Trinity Sunday, 26 May 2024, Austwick, Clapham
Of all the childhood slogans we used to say, perhaps the most memorable one is this:
Sticks and stones may break my bones
But words shall never hurt me.
This was what we said when the mean girls, or boys, taunted us for our size, or our looks, or our odd family, or some other perceived weakness. It was our shield, our anaesthetic, against what they’d said.
Saying this back to them was meant to make us feel better, but most times, really, we knew that it didn’t work. People’s mean words towards us do hurt. The lies people tell about us are punishing. The bruises we may have received from sticks and stones over the years will have faded away: even broken bones will have healed; but the words those playground bullies aimed at us can still, even now, cause us deep, deep, pain.
And it goes beyond the playground. Most of us are deeply scarred by things which people have said to us, or about us, at one time or another.
And many of us are also carrying a sense of shame or regret about words that we have used to attack, or belittle, or condemn, another, whether way back when, or even right now, this week.
“I am a man of unclean lips, and I live among a people of unclean lips.” Brother, you and me both.
We’re guilty of this as individuals; and we are also submerged in a culture which engages, consciously or subconsciously, in attacking, or belittling, or telling lies about others - usually those outside of our circle - thus condemning them to punishment and pain.
We see this clearly in cases where powerful institutions cover their tracks and protect their interests by smearing those who are in fact their victims. Think of the lies that were spread about sub-postmasters a decade ago, lies about their alleged criminality. This week the Reverend Paula Vennells expressed her “deep sorrow … that individuals, myself included, made mistakes, didn't see things, didn't hear things.” [1] But they did say things. In and out of court. And, at the time we may have unthinkingly soaked in these lies, as they were repeatedly parroted to us by the media. We know now the extent of the damage to so many sub-postmasters’ lives caused by the damning words which were so freely inflicted on them by others. [2]
The everyday truth is that in our villages and our homes, at our shops and street markets and flower festivals, we may find our lips repeating stories passed on to us, which condemn others, however subtly or politely, to different forms of punishment and pain.
Isaiah cried out woefully, that he was a man of unclean lips, living among a people of unclean lips, because his eyes had seen God - he was awed, and humbled, and in the glorious light of God before him, he felt ashamed of the dark deeds he’d done - and more specifically, of the bad words his lips had spoken.
In his contrite state he might have expected God to condemn him for the words that he’d used to put people down to build himself up. But instead, God’s messenger angel touched his lips with hot coals, and announced his guilt departed and his sin blotted out.
Those very lips were now to be used in God’s service, to tell the people about God’s deeds of power.
This is the surprise at the heart of the kingdom of God, which awaits each and every one of us: the surprise that those very parts of ourselves which can cause most damage to others, may be transformed, by God’s grace and through the power of his Spirit, into channels of his light, his love, his peace.
This is the commission awaiting each and every person who repents of their unclean lips, that in our villages and our homes, we find our lips telling new stories about others, stories about their being made in God’s image, loved in God’s heart, saved by God’s grace.
For, as Jesus taught Nicodemus, ‘God did not send the Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through him.’
Among a people of unclean lips, in God, there is no condemnation.
In God, there is no condemnation for anyone who carries around with them the hurt and pain of words which others have spoken about them. If you have felt condemned by others, then come to God, to find that you are condemned no more, for God affirms you as his child, deeply and eternally loved, just as you are, and releases you in grace, to lift up your heart and live a life of praise.
In God, there is no condemnation for those who are the objects of wicked speech: those in society who have been wrongly accused; those in our homes and villages and churches who have been gossiped about or written-off. God is truth, and knows what is truly in a person. It is Satan who is The Accuser, the father of lies; and God who is The Chooser, who loves us unconditionally, warts and all, and wants us to join his joyful work of releasing the wrongly-accused from their chains.
The work of Satan The Accuser is to set people against each other, the self-righteous against those they condemn, that old and terrible human activity of strengthening our own group by scapegoating innocent people. But God, The Chooser, is also at work, accepting and loving all people unconditionally. Nothing about who we are or what we have done matters to God - he chooses to love us all. [3]
The Book of James is very explicit about the power of the tongue to inflict damage, but also to save. He writes:
If any think they are religious, and do not bridle their tongues but deceive their hearts, their religion is worthless. Religion that is pure and undefiled before God, the Father, is this: to care for orphans and widows in their distress, and to keep oneself unstained by the world. [4]
If you are sorry that you have been all too ready to repeat lies passed on to you about some others singled out for blame or shame, then come to God, who will forgive, and not condemn you, and will then release you to learn the language of grace which, through the power of his Spirit, you may use to channel his light, his love, his peace, into those very lives.
Notes
[1] Paul Kelso, Post Office Inquiry: Horrible day for former boss Paula Vennells. Sky News, 22 May 2024.
[2] Victim Testimony. Post Office Trial: Reporting the Post Office Horizon scandal. 23 January 2019.
[3] For more on this, see my Mark 8 - Satan the Accuser and God the Chooser, preached in Liverpool, 2006, and Paul Nuechterlein, Satan the Accuser and God the Chooser, Lent 2B Sermon (1997), on which my talk is based. See also my I will draw all people to myself (2024).
[4] James 1.26-27.
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