15th Pentecost
Isaiah 50:4-9, James 3:1-12, Mark 8:27-38
Sticks and stones may break your bones but names will never hurt you. I don't know if that little ditty is ever used anymore to bind up the hurts and abuse of cruel society--maybe it's gone out of style. The truth is while it may have allowed the injured an acceptable retort and a shield of protection, it simply isn't true. Names do hurt. Wuss, freak, jerk, burn out, wasp.. An old youth group game was to give kids a paper doll and tell them to say the nastiest things they could think of to that paper doll and for every nasty thing make a cut with a scissors in the doll. Most paper dolls ended up in two or three pieces but a few of the kids would really get going and their paper dolls would be piled in shreds. Then we'd give the kids a roll of tape and tell them to put their paper dolls back together. The lesson is obvious--it takes a lot more energy to put them back together than to rip apart. And even when the dolls were repaired there were still holes and gouges--the marks of mistreatment that they'd bear forever. Some psychologist has said it takes seven positive remarks to overcome even one negative one.
Words have power. Words are power.
Both Isaiah and James in our lessons this morning draw attention to this truism. Isaiah says the tongue of a teacher has the power to "sustain the weary with a word.' Teachers have amazing power. I know that are at least three people here today who are not singing because somewhere along the line a teacher told them to just mouth the words.
James compares the tongue to a fire, a restless evil, full of poison. He continues "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." Words have power. Power to heal and power to hurt.
More than that, words can define a reality. With a word God called the universe into being. And two weeks ago the International astronomical Union redefined the reality of the solar system by redefining the word planet. Poor Pluto, discovered and made a planet in 1930 and now demoted to dwarf status on August 24 th in 2006. And so thousands of science books and charts will have to be revised and all those Styrofoam models of the solar system will have to be recalled. Words can be so cruel.
Words can color our perceptions and mold our understanding. More than ever we become aware that the way something is said will decide our reaction to it. So we have spin and spin doctors. We've all wondered at those personality descriptions. Is someone sly or shrewd, hyper or just energetic, weasily or subtle, timid or nuanced, arrogant or confidant, brown-nosing or diplomatic, stubborn or determined. Is that bunch of kids a gang or a Youth group? Does your husband hoard things as you would contend or collect them as he believes? How something is said defines a perception. Words have power.
More than just describing a reality or defining perception words can actually create a reality. Just the other day someone was recommending a book to me that they had just read. "I didn't want to finish the book because I had come to like the people so much--I didn't want them to go out of existence." One preacher recalls reading the book, Charlottes Web to his son for the first time. As he read the story he found himself getting choked up with emotion and realized that, even in a world where there are no talking spiders, talking pigs or spiders who can create words in their webs the words created something out of nothing and produced an emotional reality for him that was touching and profound, even if it didn't really exist.
Words are powerful. Words can open up the window to a new and different future. The two of them were just driving along in the car talking of this and that. The conversation drifted to the five years from now, what they each wanted in life and what was important....And he pulled off the road, looked her in the eyes and said I love you. I want to be with you always. The feeling had already been there but when it was put into words it became real and true. With the power of a word everything changes and the future is different.
And so we come to our gospel lesson for today. Jesus is journeying on with his disciples to Caesarea Philippi. As they're walking they're talking, passing the time with stories and banter. Then as if they've used up all their material, there is silence. After a bit Jesus says rather lightly, ""So who do people say that I am?" The disciples have to think a bit but finally one of them says "I heard somebody say you were just like John the Baptist. Another disciple adds, "When you healed that blind man I heard a bunch of people saying you must be Elijah returned. Not to be outdone another disciple jumps in, "After your preaching the other day I heard some folks calling you a modern day prophet like Amos or Isaiah". And then Jesus stops walking. The disciples still moving so they have to come back to him to see what's wrong. Jesus looks them straight in the eye and says "And who do you say that I am?" All the air has been sucked up with the question. The disciples hold what breath they have. They've talked about this among themselves but never thought he'd ask it just this way. Peter who is always uncomfortable in the moment has to be the first to proclaim. "You are the Messiah". And suddenly the world is different. A reality unexpressed has been declared; a new relationship has been established. No longer are these just twelve students of an itinerant rabbi, no now they are part of God's cosmic plan, they are privy to a truth above and beyond their simple lives. They'd like to believe that they can go on as before. Peter especially doesn't want to believe Jesus when he tells him what this will mean; suffering, rejection, death. But the cat's out of the bag, there's no going back. Words once spoken are out in the air. Right in the center of the gospel of Mark these words are a turning point, a moment of no return, something has changed and all because a word was spoken.
Words have power.
Today we have a baptism. Bradley Dean Nickel, you have been baptized in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. You have been marked with the cross of Christ forever. Something has changed. In his life he may ignore this baptism or forget it or even repudiate it but God has spoken, the words are out. God has claimed Bradley. And nothing can ever change that.
The words we say each week have power. I believe. I believe in God the father...I believe in Jesus Christ...I believe in the Holy Spirit. These words establish our place in the universe, they acknowledge the grace of God who sent his son and the reality of a community established not by us but by the Holy Spirit.
Words have power. Jesus said, when you pray say Our Father. This acknowledges God not as some distant tyrant waiting for us to get out of line but as a Father one who is near to us and desires the best for us.
We hear the good news, that the Word has been made flesh and that this flesh has been broken for us.
We affirm, "alleluia, alleluia, You have the words of eternal life."
Amen