Sermon - Pentecost 17 - James 3:1-12

 

The Lord has given me an instructed tongue.  So says the Prophet Isaiah.  Sounds like a good thing.  On the other hand…

The tongue is an un-tame-able beast, a flaming fire, a fountain of deadly poison.  So says James in our Epistle reading.

James even goes on to ponder the paradox of the tongue, that the same mouth speaks both curses and blessings, like a spring that brings forth fresh and salt water, or a tree that bears two different kinds of fruit.  These things shouldn’t be!  But they are.

Such is the life of a Christian, a sinner and also a saint.  We are walking paradoxes, living contradictions.  It is, to say the least, a great mystery.

While we sin in so many and various ways, today our readings call us to consider especially sins of speech – the tongue, the mouth. 

As the crown of God’s creation, and made in his own likeness, one of the things that sets us humans apart from animals is the ability to speak.  Like God himself, who spoke creation into being, we are given the ability to form words and communicate thoughts.  We can make small talk about the weather, and we can share complicated ideas about academic minutiae.

But because our hearts are polluted with sin, and our minds are bent and perverted with sin, the sinful thoughts inside of us give rise to sinful words.  The sin spews out of our mouths like a poison.  Like an open sewer pipe, only far more destructive are the sinful words of our sinful speech.

Oh, sure, a little gossip here and there seems harmless enough.  An unkind word, perhaps spoken in anger.  A white lie to cover our tracks in an embarrassing situation.  But the white lie grows.  The venom of a harsh word spreads.  And the gossip spreads and shatters our neighbor’s good name.  These are no small matters.

Just because it’s true doesn’t mean we can say it without sin.  We must also speak words that are kind, and that build up.  Speak the truth in love, as Paul writes in Ephesians.  Easier said than done.

Just as our confession of sins covers sins of thought, word, and deed… so also we are reminded that we sin by what we do, and by what we have left undone.  This goes for our speech, too.

There are times in which we sin by not speaking as we should.  By not speaking up when our neighbor is being maligned.  By not defending his reputation from gossip and lies.  By not explaining our neighbor’s actions in the kindest way.

At times we fail to give a good witness – either out of fear of repercussions or embarrassment.  We do nothing, we say nothing, when we should have spoken the truth in love.  And so the tongue can sin with the words we say, but also with the words we withhold.

But what is the other side of this coin?  What words and speech must we hear and speak that prove better, and good?  What is the antidote to the poison, the thing that can quench the flame, what can tame the savage beast?

Consider Isaiah’s words, “the Lord has given me an instructed tongue”.  Before we speak, we must hear, and listen.  And the instruction that Isaiah means in particular is the word of God, and even more particularly, the Gospel.

Faith comes by hearing, and hearing by the word of God.  The instructed tongue is the person who speaks from faith, because he has heard the Gospel of Jesus Christ and believed.

God’s word of promise is exactly the antidote and answer for all our corrupted speech, our filthy sinful talk.  He cleanses us by the blood of Christ in our entire being.  Christ’s sacrifice restores us to a wholeness, a righteousness, a holiness of word and deed that is not our own – but comes by grace, through faith in him.

Consider all the gracious words that flow from his lips.  The promises of life and peace and health and blessing. 

Consider how he joins his word to water in the sacrament of holy baptism, and that watery word becomes a flood of blessings your whole life through

Consider his precious words of testament, spoken over humble bread and wine, with the promise of his body and blood given there for your forgiveness.

Consider the words he spoke to his apostles, that whoever’s sins are forgiven on earth are forgiven even in heaven – and that those same words of absolution are spoken by your pastor today.

The instructed tongue of Christ delivers to us that which he receives from the Father – all good things – words of grace, mercy and peace.

And then there is the instructed tongue of the believer.

The instructed tongue of the believer doesn’t mean you’ve gone to seminary, though maybe you have.  It doesn’t mean that you have memorized the entire Bible or can mine the original Greek and Hebrew.  It doesn’t even mean that you regularly attend Bible Class at church (although, of course, that would be good to do!)

It means you have heard the instruction of the Gospel, heard the word of salvation in Jesus Christ, and believed.  And that changes everything – your heart, your mind, even your speech.

While the flesh still frustrates us, it does not do so entirely.  For the Christian not just sinner, he is also saint.  The new creation, the child of God, the person who God has made us to be in Christ – he’s a different sort of fellow.  He speaks quite differently.

For one, we confess the faith that is within us.  We do it formally with things like the creeds and the catechism.  We recite and repeat the word of God, and it is never far from our lips.

We share the hope that is within us whenever we have the opportunity.  We are witnesses of all that God has done for us, and so we are glad to tell others the good news we have heard and believed.

And, of course, the instructed tongue also prays.  And here we come to touch for a moment on our Gospel reading.

The disciples were frustrated that THEY couldn’t cast out the demon.  The Scribes and the crowds along with them seemed to frustrate Jesus, “how long do I have to put up with this faithless generation?”

But the father of the boy prayed.  His tongue was instructed unto faith.  He prayed to Jesus that precious little prayer that so many of us have repeated, “Lord, I believe, help my unbelief.”  And Jesus answered his prayer.

Later, when the disciples wondered why they couldn’t cast out this evil spirit, why the failed, Jesus said, “this kind can only be cast out by prayer.”  But he doesn’t mean just the right formula of the perfect words.  When Jesus urges prayer, he’s simply urging us to give word to our faith.  Only the believer can truly pray, after all, and God will only hear the prayers of the faithful – for we pray in the name of Jesus.

So let us always live by faith in Christ, with a faith that prays:  Lord, give us an instructed tongue.  Forgive us, Lord, for sins of our words, and form in us a faith that prays, and confesses, and sings your praises forever.  Lord, we believe, help our unbelief.  And teach us to pray.  In Jesus’ Name.  Amen

Sermon - Pentecost 16 - Mark 7:31-37

St. Mark tells us today about an occasion on which Jesus healed a man who was deaf and head a speech impediment.  Even today, we understand that hearing and speaking are related, and so it’s no surprise that the man had trouble with both.  Nor is it a surprise that Jesus bothered to help the man, and that he healed him and restored him fully.  It’s Jesus, after all, and he has compassion on those who are in need.

What lessons can we take from this miracle, what application for our life and faith in this day and age?  

We can perhaps sympathize with the deaf man.  We don’t know exactly when his deafness began (perhaps it was even from birth).  But we do know that hearing is a valuable human sense and this man was without it.  While many helps and accommodations have come in modern times to help the deaf, even a whole sign language, sadly none of these would have existed in Jesus’ day.  The deaf man just had to make the best of his condition, such as it was.

Perhaps almost as bad, he had a speech impediment.  Apparently he could speak some, or with some great difficulty.  But it surely also served as a source of frustration and made it hard for him to communicate with those around him.

When Jesus takes him aside in order to heal him, Mark tells us that as part of it Jesus sighed.  It’s kind of an unusual detail to mention.  What did that sigh of Jesus mean?  Martin Luther suggests that it was a sigh of Jesus’ reaction to the havoc sin and death cause in our world.  Sort of similar to Jesus’ reaction at the tomb of Lazarus, where it says he was “deeply moved in spirit, and troubled”.

We can sympathize with the deaf man, even if we are not deaf.  We can feel for him even if we don’t have a physical disability of our own.  Because we, too, groan under the effects of sin and death in our lives.  The details may be different, but the circumstances are the same.  We are broken, and we are dying.  Nothing in this fallen creation is exactly as it should be.  Some things are entirely lost.  Some things are not lost, but are ruined.  And some things are a polluted or corrupted version of what they are meant to be.

Of course, there’s also the spiritual condition of deafness.  Or that we might think of our sinful condition as being unable to hear, or listen, to God’s Word.  Just as sometimes we speak of being spiritually blind, spiritually dead, and spiritually enemies of God.  So, too, our fallen state makes us deaf to his word, and unable to either do what his law commands or believe what his Gospel promises.  It is only with the intervention of Jesus, by his Spirit, that we are restored and made new.  The Holy Spirit calls us by the Gospel, and that word that we couldn’t and wouldn’t hear, that word itself opens our deaf ears and closed hearts to hear and believe.

You see, the Word of God has such power.  It doesn’t just say things, it does things!

Hebrews says, “For the word of God is living and active, sharper than any two-edged sword”  Paul says in 2 Corinthians, “The letter kills, but the Spirit gives life!”  And of course we all know the performative power of God’s word even from the beginning, in the creation, when God spoke, “let there be…”   And, of course, there was.

God’s word does what it promises to do.  When the words of absolution are spoken, “I forgive you your sins, in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit”, then you know that your sins are forgiven.  When God speaks such a word, even through the humble mouth of a pastor, reality is changed, sins are forgiven, and heaven itself is Ephphatha – opened – to us.

When Jesus died on the cross he spoke, he declared, “It is finished!”  And so it was.  Death was finished.  Sin was finished.  All the power of the Devil was undone.  The divine verdict of condemnation on us was overturned as Christ himself served the sentence of death.  And just as when a judge pronounces those words, “not guilty!” , so too with the Word of God it becomes a reality.

So Jesus says to the man, or rather, to his ears, “Ephphatha!  Be opened”  And those deaf ears simply must obey.  They must hear, because the one who created them, created us, created all is speaking.  And he will be heard.

This is how faith itself works, too.  God speaks, and that Gospel creates the very faith that believes it.  His word supplies all that is needed, even what is needed to believe that very word!

And then, let us not forget that Jesus also restored the man’s speech.  As we said, speech and hearing go together.  Even today we notice that hearing loss or a hearing problem can delay the development of speech.  And if someone is deaf from birth, it is only with great difficulty that speech is learned.

But Jesus restores his speech fully.  He doesn’t just set the man to zero, so that he can learn to talk again.  Jesus doesn’t do things half-way like that.  And so just as Adam was created whole, and had enough command of language that he could speak with God and even name the animals, so the deaf man’s tongue was loosened, set aright, and his speech restored to fullness.

Here, too, a spiritual application comes to mind.  Just as we are unable to hear God’s word until faith comes, so also can we not confess that faith unless and until he enables us.  But faith must speak.  Faith must confess.  The person who has heard the good news delights to tell the good news when given opportunity.  And so do we.

We confess with the crowds who observed such miracles, that Jesus “has done all things well.”  If they only knew the fullness of such a claim! 

He opened the eyes of the blind

and the ears of the deaf unstopped;

He made the lame man leap like a deer,

and the tongue of the mute sing for joy.

He brings forth in the wilderness,

and streams in the desert

He brings life from death, righteousness from wickedness, and makes saints out of sinners.  He brings down the mighty from their thrones and exalts the lowly.

He opens that which is closed – your ears to hear and believe – he opens heaven itself to receive your soul when you die – and he will open your grave in the final “Ephphatha” on the last day when he calls you to resurrection.

He has done all things well!  So we have heard with our ears, so we confess with our mouths, even Jesus Christ our Lord, Amen.