invisible, and he’s trying to figure out how it can be that God, who is supposed to be sovereign, and who has the heart that he has, is allowing this state of affairs to continue. “Save us God. The rich and the powerful, the smart and the savvy, use their resources to their own advantage, and the poor and needy, the weaker and less intelligent, are left in the dust.” But the oppression isn’t necessarily happening through direct physical confrontation and violent oppression, the way it has sometimes happened in this country. It is more subtle. It is in the twisting of words that the violent acts are done.
So David gives us a laundry list of ways that words do just that. He starts by talking about lies. Look at V. 2. Empty talk. Words with no corresponding truth behind them. We live in a world full of deceptive words, and increasingly today, deceptive images. Advertisers exploit ambiguous language to emphasize the attractive nature of their products, but they leave out negative downsides. For decades cigarettes were advertised as ways to appear sophisticated, rugged, independent, and cool. No one mentioned that they could kill you. Today’s advertising is much more subtle, and much more sinister.
The average woman in America sees about 3,000 ads each day – many of which send messages about what the “ideal” female body should look like. But 98 percent of American women are not as thin as the fashion models who supposedly have the right body type. The average American woman is 5’4″ and weighs 165 pounds. The average Miss America winner is 5’7″ and weighs 121 pounds. It’s not surprising, then, that 42 percent of 1st-3rd grade girls want to be thinner. 81 percent of 10-year-old girls are afraid of being fat. 70 percent of 18-30-year-old American women don’t like their bodies, and 60 percent of women in middle age still remain unsatisfied with their bodies. 50 percent of girls use unhealthy weight control behaviors, such as skipping meals, vomiting, and taking laxatives. Nearly 20 million women will suffer from an eating disorder at some point in their lives. All because we live in a culture that says to women, “This is how you are supposed to look.”
Next David talks about double-hearted “smooth talkers.” Look at Vv. 2-3. These are people who say whatever their hearers want to hear. People who build you up to your face and tear you down when your back is turned. People who make promises they have no intention of keeping. It’s fathers who say that they’ll be there for their spouse and children and then run off with another woman. People who say one thing and then do another. Politicians who make campaign promises they have no inten … well, let’s not even go there. And David uses this interesting phrase. He calls these people “double hearted.” For the ancient Hebrew people, the heart was the seat of reflective thought, of commitment to God and to other people. So to call these people double hearted is to describe someone capable of a very destructive form of deception, for they appear to be saying one thing, while all the while behind the scenes they are saying, doing, and thinking something very different.
Jewish theologian Martin Buber suggests that every form of conflict between human beings is really the result of “conflict between three principles in man’s being and life, the principle of thought, the principle of speech, and the principle of action. The origin of all conflict between me and my fellow-human beings is that I do not say what I mean, and that I do not do what I say. For this confuses and poisons, again and again.” The heart is so deceptive that it can think one thing and say another. No transparency. No integration of heart and mind. And for David, in calling these people double hearted, truly hypocritical, designates them as truly, truly evil in heart and mind.
And then lastly he talks about the arrogant. Look again at V. 3. “Who is master over us?” They don’t recognize accountability. They don’t honor those in authority who can call them to account for the words they speak, whether those words are the words of gossip, or slander, or so-called half-truths. No authority. They will allow no one to hold them accountable. Truly arrogant. Making great boasts about themselves and their accomplishments that not only serve to stoke the fires of a massive ego, but are also not necessarily true.
God’s desire is intimacy with us, and intimacy between us. In his High Priestly prayer in John 17, Jesus prayed that “they may all be one, just as you, Father, are in me, and I in you, that they also may be in us, so that the world may believe that you have sent me” (V. 21). Intimacy with God (that they also may be in us) and intimacy with one another (that they may all be one). Intimacy, really being known, is impossible when we’re wearing masks. And those masks grow out of hearts filled not with Christ but with insecurities, selfishness, and brokenness, lies believed and the arrows we shoot at others to help ourselves. Something has to change deep inside of us. For this Psalm serves not just as an encouragement to those who are the victims of the harmful words of others, but also as a warning to all of us that the contents of our hearts flow outward in our words.
Remember V. 1? “Save, O LORD …” If we are to gain mastery over our tongues, the first step is to recognize that we can’t gain that mastery ourselves. We never will. If we’re going to face the darkness in our own hearts we have to be willing to cry out to God to help, to accept his grace-filled offer of salvation in Christ.
So after airing the dirty laundry in the culture around him, David compares the lack of transparency, honesty, consideration for others, selfishness, and darkness of the words, and thus the hearts, of the people around him with the purity and transparency of the Word of God. Look at Vv. 6-7. Two characteristics of the Word of God are brought out here. The first is that it is true. Unlike the words of so much of humanity, the Word of God is true and pure. No hidden agendas. No double talk. No double heart. And although the Word of God has been likened to a sword in the hands of an expert swordsman, the pain that it sometimes produces is for our God. Every word spoken by God is for our good, not our harm. But that doesn’t mean it won’t hurt when it hits. Sometimes pure words hurt when they collide with impure hearts.
The second characteristic of the Word of God that David mentions is that David mentions is that the Word of God is reliable. You can count on it. David knows that even though it looks like evil will win the day, and it very well might, God will keep his word. He will act for the benefit and protection of those who are faithful to him.
Now this isn’t a promise of an easy life. David is a realist here. Look at what he does. Look at V. 8. Most of the Psalms of Lament go from the pain and struggle of life to praise of God at the end. David doesn’t do that here. He HAS turned toward God in praise, but he doesn’t end there like he does in so many of his Psalms of Lament. He comes back to a description of evil words, evil hearts. He isn’t trying to be depressing here. He’s reminding us that it will often look like those who seek their own good at the expense of others are winning. It looks like evil is winning. And evil thinks it is winning. It thinks it is really the only way. But it isn’t. And it won’t win. I will act to save. But yes, for now, you’ll have to deal with it on every side. So allow my Holy Spirit to take up residence within you, to transform you, to transform your heart, and from there, your speech and your actions. And as you do that, you’ll be able to love, really love, the weak, the defenseless, the vulnerable among you.
And lest you think that that doesn’t describe you, remember we’re all aging. Every one of us will age to the point where we are again vulnerable, needing support and encouragement from others. Let’s pray.
