August 30, 2009
James 1: 19-27
John 1: 1-14
“Quick to Listen, Slow to Speak”
Rev. Barbara Brown Taylor is an Episcopalian priest and a wonderful theologian. These are her words on the power of a single word to change how we see ourselves:
"I spent a summer in the Adirondacks with some Quaker girls who said 'thee' instead of 'hey you.' 'Would thee like to go swimming at the pond today?' one of them asked me. It was such a soft and unexpected pronoun that I had to stop for a moment and rethink who I was. No one had ever called me 'thee' before, but it made me feel so gentle and holy that I thought I could get used to it."
We are people of the word and we, above all others, should understand the power of the word. God created the heaven and the hearth with a word and God chose to be with us as the Word made flesh in the person of Jesus of Nazareth. The Word of God creates, comforts, sustains and saves.
As creatures created by the Word in the image and likeness of God, we also experience the power of words in the words we use. I have spent my entire professional life using words written and spoken. They have been and remain the lifeblood of my career. Yet, I am constantly brought up short by the power of words. The intentional word, the inadvertent word, the clear word, the ambiguous word can change everything in a second, sometimes for the good and other times for the bad.
When I was in my late twenties and practicing law in Chicago, I was working on a case with clients I did not like. My job was not to like them; it was to represent them as best I could and to do that I needed their trust.
One night when I thought everyone had left the office, I was on the phone with a friend and speaking far too quickly, I started to criticize these clients. They were arrogant and wrong. They talked and argued and never listened. They were the worst of clients and no one wanted to work with them.
After hanging up, I went out into the hallway near the reception area and there they were, sitting and looking at me. They had heard everything I had said about them. My words of excuse and apology were absolutely pathetic and ineffective. I felt sick to my stomach.
I was taken off the case but I was given the grace of keeping my job. I have never forgotten what I did to those people and I pray I never do forget. My words, so quickly and casually spoken, destroyed trust and made me, not them, look and feel small and petty.
In 1994 I took a group of church kids to Franklinton, N.C., to work on the UCC Peace and Justice Center. We drove two days from Vermont in a van and on the first morning at the Center I opened my bag to discover I forgot to pack underwear. With a week of work in the heat in close quarters this was not a good situation. So I quietly asked the foreman if there was a store near by and he took me into Franklinton itself.
We went early in the morning on my secret mission. He pointed out a dry goods store and I went in. There were no other customers; only clerks and checkout women. I was the only white person there and the only male in the store. One of the women asked if she could help me and I told her I needed underwear. She kindly led me to a wall of shelves stocked with underwear.
As I stood looking at the shelves, I realized that all of the clerks were now standing around me looking at the shelves. One asked me what kind I wanted. I started to say that I wanted a package of white underwear when suddenly I thought, "I can't say white. If I do they'll think I'm prejudiced!" So I changed my mind and started to say, "I want a pack of the colored ones" when I realized that to say "colored" would be even worse. So, at a complete loss for words, I finally said, "I'll take one of each". I walked out of the dry goods store with a lifetime's supply of underwear.
A silly situation, of course. But what happened was clear. I had no language for this situation. I was trapped by my own ignorance, fear, and lack of understanding of people who were simply trying to help me. Because I did not trust myself, I did not, I could not trust them to understand me either.
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Words have power when used and when not used. And the truth is we do not really control what our words or our silence will do. Once we speak or do not speak, the result is out of our hands.
One more story: My fourth week as a preacher found me at the back of the church shaking people's hands as they left. A woman, who I did not know all, stopped to thank me for my words of the previous Sunday. And then she said, "Thanks for giving me permission to throw my father-in-law out of the house!"
I was stunned. I had no idea what I had said except that I knew I did not mention her or her father-in-law. But clearly something I said from the pulpit came upon her in a way that I never intended. I learned only much later that throwing out the father-in-law was a Godsend for that family.
The power of the word is amazing. Whether we speak or remain silent the impact can be amazing for good or bad. Not knowing exactly what that impact will be is never a reason to be silent, or to be intimated. But what it does mean is this: We need to be aware of the power we possess to build up or to tear down. We need to pay attention to what we say and to what we do not say. We need to be attentive if we are to make those around us feel gentle, holy and safe. If we are to be trusted and trustworthy, we need to be aware of our words.
James, the brother of Jesus, is very clear on this point. Very clear that we are to be aware of what we say and what we do not say.
James writes that we are to be "quick to listen". Not quick to speak. First, we are to listen, to wait and to actually hear what is being said or written before we respond. I am sure that James would have no problem including telephone and email and texting in his direction: Be quick to listen.
Next James writes, "Be slow to speak." Think. Consider. Chose your words. Consider where you are before you speak. Consider well who will hear what you say and how your words will be received.
"Be slow to speak." This is the exact opposite of what most of us do and believe. We want to be the first to speak, the first to get our thoughts on the table, the first to respond to what we consider to be wrong headedness.
Taken together, these two simple phrases are so hard for us and yet so important: Be quick to listen. Be slow to speak.
Then James writes, "Be slow to anger." James does not say we are never to be angry, he does not say we are to be silent in the face of injustice. James writes we are to be slow to anger because it is often our anger, our quick anger, our refusal to listen and our need to speak first that keeps us from hearing the one Word we truly need.
James calls us to welcome with meekness - never anger - the implanted Word of the One who seeks to save us. To allow the word of Christ to be implanted into our hearts is easy to say and so difficult for us to imagine.
Yet James offers us this way: Be quick to listen, be slow to speak, be slow to anger. In these three is a way for us to be with each other, and for us to welcome with meekness the Word of Christ into our hearts. It is this Word, the Word of compassion, trust, faithfulness, self sacrifice and love that will allow us to be together and to learn to trust one another and to help each other feel gentle and holy.
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I know that all around us this weekend there are memorials and services of remembrance of the death and destruction wrought by Katrina as well as celebrations of the work that has been accomplished over the past four years.
I do not know what most of you do about that horrific event. I know bits and pieces only: much I have learned from you over these past six months and some I learned in almost six months spent with the Disaster Recovery effort to clean up, tear down, and rebuild.
That work was important, but being here this morning is the most important work I have ever done.
To those looking at Central St. Matthew from the outside the effort may seem insignificant, trivial and wrongheaded. To many of you on the inside it may seem frustrating, exhausting and not worth the effort.
But the truth is that the work you are tying to do is God' work, Christ's work. It is the work of the implanted Word of God seeking to reconcile all people to God and to one another, seeking to create a new thing in and through you.
Because your work is so important, James' words are so important. If we are quick to listen, slow to speak, and slow to anger, if we welcome the Word of Christ into our hearts, we will become the church of Christ in this part of God's good creation. There is no more important work.
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