Sermon: Watch Your Mouth

And our scripture reading today comes from James chapter 3, verses 1 to 12.

James 3:1–12

This comes from the Common English Bible translation.

I invite you to hear now the word of the Lord.

My brothers and sisters, not many of you should become teachers, because we know that we teachers will be judged more strictly.

We all make mistakes often, but those who don't make mistakes with their words have reached full maturity.

Like a bridled horse, they can control themselves entirely.

When we bridle horses and put bits in their mouths to lead them wherever we want, we can control their whole bodies.

Consider ships.

They are so large that strong winds are needed to drive them away.

But pilots direct their ships wherever they want with a little rudder.

In the same way, even though the tongue is a small part of the body, it boasts wildly.

Think about this.

A small flame can set a whole forest on fire.

The tongue is a small flame of fire, a world of evil at work within us.

It contaminates our entire lives.

Because of it, the circle of life is set on fire.

The tongue itself is set on fire by the flames of hell.

People can tame and already have tamed every kind of animal, bird, reptile, and fish.

No one can tame the tongue, though.

It is a restless evil full of deadly poison.

With it, we both bless the Lord and Father and curse human beings made in God's likeness.

Blessing and cursing come from the same mouth.

My brothers and sisters, it should not be this way.

Both fresh water and salt water don't come from the same spring, do they?

My brothers and sisters, can a fig tree produce olives?

Can a grapevine produce figs?

Of course not.

And freshwater doesn't flow from a saltwater spring either.

This is the word of God for us, the people of God.

Let us pray.

Oh Lord, we pray that you would open our hearts and minds by the power of your Holy Spirit to hear you speaking to us through these scriptures.

May we hear the words that you have for us that we might offer your words of life to others.

In Christ's name.

Amen.

Well, today I get to talk about my favorite subject: words.

I love words.

I love to read them.

I love to write them.

I love to study them and learn their origin and their history and their meaning.

And yes, I am aware that I am a nerd.

But because I'm a nerd, I am also aware of the power of words.

I have a healthy fear of words because I can still remember the exact wording of an insult hurled at me when I was nine years old by another kid.

I can still remember where I was and what I was doing.

I can still remember the sting, how embarrassed and ashamed I was, how it made me feel so bad about myself.

I can still remember how I chewed over those mean words for weeks and months until they become stuck in my brain and part of who I believed myself to be.

It took years before I could release them as the untruthful insults that it was and not a deep and painful truth about myself.

Growing up, I learned the phrase that I think you could probably repeat with me.

Help me finish this.

Words hurt just as deeply as sticks and stones hurled at us, only the bruises and scrapes are hidden from sight.

I did a Google search trying to learn the origin of that phrase.

Sticks and stones may break my bones, but words can never hurt me.

And I didn't find anything very interesting, but what I did find was some modern-day variations of it.

And I thought they were quite witty.

Like this one.

Stones and sticks break only skin, while words are ghosts that haunt me.

In his letter to the church, James sounds a lot like this poet.

He knows the power of words and how easily that power can be forgotten or ignored by people who use their words carelessly.

James calls the tongue a restless evil.

He compares it to a small flame that can start a raging wildfire.

He calls it a world of evil at work within us, full of deadly poison.

James does not underestimate the power of words, and neither should we.

But the truth is we live in a culture that is incredibly careless with its words.

Pythagoras, the Greek philosopher who lived 600 years before Jesus, said, A fool is known by his speech, and a wise man by his silence.

Well, gone is that wisdom.

Gone is also the wisdom from that great philosophy work called Bambi.

If you have nothing nice to say, don't say anything at all.

Well, in today's world, the opposite is celebrated.

Today's adage might be, if you have nothing nice to say, say it louder.

Or today's adage might be, a fool posts nothing on social media, and a wise man posts whatever inflammatory thought is on their mind.

We are living in a culture that does not fear the power of words and the wildfires that they create.

Instead, our culture justifies using our words as weapons and celebrates whenever we do so.

Our culture just shrugs when our words take on power of their own, when words control the speaker instead of the speaker controlling the words.

But James and the entirety of the Bible commands us to live differently.

James's instructions here in chapter three are incredibly countercultural.

James urges us not to speak our minds, but to hold our tongues, to watch our mouths.

James teaches us to be wary of the power of our words and urges us to bridle our speech like we would bridle a horse, controlling it and guiding it where we want it to go, not the other way around.

Now, most of our culture dismisses or abuses the power of words, but there is still some modern wisdom that echo the commands of Scripture.

So I'm gonna walk us through James's words to us by using some modern wisdom from phrases that you might recognize.

So first, I was at my daughter's middle school and I saw a poster on one of the teachers' doors, and it read, think before you speak.

And think was an acrostic.

So each letter was a word, right?

So T, is it true?

H, is it helpful?

I, is it inspiring?

N, is it necessary?

K, is it kind?

The poster was urging students to use this acrostic to determine whether or not they should say what is on their mind.

Is whatever they are thinking true, helpful, inspiring, necessary, or kind?

If not, then perhaps that thought is what I like to call an inside thought.

It stays inside the head.

It doesn't come outside.

James would call this taming the tongue, using self-control and discipline with our speech and not following the modern temptation to say anything we feel compelled to say.

And James urges us to tame the tongue, not just for the sake of others, but for our own sake as well.

He uses the example of a rudder on a ship.

A tiny rudder has the power to direct a massive ship this way or that.

Our words have the same power.

Our words direct our lives.

They impact the health and direction of our most important relationships.

Our words can make or break our success in our professional lives.

Our words can get us into trouble and get us out of trouble.

Our words have immense power over the direction of our lives, both now and eternally.

So I think James would wholeheartedly buy a copy of that teacher's poster and put it up at his church because we are called to be people who think before we speak, to make sure our words are true and helpful and inspiring and necessary and kind.

The second modern bit of wisdom that I think echoes James's wisdom is one of my favorite Southernisms.

Do you kiss your mama with that mouth?

The first time I heard this phrase, I was at a youth mission trip.

We were doing hurricane relief work in the heat of summer, and one of the high school boys was grumpy and mouthing off about a task he was asked to do.

And an older male, very southern chaperone, put his hand on his shoulder and looked him in the eye and said, Son, do you kiss your mama with that mouth?

And the boy had clearly never heard this phrase before because he just stuttered for a moment.

And then he chuckled and he went on his way without complaining.

It diffused the situation.

It brought things into perspective.

He did not want his mama to know the foul language and foul attitude that had tainted his mouth.

That was for sure.

James has a similar sentiment when he writes, With the tongue, we both bless the Lord and Father and curse human beings made in God's likeness.

Blessing and cursing come from the same mouth.

My brothers and sisters, it just shouldn't be this way.

Throughout his letter, James is concerned with and warns us against being double-minded, to living without integrity, to saying one thing and doing another, to confessing Jesus, but to not love the neighbor.

And here in James chapter 3, Jesus or James warns us against being double-tongued.

James 3 · chapter mention

He urges us to have integrity in our speech.

If we are to be people who praise God, who bless God, who pray for mercy and love and goodness for ourselves and those we love, and then we turn around and use our words to condemn or gossip or insult or tear down another, then we are not people with verbal integrity.

We are double-tongued people.

Either we bless God and by extension bless the people God created in God's image, or our blessing of God is hollow and false because we use our words to curse the people reflecting God's image.

To James, failure to control one's speech is a sign that one's faith is not authentic.

Integrity of speech matters.

How you talk about people matters.

Not only because of the impact it has on the person you talk about, but its impact on your own relationship with God, who commands you to love your neighbor as yourself.

To love a neighbor is to not speak ill, to not slander or embarrass or insult or tear down.

When blessing and cursing come from the same mouth, our own spiritual well-being suffers.

So I think James would approve of the southernism, do you kiss your mama with that mouth?

But I think he would change it to say, do you praise your God with that mouth?

Ask yourself that question next time you're tempted to speak poorly of another person or a group of people, and perhaps you'll remember that they are created in God's image.

And to insult them is to insult God.

So the last bit of modern wisdom that echoes James is the thought-provoking phrase: words create worlds.

Words create worlds, meaning words don't just communicate something, they create the culture and reality in which we live.

If I were to take my family to a party, and on the way to the party, I would tell them that the host is a terrible cook and everything is going to taste awful.

And by the way, the host's friends are all terrible people, so you should avoid them at all costs.

My family is gonna want to go home before we even get to the party.

Even if the host hires the best caterer in town, and even if only the nicest, greatest people show up, my par my family will not enjoy that party, and they will be ready to leave.

Words create worlds.

This phrase is attributed to Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel, who was one of the most renowned Jewish theologians of the 20th century.

And his daughter Susannah later talked about how much he used these words in his parenting.

And so Susanna explained what he meant when she said, Words, he often wrote, are themselves sacred.

God's tool for creating the universe and our tools for bringing holiness or evil into the world.

He used them, he used to remind us, Susanna says of her father, he used to remind us that the Holocaust did not begin with the building of crematoria.

And Hitler did not come into power with tanks and guns.

It all began with uttering evil words, with defamation and language and propaganda.

Words create worlds, he used to tell me when I was a child.

They must be used very carefully.

Some words, once having been uttered, gain eternity and can never be withdrawn.

The book of Proverbs reminds us, he wrote, that death and life are in the power of the tongue.

Words create worlds.

This is why James so insistently and forcefully warns his readers to take care with their words, to watch their mouths, to bridle their tongues, because our words have the power to create hell on earth, both for ourselves and for others.

And likewise, our words have the power to reveal heaven on earth, to usher people into God's kingdom, into God's grace and mercy and love.

Which kind of world do you wish to create with your words?

The answer to that question is what is at stake whenever you speak or text or type or write.

Every word you utter contributes to someone's experience of hell or heaven on earth.

That is the power you have.

So here is what I challenge you to do this week.

Pick one of these three modern-day wisdom sayings.

Think before you speak.

Ask yourself, is what I'm saying true, helpful, inspiring, necessary, or kind?

Or the second saying is, do you kiss your mama with that mouth, or do you praise your God with that mouth?

Or the third saying, words create worlds.

Pick one of these and let it anchor your words this week.

Let it guide every conversation, every email, every text, every social media interaction, and see what happens.

I guarantee you, you will notice things about yourself and your speech that you might not like.

After all, James tells us no human being can tame the tongue with their own power, but thanks be to God, the Holy Spirit who lives within us can and will tame the tongue when we invite the Spirit to do so.

This is the power of the Spirit at work within us when we invite the Spirit to guide us.

The Spirit gives us the wisdom to know when to speak, what to say, and when to keep silent.

So lean in to the Spirit this week.

Let the Spirit guide your words and let your words flow not from your own restless tongue, but from the grace of God and the power of the Holy Spirit living within you.

In the name of God, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.

Amen.