September 17, 2006
Sermon preached by Rev. Donald Ng at the First Chinese Baptist Church in San Francisco.
Since none of us are prefect, we make mistakes in speaking. Governor Swartzenegger was caught referring to Hispanic Americans as “very hot” recently—meaning that they are “compassionate” people. He has apologized to the Hispanic community for his careless remarks. But in light of the upcoming elections, his opponent for the governor’s office probably won’t let him forget this “loose tongue” remark easily.
Someone recently told me that while the rest of the world is only separated by 6% of separation, we at FCBC are separated only by 3%! Given how nearly everyone is related to one person or another, it is ill-advised to speak badly of anyone when you are at FCBC!
There’s a story about a new clerk in the produce section of a supermarket on his first day on the job. A lady came up to him and said she wanted to buy a half a head of lettuce. He tried to dissuade her from that goal, but she persisted. Finally he said, “I’ll have to go back and talk to the manager.”
He went to the rear of the store to talk to the manager, not noticing that the woman was walking right behind him. When he got into the back of the store, he said to the manager, “There’s some stupid old bag out there who wants to buy a half a head of lettuce. What should I tell her?”
Seeing the horrified look on the face of the manager, he turned about and, seeing the woman, added, “And this nice lady wants to buy the other half of the lettuce. Will it be all right?”
Relieved, the manager said, “That would be fine.”
Later in the day, he congratulated the boy on his quick thinking and asked, “Where are you from, son?”
The boy said, “I’m from Toronto, Canada, the home of beautiful hockey players and ugly women.”
The manager replied, “My wife is from Toronto”—to which the boy said, “Oh what team did she play for?”
We can’t always be as quick with our wit as this boy from Toronto is. Our tongue can get us into trouble unless we are careful.
Teachers & Preachers
James is writing about teachers whose ministry is exercised particularly through speaking. The author identifies himself as a teacher and warns of the strictness with which the speech of teachings will be judged. So, as we begin this new Fall school season, teachers beware! The importance of teaching in the early church is also made evident from the prominent place Paul gives them in his list of ministries, naming teachers third, after apostles and prophets.
James holds out the ideal that the speech of Christians reflects their striving to become wholly what they are created to be. He uses vivid metaphors to describe the power of speech. He compares the tongue to the bridle used on a horse or a rudder on a ship. The bridle is tiny in comparison to a one thousand pound horse it controls, just as a minuscule rudder guides a mammoth ship. So too, the tongue is a tiny organ guiding speech that can have enormous effects.
The examples then shift to that of a tiny fire that can set ablaze a whole forest. Now the emphasis is on the deadly effects of which the tongue is capable and its uncontrollable nature.
In the final verses James returns to a frequent theme of his: the necessity for integrity in the life of the believers. Elsewhere, we read James writes about the congruity between deeds and words. Here, integrity is applied to the consistency of speech. Christians cannot bless God while cursing fellow human beings any more than brackish or salty water can spew from a fresh spring or olives come forth from fig trees, or figs from grapevines. How might our speech become congruent and consistent with our faith in Jesus Christ?
Talk Like a Christian
We grew up saying “Sticks and stones may break my bones but words will never hurt me.” I remember saying this when I was being threatened by bullies! But as we have gotten older and after reading James, this little childhood ditty that “words will never hurt me” is not true.
One of the teachings that I can remember my mother telling me is that “You cannot take your words back. Once you said it, you can’t have them back.”
There’s a story about a man who lived in a highland village in Scotland. He passed along a story about another man he didn’t care for. At the time, he thought the story to be true. When the story got around the village, it utterly destroyed the man. His family, his job and his integrity were all devastated by the rumor mill. He finally had to leave town—a ruined and defeated man.
In time, the fellow who passed the story along discovered that the rumor was false. He had helped to destroy an innocent man with his tongue. He went to his pastor and said, “Pastor, I have destroyed a man with my words,” and he told the whole story. “Please,” he said, “I am sorry—can I be forgiven this sin?”
The pastor told the man that this was not so simple, and told him to take a bag of feathers and place one in the front yard of every house in the village. Although the fellow thought this to be s strange request for a pastor to make, he really wanted forgiveness. So he followed the instructions to the letter. At last he came back to the pastor and said, “I have done all that you asked, may I now be forgiven?”
“Not yet, my son,” the pastor replied. “You must first retrace your steps and bring back to me every feather you placed in the village?”
“But—I could never do that, the wind has carried the feathers away!”
“Yes,” the pastor said, “and in like manner have your careless words destroyed an innocent man.”
The tongue is not steel, yet it cuts. You and I know this from personal experience, don’t we? We know that “loose lips sink ships,” and that an untamed tongue can ruin relationships and fracture friendships. Words can hurt, or words can heal—not only us but also others. Many of us are saddened by the cruel or unkind words we have said. But taming the tongue doesn’t come easily. It doesn’t even necessarily get easier with age, for, as one wit put it, “Human beings are like old shoes. The last part to wear out is the tongue.” How might we tame the tongue?
Tips on Taming the Tongue
There are three tips on taming the tongue. First, try to train ourselves to pause and think before we speak. Proverbs 15:23 reads, “A word spoken in good season, how good it is.” There’s uncontrolled tongue in “diarrhea of the mouth” when someone talks compulsively and is annoying to others. Then there’s the “foot in mouth” disease where seemingly unintended, indiscrete, or embarrassing utterances come tumbling out along with all the rest. And then we have what we call, “malicious gossip,” for which the tongue, the pen, and the email message are weapons in a war fought against the world. This person can quickly poison the atmosphere of any group, and basks in the sense of self-importance.
An old saying puts it, “Be careful of the words you say to keep them soft and sweet. You never know from day to day which ones you’ll have to eat.” When we can pause and think before we speak, we would be able to tame our tongues.
A second tongue-taming tip comes from James himself: “Let everyone be quick to listen, slow to speak and slow to anger” (1:19). For some of us, speaking comes easily, but listening is an art. We don’t always listen to other people.
We can learn to not only listen to what is being said but to what is not being said as well. Sometimes, what is left out of what someone is saying is more important than what is being said. “Let everyone be quick to listen,” says James. Dietrich Bonhoeffer said, “For when we stop listening to each other, pretty soon we will no longer listen to God.”
The third tip to taming the tongue is when we speak, seek to choose words that build up the other person. “Let your speech always be gracious, seasoned with salt,” says Colossians 4:6). In those days, salt was the primary preservative. In other words, speak in ways that preserve the other person.
Think of some ways that you see people abused by the way other people speak about them. Take the “N word” or when people refer to Asian Americans as “Orientals.” Think of what it does to people to refer to them simply as “the enemy” especially after five years since 9/11. As parents, we wonder how much damage we have done to our children with thoughtless remarks that exploded out of our mouths when we were frustrated. Or when we have been in groups where inappropriate humor about women came forth, and we just chuckled along with the guys.
When our children are at school, we can identify with this story of a little boy. “In first grade, Mr. Lohr said my purple teepee wasn’t realistic enough, that purple was no color for a tent, that purple was a color for people who died, that my drawing wasn’t good enough to hang with the others. I walked back to my seat counting the swishes of my baggy corduroy pants.” The boy took a black crayon and wiped out what he had drawn. We can hear that little boy’s pain and shame.
But the piece continues” “In second grade, Mr. Barta said, “Draw anything.” He didn’t care what. I left my paper blank and when he came around to my desk, my heart beat like a tom-tom while he touched my head with his big hand and in a soft voice said, “The snowfall. How clean and white and beautiful!” Teachers have such power as James reminds us! That imaginative second grade teacher turned a boy’s wounded self-image around.
Tongue in the Church
The tongue can be a problem in the church too. We can stand across the street and make unkind jokes about other people. Even at church we talk behind people’s backs. We say things about people that we would never say to their faces. Such behavior not only discredits the people we talk about, but it erodes trust in the community. If I would say that about someone behind that person’s back, what might I say about you behind your back?
Today, when speech proliferates in many forms, not only orally, but in written modes and by all manner of electronic communication, people can become careless in their speech. A chance remark or an ill-advised email can be passed on today with rapidity that did not exist in James’ days. James image of a forest fire is too tame today to capture the wide-reaching damaging effects of spam on the internet.
James says, “My sisters and brothers, this ought not be so.” The spring should pour forth fresh water from its opening, and should not give both fresh and brackish water. We should use the tongue in ways to serve God’s purposes. In James, we can see from the book of Genesis that God’s word is creative—not destructive.
God says, “Let there be light”…and there is light. God says, “Let the waters bring forth swarms of living creatures”…and there are all kinds of fish, large and small. God says, “Let the earth bring forth living creatures of every kind”…and there are cattle and creeping things and al types of wild animals. It’s clear that all of God’s words are designed to be creative, to bring order out of chaos, and to make something good.
Can the same be said of our words? Before we open our mouths to speak, we can apply this “Genesis Test” to what you are about to say. Is it creative? Does it bring order out of chaos? Does it make something good? If not, it’s better to remain silent.
In the end, seeking to know God and putting God first is ultimate in tongue taming. For while thinking before we speak and learning to listen while choosing healing, not hurting, words are all important, these tongue-taming tips are most effective when they come out of our relationship with Christ. Jesus said, “Out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaks.” He also said, “The tree is known by its fruit” (Matt. 12:24b,33c).
Words are like fruit on the outside, and they will always be determined by what’s on the inside. The tongue, you see, seems to be connected to the heart. If you want to control what you say? You need to let God control who you are. Taming the tongue doesn’t have anything to do with getting control of your life. In fact, it has everything to do with losing control of your life in God. If God is inside us, something of God’s goodness is bound to pour out.
Tongue Tied
I used to be tongue tied—literally my tongue was physically tied down to the lower part of my mouth. This caused me to be afraid of speaking publicly because it made it difficult to pronounced words correctly. Now that I have corrected this problem, I can speak more freely. And in doing so, I have more responsibility to tame my tongue!
On top of this, as a minister of the Word, I must always be careful to tame my tongue. There’s a story of a minister who was making a wooden trellis to support a climbing vine.
As he was pounding away, he noticed that a little boy was watching him. The youngster didn’t say a word, so the preacher kept on working, thinking the boy would leave. But he didn’t.
Pleased at the thought that his work was being admired, the pastor finally said, “Well, son, trying to pick up some pointers on building a trellis?”
“No,” the boy replied. “I’m just waiting to hear what a preacher says when he hits his thumb with a hammer.”
Let us pray.
O God, before we accept the challenge of living a life in Christ, we often draw back in fear, sometimes paralyzed by the lack of hope, sometimes tempted to speak destructively against others created in your image, have mercy on us, O God. Invite us in, dear Lord to have an openness of heart that will draw us into your plan and purpose for our lives and to trust in your promises for us for tomorrow. Amen.