The text this morning is from the Epistle of James, the third chapter:
Not many of you should become teachers, my brothers, for you know that we who teach will be judged with greater strictness. For we all stumble in many ways. And if anyone does not stumble in what he says, he is a perfect man, able also to bridle his whole body. If we put bits into the mouths of horses so that they obey us, we guide their whole bodies as well. Look at the ships also: though they are so large and are driven by strong winds, they are guided by a very small rudder wherever the will of the pilot directs. So also the tongue is a small member, yet it boasts of great things. How great a forest is set ablaze by such a small fire! And the tongue is a fire, a world of unrighteousness. The tongue is set among our members, staining the whole body, setting on fire the entire course of life, and set on fire by hell. For every kind of beast and bird, of reptile and sea creature, can be tamed and has been tamed by mankind, but no human being can tame the tongue. It is a restless evil, full of deadly poison. With it we bless our Lord and Father, and with it we curse people who are made in the likeness of God. From the same mouth come blessing and cursing. My brothers, these things ought not to be so…
Thus far the text.
My dear friends in Christ,
Our tongues do marvelous things. They speak words whose beauty declares truths of the world we have never seen or heard before. Consider this poem by Oscar Wilde:
Requiescat by Oscar Wilde
Tread lightly, she is near
Under the snow,
Speak gently, she can hear
The daisies grow.
All her bright golden hair
Tarnished with rust,
She that was young and fair
Fallen to dust.
Lily-like, white as snow,
She hardly knew
She was a woman, so
Sweetly she grew.
Coffin-board, heavy stone,
Lie on her breast,
I vex my heart alone,
She is at rest.
Peace, Peace, she cannot hear
Lyre or sonnet,
All my life's buried here,
Heap earth upon it.
Wilde here writes of a deep love for his sister who tragically died of illness. Though, when we hear it, perhaps we were taken to the graveside of one we love. This is the power of words. They transport us to a marvelous place, where we hear words we have always known, transporting us across the vast chasms in our mind to wherever it is the words take us.
Or think of words set to music. Think of the first time you heard the hymn “Lo, How a Rose E’er Blooming,” and how the music set to it whisked you away to a half-hushed night with shepherds and angels watching over the manger of the infant Christ-child:
Lo, how a Rose e’er blooming from tender stem hath sprung!
Of Jesse’s lineage coming, as men of old have sung.
It came, a floweret bright, amid the cold of winter,
When half spent was the night.
Or then again, words are funny. The tongue uses words to, perhaps be a little more… crass than beautiful.
There was an Old Man of Nantucket, Who kept all his cash in a bucket. His daughter, called Nan, Ran away with a man, And as for the bucket, Nantucket.
There was an old man with a beard, Who said, "it’s just how I feared! Two owls and a hen, Four larks and a wren, Have all built their nests in my beard.
You see, the words our tongues speak have certain power. It’s not that the words themselves hold an ancient, mystical power, but that the use of the words can build up, bring down, bless God, serve our neighbor, destroy relationships, or bring healing. And James here points us to the fact that what we say will have a major impact on our brothers and sisters in the Church.
That’s why he starts by saying that few people should really desire to be a teacher. He really is talking about pastors here, that as pastors teach in the Church, their words have great impact. Thus it is that pastors receive a high level of training in the doctrines of God, for a pastor who teaches falsely about God, His Word, His Sacraments, His Church, will lead his congregation down the pathway to hell. In this way, it shows us that what is spoken leaves an impact, for it shapes and changes people, it shapes and changes the body of Christ.
He picks on pastors because it’s an easy example. The pastor can build up the body of Christ by teaching the correct doctrines of God, teaching the promises won for us by Christ. It may not always seem like it, but when the Word of God is preached, it helps prepare us, whether we perceive it or not, for the day of our death, the day that Christ comes to take us to where He is. The doctrines of God teach us of His loving-kindness and faithfulness to us in Christ Jesus, and, in that, we become ready to greet death, not as a scary specter looming over us, but as a doorway that leads to everlasting life.
Or the pastor can shape the congregation by his words, making the body twisted and deformed, leaving them as brutally scarred as a Quasimodo, hunched over, hanging out in the church, doing acts of violence upon one another at the devil’s bidding. This is done through the teaching of false doctrine. The pastor is a chief example of how words can have the power to shape. Either the pastor’s words are the Word of God, or they are from the deceptions of the devil, and only one way will lead to everlasting life.
But, James does quickly leave the pastor. He doesn’t want us just to focus this way, but he turns us to ourselves. What we do with our tongues is important. For just as the pastor stands in front of the congregation and preaches, prayerfully, the right words, so, too, should we, as the congregation, stand and speak the right words. We should control our tongues, binding them to the will of Christ. We should be as horses, James says, with a bit in our mouth, allowing the Word of God to turn our heads where it desires we should go. Or we should be as ships, with Jesus our Pilot directing the ship with such a small thing as a rudder.
Yet, so often we desire to be the rider. So often we desire to be the pilot. And when we stand in the wrong place, we become the self-willed horse, untamable, dangerous, unpredictable. We become the ship that has runaway from its course, dangerously approaching rocky ground where it will wreck. I shouldn’t say so often. I should say most often. For we all let our tongues loose. We let them wag and wobble. We speak so sweetly when it is time to put on a show. But we secretly curse and plot against our brothers and sisters, using our tongues behind their backs to lash them when they are not looking or hearing.
We should tame our tongues. Would that we do so! We should hold our tongues, realizing that our brothers and sisters in Christ have been redeemed by the same Christ who has redeemed us by His blood. We should realize that, this, too, is one for whom Christ died. If that is our first thought, our first word, how this would set our tongue back on its course!
But, instead, for our sins, Christ took the hit of our tongues. The tongues of the people cried, “Crucify Him!” The tongues of the people mocked him. The tongues of the people lashed Him worse than the lashes He received by the whip. Yet, the tongue of Christ spoke, not against the people, but for them, to His Father, “Forgive them, for they know not what they do.”
Yes, for this sin, for the stain upon the robes of righteousness, our Lord died, taking our sin of thoughtless words, of malicious language, upon Himself, and He was buried. He became for us the one who would pay for our sin. Our stain of sin became His. He was covered in the red-blood stain and would give up His life under the wrath of God in His love for you.
And He was resurrected. He was brought to life by His will, and by the will of the Father, and He comes to you, not speaking harshly, but peacefully. For all that He endured at the cross and His passion, I would expect Christ to speak in anger, righteously, to condemn me, to condemn you, to demand satisfaction for all that He went through. But, instead, He speaks peace. “Peace be unto you,” He said to His disciples. Then He said to them, “These are my words that I spoke to you while I was still with you, that everything written about me in the Law of Moses and the Prophets and the Psalms must be fulfilled… Thus it is written, that the Christ should suffer and on the third day rise from the dead, and that repentance and forgiveness of sins should be proclaimed in his name to all nations, beginning from Jerusalem.”
All that was written of Him should be fulfilled, and that in His resurrection, repentance and the forgiveness of sins should be preached into all of the world. These are the words we desire to speak for our Lord. We should desire them all of the time. We speak the Holy Law of God to sinners, to convict them of their sin and bring them to their knees in repentant faith before their Lord. And we speak then the Holy Gospel, bringing the sinner to life, the Gospel which forgives their sins as we have been forgiven. And we go forth in Christ’s peace.
It is only by the stain we gave to Christ that our stain is healed, washed away from us. We have the image of the saints, walking from the City of God and taking their robes, dipping them into the river, which makes glad that City of God. For in that river flows the blood of the Lamb who was slain. And for every stain upon the robe of the saints, the crimson blood of the Lamb washes it clean. The stain for which Christ was crucified is now the cleansing agent, it is the Tide, the Oxyclean, the Arm & Hammer for sins, and it washes them whiter than snow.
It does us no good, then, for us saints, to keep inflicting the stain of the sins of the tongue upon the body of Christ in this place or in any place. It is not how we live; it ought not be so. Instead, so far as we are able, we aim for restoration, comfort one another, agree with one another, live in peace. And we cannot, we should hold our tongues so that we would not lead one another astray.
And when we do not, when we are brought to our knees, for we know our sin, we know how we have misused our tongue, then we use our tongues to bless God by confessing our sins to God and to our neighbor. We look to the forgiveness of sins Christ has brought to us in His blood. And we receive it by the tongue. We receive it when the Word is spoken by the mouth of another. We receive the forgiveness of sins Christ tells us to proclaim to the world, that is proclaimed especially to you, His beloved child. And we use our tongues then to build each other up, singing psalms, and hymns, and spiritual songs in blessing to our Father and our Lord Jesus Christ and the Holy Spirit and to one another, the Church.
Listen to one last way we use our tongues. We sing of Jesus, we sing of Him often and always. And perhaps this all says it best:
O God, my faithful God,
True fountain ever flowing,
Without whom nothing is,
All perfect gifts bestowing:
Give me a healthy frame,
And may I have within
A conscience free from blame,
A soul unstained by sin.
Keep me from saying words
That later need recalling;
Guard me lest idle speech
May from my lips be falling;
But when within my place
I must and ought to speak,
Then to my words give grace
Lest I offend the weak.
Let me depart this life
Confiding in my Savior;
By grace receive my soul
That it may live forever;
And let my body have
A quiet resting place
Within a Christian grave;
And let it sleep in peace.
And on that final day
When all the dead are waking,
Stretch out Your mighty hand,
My deathly slumber breaking.
Then let me hear Your voice,
Redeem this earthly frame,
And bid me to rejoice
With those who love Your name.
In Jesus’ name, amen.
Now may the peace of God which passes all human understanding guard your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus, our Lord! Amen.
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