Power of Words

“Power of Words”  

The Rev Jen Van Zandt

March 5, 2023

So, as we continue to look at the up-building of the body of Christ and individual parts of the body, the mouth, and the words that come out of our mouths, are crucial to look at as we assess how we live and act out our faith.  In Strong's Concordance, which is one of the most exhaustive biblical indices, the word mouth is listed over 300 times in the Old and New Testaments.  We all know what we say and how we say it has a tremendous power to hurt or to heal, to break down or to build up, to shrink or expand our understanding of life, our relationships, our faith and especially our relationship with God.  Our words are directly tied to our hearts which we focused on, on Ash Wednesday and, also last Sunday.  What both the psalmist and Paul are trying to make clear is that without God, God's word, God's law and God's instruction, we are rendered clueless and helpless to do anything but be driven by our own egos.

Verse 12 of the psalm reinforces that and, in our version today, Nan Merrill translates it as, “Who can discern their own weaknesses?”  The NRSV translates it as:  “Who of us can detect our own errors.”  The psalmist and Paul both know that only God can control and cleanse the heartless and evil thoughts, words and actions we do and say, especially ones that we hide from ourselves. We get tied up in correcting the other, so that we're right. We so desperately want to be in control. We desperately continue to seek power or work hard to place blame on anyone but ourselves. Both the psalmist and Paul make it clear that even if we think we're prophetic and faithful and give away all of what we have, if we are not loving, it's worthless.

The version of the psalm that's translated by Nan Merrill sounds a little flowery, but she writes her words, using the original Hebrew and Aramaic.  And if you notice in this psalm, every time she mentions the word or uses the word ‘Love’, it's with a capital ‘L’.  She doesn’t mean hearts of love. She means God.  It's more obvious in the NRSV where it says the ‘Lord’. The law of the Lord is perfect.  The testimony of the Lord is sure.  The precepts of the Lord are right.  The authority of the Lord is pure.  The spirit of the Lord is glorious.  I think perhaps she took that idea from Paul, because Paul, too, is not talking about what the bride and groom want to think about on the day they get married. Probably half of us used it for our wedding text, too!  But that's not what it is.  It's not about the romantic love, not even the heartfelt love or the unconditional love.  In Paul's text, Paul's use of the word Love is also referring to God. “If I have all prophetic powers and give away everything I have, but I do not have God, I have nothing”--which Dan teed up for us beautifully in his witness this morning. 

Paul goes on to say love is patient, but what Paul means is “God is patient.  God is kind.  God is not envious or boastful or arrogant or rude.  God doesn't insist on God's own way.  God is not irritable or resentful; does not rejoice in wrongdoings--rejoices in the truth.  God bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things”.  Thanks be to God!  Without that, we'd be stuck.  Badly.

Words are so important and, yet, so many times we shoot out a response in a conversation or in an email, without even thinking about it, completely unaware how our words wound the other.  Or the way we try to defend ourselves and make our point with someone we know we're never going to agree with, but we keep pounding the table, to ‘win the point’ nonetheless. We make a sharp, snarky comment to our spouse, because we're sick of that same argument; or our child; or the neighbor that still has our rake from 15 years ago; or a co-worker who gets under our skin.  But our words, what we say and how we say them are crucial.  Yet if they're done in love, it changes everything.

Tuesday we had our first Prime the Pump meeting and there were seven of us there.  And we were a little panicked, because we hadn't realized that starting an hour after we were to begin was karaoke.  (I’ll talk about that in a minute.)  As many of you know, I love to do the “Word Exercise” and I decided this would be a good way for us to kick off Prime the Pump, to get to know each other a little bit.  And I brought my original WORD cards.  I fanned them out in my hand and asked each person at the table to take a card.  These are words like gentleness, forgiveness, patience, integrity, dream, listen.  And then, one by one, we went around the table and said to one another what we thought that word meant to us in our faith journey in this Lenten season.  It was rich.  It was authentic.  We were seeking and striving to let the words of our mouth and the meditations of our hearts be acceptable to one another in the most authentic way we could be.  As one person around the table said, “This was a magical night.”--Until I got up during karaoke and started singing…

But, here's the cool thing.  A family of five--a mother, a father and three young children—finished their meal and as they were leaving, the father came to us and said, “You know what?  We were hearing your conversation and even our kids were amazed at the kind of conversation you were having.”  Because we were speaking in truth and in love as best we could.   God was spreading God's word to other people.   I said, “No, no, don't go, don't go.  We can pull up some chairs.”   They smiled and said “No, no, we'll come back another time.” 

That is the invitation here in Psalm 19:  Letting the words of our mouth and the meditations of our hearts find favor in God.  What if we were to pray that each and every day?  How might that improve our relationships with our spouses, with our children, our grandchildren; in our neighborhoods, this church?  Imagine for a moment how God would feel if each of us prayed that each and every day.  Imagine:  instead of trying to win the argument, instead of being right, instead of puffing ourselves up or even bringing anxiety to a situation… Imagine if we just “let the words of our mouths and the meditations of our hearts be acceptable to God?”

There's an expression in the desert mothers and fathers that says, “Imagine God beholding you and smiling.”  That's what this Psalm and that's what Paul is inviting us to do. It’s to let God be front and center, so that the words that come out of our mouths are loving and kind and patient and fair and gentle and tender and full of integrity and possibility.

So, friends, before we receive Grace through bread and cup through our mouths, let's take time to cleanse our mouths and our hearts, so that this communion today can change how we treat one another… for the rest of our lives.

May it be so.  Amen.