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Rector's Reflection - 15 Pentecost, Proper 19
September 13, 2009
This piece of the letter of James takes me way back to my childhood days, when a group of
us would be playing and somebody would get mad at somebody else and call her something awful
like "four eyes" (if you wore glasses, as I did) or "dooty-face" or some other wretched epithet
designed to cut that person to the quick. Our parents and our teachers had given all of us the same
retort for such situations: "sticks and stones can break my bones, but names will never hurt me." So
the injured party would say that (usually embellished with a "nyah, nyah"), all the while crying inside
because, frankly, that retort is possibly (in my humble opinion) the worst piece of advice anybody
could give. Bones heal over time, but names... words... do hurt even though you had to pretend they
don't... and they hurt longer.
James knew the power of the tongue.* In this well constructed piece of wisdom that we have
today, James could be a contemporary philosopher as much as an ancient theologian. He knows that,
at its core, language (the tongue) can be as powerful—if not more so—as physical action. It can be
the impetus for an end result exceedingly disproportionate to its size—and that result can be a
blessing or a curse.
I think that language is grossly underestimated in terms of its power. There were many
arguments in the early church over language... over words... theotokos (God-bearer) as opposed to
christotokos (Christ bearer), homoousias (same subtance) as opposed to homoiousias (similar
substance). They might not seem like fighting words today, but they were back then. The whole
proclamation of the Gospel depended on well chosen words.
Words are no less important today than they were then for the proclamation of the Gospel.
It is said that actions speak louder than words, but if our actions in the name of Christ are not
congruent with what we say about Our Lord, then we have a problem. That sort of ecclesiastical
dissonance can turn the "Fresh Water" that we claim we offer into salt water.
James says that we should be doers of the word and not merely hearers, but I think it works
both ways. I think that we have to be hearers of the word... hearers of the authentic word... for our
actions to reflect the authentic face of Christ. If our words and our actions do not incarnate the
Word... the Word made flesh... then we will have a difficult time winning anyone to Christ.
* I bet his mother told him:"frustes lapesque mea osia frangere possunt sed nomines nunquam mihi
nocebunt!"
Susan+
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