Readings for today: Isaiah 45-47, Colossians 3:18-4:18
How do you engage the world around you? What words do you use when you speak? When you tweet? When you post on Facebook or Instagram? When you comment? When you send email? How do the people around you experience you? How do they receive you? What would they say about you if asked? Are you known as a kind person? A gentle person? A positive person? If someone were to record you today as you went about your life, what would they discover? What kind of wake do you leave? Do you build others up or tear them down? Are you quick to speak and slow to listen? Do you find yourself getting easily riled up? Going on the attack? Taking things personally and getting defensive? Lashing out in anger and frustration?
When I was growing up, we would tell ourselves this lie - “Sticks and stones may break my bones, but words will never hurt me.” Of course this isn’t true. Words matter. Words have power. Words can be used to encourage and words can be used to discourage. Words can be used to lift the spirits of those who are down and bring down the spirits of those who are feeling good. The Apostle Paul recognizes the power of words which is why he encourages his Colossian friends with this verse - “Let your speech always be gracious, seasoned with salt, so that you may know how you ought to answer each person.” (Colossians 4:6)
Convicting, isn’t it? Especially if you are the kind of person who binges on cable news or scrolls endlessly through your twitter feed. As a pastor, I purposefully try to enter these spaces. I purposefully try to engage in a healthy, positive way on social media. I follow people from all across the political and theological and social spectrum. I try to stay up on the news of the day by browsing several different platforms. I have to tell you it isn’t easy. My heart gets beat up along the way. My soul takes a pounding from all the anger and hate and vitriol that is out there, We don’t seem to know how to talk to each other anymore. We apply litmus tests to each other based on the company we keep. I think of the blowback television personality Ellen DeGeneres received a few years back after being “caught” watching a football game with former President George W. Bush. People from her own tribe questioned her “liberal credibility” because she ate popcorn at a sporting event next to someone from the other side of the political aisle. I think of the blowback a pastoral colleague received recently for meeting with someone from a different theological tribe than our own. Rumors. Gossip. Innuendo. Christians bearing false witness about this man because he dared to meet with someone outside our stream. It’s getting out of hand. And real people are suffering real consequences as a result. Jobs are being lost. Livelihoods destroyed. Businesses are being shut down. All because we can’t seem to follow Paul’s advice. To speak with grace. To season our words with salt so that we might preserve and add flavor to our conversations. To treat everyone with the dignity and worth they deserve as people made in the image of God.
Why is this so hard for us? I believe it has to do with fear. We fear what we don’t understand. We fear those who are different. We fear change and uncertainty and our world is full of that right now. Not only do we find ourselves in the midst of massive cultural upheaval but the pace at which it’s happening is scary. One day vaping is considered a safe alternative to cigarettes. The next day we are performing funerals for young people who are dying from it. One day we affirm surgical transitions for young people still struggling through puberty and the next some of those same people are asking for de-transitioning surgeries to return to their biological gender. One day we legalize marijuana and the next we are finding out the negative impacts on the adolescent brain. Our “ready, fire, aim” approach is not working. Our inability to sit down and reason together is costing us dearly. Our unwillingness to hear the other side or listen to different opinions or consider alternative evidence is harmful and abusive.
So what can we do? Each of us is given a sphere of influence. For some of us it is our home. Our family. Our circle of friends. For others it is the team we lead at work or the business we run. For others it is our congregation. For still others it is the constituency we serve. Whatever authority God has given you, use it to build up. Whatever power God has given you, use it for the good of those around you. Whatever influence God has given you, use it to bless others even if they don’t agree or belong to your tribe. Speak words of grace. Words of life. Words of hope into those around you. For this is what God has done for us. Remember, none of us agreed with God. None of us stood on His side. None of us came from His tribe. Still He came to us. Still He laid down His life for us. Still He loved us so much He gave His only Begotten Son. So believe in Him. Speak in His name. Allow His Spirit to sanctify your words today.
Readings for tomorrow: Isaiah 48-49, 1 Thessalonians 1