WATCH YOUR MOUTH
James 3: 2b-12

           As a young child (and an older child, for that matter), I heard “watch your mouth” more frequently than I care to remember. I don’t remember what I said, but apparently I was often saying things that were inappropriate or mean. It’s amazing, isn’t it, how the tongue can be one of the smallest body parts, yet one of the most potent? The havoc that can be wrecked by a runaway tongue can be monumental.

           My guess is that this was an issue in the early church. Otherwise, the author of James wouldn’t have had reason to include it within his epistle. We would be naïve to think that is not an issue in our world today. There are times when we are tempted to dismiss the potential effect of our words. We say, “they know I didn’t mean it” or “I was only joking” or any number of other excuses to absolve ourselves of any guilt or responsibility. The reality is that the human tongue is far more potent than we might realize. I know that last week we spent our time looking at how our actions speak louder than our words. While this is true, we should never forget just how much our words can do. In this part of the epistle, we are exposed to some “tongue truths”, according to the author of James.

           The first tongue-truth is that the tongue is powerful. Most of my own mistakes come from using my tongue. Either I have said words that should not have been said or I have failed to say words that should have been said. With our tongue, we hold so much power. We have the power to confess Christ as Lord, we have the power to speak words of love, comfort, and hope. We can do so much with our tongue! As small as it may be, it is perhaps one of the most powerful parts of the human body.

           The tongue is also dangerous, especially if the power of the tongue is misused. One little slip of the tongue, a careless word here or there, and great damage can be done. Somewhere along the way, someone thought of a little phrase to help insulate themselves from the dangers of another words. Maybe it sounds familiar to you…”sticks and stones may break my bones, but words will never hurt me.” WRONG!!!! Wounds from the tongue can take far longer to heal than any wound from a stick or a stone. Have you ever been hurt by someone’s words? Are there times where you would rather they had used physical violence than verbal violence? The human tongue can be far more damaging than any weapon-of-mass-destruction.

           From the standpoint of the church, the tongue can cause great danger to a person’s or church’s witness to the gospel. What are others to think and believe if, on one day, they hear someone bless the name of Jesus and, on another day, curse one is made in the very image of God? My guess is that it severely damages a person’s reputation as a Christian. As a consequence, it can also be damaging to the entire church. So the danger lies not just in what a careless word can do a person, but what it can do to the entire church.

           To be sure, though, the human tongue can be dangerous in a good way. Remember earlier when I said that it is with the tongue that we can confess Christ as Lord? To the powers of this world, that is a dangerous thing! When we confess our faith, we pose a danger to those powers that would prefer the name of Jesus never be mentioned. With your tongue, you can be a danger to those powers! Most of the time, though, the danger wrought by the human tongue is dangerous only to one another.

           Finally, James informs us that the human tongue is revealing. The tongue betrays what the head thinks and the heart feels. There are times when human beings are great at hiding their feelings. Inevitably, though, those feelings and thoughts will come tumbling out and will be on display. Peter was one of disciples whose tongue revealed so much about him. On one hand, Peter was the disciple bold enough to first confess Christ as the Son of God. On the other hand, Peter was the disciple who was often caught with his foot in his mouth for his impetuousness. By his tongue, Peter revealed what he was thinking and feeling. The same is true for each of us. Eventually, everything comes out.

           For the church, then, and for Christians today, the question then moves to how we can tame our tongue; how we can “watch our mouth”. I want to offer three possible solutions.

           The first is leading with ears, and following with our tongue. Most disagreements escalate into arguments because people are so busy trying to get their opinions or feelings heard that they fail to listen to what others are saying. Have you ever witnessed this? It becomes a din of noise. Nobody hears anyone else and nothing gets solved. What would happen if everyone expended even a fraction of that energy on actually paying attention to what the other person/group was saying, and then spoke? My guess is that there would be much more civility in discourse and there would be far fewer arguments and many more substantial conversations. There are times when the best word is the unspoken word!

           Secondly, we can tame our tongue by biting it! What if we asked ourselves if what we were about to say was really worth the breath that was going to be expended. I can recall numerous times when my best option was to simply keep my mouth shut. It avoided problems and also helped me avoid saying something that I would regret later on. How many of you have seen the movie Bambi and remember the character Thumper? Do you remember what Thumper was told whenever he started to say something that wasn’t exactly the best? “If you can’t say something nice, don’t say nothin’ at all.” I think the world would be a better place if we all took Thumper’s advice a little more! In all seriousness, there are times when the best option is to simply bite the tongue, even though we REALLY want to get a word or another word in.

           Finally, we can tame our tongue by turning it over to God. What if we confessed to God that our tongue gets us into trouble? I’m thinking that God would honor that and would enable us to use grace to tame the tongue. If we surrender our tongue to God, it allows God to take and use us however God needs and sees fit. It is our way of offering ourselves for God’s use so that God might be exalted.

           The ability to communicate through speech is a wonderful gift from God. There are times when that gift is exploited and used for things other than its intentions. Perhaps, when we go to say something, we might do well to borrow something from the Rotary Club. Rotarians have a “four-way test” to evaluate their actions: is it the truth? Is it necessary? Is my motive pure? Is it beneficial? What if we used this test for our words? All so we might more perfectly witness to God and to the world! AMEN.

|| Home || Welcome || Pictures || Sermons || Maps || Special Sprouts || Opportunity || Missions || Newsletter in pdf || VBS || Women of Promise || Easter || Links ||