James Week Three - Taming the Tongue
Sermon preached by the Rev. Dr John Fox
12th of September 2021
Hello to the lovely and kind people of Highfield, from Sumner and Redcliffs.
I’m very sorry that COVID means I can’t come and be with you in person, but I’m very happy to be with you, and to be a guest of my friend and brother Josh Taylor, even this way. I prayed for you all while typing this, as I would for my own parish, and I send you my best wishes for your sanity and peace.
I have to say when I began reading the James reading whether Josh in his very gentle and characteristic way might be trying to send me a hint about taming my tongue. I am a blunt Dutchman who likes to thump the table and shout things like “No! No! Absolutely not you idiot” and other things that wouldn’t pass muster with my grandma. I need the reminder, and we all need the reminder as human beings, how powerful our tongue can be: how much good we can do with it, and also how much poison we can spread. Bitterness, anger, wrath, pride and lust can all come from our tongue. And they have power. Blessing, building up, love and kindness can come from our tongue. And they have power too.
You’ve already heard so far in the James series about the importance of listening, of being “slow to speak, quick to listen, slow to wrath”, and being quick to speech and quick to wrath are connected: what we say and the wrathful reactions we get often go together. Josh already asked you to think about what it would be like for Christian people to be known for the quality of our listening. And then of course, last week, James tells us that believing things in our heads is not enough: we have to show by what we do, by what we build and by what we love what we really believe. James jumps from that to the importance of taming the tongue: and boy howdy is he strong. That isn’t random. It’s because if we are really going to be serious Christians, what we say, how we control our speech, will be first on the chopping block for transformation by God. How we speak is an essential element of who we are.
As Thomas Cranmer used to say, if you want to judge a person, look at his or her LIFE, MANNERS (how they treat others) and CONVERSATION, that is, the spirit which emerges when they speak.
What are they building?
What do they truly love?
How do they speak?
If everything someone says is about model trains, guess what they love?
If everything involves pictures of the kids or grandkids, guess what they value?
And if someone’s hateful, or bitter, or an Eeyore, or a Miss or Mr Much Afraid, that will become rapidly obvious too.
I used to see all the time as a hospital and a disability chaplain people who lived in a fog of despair, hatred, bitterness or ouch: and you will know too as Church people that there are some people who turn loving them into an Olympic obstacle course.
Jesus tells us in the gospel that “out of the heart the mouth speaks”. If you want to know what someone loves or hates, what they live for or what they can’t stand, listen to them talk for ten minutes. James reminds us that we (especially clergy and teachers) will answer for every idle word: that should scare every Christian. Think about the number of idle words we speak write or think. Bitching, moaning, complaining, pulling down and criticising things. And then feel the weight of what it will mean to be accountable for every idle impulse, and every tongue wagging moment. Our pain, our anger, our wrath, our pride, is too often obvious in what we say.
James isn’t interested in what we know, or believe so much as what our lives and speech say about us, what we’re building up or tearing down, and what is obvious to anyone who has heard us speak for ten minutes: what really matters to us. What you’re using the creative power of your words to walk out in your life.
That’s why the language is violent! Tongue is “deadly poison” it “sets the whole course of one’s life on fire, and is itself set on fire by Hell”, it’s full of boasting, and poison, and restlessness and bitterness.
Well ouch, Sheesh. Oops.
But before you dismiss the violence of James as exaggerated, consider for a moment that these little tiny habits of thought: of boasting (pride), fire (anger, or wrath) poison (bitterness) or corruption (lust, what my grandmother would call “lewd talk”, these are things which begin very small: in habits of gossip and fault finding, dwelling on how much you don’t like someone, small moments of corruption. And then they grow. These are things that don’t stay static.
For instance, insecure people who always talk about how great they are: their greatness, their stuff, their latest trip or this or that gadget they have. There are people with egos so big they don’t even know there are any other people in the room. That didn’t happen overnight: it happens when small habits become larger and larger and pride, lust or wrath began to dominate more and more. And you hear in the reading what that turns into:
Mixed Fruit.
With the tongue we praise our Lord and Father, and with it we curse human beings, who have been made in God’s likeness. 10 Out of the same mouth come praise and cursing. My brothers and sisters, this should not be. 11 Can both fresh water and salt water flow from the same spring? 12 My brothers and sisters, can a fig tree bear olives, or a grapevine bear figs? Neither can a salt spring produce fresh water. All kinds of animals, birds, reptiles and sea creatures are being tamed and have been tamed by mankind, 8 but no human being can tame the tongue.
I didn’t realise until I tried to stop how sharp and grumpy I was.
Gossipy people, angry people, grumpy people affect the temperature around them; they turn their souls inward—twistedness and bitterness and poison.
Most of us are not at that stage. Most of us think mixed fruit is working just fine. But James is giving us a huge warning:
1. Bridle your tongue
2. Examine yourself and judge your own manners, life and conversation.
If we do not check them, they become wrath idleness, carelessness or bitterness.
If we do not check them they will crowd out life, and love, and faith.
They will kill our souls.
Why did God give you your tongue?
Blessing
Edifying
Generosity
Edifying
Thoughtfulness.
Whole parishes and ministries are ruined by pulling down, by criticism, by idle talk and malice, envy and wrath. Whole parishes can be blessed by the opposite.
What we eat, does not defile us.
What defiles us is what moves our tongue and what comes out of our mouths and hearts.
What then shall we do?
1. Practice bridling your tongue. The tongue isn’t bad if it is channelled, tamed, answerable to God and others. Thoughtfulness comes with practice.
2. No man can tame the tongue. But God can. (St Augustine). He can remove roots of bitterness, corruption and pain. Come to Him with penitence and faith. Because we believe and depend on grace, gift, and the Crucified Lord, we can come to him and say: You see me, and all my anger and my bitterness and my ouch. HELP ME and take away from me the sharpness that kills.
3. Embrace accountability to selected others, and the community. Own your words, and show the humility to apologise when you’ve been sharp or mean or little, or angry. Who can tell you you’re wrong? Or be quiet?
4. Draw near to God. Submit to God. Pray about your tongue: “Lord, put your arm around my shoulder, and the other one over my mouth”
5. Build the habits of kindness and generosity. Grows into life giving largeness of heart. Copy those who do it well---and if you can’t do that, shut up.
Take from us Lord envy, hatred, malice and uncharitableness, the spirit of boasting, bitterness and idle talk. In the footsteps of Our Saviour make us people of love, faith, diligence and self control. Help us to tame our tongues, so as to be a blessing to the world, to your family, and that our souls might live. Make us a furnace of charity, renewed by the Power of God who gives to us power, love, self control and a sound mind.
Amen .
Typing this, I pray for you this prayer. And I send you my best wishes, that you may be people of warmth, grace and kindness. Hang in there.
In the affection and the power of Jesus, your very privileged guest,
John+