Tongues of Fire

Sept. 13, 2015

Wisdom of Solomon 7:26-8:1; James 3:1-6

I have often thought that if I didn’t love liturgy and preaching I would be a Quaker. From their deep and passionate commitment to nonviolence, their wisdom in discernment, and the power of the community of friends gathered in simple silence, there is much in that tradition that speaks to my soul. I find, moreover, much to commend in the simple Quaker saying, “speak only if it improves the silence.”

That is a high bar to set at the beginning of a sermon, and one I regularly fail to clear. But I do feel called to speak, thus I pray, always, for the wisdom to discern a word that might add rather than detract from the silence.

After all, as the author of James notes so clearly, “the tongue is a fire.”

On this first Sunday of a new school year for many of our kids, it’s worth noting that almost all of them have learned one of the great falsehoods that passes for playground wisdom: “sticks and stones may break my bones, but words can never hurt me.”

Well, that’s a load of crap.

The tongue is a fire, and fire burns.

Fire, of course, also warms and illuminates the darkness, and often only the finest of lines separates the flame that brightens the night from the one that burns the house down.

We are called to speak truth to power, but also to speak the truth in love.

Take, for a current example, all that is being written and spoken about Kim Davis, the county clerk recently jailed in Kentucky for contempt of court after she refused to issue marriage licenses to same-sex couples. To begin with, and I cannot state this more clearly, she is wrong legally and, more importantly to me, she is wrong theologically and Biblically, as well.

It is important for people of faith, for followers of Jesus, to speak this truth clearly, plainly, and often. Silence is not an acceptable response to such outrages.

However, it is equally important for followers of Jesus to say that those who ridicule Mrs. Davis for her looks are messing with fire, for there is no love in such speech. Those who ridicule her for her own past are equally messing with fire, for to do so is to forget Jesus’ admonition about the sinless and the casting of stones.

Jesus clearly understood the power of words, but Jesus had no truck with snark for there is no love in such language.

If we want to change the world – and what other purpose is there to the whole work of discipleship – if we want to change the world, we need to live differently in the world. Moreover, if we want to change the world, we need great power. There is nothing in the world more powerful than love. There is nothing in the world more powerful than love.

As the columnist Connie Schultz put it in a recent piece:

We don't need to mock [Kim] Davis for justice to prevail. If we are to live our message, that all marriages are equal, then I'd rather treat her with the respect she has denied others. She can believe whatever she wants. Same-sex marriage is the law of the land, including in Rowan County. Davis is a flawed human, and in that, she has a lot in common with the rest of us.  […] We can point to her circuitous route to redemption and her current state of religious certainty and declare her a fool […]. Or we can see her as a woman who has joined that long list of humans looking for a chance to be something other than their biggest mistakes.[1]

Accepting this sad woman as deserving of respect does not at all mean accepting what she has said and done. Treating those with whom we disagree with respect does not mean giving them a free pass. Treating them with respect does not mean keeping silent about rank hypocrisy. Treating them with respect also does not mean that we cannot use humor to draw lines and distinctions.

Treating them with respect, however, does mean that we hold ourselves to a higher standard – the standard of love – in the way we speak the truth as we have been given to understand it.

There are countless concerns pressing all around us these days, and each of them begs for truthful, loving responses. From the refugee crisis in Europe to racial tensions at home, from the endless so-called global war on terror to the global crisis of climate change, there is no shortage of opportunities to seek the truth and to speak it in love in the midst of inevitable disagreement.

To the extent that the community of disciples can be known not by how we are always in one accord, but rather by how we love each other even when we are not of one mind, then we are called to precisely such a time as this.

The common thread I discern running through the lectionary passages this morning is teaching. We are in the midst of a teachable moment. Might we be called to teach by our example?

The passage from James begins with the acknowledgement that not many of us should become teachers, for teachers are held to a higher standard because they are called to a higher calling. We are called to that standard when we speak out for justice, and when we hold accountable those who fail, in word or in deed, to meet the demands of justice. If we can do that – speaking the truth to power, and speaking it in love – then we truly will speak with the tongues of teachers.

Today’s lectionary also includes a text from Isaiah that we didn’t read, but it begins with these words: “The Lord God has given me the tongue of a teacher, that I may know how to sustain the weary with a word.”

A word that sustains the weary is a word that improves the silence. A word that sustains the weary is a flame that lights up the darkest of nights. A word that sustains the weary is a gift of wisdom, “a reflection of eternal light” against the darkness that wearies the world these days.

The world is weary these days. The world is weary of endless war, and that weariness is etched on the faces of the refugees making their way across dangerous waters for something better than war. The world is weary of a broken global economy, and that weariness is etched on the faces of child laborers bent to their work, the faces of women trafficked for the pleasures of the rich and powerful, and the faces of men picking crops for virtual slave wages. The world is weary of bigotry, and that weariness is etched on the faces of same-sex couples denied their legal right to be married, the faces of black men and black women whose lives still matter too little to too many, and the faces of our Latino sisters and brothers being made scapegoats by a politics of division that passes for democracy these days.

Have we a word to speak to those who are weary?

If we believe, as we say we do, that God so loved the cosmos – the whole of creation and all those who dwell therein – that God came down to dwell as love in our midst, then we know that the only word that improves upon the silence is the word spoken with a love that touches the weary, that shares their burden, and that brings them rest. Let us speak such a word, or rest in the silence until God gives us such a word to speak. Amen.

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[1] Creators Syndicate, 2015.