17TH Sunday after Pentecost

Texts: Isaiah 50:4-9a, James 3:1-12, Mark 8:27-38
Grace, Peace, and Mercy from our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. Amen.
“For every species of beast and bird, of reptile and sea creature, can be tamed and has been tamed by the human species, but no one can tame the tongue–a restless evil, full of deadly poison. With it we bless the Lord and Father, and with it we curse people made in the likeness of God”. The Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. might as well have been paraphrasing this verse we read from James’ epistle, when he made the following observation: “We have learned to fly the air like birds and swim the sea like fish, but we have not learned the simple art of living together as brothers.” Indeed, we have mastered so many feats of the intellect, of science, of medicine, of technology, we have reached the void of Space, and yet, this pesky human thing: the tongue, our use of language, the thing that allows us to communicate our inmost thoughts and feelings, continues to send us to the same old human ditch. And why is that? Because we remain enthralled to ways of life and ways of seeing the world that result in division and hatred. We have not reached the hour, where true fellowship and love is the norm of our existence. If our current socio-political climate teaches us anything, it is that no scientific advancement, no supposed progress of modern society can assure the most perennial of human aspirations: living in communion with each other. We continue to be pestered by the same elemental problems, provoked by the same ancient tendency to fall into the motions of sin and self-centeredness. If there ever was a more pesky part of the human body that daily contributes to these sinful motions, James is totally right, the prize definitely has to be given to the tongue. The tongue, which represents human speech, more often than not just gets us into trouble. The words we use, how we use them, and the actions that follow, contribute to most of human division back then in James’ time and today. This dynamic is basically the chronicle of a death announced; we still don’t know how to reign in the tongue, it is a constant struggle. And if James offers us any encouragement, it is that we can’t give up the fight. Because words have power. Words have the power to build and tear down, they can heal, as much as they can kill. Words reveal what resides in our hearts, they can be windows to the state of our soul. A person that doesn’t measure their words carefully always runs the risk of stoking the fires that exist within peoples’ lives, the histories and experiences that underlie the surface of daily life. On September 10, I’m sure some of us tuned in to our televisions or mobile devices to listen to the presidential debate, and talking about the thorniness of speech and teaching, I must bring out how this text speaks to our current moment. A very prominent figure in our politics publicly used his God-given ability to speak, and instead of blessing and upbuilding, many of us were exposed to a whole diatribe of dehumanizing language, employed to describe other human beings, made in the likeness of God, those human beings termed as immigrants or migrants, he described them as beasts. Words were used, describing people made in the likeness of God, that had roots in racist and utterly false discourses. It should come as no surprise that such speech has consequences. Once you start to pepper the mind with such thoughts, it poisons the well. Once you start referring to another human being as a beast, you have completely lost the mark. Even more so, you dehumanize yourself! You impoverish your spirit with such meditations, such thoughts are not food for the soul, they are poison. The tongue speaks of what resides in our hearts, and if we allow our hearts to revel in the muck of sin: hatred, greed, injustice, and we spew that into our neighbors life, we foster an environment equal to a spiritual toxic waste.

Especially for us that call ourselves followers of Christ, to engage in such speech does not honor the high calling that God has bestowed upon us in Christ. And why this high calling? Why is James calling this to our attention? For what has God in Jesus Christ done for you? The most important thing that could happen to a human being actually. Through the suffering love of that Jesus of Nazareth, His taking up the cross for our cause, believing, acting, accomplishing the true purpose of our humanity: to be the overwhelming compassion that restores creation to its proper glory. This Jesus, as He said He would, suffered in taking our cause, and He invites us to a way of life that reflects the love that is willing to take up its cross and shine through with the Glory of God. For there is no other life worthy of the name, if it’s not guided with a love that is willing to go down to the uttermost depths and give of itself freely. And Jesus invites to just that, to anchor ourselves in this way of His. It is why when Peter says Jesus is the Messiah, but does not like the avenue that such a person must take, that Jesus rebukes Him, because He can’t go halfway. For the divine things that God wants to put in our hearts wants to find expression in us, so much that it overflows in speech and acts that honors the Compassion of God for us found in Jesus Christ. It wants to find voice in the blessing that Christ is and not in condemnation that Christ is not, for it is God’s ultimate end for us as His redeemed Creation: to be the love that Love made possible. And let me tell you, as Jesus knew, such a love will encounter resistance, it is inconvenient, it does not indulge our craving for power, control and domination, it does not seek to prop itself up against others, but it rather embraces more widely, it touches upon more deeply, it transforms the landscape not in favor of the powerful, but in regard to the needs of the least of these. That kind of love makes those threatened by it to seek the cross as death, but such a love takes it up and draws the utterly good from the grip of death. This is the gift of Jesus for us, to have a love that unclenches the grasp of death, and sets us free.

So indeed, and thanks be to God, that James calls upon his fellow Christians, especially those tasked to teach and proclaim, to keep watch if our speech, which reveals our hearts, is in line with the life Christ has gained for us. To see if our words reveals a heart that aches for people to see the blessing of God’s presence within every human being; to see if our words reveal a heart that is pining for the redemption of all beings to their God-given purpose of love and compassion. Each of us, called and gathered by the Gospel, are tied to the standard that God has set, and we ought not to have another. For in God’s standards, the Haitian migrants are God’s beloved, the migrants at the border are God’s beloved, the undocumented are God’s beloved, the poor and the outcast, God draws in with an embrace of compassion. An even bigger mystery: God also seeks the hearts of the hate-spewers, that they may repent and see the reality of God in their neighbor, that their condemnation is atrocious, for in loving the stranger they reject, they might actually find the peace they need. “For those who want to save their life will lose it, and those who lose their life for my sake, and for the sake of the gospel, will save it”. But until now, they hide behind the hills of the wasteland. If our speech is rooted in Jesus, if our hearts are filled with divine love, and with sincere prayer, then maybe God will draw in them too from the wastelands they hide behind, and perhaps God will do a new thing with them too. No greater motivation than this to keep attention of our words: God makes them seeds for the Kingdom. So let us take up this spiritual discipline wholeheartedly, motivated by the Gospel, that our hearts are not divided in two, but to see the one Christ that seeks everybody to love and embrace. We will fail at this, make no mistake, but grace abounds, and if space has been made in your hearts for words of life to take flight, then perhaps day by day, God will make a feast, and we might be surprised by whom He calls together to reconcile. May all Glory be to Him, that makes this dream a possibility.