Reflection on James 3:1-12

 

James 3:1-12

1Not many of you should become teachers, my brothers and sisters, for you know that we who teach will be judged with greater strictness. 2For 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. 3If we put bits into the mouths of horses to make them obey us, we guide their whole bodies. 4Or 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. 5So also the tongue is a small member, yet it boasts of great exploits.

 How great a forest is set ablaze by a small fire! 6And 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. 7For every species of beast and bird, of reptile and sea creature, can be tamed and has been tamed by the human species, 8but no one can tame the tongue—a restless evil, full of deadly poison. 9With it we bless the Lord and Father, and with it we curse those who are made in the likeness of God. 10From the same mouth come blessing and cursing. My brothers and sisters, this ought not to be so. 11Does a spring pour forth from the same opening both fresh and brackish water? 12Can a fig tree, my brothers and sisters, yield olives, or a grapevine figs? No more can salt water yield fresh. 

Reflection

He thought he started life as a chicken.  That was what he was told after-all by his older siblings.  My wife’s younger brother, at a young age, was convinced that he had hatched from an egg and started out as a small chick.  His older siblings even had a photo of little chicks to prove it.  He knew which one he was, and for a while that was his reality. 

He is now in his 40s, and I think he now understands that he was never a chicken, and that being a chicken at any point in any human’s life would be impossible.  I do not remember the story well enough to know exactly when his poultry based reality came crashing down in a burst of imaginary feathers around him, but it probably happened around the time that he chose to bring the chicken photo portraying his childhood to his school’s show-and-tell so that all of his friends could see.

James says in the Bible that “Not many of you should become teachers,” and I think I know a couple of older siblings for whom this was definitely true.  Words do actually shape our realities.  As James says, “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!” (James 3:5).  Just as a fire burns the forest community, scarring it for years to come, so too does the tongue if not used well.

Speaking of not using the tongue well, my father used to sing in the car all of the time.  We would drive along, listening to classic rock, and one of the songs to which he would sing along was “Secret Agent Man” by Jonny Rivers.  You know how the chorus goes:

“Secret Agent Man

Secret Agent Man

They've given you a number and taken away your name.”

Of course, my Dad could not let Jonny’s mush mouthed singing go unrecognized, so he would sing, “Secret Asian man, secret Asian man.”  That is right, for the entirety of my childhood my dad sang of a man from Japan, China, or the Koreas, who somehow figured out a way to keep his racial identity a complete secret from everyone around him.  I am not sure how that works, but that was how my dad sang the song.  Have you ever considered what the consequences might be if you have a joke, but never let anyone know that it is a joke; particularly your own children.

So, I was cleaning in my college dorm room one day when the song came on the radio, and I started singing, loudly, “Secret Asian man.” I sang it at the top of my lungs which immediately sent my roommate into fit of hysterical laughter, sliding his body down the wall to the floor all while pointing directly at my face.  “Asian man, Asian man,” he repeated again and again while pointing.  He might have been mocking me.  He soon taught me the actual lyrics, and I have to tell you, after that day, the lyrics of the song made so much more sense.

Words do actually shape our realities.  As James says, they are like bits put into the mouths of horses, allowing us to “guide their whole bodies” (James 3:3).  The tongue and the words they share have the power to guide other people down the path of singing incorrect song lyrics and ending up in a place of embarrassing college mockery, or even worse.

The Bible has a lot to say about using your tongue to speak truth.  Proverbs 8 boldly makes this commitment to God: “My mouth will utter truth; and wickedness is an abomination to my lips” (Proverbs 8:7).  We can only hope.

And, Jesus also desires only truth to pour off of our tongues.  He teaches that there is to be no deception when we speak.  There is to be no intentional misguiding when making our promises.  Jesus desire only truth coming from the tongues of those who follow him.  “Let your word be ‘Yes, Yes’ or ‘No, No’; anything more than this comes from the evil one” (Matthew 5:37).

Words matter.  Words do actually shape our realities, and the realities of those around us.

“You aren’t going to be any better than your mother,” the teacher excoriated the young woman. 

Those cutting words hung on the shoulders of that woman for years.  Her mother was a troubled individual with whom she struggled enough, but to be seen as nothing more than an extension of her troubled mother by that teacher weighed on her, shaped her, and steered her life.  She pushed against those words.  She fought those words.  She did not want those words to define her, but they did anyway. 

The tongue of that teacher was like, as James describes, “a very small rudder” on the back of a very large ship, which steered the enormous ship of the rest of her life (James 3:4).  In the end, the woman did make something of her life, probably because of those words, but it was all at the expense of her freedom.  She was held hostage to those words for years.  And what might have happened if, rather than fighting the words, she did what some others do and just assumed that they are true and inevitable. 

She was her own person.  Those hateful words did not need to be spoken at all.

“How great a forest is set ablaze by a small fire!” James says of the tongue and the words that they speak.

“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” (James 3:5-8).

Did you know that 50 percent of the gospel stories, the stories about Jesus, are all about Jesus’ actions, and only 30 percent record his words.  The other 20 percent are other bits of narrative, but 50 percent are his good and loving deeds and only 30 percent are his words.  Though Jesus had a great tongue and great words, I still think that there is something there to learn.  I think that James understands this action to word ratio quite well as he encourages us to have a vibrant and active faith, full of works, and at the same time tells us that most of the words that come out of our mouths are “deadly poison.”

“Don’t talk about your love of others, show your love of others,” he would encourage. 

“Keep the mouth shut and the arms open wide,” I imagine him pressing us today.

Or, maybe, we can ask Jesus to take our words to the cross and put them to death.  I know that there are a lot of words that I have spoken, that should not have come out of my mouth that I would gladly hand over to Jesus to take with him to the cross, how about you? 

Hurtful words; shameful words; words that caused guilt; words that caused the breakup of relationships; all of these words Jesus is more than willing to take to the cross and put to death forever. 

What words do you pray Jesus would take to the cross and put to death for good?  What words came off of your tongue that you could not capture before they set a forest fire or steered the ship in the wrong direction?

Oh, how troubled are our tongues!  “With it we bless the Lord and Father, and with it we curse those who are made in the likeness of God,” James says. “From the same mouth come blessing and cursing” (James 3:9-10).

So, we pray.  We pray that those tongues that we just cannot tame, and those words that we just cannot breathe back in, be gathered together and taken to the cross to die with Jesus; as well as our sinful selves. 

“Lord, have mercy on us.  We are so sorry for our words and our unchecked tongues.  Forgive us.  Give us a clean heart and a clean tongue.  And, give us other words, better words, clean words, and life-giving words that can flow out from our tongues.  May your Holy Word touch us, dwell within us, and work through us.  Amen”

Hear the good word of Christ:

“Anyone who comes to me I will never drive away;” (John 6:37).

“Come to me, all you that are weary and are carrying heavy burdens, and I will give you rest” (Matthew 11:28).

“Your sins are forgiven” (Luke 7:48).

“I will show you what someone is like who comes to me, hears my words, and acts on them” (Luke 6:47)

“Come, follow me,” (Matthew 4:19).