Proverbs 1: 20-33; James 3:1-12

Today we continue our journey through the Epistle of James. On the first Sunday of September we heard James tell us that we forget who we are as Christians and don’t act as people of faith, like a person who looks in a mirror and then immediately forgets what he or she looks like.  Last week we were reminded how much we judge people by appearance and possessions. Once again the compilers of the lectionary have paired the passage up with a section from the book of Proverbs. Once again it is a very good match.  The two passages complement each.  They are both emotional passages.  Proverbs says:”How long, o naïve ones, will you love simplicity? And scoffers delight themselves in scoffing. And fools hate knowledge?”  Proverbs speaks of wisdom and how people do not respond to “her.” The text personalizes wisdom.  James is crisp and clear and also a little bit angry when he speaks of the human tongue. In verse 6 it reads:”And the tongue is a fire, the very world of iniquity, the tongue is set among our members as that which defiles the entire body, and sets on fire the course of our life and is set on fire by hell” and in verse 8:”But no one can tame the tongue: it is a restless evil and full of deadly poison.”

There is a story about the famous nineteenth century preacher, Henry Ward Beecher. One morning he ascended the great pulpit of Boston’s Plymouth Congregational Church and there he found a note waiting for him. Beecher glanced at the note and then announced:”I received a letter from one of you this morning. It simply states, ‘Fool.’” Beecher paused, the grinned maliciously. “I often receive letters from people who forget to sign their names,” he said, “but this the first time someone has signed their name and forgotten to write the letter.”  This was a great comeback wasn’t it? He turned the tables on the anonymous writer of the note.  But was it wisdom? Probably not.  Beecher was quick on his feet, found a snappy return, but even for him the criticism must have stung. There is such a thing as criticism offered in love, of  course- courteous words of correction from a teacher, or coach, or spouse, or friend, sincerely intended to build up. But there I also that other sort of criticism, the kind that tears down, that gouges, that destroys.  Had Beecher been wise, he could have said:” I have found a brief note on my pulpit this morning.  I do not know who it is from, but I invite the author to meet with me at 12 after the church service.” He wouldn’t have scored any debate points that way, but it would have been a better thing to do.

Friends, in this passage the idea of wisdom that we find in Proverbs and the warning against the dangers of the human tongue together. Sometimes wisdom can take the form of a quick comeback, especially when it is done in humility or a way of making fun of ourselves. I believe President Kennedy was once asked:”Sir, how did you become a war here?” His answer:”They sank my boat.”  Funny and..humble. But most of the time wisdom takes the form of silence or few word rather than many.  A year or so ago I made a New Year’ resolution which was : “to talk less.” Now most of you will not have seen me make much progress on that one, but actually it did work, for that year at least.  I wanted to not say what I did not need to say or what people really weren’t interested in hearing.  This was a challenge because in my occupation part of what you get paid for is to talk.

A recent research paper..reporting on how people process words that express emotions, claimed that half of the words that people produce from their working vocabulary are used to express negative emotions, compared to a mere 30 percent which are used to express positive emotions and 20 percent that have a neutral context. Although the precision of the statistic may raise questions, the relative proportion of negative to positive words in our working vocabularies should be of concern to all of us.

Friends, the tongue is not very wise.  James is right, it is hard for us to control it.  If there was ever a week when this was true it was last week, with all this totally unnecessary violence in North Africa, these senseless deaths, because of mistakes mostly of the tongue. One baseless outburst followed another. And several American diplomats are dead.  What we know about one of them, ambassador Chris Stevens, was a person who believed in the wisdom of American ideals and the wisdom of the Libyan people. He spoke wise and cautious word and knew the dangers of the tongue that can too easily inflame a whole region. May God help us be wise and help us contain our tongues. Amen.