“The Power of Small”
Many years ago now, I drove through the huge pine forests of North Carolina in early September with several other college students on my way to the city of Fayetteville to sing a concert with our college choir. A large crowd gathered in a local United Methodist church that Sunday afternoon to enjoy the music. When the concert was over, my friends and I piled into the car for the trip home. It was one of the scariest trips I have ever made in my life. You see, that afternoon, as we had been singing in the church, someone threw a lighted match out of a car window into the dry underbrush beside the road and started a forest fire.
North Carolina has vast areas of pine forest. The little two-lane highway between Misenheimer and Fayetteville winds through those forests. It is a spectacularly beautiful drive. On this particular day, however, about thirty minutes into our trip, we started to smell smoke. We didn’t think anything of it. The smell got stronger and stronger and soon we saw ribbons of gray smoke, but we continued to drive toward the college, laughing and talking about our classes, the concert, and other topics of interest to those in their late teens.
Sometimes, you don’t realize that you are in the middle of a forest fire until you see the flames licking the trees on both sides of the road. In reality, we had experienced difficulty breathing the smoke-filled air for a few miles. We had noticed that the temperature of the air outside the car had risen. But, with the calm assurance of teenagers, we assumed that we could deal with whatever we encountered. After all, we had just come this way in the morning, so how bad could it be? Yes, we were stupid. We wanted to get back to the college quickly, for we all had homework to do to prepare for classes the next day. So, we drove on.
In a brief time, the flames were at the edge of the forest on the right side of the road. As we drove by, we could smell the burning pine and hear the crackling of the pine branches as they burst into flame and were consumed. The heat inside the car… and no college students in those days had air-conditioning in their cars… was uncomfortable. A few miles further along, the flames appeared on the left side of the road as well. Now, we could hear the hissing of the sap in addition to the crackling of the branches as they burned… and a new sound: a dull roar like the sound of someone blowing air out through his/her mouth, only louder. We had not seen any other cars on the road for quite awhile. We drove faster, hoping we would clear the fire quickly. As we accelerated, we could hear our car tires sticking to the melting asphalt of the road. I remember praying that our tires would not explode from the heat and leave us stranded in that place. All conversation had stopped as we realized… a little late… the danger that we were in. Time seemed to stop as we drove on in silence, baking in that little car, not knowing what lay ahead.
Fortunately for all of us that day, God had other plans for our lives. Somehow, we made it back to the college that day. Later, we learned about the hundreds of acres of forest that had been destroyed and how the road we were traveling on had been closed to traffic that afternoon… all because someone had dropped a small match onto the dry grass beside the road. It was amazing to me that something that small could be that destructive.
The writer of James, in our text today, compares the destructive power of the tongue to the power of that match. What parallels do you see between the small match that started that forest fire and the evil that the tongue can do in our community? Have you seen families torn apart by harsh words? Have you seen children’s lives destroyed by verbal abuse? Have you seen churches split in two by arrogant, self-serving factions spreading gossip and lies? Have you seen people marginalized and disenfranchised by careless, denigrating speech?
And it is not just our communities that suffer from the power of human speech. What parallels do you see between the small match that started that forest fire and the evil that the tongue can do in our world? Do you remember nine hundred (900) people who died in Guyana because Jim Jones’ words convinced them to poison their children and commit suicide… all in God’s name? What about the six million Jews who died because the words spoken by Adolph Hitler unleashed a torrent of anti-Semitism in Europe?
Two years ago, Mom, Dad and I had the privilege of joining some friends on Lake Travis for an evening sail. We got to the marina in the late afternoon and, by the time we got out onto the lake, the sun was setting in a breathtaking display of red, pink and orange clouds. There was a cool breeze that filled the sails and drove away the heat of the day. As the colors in the sky changed to maroon, purple and gray, I watched my friend guide the boat through the water… her hand on the tiller moving the rudder to adjust our course. Occasionally, we adjusted the sails to take full advantage of the breeze. There were long periods of silence when we just looked at the changing sky, the hills and the lake. The only sound was the sound of waves on the hull and the snapping of the sails in the breeze. “Fair winds and following seas,” a friend had wished me before we left. We had them that evening.
As I watched my friend’s hand on the tiller, I was amazed that a small movement on her part could dramatically change the course of the boat in the water. If her course was true, we sailed silently forward, with sails full, toward our destination. If her course was not true, the sails flapped uselessly in the breeze, the boat drifted off course or slowed dramatically. What a powerful tool the rudder is, and the importance of that hand on the tiller cannot be underestimated! And yet, just as a tiny rudder can guide a huge ocean liner safely to harbor, words can guide people to make powerful choices that impact their lives for good. Billy Graham and his simple words of truth have turned thousands of people from destructive paths and onto the path of salvation.
The writer of James talks about the awesome responsibility that we, as leaders in the church, carry as preachers and teachers of the gospel message. Those who teach the Word of God, he says, we will be judged more strictly than others. Why do you think that is true? There are three things that come to mind: First of all, we who know Christ have been commanded to tell others the story. “Go, ye, into all the world…” the Gospel says. Secondly, we who are Christ’s disciples are responsible for those God has entrusted to us. We are “our brother’s keeper.” Finally, the Word of God is powerful… sharper than a two-edged sword… and we have been given the power to set it loose.
Sometimes, I think we get so wrapped up in the concept of God’s love that we forget the awesome power of God… a power so great that the three little words, “Let there be…” can create whole universes simply by being spoken. Through our words, we call on that power each day without consciously thinking of what we are doing. Annie Dillard touches on this in her book, Teaching A Stone to Talk, when she says, and I quote:
Why do we people in churches seem like cheerful, brainless tourists on a packaged tour of the Absolute? The tourists are having coffee and doughnuts on Deck C. Presumably someone is minding the ship, correcting the course, avoiding icebergs and shoals, fueling the engines, watching the radar screen, noting weather reports radioed in from shore. No one would dream of asking the tourists to do these things. Alas, among the tourists on Deck C, drinking coffee and eating doughnuts, we find the captain, and all the ship’s officers, and all the ship’s crew. The officers chat; they swear; they wink a bit at slightly raw jokes, just like regular people… The wind seems to be picking up.
On the whole, I do not find Christians, outside of the catacombs, sufficiently sensible of conditions. Does anyone have the foggiest idea of what sort of power we blithely invoke [in worship]? Or, as I suspect, does no one believe a word of it? The churches are children playing on the floor with their chemistry sets, mixing up a batch of TNT to kill a Sunday morning. It is madness to wear ladies straw hats and velvet hats to church; we should all be wearing crash helmets. Ushers should issue life preservers and signal flares; they should lash us to our pews. For the sleeping god may wake someday and take offense, or the waking god may draw us out to where we can never return.
The eighteenth-century Hasidic Jews had more sense, and more belief. One Hasidic slaughterer, whose work required invoking the Lord, bade a tearful farewell to his wife and children every morning before he set out for the slaughterhouse. He felt, every morning, that he would never see any of them again. For every day, as he himself stood with his knife in his hand, the words of his prayer carried him into danger. After he called on God, God might notice and destroy him before he had time to utter the rest, “Have mercy.” Another Hasid, a rabbi, refused to promise a friend to visit him the next day: “How can you ask me to make such a promise? [he said.] This evening I must pray and recite, “Hear, O Israel.” When I say these words, my soul goes out to the utmost rim of life… Perhaps I shall not die this time either, but how can I now promise to do something at a time after the prayer?”
Do we understand the responsibility we hold when we preach or teach the Word of God? Do you believe that we are conscious of the power we invoke in the words we use when we pray?
A friend of mine who is also a pastor tells this story of a couple in his congregation who were headed for divorce. The verbal battles they waged had escalated to the point where neither party had anything good to say about the other. The bitterness and acrimony in their speech tore at the fragile fabric of their relationship, reducing it to tattered ruins. One evening, after a particularly destructive confrontation and unable to bear the tension, the man stormed out of the house. After driving around for some time, he came to the church where he and his wife always worshipped. Going inside, he fell to his knees and begged God to release him from this hellish relationship. As he shared the bitterness in his soul about his mate, he suddenly heard a voice speaking to him in the dimly-lit sanctuary. “Be careful,” the voice said. “You are speaking about my daughter, whom I love very much.”
The man knelt there in stunned silence, considering those simple words. He had never seen his wife in that light before and it changed him. After a time, he got to his feet and returned to his home. From that day forward, he never said another word in anger to his wife… or about his wife. Instead, he treated her as if she were a beloved child of God entrusted to his care. At first, she reacted with suspicion and doubt, but slowly, as time went by, she began to trust him again. One day, she asked him what had brought about the change in him and he told her the story of his nocturnal visit to the church. His story changed her as well, and she began to treat him as if he were a beloved child of God entrust to her care. Slowly, they rebuilt their relationship and today that marriage is still intact.
Little words are powerful tools. The right word, spoken at the right time, by the right person can teach… strengthen… correct… encourage… and build up the body of Christ. The opposite is also true… that the wrong word, spoken at the wrong time, by the wrong person has tremendous destructive potential… and can cause immeasurable damage. The writer of James challenges us to examine how we use our tongue. Do we use our tongues to build up and encourage the people of God… the beloved children of God… or do we use our tongues to tear down and destroy others? Praising God… lifting our voices in worship and adoration of our Creator… is the most sublime use of our tongues. It is… according to catechism….the chief end of man. Yet we alone, of all creatures that God created, are the only ones who can use the tongue to curse as well as to bless. How can we call ourselves Christian when the same tongue that blesses the Lord is the one that curses those who are made in the image of God? Is it possible, James asks, for fresh water and brackish water to come from the same spring? What kind of a spring are you? What kind of a spring do you want to be? With God’s help, you can tame that tongue… and be a spring that flows with living water that builds up the body of Christ. Amen.