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A sermon preached in Salisbury Cathedral on Sunday 13 September by Canon Edward Probert, Chancellor
James 3.1-12; Mark 8.27-38
"WORD POWER"
James 3.1-12; Mark 8.27-38
What is uniquely human? What distinguishes our species from the countless others on the planet? It’s not walking on two legs, it’s not our adaptability to almost any kind of climate or geography, it’s not our ability to live co-operatively in groups of millions. It’s the power of words. Words make it possible to communicate far more complicated and sophisticated things than either grunts or body language; they make possible our elaborate human society; and, because we’ve found ways to record them and transmit them (on tablets, on paper, through the airwaves, through cables) they make possible our scientific and technological development. The most intelligent and sophisticated dog or monkey could not have left us a record of decisions made hundreds of years ago in their community – nothing like the Magna Carta around which we’ll drink our coffee in an hour or so.
Most of our use of words is a lot more mundane than that. But in some ways it can be nearly as lasting. I once lived in a village in which two sisters in their 70’s lived on opposite sides of the same narrow street; they had not spoken to each other for 20 years on account of the offence taken by one at something said by the other. I never found out what started it all, because, rather fittingly, they never spoke about it! Apart from marvelling at the achievement of actually managing to ignore someone you saw most days, what’s really strikes me about that is the power of what we say – and equally, the power of what we hear.
This power of words, of self-communication, is one of the most God-like things about us. God’s son is after all described as his Word. And remember that some of the most entrenched problems have been resolved through the irenic process of communication. But, as Adam and Eve found out in communicating their thirst for experience and knowledge, and as we have all found out through our repeated knocks given and received, the power of words (along with all god-like powers) is a dangerous one. We are not always competent to be god-like, and St Peter found himself in the one short conversation speaking the eternal truth about the nature of Jesus, and being described by Jesus as Satan.
With power comes danger, to ourselves and to others. When the letter of James describes the tongue as a ‘wildfire’ and ‘a world of iniquity’ he reminds us that the childhood saying about ‘sticks and stones’ is far from true: words really can hurt.
One of the great mysteries of New Testament studies is what’s called the ‘messianic secret’. Why, in the gospel of Mark, does Jesus repeatedly do what we heard today : ‘He sternly ordered them not to tell anyone about him’? You would expect him to instruct them to tell everyone. This puzzle has been long argued over, and it has many layers. But I think it’s quite possible that Jesus is asking more of people than words, with all their ambivalent power. It’s not the bombshells, the flash and fizz communication, the gossip and story about him, which ultimately matter. What he wants is different lives, ones like his, ones genuinely God-like. Which is why he turns from rebuking Peter to tell everyone that if they ‘want to become my followers, let them deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me’. A life of self-giving is not form, but substance, and therefore speaks unambiguously.
In this baptism service, there are plenty of words, spoken by parents, godparents of Henry Burside and William Cheal and also by the congregation present. Like all words, these are potent, not to be taken lightly, to be considered before being uttered. But neither these children nor the rest of us is being invited to become wordsmiths; we are being invited to live the way of Christ. May William and Henry and we have a lifetime of being good news, and even occasionally of speaking it.
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Most of our use of words is a lot more mundane than that. But in some ways it can be nearly as lasting. I once lived in a village in which two sisters in their 70’s lived on opposite sides of the same narrow street; they had not spoken to each other for 20 years on account of the offence taken by one at something said by the other. I never found out what started it all, because, rather fittingly, they never spoke about it! Apart from marvelling at the achievement of actually managing to ignore someone you saw most days, what’s really strikes me about that is the power of what we say – and equally, the power of what we hear.
This power of words, of self-communication, is one of the most God-like things about us. God’s son is after all described as his Word. And remember that some of the most entrenched problems have been resolved through the irenic process of communication. But, as Adam and Eve found out in communicating their thirst for experience and knowledge, and as we have all found out through our repeated knocks given and received, the power of words (along with all god-like powers) is a dangerous one. We are not always competent to be god-like, and St Peter found himself in the one short conversation speaking the eternal truth about the nature of Jesus, and being described by Jesus as Satan.
With power comes danger, to ourselves and to others. When the letter of James describes the tongue as a ‘wildfire’ and ‘a world of iniquity’ he reminds us that the childhood saying about ‘sticks and stones’ is far from true: words really can hurt.
One of the great mysteries of New Testament studies is what’s called the ‘messianic secret’. Why, in the gospel of Mark, does Jesus repeatedly do what we heard today : ‘He sternly ordered them not to tell anyone about him’? You would expect him to instruct them to tell everyone. This puzzle has been long argued over, and it has many layers. But I think it’s quite possible that Jesus is asking more of people than words, with all their ambivalent power. It’s not the bombshells, the flash and fizz communication, the gossip and story about him, which ultimately matter. What he wants is different lives, ones like his, ones genuinely God-like. Which is why he turns from rebuking Peter to tell everyone that if they ‘want to become my followers, let them deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me’. A life of self-giving is not form, but substance, and therefore speaks unambiguously.
In this baptism service, there are plenty of words, spoken by parents, godparents of Henry Burside and William Cheal and also by the congregation present. Like all words, these are potent, not to be taken lightly, to be considered before being uttered. But neither these children nor the rest of us is being invited to become wordsmiths; we are being invited to live the way of Christ. May William and Henry and we have a lifetime of being good news, and even occasionally of speaking it.