Word, words, words. From the talking heads on MSNBC to the empty inquiries about our friends’ health, we’re deluged by ’em! Parents can’t wait for their offspring to talk–which they will do constantly until they’re teenagers who only communicate by texting. Some people were born with a silver spoon in their mouths; I was evidently born with my FOOT in my mouth! Scripture for the coming weekend reminds all of us to speak only with caution, because people can get hurt.
The Hebrew Scripture, Proverbs 1:20-33, brings us words of Holy Wisdom: “at the busiest corner she cries out…” Wisdom laments that the “simple ones” haven’t absorbed her counsel; the resultant panic, calamity and distress will remain unpitied by One who said, “I told you so!” What grace there is can be found in the final verse of the reading: “but those who listen to me will be secure and will live at ease, without dread of disaster.” I find it ironic that a word can be both painful and helpful. Do we have choices of voices?
There’s no Christology as such in the Epistle of James 3:1-12. “Right speech” is one of the three marks of true religion outlined earlier, along with the care of widows and orphans and keeping unstained by the world. James marvels that so small a thing as a human tongue has so much power! The undomesticated tongue is called “a restless evil, full of deadly poison”. “With it we bless the Lord and Father, and with it we curse those who are made in the likeness of God. From the same mouth come blessing and cursing.” The writer isn’t speaking of daily profanity–the words I say when I pinch my finger in a door–but the disrespect we offer others. You know: jokes about another race or ethnicity; deflating the puffed-up; making allowances for the less-educated; impatience with the fat, the blind, the deaf. This passage is inviting the Church to be counter-cultural in the way we perceive and talk about “Them”.
Today we explore again Jesus’ question, “Who do people say that I am?” as remembered by Mark. Peter, spokespersons for the Disciples and the rest of us, gives a good answer: “You are the Messiah”. But shortly after, he goes all worldly on Jesus, “rebuking” him for claiming his death & resurrection–for which he himself is rebuked. Again an oral encounter which shakes the universe! Our tendency is to speak with a forked tongue…
Pearl Maria Barros asks, “In a world in which we are constantly bombarded with information–some of it beautiful and much of it terrifying–how do we witness to Christ?” (SOJOURNERS, September-October 2018) Our words can add to or detract from the Kingdom of God…As the sign says, “O Lord, make my words soft and tender, for I may have to eat them tomorrow”.
God Bless Us, Every One Horace Brown King
Come watch me wrestle with words and the Word of the Lord every Tuesday at this spot on Facebook; or at horacebrownking.com
My Blog 
Leave a comment