Rudders of Our Souls
Sunday, September 17th, 2006
Proper 19 B
Jerusalem Baptist Church, Emmerton VA
James 3:1-12
It strikes me as a little funny to have the first line of the text this morning say “not many of you should become teachers” after having just commissioned the incoming teachers for the Sunday School year just last Sunday, but then, it is probably an entirely appropriate note on which to dwell at the beginning of the new year. After all, what does a teacher use to instruct? Words!
So it is a good thing to periodically stop and take account of how we are doing with them – with our words – in relation to how we are doing with our relationship with Jesus.
Here’s a simple test. Three questions, true or false, you may want to keep the answers to yourself:
I have never hurt another person with my words
I have never repeated something about another person that I did not know for certain was absolutely true.
I never participate in idle talk about other people and their lives.
Now, I’d like to try an experiment together. Yesterday many of you were here to witness the wedding ceremony of Mark and Irma Haggerty. There came the point in the ceremony where they repeated words after me. We’re going to do something a LITTLE bit like that, but as we do, I want you to pay attention to how you react emotionally to what you are saying.
Okay, ready? Repeat after me: “I love you!”
Great! How did that feel? Good?
Now, ready for the second phrase? Here goes.
Repeat after me: “I hate you!”
Hmmm … not quite the same, is it?
Consider for a moment the power of speech. When we hear a word, the physical movement that enters our ear and then the inner ear activates 24,000 little nerves which react through the limbic system and results in the pituitary gland sending hormones into the body. Our whole physical system reacts when we hear words of care or condemnation. Have you ever heard something and it makes you physically ill? When we hear words that bring us pain or anxiety, the physical-chemical reaction may take as many as 72 hours to subside. Does that explain how some people live in a perpetual state of agitation and upset?
The power of the tongue, that is to say, the power of words, was clearly understood by James. Perhaps not in the detailed scientific way we just went over a minute ago, but in terms of what words can do TO the heart and what spoken words say ABOUT the heart, yeah, that part was clearly understood.
James is not only speaking about gossip in this passage, though gossip is definitely included in the family of words he is discussing. He is speaking about any untoward word, any unmeasured, uncontrolled utterance, anything spoken in anger, unthinkingly, or with no thought for how it will affect the listener.
It is to my enduring regret and shame to remember moments when the words that came out of my mouth were particularly harsh, especially barbed, and deliberately aimed to inflict shame or pain. There is nothing I can do to take them back. Nothing. I can only hope and pray that my actions since those words were spoken will work to dim, if not erase the memory of them.
It is an apt image that James draws – that of a rider controlling the horse with a bit in the mouth – it’s a piece of metal that is, what? Maybe 6 inches long? And it helps control an animal that weighs how many hundred pounds?
And the ship analogy – relative to the size of the ship, the rudder is miniscule! And yet, with a word from the pilot the rudder turns and the entire ship moves accordingly. Amazing to think of how much like those our tongues are. It’s actually a little eerie, if you ask me, how dead on those images are. The horse can be in perfect health, the ship can be functioning perfectly, no problems whatsoever, but if the horse is steered off a cliff, or the ship is steered towards a reef, what’s the result? Disaster. And all because of the turn of a relatively small piece in the whole system.
How many of us have lived the consequences of letting our rudders take us on a wrong turn? Lead us down a path down which we should never have gone, said things we never should have said? And the end result was disaster?
The forest fire image could have been drawn directly from the news we’ve been getting from out west over the last couple of weeks, couldn’t it? How many of us have watched words spoken in ignorance, or haste, or worse yet, malice, spread like a wildfire through a community? Or have you seen it happen in a community of faith? It is hard to imagine anything worse than watching something like that take hold of a congregation and tear at its very heart. In times of stress, tempers flare, words are spoken or perhaps yelled, and feelings are expressed in less than loving terms.
That seems to be one of the things James was facing in the congregation in Jerusalem. They were living through persecution, of what kind we do not know, though we can imagine to a point. And in that time of strain, of challenge, of hardship, and even of outright danger, words I’m sure were said that need not have been.
So how do you deal with the aftermath of a word exchange that leaves people bleeding, internally? That leaves them wondering how the other person can even call themselves a follower of Christ and still sleep at night.
The first step is recognizing that what has been said was painful, harmful; to the individual, to the situation, to the group, to the community. There is an element of accountability that is involved in living in community, in being a part of a family of faith, of a local congregation, that calls us individually to become servants of all. That is a fundamental aspect of what it means to be a follower of Christ. Christ calls us to a life of service, and by definition, that pulls us out of the mindset that we intrinsically have a position within that family that is of a higher value than another.
I mentioned at the beginning that we just held our commissioning of the incoming year’s slate of officers and committees and teachers. On a human level, we almost automatically put ourselves in layers – this one is more important than that one, that one needs to answer and report to this one, and so on … yes, there is a scriptural basis for having leaders in the church, but what is it based on? Spiritual maturity. Not on wealth, not on family, not on positions held outside the church… while we hope for a happy coincidence when we look for folks to fill the positions that are available within our community, we may be doing ourselves a disservice by not first looking at the level of maturity in a person as a follower of Christ.
When James uses the word ‘perfect’ in verse 2, he is using it in the same sense that Paul does in his writings – it is in the sense of ‘mature’.
So what does this mean for Jerusalem Baptist Church at Emmerton?
Let’s ask some questions of ourselves:
How have we, with our words, in this past week, caused pain?
How have we, with our words, in this past week, torn down someone’s spirit?
How have we, with our words, in this past week, blessed someone?
How have we, with our words, in this past week, lifted someone’s spirit, provided comfort in a time of affliction, or encouraged someone in a moment of sorrow or difficulty?
How have we, with our words, in this past week, torn or mended the fabric of the cloth that we are weaving together that is called Jerusalem Baptist Church?
Let’s pray.
Sunday, September 17th, 2006
Proper 19 B
Jerusalem Baptist Church, Emmerton VA
James 3:1-12
1 Not many of you should become teachers, my brothers and sisters, for you know that we who teach will be judged with greater strictness. 2 For all of us make many mistakes. Anyone who makes no mistakes in speaking is perfect, able to keep the whole body in check with a bridle. 3 If we put bits into the mouths of horses to make them obey us, we guide their whole bodies. 4 Or look at ships: though they are so large that it takes strong winds to drive them, yet they are guided by a very small rudder wherever the will of the pilot directs. 5 So also the tongue is a small member, yet it boasts of great exploits. How great a forest is set ablaze by a small fire! 6 And the tongue is a fire. The tongue is placed among our members as a world of iniquity; it stains the whole body, sets on fire the cycle of nature, and is itself set on fire by hell. 7 For every species of beast and bird, of reptile and sea creature, can be tamed and has been tamed by the human species, 8 but no one can tame the tongue—a restless evil, full of deadly poison. 9 With it we bless the Lord and Father, and with it we curse those who are made in the likeness of God. 10 From the same mouth come blessing and cursing. My brothers and sisters, this ought not to be so. 11 Does a spring pour forth from the same opening both fresh and brackish water? 12 Can a fig tree, my brothers and sisters, yield olives, or a grapevine figs? No more can salt water yield fresh.
It strikes me as a little funny to have the first line of the text this morning say “not many of you should become teachers” after having just commissioned the incoming teachers for the Sunday School year just last Sunday, but then, it is probably an entirely appropriate note on which to dwell at the beginning of the new year. After all, what does a teacher use to instruct? Words!
So it is a good thing to periodically stop and take account of how we are doing with them – with our words – in relation to how we are doing with our relationship with Jesus.
Here’s a simple test. Three questions, true or false, you may want to keep the answers to yourself:
I have never hurt another person with my words
I have never repeated something about another person that I did not know for certain was absolutely true.
I never participate in idle talk about other people and their lives.
Now, I’d like to try an experiment together. Yesterday many of you were here to witness the wedding ceremony of Mark and Irma Haggerty. There came the point in the ceremony where they repeated words after me. We’re going to do something a LITTLE bit like that, but as we do, I want you to pay attention to how you react emotionally to what you are saying.
Okay, ready? Repeat after me: “I love you!”
Great! How did that feel? Good?
Now, ready for the second phrase? Here goes.
Repeat after me: “I hate you!”
Hmmm … not quite the same, is it?
Consider for a moment the power of speech. When we hear a word, the physical movement that enters our ear and then the inner ear activates 24,000 little nerves which react through the limbic system and results in the pituitary gland sending hormones into the body. Our whole physical system reacts when we hear words of care or condemnation. Have you ever heard something and it makes you physically ill? When we hear words that bring us pain or anxiety, the physical-chemical reaction may take as many as 72 hours to subside. Does that explain how some people live in a perpetual state of agitation and upset?
The power of the tongue, that is to say, the power of words, was clearly understood by James. Perhaps not in the detailed scientific way we just went over a minute ago, but in terms of what words can do TO the heart and what spoken words say ABOUT the heart, yeah, that part was clearly understood.
James is not only speaking about gossip in this passage, though gossip is definitely included in the family of words he is discussing. He is speaking about any untoward word, any unmeasured, uncontrolled utterance, anything spoken in anger, unthinkingly, or with no thought for how it will affect the listener.
It is to my enduring regret and shame to remember moments when the words that came out of my mouth were particularly harsh, especially barbed, and deliberately aimed to inflict shame or pain. There is nothing I can do to take them back. Nothing. I can only hope and pray that my actions since those words were spoken will work to dim, if not erase the memory of them.
It is an apt image that James draws – that of a rider controlling the horse with a bit in the mouth – it’s a piece of metal that is, what? Maybe 6 inches long? And it helps control an animal that weighs how many hundred pounds?
And the ship analogy – relative to the size of the ship, the rudder is miniscule! And yet, with a word from the pilot the rudder turns and the entire ship moves accordingly. Amazing to think of how much like those our tongues are. It’s actually a little eerie, if you ask me, how dead on those images are. The horse can be in perfect health, the ship can be functioning perfectly, no problems whatsoever, but if the horse is steered off a cliff, or the ship is steered towards a reef, what’s the result? Disaster. And all because of the turn of a relatively small piece in the whole system.
How many of us have lived the consequences of letting our rudders take us on a wrong turn? Lead us down a path down which we should never have gone, said things we never should have said? And the end result was disaster?
The forest fire image could have been drawn directly from the news we’ve been getting from out west over the last couple of weeks, couldn’t it? How many of us have watched words spoken in ignorance, or haste, or worse yet, malice, spread like a wildfire through a community? Or have you seen it happen in a community of faith? It is hard to imagine anything worse than watching something like that take hold of a congregation and tear at its very heart. In times of stress, tempers flare, words are spoken or perhaps yelled, and feelings are expressed in less than loving terms.
That seems to be one of the things James was facing in the congregation in Jerusalem. They were living through persecution, of what kind we do not know, though we can imagine to a point. And in that time of strain, of challenge, of hardship, and even of outright danger, words I’m sure were said that need not have been.
So how do you deal with the aftermath of a word exchange that leaves people bleeding, internally? That leaves them wondering how the other person can even call themselves a follower of Christ and still sleep at night.
The first step is recognizing that what has been said was painful, harmful; to the individual, to the situation, to the group, to the community. There is an element of accountability that is involved in living in community, in being a part of a family of faith, of a local congregation, that calls us individually to become servants of all. That is a fundamental aspect of what it means to be a follower of Christ. Christ calls us to a life of service, and by definition, that pulls us out of the mindset that we intrinsically have a position within that family that is of a higher value than another.
I mentioned at the beginning that we just held our commissioning of the incoming year’s slate of officers and committees and teachers. On a human level, we almost automatically put ourselves in layers – this one is more important than that one, that one needs to answer and report to this one, and so on … yes, there is a scriptural basis for having leaders in the church, but what is it based on? Spiritual maturity. Not on wealth, not on family, not on positions held outside the church… while we hope for a happy coincidence when we look for folks to fill the positions that are available within our community, we may be doing ourselves a disservice by not first looking at the level of maturity in a person as a follower of Christ.
When James uses the word ‘perfect’ in verse 2, he is using it in the same sense that Paul does in his writings – it is in the sense of ‘mature’.
So what does this mean for Jerusalem Baptist Church at Emmerton?
Let’s ask some questions of ourselves:
How have we, with our words, in this past week, caused pain?
How have we, with our words, in this past week, torn down someone’s spirit?
How have we, with our words, in this past week, blessed someone?
How have we, with our words, in this past week, lifted someone’s spirit, provided comfort in a time of affliction, or encouraged someone in a moment of sorrow or difficulty?
How have we, with our words, in this past week, torn or mended the fabric of the cloth that we are weaving together that is called Jerusalem Baptist Church?
Let’s pray.
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