Ugly Words
James 3:3-12
How many of you have said something that got you in trouble? How many you have said something that caused a problem for other people? You know, started some drama of some kind. I’ve gotta be honest: If your hand wasn’t up for both of those questions, you’re probably deluded.
We’ve all heard the old adage, “If you can’t find anything nice to say about someone, don’t say anything at all.” In an article for Salon.com, Lauren Frey Daisley tried to follow that advice for one month. She titled the article “My month of no snark.” (“Snark” is a slang word that combines “snide” and “remark” and refers to sarcastic comments.) Daisley writes:
It started when my husband, baby and I drove away from a visit with my aunt, who has Stage 4 breast cancer. I thought back on the 30-some years I’ve known her. I have never once in all that time heard her say anything unkind. Not even in the subtext of her words. That’s one [heck] – or, in this case, heaven – of a legacy…. I began to wonder, how would holding my tongue – or at least changing what came off it – alter my relationships?
That’s when she began her “month-long campaign” to practice kindness in her speech. Daisley discovered that it’s not easy to live without snark. Instead, she wrote, “It’s so much cooler to be more sarcastic …. It says, I am so above this scene – above other people, even.”
After her month-long experiment she concluded, “Kindness [of speech] doesn’t have to imply repression. It doesn’t rein in humor or impede the fight for justice. But it does require discipline and substantive engagement with others.”[i]
This morning we’re continuing our Advent sermon series “Ugly Christmas Sweater.” Advent is the time of preparation for the celebration of Christ’s coming into the world at Christmas. But when we talk about preparing to celebrate Christmas, we aren’t talking so much about shopping and decorating and cooking and planning gatherings with family and friends. We’re talking about preparing ourselves mentally, emotionally, and spiritually to celebrate Christmas. We’re talking about finding ways – in the midst of this busy season – to slow down, to reflect on the coming of Christ and the reason he came. And during this Advent season, we’re talking about four ugly Christmas sweaters – things that we need to take off, and keep off for good.
Three weeks ago, before I was gone for the Thanksgiving holiday for two weekends, we started by talking about taking off ugly thoughts. Today, we’re going to talk about taking off ugly words. Turn with me to James 3:3-12.
James is about as real and gritty a letter as you’ll find in the New Testament. He doesn’t pull any punches. He lets it fly. He speaks very directly to those who have money and power. He speaks words of encouragement to those who are suffering for their faith. And he speaks very directly to all of us about how we are to live as followers of Christ. He doesn’t talk so much about what we believe as how we are to live. It’s very practical. And very gritty.
And make no mistake about it. Followers of Jesus are to speak differently than the rest of the world. We are to take off ugly words. Look first at Vv. 3-5a.
The tongue is small, but it is mighty. James compares it to the bit we put in horses mouths, and to the rudder that steers massive ships. Both are small, but they do great things. A horse is 1,000+ pounds of raw muscle. They can carry hundreds of pounds and pull thousands. Put a 200 pound man on the back of a horse and he won’t flinch. And as someone who has been holding on to the end of a rope connected to a horse that’s throwing a full on hissy fit about something, I can tell you, they know how to use that muscle. When you settle into the saddle, you can feel the muscle, the raw power, under you.
And yet, you can put a small bit in the mouth of that horse, and a tiny, 100 pound lady can climb up in that saddle, and make that horse practically dance.
And think about the size of the rudder of a ship, compared to the size of the ship itself. Even in the mid first century, when James was writing this letter, tiny rudders steered much larger ships. And today’s ships are much, much, much larger than those. And yet they’re steered through the oceans with relatively small rudders. The rudders might seem larger to us, and they are, but compared to the size of the ship they steer, they’re still tiny.
Small things can get big results. The bit and the rudder are proof of that. And your tongue is no different. It is small. But it is powerful. Your tiny tongue can build up a life, or destroy a life. It can honor and worship God, or curse God and create division and strife in your family, your neighborhood, your place of work, and in the church. And far too often, our tongues don’t build up. They destroy. Look at Vv. 5b-8.
Several weeks ago, I got a panicked text from the neighbor who lives right behind us. It was a couple of pictures of our horse pasture filled with smoke and the words “Emergency? Call me asap.” When I called, things had settled down a little bit, but he told me that the neighbor on the other side of his property, two lots down from us, had started burning leaves on one of those unseasonably warm but really windy days we had in late fall, and their fire had quickly gotten out of control and caught the woods between his house and theirs on fire.
It took 8 fire trucks to get the fire under control, and the family that was burning leaves lost one of their vehicles in the blaze, but neither us nor our neighbor had any damage. Just smoky yards. But it certainly could have been bad, and their fire got out of control really quickly.
James reminds us that the tongue works in much the same way as a forest fire. One small spark can set the whole thing on fire. One small word or sentence can cause unspeakable damage in our own lives and in the lives of others. “Sticks and stones may break my bones, but words will never hurt me” may be one of the biggest lies we’ve ever told ourselves. Words hurt. Bullying words have driven people to develop eating disorders and suicide. Words have led couples to divorce and caused schism in families. Words have started wars and ended churches.
In September 2011, The New York Times ran an article about a small town in Missouri called Mountain Grove. Gossip and rumors have always existed in this tight-knit community, but before the days of anonymous social media sites, people traded stories at the local diner called Dee’s Place. At Dee’s Place you could usually find a dozen longtime residents who gathered each morning to talk about weather, politics, and, of course, their neighbors.
But as social media became more popular in the early 2010s, more people in this hardscrabble town of 5,000 have shifted from sharing the latest news and rumors over eggs and coffee to … a social media Web site called Topix, where they wrote and read startlingly negative posts, all cloaked in anonymity, about one another. [Unlike sites like Facebook, which require users to give their real names, Topix users can pick different names and thus remain anonymous.]
And in Dee’s Place, people were not happy. A waitress, Pheobe Best, said that the site had provoked fights and caused divorces. The diner’s owner, Jim Deverell, called Topix a “cesspool of character assassination.” And hearing the conversation, Shane James, the cook, wandered out of the kitchen tense with anger.
His wife, Jennifer, had been the target in a post … which described the mother of two, as among other things, “a methed-out, doped-out [addict] with AIDS.” Not a word was true, Mr. and Mrs. James said, but the consequences were real enough …. Now, the couple has resolved to move. “I’ll never come back to this town again,” Ms. James said in an interview at the diner. “I just want to get … out of town.”
Now, look at what James says in Vv. 9-13. Back in the opening words of this letter, James describes many Christians as double-minded. Wanting to both follow Christ and still follow this world too. Trying to follow Jesus while still pursuing power and status and wealth and pleasure. Now, he talks about us as being double-tongued, so to speak. Out of the same mouth we worship God, and curse those who are created in the image of God.
Now, James is not talking about using bad four letter words when he talks about cursing. In the Bible, cursing is more akin to actually cursing someone as we might imagine a witch doing in a fantasy movie or novel. In the Bible, to curse someone is to pray, wish, or seek evil on their behalf. It’s wanting something bad to happen to a person, or in their life, and even working to make that bad happen.
So we come to church and worship God, and then go home and start or spread a rumor about someone at work, or in our friend group, or in our family. We come to church and worship God and then speak harshly to our spouse. We come to church and worship God and then lie so that we won’t get into trouble after messing up at work. We come to church and worship God and then ridicule and call names and bully with our words. That’s what it means to be double-tongued.
And then James condemns this in the strongest way he can possibly condemn it. “My brothers and sisters, these things ought not to be so.” The Greek words and syntax he used are the strongest possible way of saying this. He isn’t pulling any punches. He’s saying, “Knock it off.” If he were texting this to us today, it would be in all caps with a period after each word. He is dead serious. This. Cannot. Continue.
You see, Jesus, in Luke 6:45, says “The good person out of the good treasure of his heart produces good, and the evil person out of his evil treasure produces evil, for out of the abundance of the heart his mouth speaks.” The Old Testament prophet Jeremiah had a lot to say about the human heart. “The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately sick; who can understand it?” (Jer. 17:9). That deceit and sickness we call sin. And when sin reigns in the human heart, the mouth speaks out of that abundance of sin, and the result is destructive.
Here’s the thing. Having a heart that is sick and deceitful, ruled by sin, doesn’t mean you’re a child molester or a serial killer. You might be relatively good compared to many people, and capable of saying very nice things. But none of us, not even the best of us, can match the holiness of God. All of us are, in sin, separated from God.
Even those who don’t follow Christ recognize that we as human beings need to be saved from … something. The song, Prince of Peace, written and performed not by a Christian band or musician but by the Trans Siberian Orchestra, known for their symphonic rock style Christmas music, says …
Let the world rejoice together,
As it looks upon the stars,
Knowing every man’s our brother,
And that every child is ours.
As he flew o’er Sarajevo,
There were scars upon the land,
There were scars upon the people,
It was hard to understand.
And the deepest scars of all,
Which to humans are unseen,
But the angel could see clearly,
Were the scars upon the dreams.
Like Belfast and Burundi,
Rwanda, Palestine,
The only decorations here,
Had been awarded for their crimes.
And in gardens where the children played,
Now soldiers only trod,
And stranger still, he heard some say,
That they were killing for their God.
Now the angel heard God speak many times,
And he had always paid attention,
But this killing of one’s neighbor,
Was something the Lord had never mentioned.
And then, two songs further down on the same album, they, in their own way, point people to the hope of Christ.
Now it was long ago,
When it all began,
Back in Bethlehem,
In the promised land.
When a single star,
Appeared in the sky,
And three kings saw,
And they each asked why.
And they checked the books,
Full of prophecy,
And the one king said,
Why it’s plain to me.
You see it means,
That a king is born,
Who will save mankind,
On this blessed morn.
It doesn’t take a genius, or a spiritual giant, or a Christian leader, to figure out what Jeremiah said 6 centuries before the coming of Christ. “The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately sick; who can understand it?” Ah, but Jeremiah also pointed us toward the answer. God, speaking through Jeremiah, said, “For this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days, declares the Lord: I will put my law within them, and I will write it on their hearts. And I will be their God, and they shall be my people” (Jer. 31:33). And how does he put his law within us, and write it on our hearts? In Christ.
So why, if Christ lives within us, do ugly words so often pour from our mouths. If it is out of the abundance of our hearts that our mouths speak, and our hearts are filled with Christ, why, so often, is it ugliness that comes out of our mouths?
That is the question James confronts us with this morning. We cannot be double-tongued. It doesn’t mean you never utter a cuss word. It means first of all that your words are true. Secondly that they’re kind. Kind is different than nice. Nice simply seeks not to offend. Kind speaks the truth for the benefit of the other, in a way that the other person can hear it. It isn’t kind to just say whatever is on your mind. To blurt things out regardless of the consequences because “you’re a straight shooter.” Kindness speaks the truth in a way that it can be received. And that truth is spoken only if it benefits the other person.
Remember the three gates for the use of our tongues. The first gate is, “Is it true?” If it isn’t true, we don’t speak it. The second gate is, “Is it necessary?” If it isn’t necessary to say it, or if the only benefit is us getting something off our chest, we don’t say it. And we certainly don’t speak in anger. We can feel anger, and acknowledge we’re angry, but we cannot speak in anger. The third gate is, “Is it kind?” Am I saying this without criticism and contempt? Am I saying this in a way that it can be received a little more easily?
During the 2015-2016 NFL season, the Minnesota Vikings place kicker Blair Walsh had made an NFL-high 34 field goals. Before the Vikings’ playoff game against the Seattle Seahawks, he had converted 33 of 34 kicks inside 30 yards in his career. So when the Vikings were down 10-9 with 22 seconds left and Walsh lined up for a 27-yard field goal attempt, it looked the Vikings would win. But Walsh’s kick sailed wide and the Vikings season came to a crashing halt.
In the midst of the social media storm directed against Walsh, a group of first graders in Minnesota set out to encourage the broken-hearted kicker. First grader Allie Edwards said, “Blair was really sad, and we wanted to make him feel better.” One of her classmates, wrote, “Dear Blair Walsh, I think you shood keep trying. Don’t give up! We still love you! Git better by practicing.” Tyler Doffin filled a whole page for Walsh: “Dear Blair: I fell bad for you. Don’t give up. You’re still #1. Practis more so that you can get better at cicing. You’re so good at cicing. So don’t give up! Keep trying! We still love you.”
The kids’ act of kindness got his attention. He was so touched to hear from children who didn’t know him that he pushed his flight home back a day to visit the classroom. After the visit he said, “It was very touching to me. … A lot of [the cards] were very pretty and creative. … I will cherish them forever.”[ii]
During this Advent season, may we, as followers of Christ, take of the ugly Christmas sweater of ugly thoughts, and the ugly Christmas sweater of ugly words. May we allow the Holy Spirit to transform us as we prepare to celebrate the coming of Emmanuel, God with us. Watch your words, for it is out of the abundance of your heart that your mouth speaks. And if the One who IS life lives in you and fills your heart, then life will be what flows from your lips. Let’s pray.
[i] Lauren Frey Daisley, “My month of no snark,” Salon.com (3-28-11)
[ii] Susan Elizabeth Littlefield, “First Graders Aim to Cheer Up Vikings Kicker Walsh,” CBS Minnesota (1-12-16); Kevin Seifert, “Blair Walsh is human, so let’s treat him that way,” ESPN (1-11-16)