Mark 8:27-33; James 3:5b-6a; 10; September 15, 2024; Seventeenth Sunday after Pentecost
Someone here, who reads The Happenings, saw my sermon title in advance, and asked me if this would be our first rated-R sermon.
I said I didn’t know what they were talking about, but that they should come and find out. (And it looks like I’m not seeing them here today… hmm… I’m not sure what that means.)
But let’s get serious and to the point, my friends.
Seinfeld. Oh yes, Seinfeld. One of the all-time great television comedies.
Thirty something years later and people are still laughing, still finding its relevance in our culture and society, even though it must be said that most of the problems in each episode would be non-issues today simply due to the invention of the cell phone. … It’s amazing isn’t it how we take this little device — the cellphone — for granted; as if it’s always existed and have all but forgotten the days of telephone booths and waiting for people you can’t get a hold of, not being able to reach them due to everyone being off the grid.
I wonder, my friends, which way was better for our society? Pre-cellphone, or post-cellphone? Obviously, these devices are helpful. They can be a great tool. But I think they can also be a hindrance, and a detriment to our health. Dual capabilities.
Anyway, one of my favorite episodes of Seinfeld is called “The Heart Attack.” In it, the character Elaine has this scene where she’s on a date with a doctor. And Elaine is attracted to the doctor because of course and why not (aren’t we all?); and there, in his car, at the very moment where she’s hoping for a kiss goodnight, the doctor inexplicably chooses to take her tongue in his hand and explain the science behind what makes this muscular organ so fascinating.
DOCTOR (holding Elain’s tongue says…): The tongue…yes, the tongue… or, in medical terms, the glossa. It’s a muscular organ. Consists of two parts, the body, and the root. You see, it’s covered by this mucous membrane. These little raised projections are the papillae, which give it its furry appearance. Very tactile.
ELAINE: Uh-huh.
DOCTOR: You see, taste buds run on grooves along the surfaces.
ELAINE: Can you let go of my tongue now?
DOCTOR: What?
ELAINE: Let go of my tongue!
DOCTOR: (Lets go) Oh, sorry.
ELAINE: Well, I should get going… (at which point, the Doctor finally wises up and leans in for that kiss, but here, Elaine stops him, saying…) What are you doing?
DOCTOR: Oh, I was going to kiss you good night.
ELAINE: A kiss? With the tongue? The glossa with the bumps and the papillae? Yeah, I don’t think so. (Elaine leaves; scene ends)
…You see, the tongue. Sometimes sexy. Sometimes not.
It can be one of the things that attracts others to us, or that sends them right out the door.
James 2:5a: “The tongue is a small member, yet it boasts of great exploits.”
And scientifically, here are just a few of those exploits:
- The tongue can trap food particles and bacteria that cause plaque.
- Each person’s tongue has a unique “tongue print” that’s formed by its taste bud map.
Each of our tongues then are unique. Such that they can help define who we are. And, depending upon their use, they can either attract others to us, or send them right out the door.
For they can help us kiss, taste, make sound and form a beautiful language.
Or, they can help us spit, curse, gossip, and form an ugly set of words that divide and exploit.
And boy, how have a set of words, formed by a tongue on a great stage, divided and exploited an innocent group of people this past week in Springfield, Ohio. For while many have indeed laughed and posted memes about their own cats and dogs being marked safe from nefarious immigrants, another community has begun fearing for their lives.
Social media posts, thoughtlessly shared by these little devices in our hands, in addition to pure hearsay, have made an innocent man the subject of vile rumor after he was photographed removing two geese from a road in Columbus after they were struck by a car. Bomb threats, coming in the form of anonymous phone calls and angry texts against the legally settled Haitian community, have shut down schools and municipal buildings in Springfield, and have left families scared to leave their homes, and wanting to move off the grid.
Springfield’s mayor, Rob Rue, said “we’ve been punched, and it was words that did that.”
A social progressive, who helped spread the initial lie about Haitians eating pets on Facebook (which then went viral), has since apologized, saying: “I’m not a racist… I feel for the Haitian community, and I’d be terrified too… it’s not what I was trying to do… I never thought it would get past Springfield.”
Which is like when people say, I never thought my words would leave this room, or get off this stage, and that they would hurt so many people…
But you see, words matter. Our words matter. They can injure and spread like a virus. Unlike the story we’ve all told our children…words can in fact hurt as much or more than sticks and stones. And they can cause individual, relational, and societal heart attacks.
The tongue, like all of our muscles then, needs to be exercised. It needs to be worked out and conditioned. It needs our attention and to go to the gym from time to time. So that it can get stronger in the language of love, instead of remaining weak in the vernacular of hate.
For out of the same mouth, we all become hypocrites, if we follow our worship of God and our praise of Jesus, with rebukes of our neighbors and the gossip of whispers.
James 2:5b-6, 10: “How great a forest is set ablaze by a small fire! And the tongue is a fire. For from the same mouth come blessing and cursing. My brothers and sisters, this ought not to be so.”
My brothers and sisters, this ought not to be so.
It’s fitting, I think, that James equates the tongue, with its dual capabilities of loving or dividing, with a fire, which has its own dual capabilities. For fire indeed can warm us up, it can help cook us some good tasting and much needed food, and it can boil the bacteria and parasites right out of our water… but it can also be our nature’s malevolent accomplice, setting our homes ablaze, threatening our neighborhoods, community, and nation with destruction.
Jesus asks Peter, “who do people say that I am?” And today, he asks us the very same question:
Do people say that I am the savior who brings peace? Who supports the outcast? Who loves the unlovely, and embodies the truth? …Or are there some out there fashioning me as a messiah who sows division? Who vilifies the immigrant? Who hates the weak and the different, and is full of self-serving lies?
“Who do people say that I am?” Or better yet, who do you, as my people, with your words and your tongues, say that I am?
Our tagline, here at Grace, formed before I ever got here, says “we are to know Christ, and to make Him known.” Well, my friends, the question before us is how exactly are we out there making him known in this world? In which ways are we participating?
I pray that humility and compassion, truth and love continue to map and print our tongues, otherwise I fear it will be us hearing from Jesus, “Get behind me, Satan!”
