Transcript
James Really Works: Taming the Tongue
First Baptist Richmond, September 15, 2024
The Seventeenth Sunday after Pentecost
James 3:1-12
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.
“Sticks and stones may break my bones but words will never hurt me.” It’s a rhyme I learned when I was just a boy, meant to protect me from all the hurtful things other children might say on the playground. And I have to say: it was helpful. But I also have to say: it isn’t true. I learned that the hard way when I was in fifth grade.
There was a girl at our school named Kathy Stone, and she was not popular. She was overweight, wore thick glasses, and her parents were poor. I know that because my dad was doing a special kind of missionary work in those days—trying to help poor people in Boone County, West Virginia—and Kathy’s parents were some of the people he was trying to help. But they were nice people. They would often visit our house. Kathy’s mother would sit at our kitchen table and talk to my mother for hours on end. We got to know them and came to like them, and if my mother had asked me, while she was tucking me in at night, “How do you feel about Kathy Stone?” I would have said that I thought she was all right, you know, for a girl.
But one day at school we had indoor recess. We all went to the gym. Some of the girls were skipping rope. Some of the boys were shooting baskets. I was sitting on the top row of the bleachers with some of the older boys, trying to be
cool. And that’s when I saw Kathy Stone walking in front of the bleachers, bouncing a ball. But she wasn’t looking where she was going and she tripped and fell flat on her face. The boys I was sitting with thought that was the funniest thing they had ever seen; they howled. And I watched Kathy get up off the floor, adjust her glasses, and look in our direction. And that’s when I said, “What’s the matter, Stone? Fall down?” And the other boys laughed as if that were even funnier, and for a split second I felt pretty good about myself; until I saw the look on Kathy’s face, and realized how much my words had hurt her.
That memory still haunts me. I can’t believe I said that out loud. My parents probably taught me that rhyme about sticks and stones because they knew how cruel kids can be, but until that moment I didn’t realize how cruel I could be. The next time Kathy came to our house I found a private moment to apologize but she didn’t talk to me for weeks afterward. She couldn’t; she was too hurt. So, if there’s any chance that the words I’m saying today might find their way to Kathy Stone, wherever she is, I want to say, “Kathy, I’m sorry. I was ten years old. I had no idea my words could hurt so much.” But I’m not ten years old anymore. More than five decades have gone by. I’ve had plenty of time to learn from my mistakes and yet, sometimes I still hurt people with my words.
I did it just last week.
Preaching Professor Tom Long once said that behind every verse in the Bible there is a story and when I look at the verses in today’s epistle reading I get the sense that there are multiple stories there. I believe that on more than one occasion James had found himself on both ends of a good tongue-lashing—the giving end as well as the receiving end. He begins by warning his readers that not many of them should become teachers, because we all make many mistakes.
James was a teacher; I’m sure he had made some mistakes. He says that anyone who makes no mistakes in speaking is “mature,” able to keep the whole body in check with a bridle.
And then he pauses to illustrate.
Look at horses, he says. They are big, powerful creatures, and yet if you can get the bits into their mouth and sit on their backs you can turn them this way or that simply by pulling on the reins of the bridle. And look at ships, he continues. They’re big and heavy, driven by powerful winds, yet with a small rudder you can turn them this way or that. The argument he’s making is that with a small thing like a rudder or a bridle you can control a big thing like a ship or a horse.
And then he illustrates that.
He says the tongue is a small thing, but it can do great damage. He thinks about how a huge forest fire can be started by a single spark. “And the tongue is a fire,” he writes. “The tongue is placed among our members as a world of iniquity; it stains the whole body, sets on fire the cycle of life, and is itself set on fire by hell.”
And that seems kind of strong.
It makes me think there must be a story there. While I feel sure that James, who was a teacher in the church, had made some mistakes in his speaking, I also feel sure that James, who was a leader in the church, had witnessed the destructive power of words. Maybe someone in his church had started a rumor that had blazed out of control. Maybe someone had come to him in tears because of something someone else had said. And maybe it was those memories of the tongue’s destructive power that caused him to say: “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” (James 3:7-8). And that, of course, led me to an article on lion taming.
Debra Ronca writes: “When we hear the words lion taming, most of us imagine a dashing man in a top hat and tails, twirling a chair and cracking a whip at growling big cats. Indeed, that’s what the lion taming acts of the circus have generally looked like, and they’ve been taking place for over 200 years.” But a lion, she writes, “is a wild animal with 3-inch claws and a mouth that opens wider than your head is long. Its jaws can crush a bull’s spine.” That’s why people in the field wince at the words lion tamer. They know that you can’t tame a lion. The best you can do is train it.i
If James is right about the tongue, that it can’t be tamed, is it possible that it could be trained? In the final part of today’s reading James talks about how some people use the same mouth for opposing purposes. “With it we bless the Lord and Father, and with it we curse people made in the likeness of God. From the same mouth comes a blessing and a cursing,” James writes, and then adds in disbelief, “My brothers and sisters, this ought not 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.” How is it then that our mouths can pour forth both blessing and cursing?
James may be right, that no one can tame the tongue. But could it be trained? Could we learn to control it, like a rider controls a horse with a bridle, like a captain controls a ship with a rudder? Could we train our tongues to bless and not to curse, to speak words that help and heal rather than hurt and destroy? How would we do that? Where would we start? That took me back to Debra Ronca’s article, where she explained:
“Lion taming and training techniques have evolved over the years. The first known lion tamer, [a Frenchman named] Henri Martin, earned the trust of his big cats by introducing himself to them slowly over time, easing his hands, and then his head, and finally his whole body inside the cage with a tiger, who by this time was used to his presence.
“This style went out of fashion after Isaac Van Amburgh, an American, entered the scene. He used violent methods to control his big cats, sometimes beating them with a crowbar. When Clyde Beatty made his debut about a century later, he used a whip, a gun and a chair to command his cats.
“Today, lion taming (or training) techniques are more humane and exclude crowbars, bullwhips and guns. The animals aren’t trained via scare tactics. Most of today’s lion trainers employ a combination of repetition, trust and encouragement to train their big cats. A big cat trainer usually raises the cat from a cub, bonding with it throughout the development process.”ii
So, that’s how you train a lion: you earn its trust, you beat it into submission, or you raise it from a cub. When it comes to tongues, I suppose you could earn its trust by feeding it ice cream day after day; you could beat it into submission by biting it when it misbehaves (some parents used to wash their kids’ mouths out with soap); but the surest technique would be to raise it from a cub, that is, to train up a tongue in the way it should go so that when it is old it will not depart from it (Proverbs 22:6, modified). I think about how Christy and I taught our children to say “Please,” and “Thank you,” from a very early age. Those are two things that can almost always be said without fear of hurting anyone.
But I also remember a song we used to play for them in the car that said, “Keep your tongue from evil, keep your tongue.” It was from Psalm 34:13 and the
girls loved that one because, on the second verse, the singer would actually hold his tongue and try to sing around his fingers, “Keep your tongue from evil, keep your tongue.” They thought that was so funny. But if anyone ever actually did it, it might keep their tongues from evil. It might even “keep their lips from speaking lies” as the rest of that verse goes.
As a kindergarten teacher Christy had to deal with the usual playground conflict (“He hit me, Mrs. Somerville!”), and she tried to teach her students to use their words in helpful ways. She would get those two together and ask, “Brendan, why did you hit Connor?” “Because he pushed me off the swing!” “Ah. And Connor, why did you push him off the swing?” “Because I wanted a turn!” “I see. Connor, is there anything you would like to tell Brendan?” “I’m sorry.” “And Brendan, is there anything you would like to tell Connor?” “I’m sorry.” “And now, do you think the two of you could forgive each other.” And usually they would, and then they would run off together to play some other game. That seems like such a small thing, but if you can train your tongue at an early age to say things as important as “I’m sorry,” and “I forgive you,” your whole life will be better for it.
There are some other things you could train your tongue to say. What about, “I was wrong”? That’s a hard one for most of us, and impossible for some of us. I remember that old television show, “Happy Days,” where Arthur Fonzarelli—the “Fonz”—just couldn’t get his tongue to say those words. But if James is right, that we all make many mistakes, then it’s inevitable that we’re going to be wrong about some things. Practice saying it out loud. Stand in front of a mirror and say, “I was wrong.” And then try saying it to the person who needs to hear it.
Here’s one: “I love you.” In my role as pastor I have sometimes been
reluctant to use that one. I don’t want to say it in a one-on-one counseling situation and have someone take it the wrong way, as if it were some romantic confession. But Jesus commanded us to love one another, to put each other’s interests ahead of our own, and if we can do that we might also be able to say that. I don’t think parents can say it too often to their children, or spouses to each other, or siblings to their siblings, or friends to other friends. I think while we’re all together here this morning I can say it to you, because it’s true: “I love you.”
It’s not hard to think of things you could say that would make the world better rather than worse. Maybe you could come up with your own vocabulary list and practice it day after day. You could say:
· “I’m glad you’re in my life.”
· “Hang in there. You’re going to make it.”
· “That was a really good question you asked in class.”
· “Hey, let me do the dishes tonight!”
And in this political season you could say:
· “Listen, I trust you to do your homework, consider the issues, and vote for the best candidate without me having to tell you who that is.”
And maybe right after that you could say:
· “And by the way, your hair looks great!”
You get the idea.
And I haven’t even talked about all the things you could not say that would make the world better rather than worse, but there may be even more of those. I hear people say sometimes, usually about someone else, “She doesn’t have a filter between her brain and her mouth. She just says everything she thinks!” I don’t think you want to be that person. I think you want to think carefully about
what you say before you open your mouth and say it, and if there’s any question then just don’t say anything at all. Even then, you won’t always get it right.
You can’t tame the tongue. No one can do that. But you might be able to train it not to say things that will hurt and destroy, and instead to say things that will help and heal. And if you practice long enough, often enough, those may be the words that come out naturally, even in the worst moments. Like when that little girl in fifth grade falls down in front of you. Instead of joining the cool kids in making fun of her you might jump to your feet, run down the steps, help her up off the floor, look her in the eye and ask,
“Are you OK?”
—Jim Somerville © 2024
