This is the second in a series of sermons on spiritual health.  We are using the Wisdom literature of Proverbs and James as our diagnostic aids in evaluating our spiritual health.  We have defined wise living, in biblical terms, as living that is life affirming, community sustaining and personally fulfilling.

Last week we considered the weight of the evidence with regard to acts of favoritism and celebrated the experience of Holy Communion as life affirming, community sustaining, and radically inclusive and therefore as a sign and symbol of the nature of relationships in a spiritually healthy community.

This week, James is concerned with our tongue.  Of all the things that cause us trouble spiritually – both personally and within the church – the tongue is possibly the most troublesome.

As a child, I suffered from more than a fair share of bouts of Strep throat, and seemed to always have to have my tonsils examined whenever I went to the Doctor.  Say “aaah,” and in goes that nasty wooden tongue depressor.  If you were to look today, you’d see that yes, my tongue is alive and well… And because of that I am fully without credibility speaking about this text.  God is not done with me yet on the subject of my unbridled tongue.  But I am willing to wrestle with this passage with you, and see if together we can talk about the state of our spiritual health when it comes to the words of our mouths and the meditations of our hearts.

James is specifically speaking to the faith community, and to people who, by definition are seeking to follow the example of Christ in all of their lives.  So what we can learn here can help us everywhere.  It can help us in our families.  It can help us in our workplace.  I don’t know any pastor who wouldn’t love it if it helped us in our churches, too.  At the most basic level – here is the teaching from James:  discipleship requires that we learn to control our speech.

Unfortunately, churches can be one of the worst places for gossip.  I recall not long after I first moved to Findlay, going out to a restaurant after church.  The tables were close together, and because I was new in town, the people seated only a couple of feet away from me didn’t know me.  But I knew instantly what they were talking about.  They were “debriefing” the morning worship service at their church.  After I heard the way they talked about their pastor, I stopped going out to restaurants after church.  I don’t want to be reminded that church gossip is alive and well…despite the Bible’s insistence that it is destructive to community, not life giving, and not personally fulfilling.  In other words – it’s not wise.

James knows.  I know.  God knows.  We all gossip.  Gossip seems to be basic to human community.  But that should not excuse us from heartfelt efforts to bridle our tongue.

Maybe you’ve heard the story about Myrtle, the church gossip, who made it her business to snoop into everyone else’s business and to talk about what she thought she knew.  People feared her; no one confronted her, and she got by with it.  Until she met George.  George had a rather distinctive old pick up truck and when Myrtle saw it in front of the town bar one afternoon, she assumed that George was in the town bar.  Taking this as evidence of a moral weakness on George’s part, Myrtle began telling everyone about it.  When George heard about it, he didn’t say a word to her.  He just took his distinctive looking truck and parked it in front of Myrtle’s house one evening and then walked on home.  Myrtle learned to think before she spoke after that.

Gossip is a distinctive kind of speech.  It is often characterized by assumptions, as in the above example.  Its subject is usually something that the person being gossiped about would not themselves discuss publicly, and it occurs in a conversation where the person being talked about is not included.  If a person is being talked about in such a way that the goal of the conversation is to help them, then it may not be gossip.  If the goal is simply to spread information that is harmful or potentially embarrassing or based on hearsay and assumptions – that’s gossip.

One of the ways I try to manage my own speech – not always successfully – but this is my goal:  is that I try to avoid third party communication.  That is, if I am concerned about someone or something, I try to address my concerns directly with that person, rather than asking three or five or fifteen other people what they think about it.  It’s so easy to pick up the phone and call our friends to talk about our concerns, instead of addressing those concerns directly with the person who can respond to them.  Much heartache could be saved if we all worked at direct communication rather than relying on indirect communication.

James uses a number of analogies to make the point that a few words, carelessly spoken, can do great damage.  One of those analogies is that of fire.  The Station Fire near Los Angeles, which began nearly a month ago, and which is expected to be fully contained later this week, has so far burned more than 245 square miles, destroyed hundreds of structures and cost two firefighters their lives.  It started from a single source, which investigators have now identified.  As it turns out, it was an act of arson.  Meaning someone meant to cause harm.

Most of us don’t mean to cause harm with our words.  Through carelessness or lack of thought or even with well intended motives, our words still have power.  There is a story told about a person who had been victimized by gossip.  They finally tracked down the source of the gossip, and confronted the person.  Upon being confronted, the offending person apologized and asked what they could do to fix it.  “Come with me,“ the offended person said.  And took them to the top of the tallest structure in the town, along with a feather pillow.  He cut open the pillow, shook out all the feathers in the wind, and watched them fly around, floating to the ground literally all over town.  “Now,” said the offended person, “go pick them all up.”

“That’s impossible,” said the offender.

“Exactly.  The kind of damage you have done to me cannot be undone.  It is out of your control now.”

Think before you speak is good advice.  As an extrovert, I find that advice nearly impossible to follow.  I often have to speak to think.  Furthermore, impulse control is never foolproof.  There is an inner demon in us that waits for our impulse control to waver, and seizes the opportunity to speak unwisely, unkindly or maliciously.  Whereupon we usually set to work rationalizing our speech, eventually coming to regret what we’ve said, and fervently wishing that we could somehow find a way to pick up all the feathers.

Here’s the thing about our words.  Just as the doctor can see what’s going on inside the body and at the cellular level by looking at symptoms…so do our words tell others what we really think and feel.  What is in our hearts, so to speak, will ultimately come out of our mouths.

The only real way to manage what comes out of our mouths is to invite the wisdom of God into our lives in such a way that our hearts are transformed.  The apostle Paul invited us, in Romans 12, to be transformed by the renewal of our minds.  We can learn the wisdom of God, the way of peace and the practices of love.  We learn by letting God’s word get into our spirits, into the depth of our souls in such a way that nothing other than wise speech can come from our mouths.  What we devote our heart to will be revealed by what comes out of our mouth.

God’s wisdom is not inaccessible to us.  Proverbs describes it as standing at the street corner, crying out to all who pass by.  And further describes that most who pass by never heed wisdom’s call.

That’s true, you know.  Most do not heed the invitation to be formed and shaped by the word of God.  Most Sundays, seventy five percent of our membership is not present for worship.  Most Wednesdays, ninety five percent of our membership is not present for mid-week study.

Maybe it’s just me…but I see worship and bible study and small group work as more than church program.  I see them as the place where God waits to meet us with wisdom and healing and hope and strength for our journey.  And I see that the writer of Proverbs was right.  Most people pass by the opportunities to gain wisdom.

I do not judge – I lament.  But I do not judge.  But I will tell you what God has done and is doing with me.

There was a time when I went to church and Bible study and all kinds of that sort of religious thing just because I wanted to be seen as good.  But I knew I wasn’t good.

One day, when I was in my mid thirties, it just became crystal clear to me.  I was waiting on an older customer in the pharmacy from whose mouth was coming – to use biblical language – “brackish water.”  And at church, I knew two or three older people from whose mouths and lives came consistently the fresh, living water of kindness and compassion and love.

In my mind’s eye, I looked at these examples and said to myself, “when I am older, I want to be this one, not that one.”  Somehow I had the sense to realize that it was getting late – I was nearing 40.  If I wanted to be better at 80, I needed to get started!

God is inviting me, again and again, and working with me.  And I will be the first to confess that I am a long way from being the one that I want to be.  And from time to time, I wander away from the disciplines that keep me grounded in the word of God.  (Yes, even pastors struggle with bible study and prayer.)

   “Kind words can be short and easy to speak, but their echoes are truly endless” – Mother Theresa.

It is the kind words of beloved ones who have held me in their kindness that continue to echo, and to call me back.  I began to find my way to a transformed heart through Disciple Bible Study, twenty years ago this week.  Two things cried out to me.  An announcement in the church bulletin, and the face of a woman eighty plus years old that glowed with love and kindness and peace.

Here is the remarkable thing…Wisdom never ceases to call.  Grace never ceases to flow.  No matter how much brackish water spews forth from us or from others…there is a source of living water everlastingly flowing to which we are always invited…there is a name that bears no ill toward us, but only desire to love and transform us that we can speak at any moment…that is the name of Jesus Christ.

You know what’s next after say “ahhh…”  It’s looking in the ear.  Are your ears ready to hear?

Where are wisdom’s words crying out to you?  What will you do to heed them?