Did You Hear ?
prelude
Prayer of Preparation The enemy is Satan not people
welcome, announcements, joys and concerns
*Hymn # 77 O for a Thousand Tongues to Sing
*Call to Worship
L: God’s gift of praise comes to those with ears to hear
P: The joyful shouts of children,
L: The wishful dreams of young people,
P: The persistent hopes of the middle-aged
L: And the prophetic visions of the old.
All: Let the words of our mouths and the meditations of all of our hearts be acceptable to you, O Lord, our rock and our redeemer.
*Invocation / Lord’s Prayer Reveal to us today those whom you would have us see, those whose private needs are such that we might help. Grant us the sensitivity to set aside our own needs sufficiently that we might be able to hear with the inner ear, to perceive those calls from friends or loved ones to whom we might minister your love. Amen.
Our Father, who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name, thy kingdom come, thy will be done, on earth, at it is in heaven. Give us this day our daily bread, and forgive us our sins, as we forgive those who sin against us. And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil. For thine is the kingdom, and the power, and the glory for ever. Amen
*Gloria Patri
Young’s Peoples Moment Place a heavy stone and a large stick in front of the children, and remind them of the old saying, “Sticks and stones may break my bones, but names will never hurt me.” Ask the children if that saying is true. Tell them that you don’t believe it, and explain to them that words can be very hurtful. Give a demonstration. In a very mean voice, say, “I hate you!” In a nasty whisper, say, “I heard that a girl in this church is a cheater.” In a mocking voice, say, “You are such a loser!” Ask the children to raise their hands if they believe that words like these can hurt. Point out that the Bible says that “no one can tame the tongue — a restless evil, full of deadly poison” (James 3:8). Explain that we have to be very careful about how we use our tongues in speaking, because we can spread pain by speaking cruel words, or gossiping, or teasing in a mean way. Pick up the stone and the stick and remind the children that these are not the only weapons that can hurt a person — the tongue can be dangerous as well.
Call to Prayer Surely God is in this place. This is none other than the house of God. Genesis 28:16-17
Prayer Hymn #402 Take time to be Holy v 2
Pastoral Prayer Our God, we your servants gather in your presence to be strengthened and healed, inspired and empowered so that our work may make your compassion known. speak to us, so that we may be a community that celebrates and proclaims your redemptive work. May we be ever faithful to our call, always acting with conviction. We ask this is the name of JC, our Redeemer. AMEN
Musical response
Offertory sentence What do you usually do, say, think, feel, during the stewardship challenge and offering: something to get through with the least amount of pain; or an opportunity to respond to God's acceptance of you and your call to obedience?
offering Doxology
offertory prayer We pray, O God, that these gifts be accepted as the symbols of our lives. For as we dedicate these gifts, so do we consecrate our lives to your service.AMEN
Hymn # 368 Lord, I Want to be a Christian
I Will Sing of the Mercies of the Lord (need words and music)
Scripture Text James 3:1-12
Not many of you should become teachers, my brothers and sisters, for you know that we who teach will be judged with greater strictness. For all of us make many mistakes. Anyone who makes no mistakes in speaking is perfect, able to keep the whole body in check with a bridle. If we put bits into the mouths of horses to make them obey us, we guide their whole bodies. Or look at ships: though they are so large that it takes strong winds to drive them, yet they are guided by a very small rudder wherever the will of the pilot directs. So also the tongue is a small member, yet it boasts of great exploits. How great a forest is set ablaze by a small fire! And the tongue is a fire. The tongue is placed among our members as a world of iniquity; it stains the whole body, sets on fire the cycle of nature, and is itself set on fire by hell. For every species of beast and bird, of reptile and sea creature, can be tamed and has been tamed by the human species, but no one can tame the tongue - a restless evil, full of deadly poison. With it we bless the Lord and Father, and with it we curse those who are made in the likeness of God. From the same mouth come blessing and cursing. My brothers and sisters, this ought not to be so. Does a spring pour forth from the same opening both fresh and brackish water? Can a fig tree, my brothers and sisters, yield olives, or a grapevine figs? No more can salt water yield fresh.
Sermon Did You Hear ?
Rumors are running rampant these days, including one concerning Olympic skier Picabo Street. How can we resist the temptation to spread a good story, whether it is true or not?
Picabo [peek-a-boo] Street, the well-known Olympic gold medalist in the Super G, is more than a famous skier. In fact, between training on the slopes and traveling around the world to compete, she managed to get an education and earn a degree in nursing. Early in her nursing career, she was assigned briefly to work as an ICU nurse in a large metropolitan hospital.
She did outstanding work. But there was a problem. The head of nursing had to tell her not to answer the phone in ICU because of the confusion it caused when callers would be connected to ICU and hear Picabo pick up and say in her best professional voice: “Picabo, ICU.” True story? No way. Picabo is not now a nurse, has never been a nurse, and doesn’t particularly want to be a nurse. But she gets the joke. Since she was a child, she’s been teased about her name. Her parents got it from an Idaho town that takes its name from a Native American word meaning “shining waters.”
Picabo, ICU. It’s a rumor. Just one of many circulating today. Another describes a horrible accident involving the cartoon character SpongeBob SquarePants. A child is on a cruise ship with his parents. He finishes breakfast and announces he is going to see SpongeBob. His parents, thinking that he is going to the cabin to watch TV, have no problem with this. But in his attempt to visit SpongeBob, who “lives in a pineapple under the sea,” the child jumps over the rail and drowns.
A terrible tragedy - if it had actually happened. But this SpongeBob story is completely false. Such stories “reflect standard parental fears, that TV will have a bad effect on kids,” says Barbara Mikkelson, an expert in contemporary legends. Similar rumors popped up about earlier pop culture characters - kids were said to be jumping off roofs while trying to be like Mary Poppins or Superman.
Picabo has a problem, and so do we: We cannot resist the temptation to spread a good story, whether it is true or not. In our text, we learn that: “the tongue is a fire,” • it’s dangerous and destructive, • its power is far greater than its size, Never underestimate the power of this particular body part.
Of course, we know this. We’ve seen what happens to the standing of an elementary school boy when he is labeled a thief. Or to the reputation of a middle school girl when she is said to be sexually active. Or to the college prospects of a high schooler when he is rumored to be a cheater. Or to the promotion chances of a worker when she is said to be lazy or stupid.
It hardly matters whether these charges are true or not. If they are disseminated, they do damage. There was a rumor going around recently about a popular hip-hop artist. The story was that she would rather suffer the death of her firstborn child than have a white person buy one of her albums. not true. And yet, the story spreads the stain of racism.
“No one can tame the tongue,” says James, it is “a restless evil, full of deadly poison” (v. 8). // Did you hear about the kid who ate six bags of Pop Rocks at a party? His name was John Gilchrist, the actor who played “Little Mikey” in television commercials for Life cereal. The story goes that He ate six bags of Pop Rocks, drank a six-pack of Pepsi, and the two substances combined in his stomach and exploded, killing him horribly. That’s why Pop Rocks were taken off the market in the early 1980s. // The truth is that John Gilchrist never exploded. Pop Rocks plus soda produces only a burp. But the makers of Pop Rocks had to work hard to squelch the rumor, even writing to school principals. The same sort of corporate action had to be taken by the company Procter & Gamble, when it was accused of having links to Satanism.
The irony of this situation is that the tongue can do great good, but also great evil. “With it we bless the Lord and Father,” says James, “and with it we curse those who are made in the likeness of God. From the same mouth come blessing and cursing” (vv. 9-10). With our speech we can certainly bless people and encourage them and strengthen them and build them up. But we can also curse them and discourage them and weaken them and break them down.
We do the most damage through the spreading of gossip. And if you’ve ever been a victim, you know how devastating this is.
The tricky thing about gossip is that it is often spread with what appears to be good intentions. A story about a neighbor is told to protect others from making the neighbor’s mistake. A tale about a troublesome child is spread to keep other children in line. A personal concern is disseminated throughout the community because people want to show that they care.
“I have been the subject of a nasty little gossip ring,” reports a Christian woman. “Four people I thought were my friends were trading rumors about me. When I confronted one of them, she said it was because they were ‘concerned’ about me. They were so concerned that they couldn’t pick up the phone or write a letter, drop round to see me or send an e-mail. They were more concerned with spreading what they thought were my guilty secrets. Never mind that their ‘news’ was bad guesses showing the situation in the worst possible light, or that their guesses were completely wrong. Never mind that none of these people had even seen me in several weeks. They were ‘concerned.’” /// With concerned friends like these, who needs enemies? ///
The challenge for us, as Christians, is to show our concern by speaking directly to particular people, not by talking about them. If an action by a pastor troubles you, make an appointment and share your concerns. If a neighbor blunders badly, extend a hand and help to pick her up. If a child begins a downward spiral, step in and see if you can be a stabilizing influence. If you hear about a personal tragedy, pick up the phone and make a personal connection.
Any of these actions will do more good than spreading a story. /// And if you can’t muster the courage to take one of these steps, /// then keep your mouth shut. /// As James says in the first chapter of his letter, “If anyone considers himself religious and yet does not keep a tight rein on his tongue, he deceives himself and his religion is worthless” (1:26, NIV).
There is a great Christian virtue in simply holding your tongue.
Dietrich Bonhoeffer, the German Christian martyr of the Second World War, believed that there was a special ministry to be performed in holding one’s tongue. “Often we combat our evil thoughts most effectively,” he wrote, “if we absolutely refuse to allow them to be expressed in words.” Bonhoeffer discovered that if we hold our tongues and control our gossip about other people, then we come to discover that everyone has a place in the community - strong and weak, wise and foolish, gifted and ungifted. Slowly, we begin to see that these differences are not incentives for talking and judging and condemning each other, but are instead causes for rejoicing in one another and serving one another. In the end, we realize that each member of the community has been made in the image of Christ, and that each person has a place to offer a particular form of service.
This great spiritual awakening begins with a simple step: keeping our mouths shut.
The challenge for us is • to bless people through truth-telling, not curse them through storytelling • to speak directly to them, not speak to others about them.
When we use our tongues to speak honestly to our neighbors, then we are honoring the fact that they have been created by God, and are deserving of respect. We never know just exactly how God is going to use a person to teach us a much-needed lesson or two, so we should go into every encounter expecting to learn something new and perhaps grow in our faith.
“You must understand this, my beloved,” writes James to the early church: “let everyone be quick to listen, slow to speak” (1:19). That’s a countercultural message in our noisy, speech-saturated world: Be quick to listen, slow to speak and willing to hold our tongues instead of immediately using them to spread juicy morsels of gossip. We can only imagine what would happen to the worlds of entertainment and advertising and politics if this advice were suddenly taken to heart.
But for those of us in the Christian community, the words of James ring true. We can only be helped by being quick to listen, slow to speak and determined to bless people through face-to-face truth-telling.
Sources: Bonhoeffer, Dietrich. Life Together. New York: Harper & Row, 1954, 91-94. Hawke, Alison. “Gossip in church.” Christian Depression Pages. gospelcom.net. Retrieved March 3, 2003. “Picabo’s problem.” The Washington Post, January 29, 2003, C13.
Hymn # 386 Take My Life and Let It Be Consecrated
Benediction The grace if the Lord Jesus Christ and the love of God and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit be with you all. 2 Cor. 13:14
The Truth:
This has been circulating on the Internet for quite a while...long before September 11, and is not from George Carlin. Those who know George Carlin's views would immediately know that the comments in "The Paradox of Our Time" do not match those of Carlin. On his website at "www.georgecarlin.com" he denies authorship and criticizes the piece. The rumor that these words were spoken on the occasion of the death of his wife are a recent addition to the eRumor, which began circulating about 1999. There are many websites that quote from this now classic eRumor and identify it as having been written by Jeff Dickson in 1998. Thanks to a tip from one of our readers, we have found the original author, however. It is minister, author, and former pastor of
Overlake Christian Church in Redmond, Washington. In a response to an
inquiry by TruthOrFiction.com, Dr. Moorehead said he wrote it in 1990. It was later published in 1995 in his book WORDS APTLY SPOKEN. (Our thanks to the Office of Communications of the Overlake Christian Church
for his help on this story.)
Commentary
James urges Christians to evidence their conversion in all aspects of their lives — not with their faith only, but with their actions (James 2:26) and words as well (3:1-12). For James, this forms a type of “identification through negation” of Christianity’s two main rivals — Judaism and Hellenistic religion. Christians are not to be mere philosophers with good answers to life’s questions like the adherents of Hellenistic religion, nor are they to be simply the possessors of a venerated faith such as Judaism. And it is obvious from the content and style of the epistle, that its author knows both of these communities well.
James shows many signs of being addressed to a community intimately acquainted with the Hebrew Scriptures in all three parts — law, prophets and writings. His exhortation to be sensitive to the needs of the poor and to avoid showing partiality to the wealthy echoes both the law (Exodus 22:21-27; 23:6-9) and the prophets (Amos 2:6-8; 6:4-6). James 2:9, in particular, bears a striking resemblance to the preaching of Amos by stressing that one is accountable to the whole lifestyle described by covenant law (including the responsibility to care for the poor), and not simply to the parts of the law to which one finds it easy to adhere because they suit one’s sense of piety or self-image (such as making a show of offerings or pilgrimages; Amos 4:4-5; 5:21-24). In James 4:4, the author calls the community “adulterers,” because through their courting of the world’s favor they have become unfaithful to God. This image of idolatry as equal to adultery is a familiar theme in the Hebrew prophets (Jeremiah 3:9; Ezekiel 16; Hosea 3:1).
From wisdom traditions, James uses several familiar themes, urging the community (possibly after the example of Solomon in 1 Kings 3:3-9) to pray to God for the gift of wisdom (1:5) and to discern between true wisdom that comes from God and earthly “wisdom” that seeks only to serve its possessor’s ambition regardless of the harm done to others (3:13-15). James makes it plain that the only true prosperity exists within adherence to God’s law and will. All other striving is as empty as a “mist that appears for a little while and then vanishes” (James 4:14). This image is the exact same as that which begins the book of Ecclesiastes. The traditional English rendering “Vanity of vanities, all is vanity,” does not reveal that the Hebrew literally means “vaporous vapors, all are vapors” (Ecclesiastes 1:2).
Finally, James also uses famous characters from Hebrew Scripture to make some of his most compelling points. He argues that Abraham and Rahab were saved, at least in part, because their actions, or “works,” led them to faith (2:21-26). James lifts up the prophets as examples “of suffering and patience” (5:10), praises the endurance of Job (5:11) and makes note of the fact that though he was a mere human, Elijah was able to work miracles through the power of prayer (5:17). James exhorts his community to believe, as did the ancient Israelites, that their prayers, and even their ordinary words, had real power — the power to summon God’s presence and even to invoke their subjects to appear in the real world. Thus they should be used judiciously. Oaths, in particular, with their power to curse and bless and bind the speaker to their conditions, should be avoided (5:12).
Unlike our modern notion that words have no actual power, James insists that the tongue can do more real damage than a playground full of sticks and stones. Truly “hearing” the word, for James, means becoming one who turns those words into action (2:14-17). Thus a teacher, one who interprets the word of God for others, then is responsible for any actions that might ensue and any damage to the community that might result from the interpretation of words. A slip of the tongue might seem to be a small thing, but a rudder is a small thing which still steers ships of enormous size. A bridle is a small thing, but it allows a rider to steer a horse (3:3-4). A slip with either of these “small” things can injure or even kill those who wield them. The sad fact of the matter, says James, is that while all manner of creatures can be tamed by humans who stand above the animal kingdom in their ability to use speech, the one animal that human beings can never seem to tame is their own impulsive nature (3:7-8). This is why not many should try to master the art of using words to educate others.
In an allusion to the Pentecost narrative, James likens human tongues to tongues of fire (3:6). But while the fires of Pentecost were brought by the Spirit and led to the conversion of many, only a PERFECT human being could hope to wield such fire in a productive way (3:2). James goes on to take this image to some unusual places. Leahy notes that while the odd phrase, “setting on fire the wheel of birth” (3:6, NRSV: “sets on fire the cycle of nature”), has baffled many exegetes, phrases similar to this appear in the Orphic rites of Hellenistic religion (319). If this is the allusion we are meant to make, then the following phrase, “and is itself set on fire by Gehenna” (NRSV, “hell”), may be an allusion to the rituals of human sacrifice practiced in the original Valley of ben Hinnom from which the image of Gehenna is derived (Jeremiah 7:30-31).
Such allusions would emphasize the point that the same tongue which may be inspired by the Holy Spirit to speak holy words, can also pronounce pagan rituals of the most appalling kind. For James, the words of the gospel are meant to inspire action as well as faith. Therefore those who would teach must be able to control their own emotions so they can control the shape their words will take in the real world. If they can’t do this, their religion is worthless (James 1:26).
Animating Illustrations
More insidious than an outright lie is the lie or guess wrapped around a truth. The truth is used to validate the gossip’s interpretation of the facts as the whole truth. Gossip can contain truth (“She hasn’t been in church for a month”) wrapped in guesses (“because she’s given up on God”), but that doesn’t make it true.
When gossip spreads, the victim is hurt, betrayed and ridiculed. Few gossips have the courage or decency to tell their victim what is going on. Most of us find out by accident. Gossips do not care about who they’re hurting. If they did care, they would try to help or point out our errors and mistakes to us personally, not just talk to other people about their “concerns” for us.
—Alison Hawke, “Gossip in church,” Christian Depression Pages,
gospelcom.net/cdp/articles/gossip.htm.
Retrieved March 3, 2003.
Music Links
Praise
If We Don’t Praise
What if What They Say Is True?