Words [Proper 19B]

The Rev. Jeremiah Williamson

James 3:1-12

Words

Before anything else existed, there were words.  Words suspended in the formless void, in the thick darkness of God’s all-encompassing shadow.  Nothing else: just God and words.  After an eternity of silence, God spoke.  And because of words, worlds were created.  Words caused light to break through darkness.  Words moved the water so that the land could breathe.  Words set stars on fire and convinced planets to pirouette.  Words troubled the dust and it organized into organisms.  Because God spoke.  Words are powerful.

And when everything else was already spoken, God chose to make beings in God’s very likeness, in the image of God. And God gave those special creatures a very special gift.  A gift that is amazingly powerful, a gift previously possessed only by the Creator: words.

It was a dangerous decision, by what I assume is an infinitely curious God.  You see, those words, the ones that God gave as a gift to these special creatures, the creatures created in the divine likeness, they still carried the power to create; they were still enchanted by the magic of creation.  And while the good Creator who first spoke created all things good and named the creation good, the special creatures had intentions far less pure.  They did not always speak good.  From the same mouth came both blessing and cursing.  So it goes, world without end. Amen.

Words are powerful.  And we just have them.  We walk around, carrying in our mouths, the power to create realities, to speak into existence the worlds of our own limited perceptions.  In our mouths we hold the power to make or ruin someone’s day, to make or ruin someone’s life.  In our mouths we shelter a flame capable of setting a great forest ablaze.  This is the gift that we have been given.  Our lips should never stop trembling. 

Words are powerful.  And sometimes I think we, as a culture, perhaps as a people, have forgotten that important fact, that vital warning.  At some point we got careless.  And we forgot that words matter; that they are magic; that they speak into being the worlds that spread out into the future.  And we just started throwing them around, never mind the collateral damage.  And without counting the bodies, we just casually dismissed it all with a phrase: talk is cheap.

But it is not.  In fact, it can be incredibly costly or infinitely precious.  We speak words and those we address find meaning in those words.  The words get stuck inside and live in their souls.  And in some mysterious way people are created in the image of our words.  And that can be beautiful or it can be terrible.  Because words are powerful.

Maya Angelou understood the power of words and so she carefully policed the words people used in her home.  She said, “Words are things. You must be careful, careful about calling people out of their names, using racial pejoratives and sexual pejoratives and all that ignorance. Don’t do that. Some day we’ll be able to measure the power of words. I think they are things. They get on the walls. They get in your wallpaper. They get in your rugs, in your upholstery, and your clothes, and finally in to you.”[1]

And she’s right: words are things.  They live long beyond the echo.  They stick around.  And once they get in, they are difficult to get out. 

It is interesting how something that cannot be seen or touched or tasted sticks around so stubbornly.  It’s as if words possess the world.  They cannot be unsaid, cannot be taken back; they cannot be captured or caged.  Sure, they can be forgiven but they are much harder to forget.  And so once they are out there, they become permanent fixtures in the atmosphere.

And so we can pretend that words don’t matter, that only actions do, because actions move real things.  But also we know that that is not true.  We know that because we have all been on the receiving end of words, words that mattered to us – whether we wanted them to or not.

I have watched words set communities ablaze.  I have watched words destroy marriages and friendships.  I have watched words divide churches and families and nations.  Words have started wars.  Words have destroyed lives.  Words are powerful. 

And that is James’ concern.  The author of our epistle reading is the voice of one who has watched words wreak havoc.  He says to his congregation, “the tongue is placed among our members as a world of iniquity.”  Not a terribly nuanced view.  But one doesn’t worry much about nuance when trying to extinguish a wild fire.

His is the voice of both pastor and prophet – words that spring forth from a heart both broken and frustrated.  In desperation he appeals to them, to us: “With [our tongues] we bless the Lord, and with them we curse those made in the likeness of God.  From the same mouth come blessing and cursing.  My brothers and sisters, this ought not to be so.”

With our tongues we bless God, and with the same tongues we curse those made in the likeness of God.  For the author of James, that is about as natural as a fig tree growing olives.  It just doesn’t make sense.

And yet, here we are: brackish as ever.  We are capable of good and evil, holding in our mouths words of life and words of destruction.  We are speaking worlds into being but not all of the worlds can rightly be called good.

And perhaps the writer of James is correct.  Perhaps no one came tame the human tongue.  Perhaps we are destined to repeatedly say the words of confession over the sinful words that we spit out into the world.  But just because the words stream out brackish doesn’t mean we shouldn’t try our best to filter out the salty ones.

We’ve all contributed to the fire that words have set loose in this world.  But words are powerful.  And the God who had the first word also has the last word and that is the word of pardon.  

 

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[1] https://www.goodreads.com/quotes/706799-words-are-things-you-must-be-careful-careful-about-calling