Sermon: ” Speaking the truth.”

When we think about the innovations, the inventions and the progress of the last 200 years, we are amazed by the likes of cars, coffee makers, and Computers. Planes, phones, and polio vaccines.  Satellites, surfboards and solar panels.

There are so many things to be amazed by. Wonderful achievements of the human innovation and mind – amazing control of the physics and chemistry of nature and the world.

 

But we still cannot control our tongues!

As the Book of James notes today, we can control powerful horses and mighty ships, but we can’t even control a small amount of flesh in our own heads.

“How great a forest is set ablaze by a small fire!  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.

My brothers and sisters, this ought not to be so. “

No, this ought not to be so. It shouldn’t be this way, but there are so many things that ought not to be so: homeless camps along the streets of our cities, hungry children in struggling families, hateful speech and violent divisions, human trafficking, human exploitation, planes flying into towers, endless wars and young dead soldiers. There are so many things that ought not be as they are.

 

We might be impressed and awed by all the innovative inventions of the centuries, all we have conquered and controlled;  but we should also be honest and saddened by all the cruel realities and losses of the centuries, all we have missed to solve and care for.

 

And we still cannot control our tongues!

As James notes today, we can control powerful horses and mighty ships, but we can’t even control a small amount of flesh in our own heads.

The same tongue, the same mouth can bless or curse, can lift or destroy; can hurt or comfort.

James uses the image of fire, when he describes the tongue, and I think many of us knows exactly what he means.

We remember times when we wish we had said something different: said it differently, or just kept quiet!

We might recall the anger that flared up or the relationship that we poisoned and ruined with our flaming tongue. Sometimes we carry conversations with us for weeks, months, yes even for a lifetime, and we replay then repeatedly.

Sometimes our friendships are ruined by deceitful lies that poison and burn every trace of friendship and trust.

James shares our deep anguish and acknowledgement over how destructive our words or our silence can be: the reading from James doesn’t leave us with much hope or redemption, but then we read on, and James speak about a possible good life and good deeds done in humility that comes from wisdom.

Good passion, good, controlled fire, can give light, warmth, honesty, love, and life when used wisely. If we can carry wisely the burden of knowing just how harmful we can be, we are able to find that we can do less cursing and more blessing.

That is what reading the Book of James can instill in us: acceptance of our shortcomings, but also of our possibilities and responsibilities.

 

I am quite sure that poor Peter in today’s gospel could have bitten his own tongue when he rebuked Jesus. Poor passionate Peter often got in trouble, because of his passion and his tongue.

He began that day with Jesus so perfectly as only Simon Peter the Rock could have… by saying the right thing at the right time: “You are the Messiah.” Peter proclaimed when Jesus was asking who people said he was and who they thought he was…. Peter was the perfect student and follower and disciple in that moment.

But how quickly things can change…. How quickly Peter would have swallowed his words and bit his tongue…. Suddenly that praise it shut down with a harsh “Get behind me, Satan… hold you tongue… you are missing my point!”

 

We tend to read this story as the Master rebuking his student: but what if it truly a very good conversation between friends that did care so much for each other to call each other out.

Jesus had just told his disciples what was going to happen: he was going to suffer and be killed. He also told that them that this would not be the end of it: he would rise again. But none of the disciples heard the last part, they only heard the first part about suffering and death.

 And so, the Gospel tells us that Peter took Jesus aside and rebuked him. It was Peter, the disciple, who rebuked Jesus, the master, not the other way around. Peter had that kind of intimate relationship with Jesus that it allowed him to tell him off, to set him straight. Imagine Peter saying: “Quit talking like that, Jesus. You need to change your attitude. It’s bad for you and it’s bad for the group.”

But then Jesus responded: “Get behind me Satan, for you are setting your mind not on divine thins but on human things… or plainly Shut up already. You are missing my entire point. Listen!”

 

This interchange between Jesu and Peter reminds me of a real relationship and a real argument, as close friends do. There is an intimacy in their exchange. They care about each other enough to call each other out. Sometimes we need to rebuke and scold our friends, and sometimes our friends need to make us shut up.

That’s what friends are fore…. Like Diane Warwick sang.

For good times and bad times I'll be on your side forever more

That's what friends are for

For good time and bad times friends stay at your side…. Argue, comfort, listen and stay.

Good friendships, good relations entails caring enough to struggle, to ask hard questions and to occasionally rebuke and argue. As a saying says: “Friends are who God uses to teach us what our families can’t.”

 

We can call it God’s grace when we fall in love, but also when we find friendship with people with whom we may have very little in common at first glance. Most of our friendship are born in happenstance. We ended up as friend of someone with children on the same soccer team. We worked together. We attended the same church. We studied together. We moved into the same dorm. We happened to meet, and we happened to become friends. Naturally, such friendship is often the place for differences, arguments and a chance to grow and learn.

Jesus and Peter were master and disciple, but also friends. A deep honest friendship, with room for holy rebuke.

It is not always easy to be good friends. Again and again, Jesus gives evidence that he had friendships, with Lazarus, Mary, Martha, Peter, John and Nikodemus. And they were not always easy one.

Jesus spoke the hard truth to the crowd after the argument with Peter: “If any want to become my followers, let them deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me!”

 

Jesus did not choose his friends and followers from a pool of perfect people or carefully elected applicants. Passionate Peter later imperfectly denied his friendship with Jesus, not once but 3 times before the cock crowed. Peter must have been so lonely and desperate in that moment and being rebuking himself… as he longed for Jesus to be able to do. Yet, Peter went on to become the Rock of the church…. A rock prepared and shaped by holy friendship.

 

One of life’s most underestimated treasurer are the rich friendships between those who care enough to argue with you, rebuke you, correct you and change you.

In our friendship with and faith in God, settled in grace and mercy, the occasional rebuke in repeated commandments or reminders from the book of James, - reminds us that we are indeed loved. So much that God wants to connect with us, befriend us, rebuke us, change us, help us, move us and save us.

For good times and bad times

I'll be on your side forever more

That's what friends are for.

 

For Good time and bad times

I’ll be on your side forever more

That’s what Jesus promised us.

Amen.