Paul Graves: Words, even nasty ones, reveal what’s in our hearts
Recently, I’ve spent some reading and reflecting time in the New Testament letter of James.
He tends toward diatribe, at least in three sections. James 2:1-13 contrasts God’s impartiality toward persons with our distressing partiality. James 2:14-26 is the famous section on how faith and works must work together.
The third diatribe, James 3:1-12, focuses on speech that hurts other persons and speech that heals them. In the last few weeks, I’ve seen two examples of how words both belittle another person and unmask the speaker as out of heart-control.
The example you may have seen was on national television last week. A young sports announcer for ESPN was caught on camera berating and putting down a woman employee of a towing company. The ESPN reporter came to the towing company to retrieve her car. She later apologized for her rant and was suspended from work.
The other example of hurtful speech came in a two-person conversation I overheard between two men I know. It appears one man’s words were formed in an angry and/or a fearful heart. He began talking about a well-known national political person in crude and disrespectful language that I was shocked to hear from him.
Part of me wished his pastor had overheard him as I did. He is a member of an area church; but that brief verbal spewing was not, I hope, something he learned in church. I did not challenge him because, frankly, I was at a loss for the words I should use. My angered shock kept my mouth shut. At least for then.
Somehow, somewhere, our culture now offers a twisted kind of permission to spew fear and anger toward other persons without any respect either for the innate dignity of the persons targeted by our words or for our own dignity. Sadly, being “faithful Christians” doesn’t seem to protect us from that indulgence into our “lesser humanity.”
The childhood taunt is only partly right: “Sticks and stones will break my bones, but names will never hurt me.” Bones can break. But so can hearts and dignity. Or in the words of James (via “The Message”): “A word out of your mouth may seem of no account, but it can accomplish nearly anything – or destroy it!”
A few verses later he speaks an obvious but often ignored truth. “This is scary: You can tame a tiger, but you can’t tame a tongue – it’s never been done. The tongue runs wild, a wanton killer. 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!”
In a graphic way, James reminds the church members he’s writing to that they can’t expect a spring to gush fresh water one day and brackish the next. “You’re not going to dip into a polluted mud hole and get a cup of clear, cool water, are you?”
Reader beware! While focused on the words of his friends, James is actually meddling into the hearts of his friends. What is in their hearts that causes their mouths to spew anger and fear so freely?
His meddling can – and should – touch those of us who read his words today. But it isn’t just a matter of controlling what comes out of our mouths. It is really a matter of transforming whatever fear, anger or out-of-control ego resides in our hearts.
We cannot do that alone. That’s why God shows us the real image of God that we are – a lot like Jesus.