Path of Wisdom -Walk the Talk James 3:1-12, 17-18 & 4: 11-12 (The Message)

Sticks and stones may break my bones

But words will never hurt me

How many times I heard those words when I was growing up! I heard them from my mother, as she tried to settle me down after someone had said something mean. I heard them from other kids who were being bullied. I heard them in my head and even coming out of my own mouth. If I pretended that words did not hurt, perhaps they wouldn't. How many of you have heard or maybe even used those words? ...

But they aren't true, are they? Words do hurt and we know it. I remember a time when I was serving the Disciples of Christ congregation in Wisconsin. It was during the first year or so of what turned out to be a 15 year ministry. I was fairly insecure about my abilities as a pastor in the midst of some people who were trying to make me resign and go quietly away because I wouldn't play the game of church their way. These were power people in the congregation and the community. One was a physician and the other the head of the Philosophy Department at one of the Milwaukee area colleges. One morning I was meeting with the Philosophy chair over breakfast. I had asked to talk with him to hear his concerns and see if there was anything that I could learn from his criticism. That's when he said them, the words that still haunt me, "Nancy," he said, "you have many gifts and skills, but being a pastor isn't one of them"! To this day, despite trying to unpack them with both a therapist and my spiritual director, in moments when I begin to doubt my own ability to handle a situation, his words float unbidden from the depths of my being and I hear myself thinking "maybe he was right!"

Yes, words do hurt, they wound us deeply. But words also have the power to bless, don't they? In that same congregation, a number of years later, I remember a Sunday when I began the sermon time by telling the congregation that what I would be sharing were just some of my musings about the scripture; because I couldn't quiet get them to become what I thought of as a sermon. Following the sermon a woman named Woody came up to me and said, "First of all Nancy, I think that was a wonderful sermon, just what many of us needed to hear. But mostly I want to tell you that you never really need to worry about your preaching because your whole life is a sermon. Everything you do proclaims the good news of God's love. We can see it in your actions and hear it in your words." Woody's words are perhaps the deepest and most powerful affirmation I have ever received and they blessed me in that moment and continue to bless me every time they rise from the depths of my awareness.

Yes, words can hurt or heal, tear down or build up, belittle or bless. Words said carelessly -that is without care- "... can ruin the world, turn harmony to chaos, throw mud on a reputation, send the whole world up in smoke and go up in smoke with it ..." But words that flow from God's wisdom, begin ^" ...with a holy life and [are] characterized by getting along with others. [they are] gentle and reasonable, overflowing with mercy and blessings..."

In a reflection on this part of James, Stephen McCutchan said this: "In the final analysis, we are to gauge what we say by the criteria of whether it will result in the blessing of God or the cursing of a member." This caught me up short -bless God or curse a member- not -bless or curse a member! But, that is what James says isn't it? "With our tongues we bless God our Father; with the same tongues we curse the very men and women he made in his image. Curses and blessings out of the same mouth!  ^10-12My friends, this can't go on." [James 3:9-10] So what it seems that James is trying to say is that we need to talk the walk, in other words, what we say to and about one another ought to bring the same kind of blessing that flows from our lips when we sing our praises to God.

As I meditated on this concept of speech that blesses God, I remembered some other words that have had a deep impact on my life. They were spoken Steve Kunz as he preached the sermon at my ordination on January 25, 1982. Perhaps he was quoting someone else or perhaps these were words God gave him, I don't know. But what he said was this "Honesty without love is brutality. But love without honesty is sentimentality. And neither is helpful or healthy" Let me say that again: "Honesty without love is brutality. But love without honesty is sentimentality. And neither is helpful or healthy"

Now I have been to many, many workshops on communication. I have learned the necessity of owning my own feelings, rather than blaming someone else. I have discovered techniques such as "I statements" that help me speak those feelings in ways that can be heard rather than in ways that cause pain, hurt or anger. But, the truth is that I must love, respect and care about the person to whom I am speaking enough to choose to use those techniques. I must stop and ask God for the wisdom to choose my words with care and the courage to speak my truth honestly and with love, even though that truth may be difficult for someone else to hear. I must also ask God to allow me to see the other person as God sees them, with compassion and understanding. Then I must be willing to listen to their truth -hopefully they will speak it with love. But even if they don't, I must be willing to allow God to work through my listening and our encounter, so that through it we become more the people who God dreams we can be.

Now some of us may need to hear the challenge to speak our truth with love, because we have no difficulty being honest about what we think and feel, but the way we say it is sometimes hurtful and wounding. Some of us may need to hear the challenge to speak our truth honestly because we are more likely to hold our feelings inside because we "don't want to hurt the other person." But when we are not honest, those feelings build up and come out in passive aggressive ways or as a huge explosion when we have "had it"!

Now, one last thing that I think James would say if he was writing to us today. Remember it's not only your words in face to face conversations that have power, but your words that fly across cyberspace in e-mails, "im-ing" texting, Facebook, My Space or Twitter. Just like it is much easier to drop a bomb or send a missile than it is to harm someone in a face to face encounter, it is ever so much easier to hurt and wound with our words when we are removed by time and space from the one who will receive them. So, if you would not say it directly to a person, do not say it to them or about them in any other form of communication.

So my friends let us pray for the wisdom which James promises that God wants to give us, remembering that "Real wisdom, God's wisdom, begins with a holy life and is characterized by getting along with others. It is gentle and reasonable, overflowing with mercy and blessings, not hot one day and cold the next, not two-faced. You can develop a healthy, robust community that lives right with God and enjoy its results only if you do the hard work of getting along with each other, treating each other with dignity and honor." [James 3:17-18]

With God's grace, may it be so among us. Amen.