Words Matter
a sermon by John W. Wimberly, Jr.
Pastor, Western Presbyterian Church
Washington, D.C.
August 17, 2008

Text: Matthew 15:10-20

As I reflect back on my life, I have decided that my mouth has gotten me in the most trouble.  Sometimes I’ve said something that is flat out wrong.  Sometimes it has been hurtful.  Sometime I have said the right thing but at the wrong time, wrong place or to the wrong person.  However, the consistent theme is my big mouth getting me in trouble.  Contributing to this problem is my tendency to talk too much, especially when I drink a lot of coffee. 

Back in 1983, the Southern and Northern branches of the Presbyterian church decided the Civil War was over and we re-united.  Granted, we were a hundred years late.  However, it takes a while to resolve civil wars using the committee system. 

For Presbyterians living in Georgia or North Dakota, the reunion didn’t have a lot of local impact.  However, for those of us living here in the Mid-Atlantic states, it had a huge impact.  There were two separate governing systems existing side by side in the same areas. Therefore, we had to merge northern and southern Synods and Presbyteries from Maryland to North Carolina.

In North Carolina during the 19th and early 20th centuries, the church doors of most of the southern Presbyterian congregations were closed to African Americans.  As a result, the Northern church created its own churches in North Carolina with overwhelmingly African American memberships.  Given that history as well as a bunch of other theological, polity and other issues, some people in both the Northern and Southern Presbyteries were not happy about the reunion.

A committee, of which I was a member, was appointed to sort through all this stuff and merge the Synods that included Maryland, Delaware, the District of Columbia, Virginia, and North Carolina.  In that process, the most contentious issue was where the new headquarter offices would be located.  As the former moderator of the northern Synod of the Piedmont, I was asked to chair the sub-committee to make that decision.

The meetings struck me as odd because I felt like I was talking a lot and the Southern members of the committee were saying almost nothing.  I finally pulled aside a friend from Virginia and asked him why his folks weren’t talking.  He said, “We don’t have to.  If we wait long enough, you’ll talk and talk until you talk yourself into giving us everything we want.” “So you people are quiet on purpose?” I asked.  “Oh yeah, especially around Yankees.”

Despite my chatter, I will say that I never budged from my bottom line.  Namely, any place was acceptable except Raleigh, where the offices of the southern Synod of North Carolina had been located.  Rightly or wrongly, it had become a symbol of injustice to many African American Presbyterian pastors.

The new headquarters ended up at Union Seminary in Richmond which, ironically, was viewed as a neutral spot.  So in the end, we came up with a win-win.  The offices were located in a city associated with the South.  However, the offices were not located in a building with historical linkages to the segregated South. 

That is just one of thousands of stories I could tell where I made life more challenging than it needed to be by running my mouth.  But as we read Matthew this morning, talking too much isn’t the only thing that can create problems.  Jesus isn’t so much concerned with the quantity of our words as he is with the source of all our words. He says, “But what comes out of the mouth proceeds from the heart, and this is what defiles.  For out of the heart come evil intentions....”

Jesus’ insight is a spiritual lightning bolt.  Hurtful words we utter aren’t slips of the tongue.  They are expressions of a heart ready, willing and able to hurt somebody.  When we fail to speak a word for justice, it isn’t an oversight.  It is a heart afraid or unwilling to speak up for injustice. 

And hurt each other we do.  I always tell married couples who are going through a challenging time to be very, very careful as to what they say to each other.  Because once certain words are spoken, it is sometimes impossible to get them back.  We may be sorry later.  But the other person may be in no mood to forgive later.

The soul deep power of words is why a widely used playground taunt is totally false.  You know the one.  As kids, we say to each other, “Sticks and stones can break my bones but words will never harm me.” Nonsense.  Just the opposite is true.  Our bodies usually recover from the wounds inflicted by sticks and stones.  But inflict a wound with racist, sexist, homophobic, xenophobic or otherwise hurtful words and the wound may well last a lifetime.  Call a kid ugly, stupid or clumsy and the kid may well weave those words into her or his self-image.

When I think back to the sexist, racist, homophobic words that were tossed around routinely during my childhood in the nineteen fifties and sixties, by me and just about everyone else I knew, I am simply amazed.  In locker rooms, church groups, fraternity houses, bigoted statements and jokes were tolerated and even relished. 

But they weren’t just words from individuals.  Using Jesus’ teaching, these words came from the heart—the heart of a society soaked, saturated with sexism, racism and homophobia. 

Say what you will about the occasional excesses of political correctness, some language rules and regulation are in order.  We can’t just say whatever we feel whenever we feel like it.  I know that is incredibly Midwestern but I am incredibly Midwestern (and sometimes I think Jesus was as well)!

Frankly, I think close attention to what we say, monitoring our words, over the past forty years has helped reverse the flow of hate.  I would argue that not only does bad stuff flow from inside out but good stuff can flow from the outside in. As we stopped saying awful things, some of the awful things in our hearts began to lose their power.  No longer wanting to appear sexist because it was socially unacceptable to be sexist, many of us became less sexist.

Words matter.  If we use them, they give life to negative stuff that lies within us.  If we don’t use them, the negative stuff within us may well begin to whither.  At a minimum, it doesn’t surface to pollute our life together.

Currently, a lot of us are focused on the Olympics.  But when they end, the political conventions begin.  In that transition, we will move from as extremely physical world to the realm of the extremely verbal.

As words take over, it is my hope that all of us will demand that the words of this campaign be filled with meaning and substance, not caricatures and sarcasm.  Frankly, I am tired of Democrats complaining about Republican tactics and Republicans complaining about Democratic tactics.  Why don’t people hold their own candidates accountable for egregious tactics? 

Republicans need to demand that John McCain stop the negative campaigning.  He has been the subject of smear attacks.  He knows better.  He and other Republicans, not just Democrats, should be leading the condemnations of these books of lies about Obama.

Democrats need to demand that Barack Obama get more specific about what he is going to do and how he is going to do it.  Our dog-eat-dog style of politics is too deeply ingrained in our collective blood to accept that it can be changed by a hope and a prayer.  How will he break through the hate-filled partisanship that has filled the body politic with rancor and vindictiveness?  Democrats, not just Republicans, should be pushing Senator Obama to speak more clearly.

But again, Jesus pushes us to a more profound understanding of all the negative words in a political campaign.  The negative stuff that fills our presidential campaigns every year can’t be blamed simplistically on political operatives.  If Jesus is correct, the problem is much deeper than that.  All of the anger flows from the angry soul of the American people.

Using the models of how we have battled sexist, racist and homophobic language, if we could tame our political rhetoric, maybe we could soothe our souls.  If we can speak positively, we will begin to feel positive.  We need, not laws, but rules/mores as to what constitutes acceptable speech in a political campaign.  Rules you and I can enforce with our votes.

There is additional evidence that the angry words of our political realm are rooted in the angry hearts of Americans.  The evidence is present in the angry words spoken at condo association meetings, PTA meetings, Presbytery meetings, and over the dinner table among families; angry words spoken by drivers on I-95, fans at Redskins’ games, demonstrators screaming at police.  As a society, we need a collective anger management program.

Joseph shows us the way beyond our anger problem.  If anybody had justification to hurl some angry words, it was Joseph.  His brothers, jealous of his relationship with his father Jacob, sold him to a bunch of slavers who, in turn, took him to Egypt and sold him to Potiphar.  Eventually he ended up in an Egyptian prison as a result of false charges made against him. However, through an incredible series of events, he ended up as the Viceroy of Egypt, the Pharoah’s most trusted administrator.

When his brothers came to Egypt looking for grain for their famine stricken family, Joseph responded the way too many of us in Washington respond to those who do us wrong.  He verbally abused them, played some mental games with them, tossed them in jail for a few days and sent them away disgraced and humiliated. 

But the second time his siblings returned, desperate for food, Joseph allowed love, not anger, to control his words and deeds.  After telling his brothers he was Joseph, their kin, he said, “‘And now your eyes and the eyes of my brother Benjamin see that it is my own mouth that speaks to you. You must tell my father how greatly I am honored in Egypt, and all that you have seen. Hurry and bring my father down here.’ Then he fell upon his brother Benjamin’s neck and wept, while Benjamin wept upon his neck. And he kissed all his brothers and wept upon them; and after that his brothers talked with him.”

In the second go-around with his brothers, from Joseph’s mouth flowed not recrimination and condemnation but forgiveness and love.  Actually, following Jesus’ logic, forgiveness and love flowed from Joseph’s heart.  He used heartfelt words to heal, not hurt. 

If we are to rid ourselves of the angry rhetoric plaguing our national and personal lives, it has to start somewhere.  No, it has to start with someone.  Why not you?  Why not me? 

As we baptized little Landon this morning, Mark, Megan, and all the rest of us pledged to help him grow and mature in the faith.  To me, growing and maturing into the faith isn’t so much about memorizing a Psalm or the names of the Gospels.  It isn’t about understanding Calvin’s theology or church history.  All of that is important; but it is fruit of the tree, not the tree itself.

Growing and maturing into the faith involves developing the ability and willingness to speak words of love and forgiveness, compassion and justice in a society that sometimes tells us we are weak when we speak those words.  It is about understanding the bigotry and other negative stuff that exists within each of us but never giving voice/life to that negative stuff.  It is recognizing the great goodness that lies within each of us, just waiting to be spoken and lived.  It is about accepting the sovereignty of God’s Word over all our words.

Growing a child’s faith is too big a responsibility for two parents, even two excellent parents.  For Landon to get where we envision him going, he will need family members, family friends, friends of his own, and spiritual congregations of people committed to the principle that we do not need to speak harsh words.  On the contrary, we are perfectly capable of speaking tender, grace-filled words to others.

Growing our faith is too big a responsibility for each of us individually.  We need one another to do it. This is why we join together in communities of faith such as Western Church to worship, study and pray. 

As we set Landon and his family on this journey of spiritual growth, let each of us renew our own commitment to the same journey.  As we travel together, may we teach one another the gift of uttering healing rather than hurtful words.  As we do so, a journey that has grown tiresome will suddenly grow joyful. 

Let us pray: Gracious God, we are complicated creatures.  We are capable of great good but also terrible things.  Learning from Jesus, Joseph and his family and so many others, help us to grow the goodness within us.  As we do so, may our words more perfectly reflect your Word, our lives reflect your Life.  All this we pray in Jesus’ precious name.  Amen.