Esther 7:1-6, 9-10 "The Power of One"

You are welcome to use parts of this sermon, but if you do, please attribute them properly!

         Some scholars think that the Book of Esther should never have ended up in our Bible.  I mean, what could possibly be sacred about a story that has not one iota of theology in it – and is named for a woman, no less? 

         You see, the Book of Esther never mentions God, Jerusalem, the Babylonian Exile – or even prayer.  It does not outline any aspect of the Jewish Law or point to any important Jewish practices either.  All in all, there is nothing overtly spiritual about it - and, besides, the Bible just does not regularly serve up the successes of women anyway. 

         Instead, the Book of Esther reads like the screenplay for some epic movie.  It is complete with sex, lies, palace intrigue, clever wits, a weak ruler, and an evil villain.  Of course, we also find a hero (or, in this case, a heroine) who rises to the challenge set before her and saves the day.

         Although the Book of Esther is quite short, as Biblical narratives go, the lectionary has us read only excerpts.  That is too bad because it is wonderful little tale.  It takes place in Persia – right in the midst of the seat of power, right there in the Persian Court. Esther and Mordecai (Some say he was an uncle, others a cousin.) were what we would call Diaspora Jews.  That is, they chose to remain abroad – as a number of Jews did - after the Babylonian Exile even though they were allowed to go home.  They were perhaps two of the first expatriates. 

         However, being part of a minority (which, of course, they were) is never easy.  It is always fraught with the potential for intolerance and danger, and you can get caught in events over which you have no control.  And so it happened that Esther and Mordecai were pulled into a situation that they could never have imagined - by people they never dreamed they would ever encounter.

         You see, the Persian king, Xerxes, known to be pretty much a blowhard and a drunkard, was hosting one of his multiday debacles (kind of like an extended bachelor party) when he called for his lovely queen, Vashti.  All he wanted to do was show off her beauty to his inebriated cronies, and so he specifically directed her to wear her royal crown - with perhaps the implication that the crown was all she was to wear. 

        At any rate, Vashti the queen defied King Xerxes by telling him in no uncertain terms - absolutely not. She would not be displayed in such a repulsive fashion. The king and his buddies could get their kicks somewhere else. 

         Xerxes, of course, was enraged by her disobedience and so dethroned her and sent her packing.  As Methodist scholar and pastor John C. Holbert writes, the king “is convinced by his courtiers that if news got around that the king's wife has rebuffed a command of her husband, well, all wives might get the idea that husband-rebuffing is just the thing. And we don't want that, do we….”

         It is not long, however, before King Xerxes wants a replacement queen.  After all, the nights are cold.  His advisors suggest a beauty pageant  - something like “The Bachelor” where the most gorgeous representatives from all 127 provinces under the King’s command come and live at the palace mansion and spend a good deal of time getting all gussied up for their one-night stand in the fantasy suite with Xerxes. 

         Esther, quite the beauty, is one of the women in this harem that the king is creating – and he develops a hankering for her.  So much so that he marries her and makes her his queen. 

Sounds like a fairy tale ending – except that it is more like the endings on “The Bachelor”: The truth comes out in “After the Final Rose.” 

         You see, neither Xerxes nor Esther had been completely honest in this whole process.  He does not know that she is Jewish, and she does not know that she is little more than his prisoner.  You see, only when Xerxes holds out the golden scepter for her to touch (so the story reads and I’ll let you play with that symbolism) only then can Esther do much of anything at all.

         Both of them seem to work around their lack of knowledge about the other for a while.  Then something happens that blows the whole relationship – and actually the whole country - apart. 

         Haman, the king’s right hand man and a person who intensely disliked Jews was prancing through the capital city one day, expecting most people – and certainly all Israelites – to grovel in his presence.  However, Esther’s uncle (or cousin) Mordecai refused to flatten himself out in the dust like everybody else.

         Haman was furious, and his raging anti-Semitism just boiled over.  He was spitting mad when he came to King Xerxes and, as theologian Frederick Buechner wrote,

“It was the break Haman had been waiting for. He told Xerxes about Mordecai's insubordination and rudeness and said it was a vivid illustration of how the Jews as a whole were a miserable lot. He said if you let one of them in, they brought their friends, and Persia was crawling with them.

         He said the only laws they respected were their own, and (as Buechner continues) it was obvious they didn't give a hoot in Hell about the king or anybody else. He then said that as far as he was concerned, the only thing to do was exterminate the whole pack of them like rats and offered the king ten thousand of the best for the privilege of organizing the operation. Xerxes pocketed the cash and told him to go ahead.”

         It looked like the entire Jewish populace was doomed, and so, at this point, as a last ditch effort, Mordecai went to Queen Esther and told her that she was the only one who could save her people – the Jewish community – from certain annihilation because she had an in with the king – being his wife and all. 

         Esther, not surprisingly, was rather reluctant to get involved.  She reminded Mordecai that King Xerxes had a really short fuse, was unpredictable, and rather lacking when it came to anger management.  After all, she reasoned, she had her own skin to worry about.  Surely someone else could take on this dangerous responsibility.

         But then Mordecai said something to her, words that are perhaps the most memorable in the entire story.  He first reminded her:  “Don’t think that just because you live in the king’s house you’re the one Jew who will get out of this alive.”  Then he told her, “If you persist in staying silent at a time like this, help and deliverance will (perhaps) arrive for the Jews from someplace else; but who knows? Maybe you were made queen for just such a time as this.”  If not you, Esther, then who?  If not now, then when?

         Those words must have resonated in the very depths of Esther’s soul (as they should in ours as well) because Esther rises to the occasion with both courage and guile, using her best gifts to save her people.  Here is what she did. 

         She put on her royal robes to look her most bewitching and approached the king.  As one translation of the story reads, “When he noticed Queen Esther standing in the court, he was pleased to see her.  The king extended the gold scepter in his hand. Esther approached and touched the tip of the scepter. The king asked, “And what’s your desire, Queen Esther? What do you want?  Ask and it’s yours—even if it’s half my kingdom!”

          “If it please the king,” said Esther, “let the king come with Haman to a dinner I’ve prepared for him.”

         And so it was.  And one night of festive dining turned into two, and Haman was thrilled, convinced that not only did he have the king wrapped around his little finger, but he had ensnared Esther as well.  His star was surely rising.

         Except his star was quickly imploding instead because that very night Esther revealed to the king both Haman’s treachery as well as her own Jewish heritage.  By the time she was through, she had convinced the king not to kill Mordecai and, even more importantly, not to exterminate the Jewish people. Instead, the king decided to hang Haman on the 75 foot gallows purpose-built for Mordecai. And, as a final insult to Haman, he gave Mordecai Haman’s job.

         “If you persist in staying silent,…who knows? Maybe you were made for just such a time as this.”  If not you, then who?  If not now, then when?

         The power of one:  that is what this story is about. The fate of God’s chosen people turns on the axis of one heroic person.  It has happened at other times in history, course.  Think of Joshua Chamberlain at Little Round Top in Gettysburg, for instance. Think of Columbus defying the flat earthers and Alexander Fleming discovering penicillin in a moldy petrie dish. Think of Martin Luther King who stood alone and made a difference.

         And if you figure those people I mentioned are somehow different from you, then remember all the times that a single vote has changed an outcome:  In 1649, one vote caused Charles I of England to be executed.  In 1776, one vote gave America the English language instead of German. In 1868, one vote saved President Andrew Johnson from impeachment.

         The power of one:  The courage of a single individual to make a difference.  You know, ever since the very beginning of time, God has chosen not to work through the high and mighty throwing their weight around in grandiose military operations or trampling the masses. 

         God has chosen to work through individuals – and, most of the time, through individuals of questionable heritage, little people:  a shepherd boy with only a slingshot to face a giant, an old man looking forward to retirement to defy an Egyptian pharaoh and lead an embattled people to freedom,

a bunch of illiterate fishermen to start a church, a couple of teenagers to parent a boy who would one day change the world. The power of one:  The courage of a single individual to make a difference. 

         The power of one:  not something to tuck, forgotten, between the covers of our Bible, descriptive only of folks like David and Moses and Peter and Mary.  If God is still speaking, as I believe God is, then what is God saying to all of us about this power of one? 

         As a pastor, I always hope that on a given Sunday here in worship, you will hear something said or sung or prayed that will make a difference in how you choose to live your life in the next week – or better yet, for all time.  I always hope that someone will go home and do something good that he or she might not have done otherwise.   I always hope that the message you will leave here each week is this:  “If you persist in staying silent,…who knows? Maybe you were made for just such a time as this.”  Maybe your gifts are what the world needs now.  If not you, then who?  If not now, then when?

         This past week when Pope Francis addressed our joint Congress, he said, “Let us treat others with the same passion and compassion with which we want to be treated.  Let us seek for others the same possibilities we seek for ourselves.” “If you persist in staying silent,…who knows? Maybe you were made for just such a time as this.” If not you, then who?  If not now, then when?

         Stephen Colbert once pondered what it would mean for us to be a Christian nation.  Whether we are or not is not a topic for this sermon, but the implications for what it means for us as individuals to claim the name of Christian certainly is. 

         Colbert said, “If this is going to be a Christian Nation that doesn’t help the poor, either we’ve got to pretend that Jesus was just as selfish as we are, or we’ve got to acknowledge that he commanded us to love the poor and serve the needy without condition…and then admit that we just don’t want to do it.”

         That is the challenge for each one of us as a Christian, and that is the challenge that I as your pastor put before you every Sunday – and pray the rest of the week that you, like Esther, will find the courage to take on this responsibility and acknowledge the power that lies in the soul of each one of you. 

         It is the power of one:  The courage of a single individual to make a difference.  “If you persist in staying silent,…who knows? Maybe you were made for just such a time as this.”  Maybe your gifts are what the world needs now.  If not you, then who?  If not now, then when?

by Rev. Nancy Foran, Raymond Village Community Church U.C.C., Raymond, Maine

Mark 9:30-37 "The Rules of Living"

You are welcome to use parts of this sermon, but if you do, please attribute them properly!

         During WWII, England and Germany both had state-of-the-art fighter planes.  Germany had the Messerschmitt, which was considered the world’s fastest fighter plane, and the British had the Spitfire, slower, obviously, than its counterpart.  Who – or, in this case, which - was the greatest would seem to be a no brainer.  In aerial warfare, speed makes a tremendous difference.  Nevertheless, Germans pilots were very envious of their British counterparts.

         You see, the Messerschmitt had been designed to hold the perfect German, who was, of course, Adolph Hitler.  The problem, however, was that Hitler was short – little more than five feet tall.  In contrast, the typical, though imperfect, German was considerably bigger. 

         The result was that German fighter pilots had to fly in very cramped quarters on all of their missions – in contrast to the Brits who had some wiggle room.  No wonder the former were a tad bit jealous of their British enemy!  The Messerschmitt might have been the fastest, but it sure was not the most comfortable – and from the German fighter pilot perspective, it was therefore not the greatest either.

         Whether you are talking about perfection or greatness, either one is pretty hard to put your finger on.  Who was the greatest?  You could argue that one for hours – which the disciples did in the passage we just read.  You could debate the question for days unless you had a well-defined set of criteria – which the disciples did not.

         It all began one day as Jesus and his gaggle of followers were traipsing through Galilee on their way, ultimately, to Jerusalem, that holy Roman-occupied city where Jesus would come to the end of the line – crucified on Calvary Hill.  Jesus knew it too, and maybe that was why he reminded the twelve a second time of his impending fate:  “The Son of Man is about to be betrayed to some people who want nothing to do with God. They will murder him. Three days after his murder, he will rise, alive.”

         The disciples either did not get it – or they did not want to get it and therefore chose to ignore his proclamation.  After all, as the blogger of “Magdalene’s Musings” writes, “It doesn’t matter how many times Jesus mentions this; the disciples never show any measure of acceptance or understanding. And, really, why should they? It’s not an acceptable, understandable reality.

          Jesus is their rabbi. He is their beloved, revered teacher, their Messiah, even: he is the one they believe God has anointed to save the people from all that ails them. Jesus is their leader, the alpha male of their pack. He is number one.

         And, (our blogger goes on), he is describing to them the most ignominious, the most shameful, the most humiliating end they can imagine. He is describing a death that is utterly inconsistent with everything they believe they know about him. He is not describing the death of a king, but of a criminal. Even Jesus’ assurance that he will rise again does not seem to matter. They are struck silent.”

         And, of course, it did not help either that the first time Jesus had brought up the subject of his own demise, Peter (always the loudmouth) had voiced his opinion and been savagely and roundly rebuked.  Seriously, Peter?  Had you not gleaned one iota from Jesus in all the months you had been together?  “Get you behind me, Satan.”  Ouch!  No wonder the disciples were afraid to ask Jesus exactly what he meant by his irrational declaration.

         So they left it in that uncomfortable sort of silence – Jesus walking ahead by himself, and the disciples lagging behind, chatting quietly in an attempt to forget about the bombshell their rabbi had just dropped on them – again.  However, Jesus was no fool and knew that what seems like idle chatter is seldom innocent.  So, when they reached Capernaum, their destination, he flat out asked them, “What were you discussing on the road?”

         There you have it:  Another conversation stopper that left the disciples shuffling their feet, staring at their sandals, and mumbling unconvincingly. “Nothing, nope, talking about nothing, nothing at all.” 

         OK – let’s give them some credit here.  They certainly did not want to talk about the bad news Jesus had just shared, so they had switched gears and delved into something more positive and far more fun:  Who was the greatest, the most perfect among them?  Because, whoever it was, that person would one day be sitting at the right hand of King Jesus.

         Incidentally, as blogger Ross TenEyck, points out “the Gospel doesn't tell us whether the disciples were each arguing that they themselves were the greatest. For all we know, they were walking down the road saying, ‘Peter, you're the greatest. Me? No, I'm not the greatest; Andrew, you rock, you're the greatest. No way, not me; James, you're the man, you're the greatest.’ Maybe, maybe not; but either way Jesus wasn't having any of it.”  

         And so, we are told, Jesus “sat them down.”  That is “gospel speak” for Jesus has something really, really important to say, so you (and I mean us) better listen up and pay very, very close attention.  Here is what he said:  “Whoever wants to be first must place himself last of all and take on the role of servant.  So you want first place? Then take the last place. Be the servant of all.”

         What?  Now that was a head scratcher for you!  Not surprisingly, the disciples did not get that topsy turvy proclamation either.  But really, again, can you blame them? 

         After all, when you are arguing about priorities, power, and prestige and when you are self-serving, self-centered self seekers, it is difficult to even imagine what it would be like to intentionally put yourself last, when the only culture that you know is telling you if the rich are going to get richer, (and that is the way the world is supposed to work, rugged individualism and all), if the rich are going to get richer, it will be by working very, very hard to climb over the poor without their knowing it.  It will certainly not happen by elevating their status in the community. 

         Any chance you had of moving up the very, very steep social structure of the ancient world would be accomplished by, at the least, forgetting and more likely demeaning those beneath you which, of course, could be accomplished in a variety of ways.  As theology professor Micah Kiel notes, “Against such a backdrop, the words of Jesus in Mark’s gospel stand out. Saying that the way to gain honor is to receive those who are without honor goes against the logic of the ancient society. The Kingdom of God assesses and assigns value differently than the human realm.”

         No wonder the disciples did not get it!  And so Jesus did what he often did by way of explanation.  He used a visual aid.  He took a child, gave her a hug, and stood the grubby little tyke in front of them.  “Whoever embraces one of these children as I do embraces me, and far more than me—God who sent me.” 

         Aw, little kids!  We love it when Jesus talks about cute little kids!  Sweet!  Not really!  

         You see, this is where, if we look at this passage only with our 21^st century eyes and without benefit of its historical context, we will most certainly be led astray.  What I mean is that, until fairly recently in the great scheme of things, children were not given the stature they have today in our country. 

         As the blogger of Magdalene’s Musings informs us, “When Jesus spoke of welcoming children, he was not praising their innocence, or their sweetness, or their beauty. He was not talking about the way the sight of a newborn baby, swaddled in its mother’s arms, tugs at our heartstrings. He was not talking about the sometimes uncanny wisdom children display—the moments when they can cut to the heart of the matter, speak the truth in all its beauty and simplicity. He was not speaking of their playful spirit—the way they can spend happy hours in imaginary worlds of their own creation. He was not speaking of their trusting natures, or their inborn sense of fair play, or their eager willingness to believe, to have faith. All these things may be true about children, as we experience them. But these modern day notions of childhood were not the reason Jesus commanded his disciples to welcome children into their midst.” 

         Our blogger goes on to say that “Here’s the thing about kids in first-century Roman Palestine: Children were nobodies, the bottom of the social food chain. Children had no power whatsoever, they weren’t given choices or negotiated with, they weren’t allowed privileges or given allowances. Children could be and were left on garbage heaps to die of exposure. Some of them were collected from the garbage to be kept as slaves. Depending on the hierarchy of the household, any number of people could decide that it was no longer expedient to keep a child alive. And although Jewish parents did not engage in infant exposure, their children had no more position or social standing.”  (Hoffman/Crosson)  Even in medieval times, Thomas Aquinas taught that in a raging fire a husband was to save his father first, then his mother, followed by his wife, and last of all his young child.

         What must the disciples have been imagining at this point?  A kingdom made up of children was a kingdom of nobodies – and this was to be the kingdom of God?  A kingdom made up of folks who were old, handicapped, sick, illiterate, peasants, farmers, shepherds, widows, slaves, the unemployed, illegal aliens, anchor babies, immigrants, refugees spilling into the European Union, prisoners, the homeless in Portland and even in Raymond?  This is the Kingdom of God? 

         Was Jesus actually telling them to find the people with as little status as possible and make sure that they are cared for?  Was he actually telling them that even people of low status are beloved by God and merit compassion and justice?  Could he possibly be saying that welcoming the lowest of the low is not simply a nice thing to do but rather when we welcome the least of these, we are welcoming the presence of Christ that is found in each person we meet – and so we are being in true relationship with God?  Is that really what Jesus is telling us? 

         Oh, we have such a long history of marginalizing one another, shaking heads, and wagging fingers in contempt, “He’s not like us.  She’s a nobody.”  And Jesus is saying, No. No. No. The one you think you can’t welcome, or don’t have to welcome? That is the one you must welcome. You must welcome the nobodies, the ones without power, the ones without status. Not only must you welcome them, he says, even with his body language… you must embrace them. Not only must you welcome them, he says, you must be willing to be their servant. You must be willing to let them be first, and you must be willing to be last.”  (Magdalene’s Musing)

         It takes guts to put someone else first, but that is what we, as Christians, are called to do.  It takes guts to say that we need immigration reform in this country that consists not of a massive wall along our Southwestern border to keep people out, but rather something more along the lines of Jesus’ message of radical hospitality. “Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to be free”, as the Statue of Liberty reminds us.  

         It takes guts to say that we need to make our church more handicapped accessible by building an ADA compliant ramp in this sanctuary so that Frank can come in to pray during the week when he cleans, so that Fran and Josh can get to the bathroom on Sundays, so that Diane can get to the choir loft – it takes guts to say that, especially when building that ramp will mean removing a couple of pews and shortening others. 

         I heard an interview on public radio this week with a father in Hungary whose family opened their home as a way station for refugees and migrants from Syria.  They gave them beds and water and fed them lentils for breakfast – not exactly what one would normally eat in Hungary. 

         With the borders closing down, the man was asked what his family would do now.  His reply was this:  “There are the rules of government and the rules of living.  When they come into conflict, you go by the rules of living.  We will continue to serve.”  And I have to ask myself, “What would I do?  What would you do?

         The rules of living.  The rules of loving.  So you want first place? Then take the last place. Be the servant of all in the kingdom of nobodies.

by Rev. Nancy Foran, Raymond Village Community Church U.C.C., Raymond, Maine

        

James 1:17-27 "Words, Words, Words"

You are welcome to use parts of this sermon, but if you do, please attribute them properly!

       A man once went to the hospital to visit an old friend who was very ill.  He was deeply moved by what he saw when he walked into the Intensive Care Unit.  You see, his friend had been there for a couple of weeks and was hooked up to an array of tubes and drips, screens and machines.

       When the man got home, he was pretty shaken up and so said to his wife, "I think we should have an Advanced Directive.” 

       He paused for just a moment before he continued, “And just so you know, I never want to live in a vegetative state, dependent on some machine and getting fluids from a bottle. If that ever happens to me, just pull the plug."

         Without saying a word, his wife got up, unplugged the TV, and threw away his beer.

         Words, words, words!  You have got to be ever so careful when you use them.  As you can clearly understand from that little story I just told you, they have a pesky way of often getting the better of us.

        That was certainly the attitude of the writer of this very short book in the Bible that we simply call James.  Be careful of words, the author forthrightly proclaims.  Bam!  No mincing or dancing around the subject here!

         Now that would be a sermon – watch your words – a sermon in and of itself.  However, even though the author was short on words, he was not that short.  So, let’s take a moment and find out what this brief letter tucked into the back of the New Testament is all about.  And who was this guy James anyway?

         Of course, no one is really sure when this book in the form of a letter was written, although some scholars believe it was penned even earlier than most if not all of the letters that the Apostle Paul wrote.  If that is so, then what we read this morning could be part of the most ancient writings in our New Testament. 

         Whenever it was penned, it was most likely written to one or more struggling Christian communities outside of Palestine.  Tradition has it that James, the younger brother of Jesus, wrote it:  James the Just, James of Jerusalem, James, the first patriarch and primary leader of the earliest Christian community in the Holy City.

         If you are someone who could not find the Book of James in your Bible if your life depended on it, well, that is OK.  You see, we do not read this book very much in the church (which is too bad, I think).  It may be because we have been told that the words in this letter run counter to the theology of the Apostle Paul. With the latter’s emphasis on justification through faith and James not at all willing to let go of the value of good works, the two seem to be at opposite ends of the theological spectrum. And really, who would give much credence to the writer of a single letter – and a short one to boot – when Paul was so much more prolific and, well, wordy?

         Sixteenth century theologian and reformer Martin Luther particularly disliked the Book of James and famously called it “a right strawy epistle…. has no gospel in it.” And that’s all he had to say about that!

         Luther concluded that this letter, which was one of the last picks for what became the final version – or canon – of the Bible, Luther concluded that it was like straw or chaff that the wind just blows away.  In short, he felt that it had no theological or spiritually nutritional value. 

         According to Luther, the letter of James offered nothing solid.  It was not as high-brow as, say, the Books of Romans or Galatians.  There were only a couple of brief references to Jesus, and it certainly muddied the waters when it came to the big theological question of precisely what roles faith and good works play in the sweeping story of salvation. 

         It is said that he who writes the most words shapes history – or something like that.  As Episcopal priest Barbara Brown Taylor notes, “If you put together all the letters of James, Peter, and John together, their combined witness is shorter than Paul’s two letters to the Corinthians.  Paul wrote a good hundred pages more than all the other letter writers put together, so that he was the one whose views of Jesus, God, Torah, church, ministry, women, sex, time, salvation, afterlife, and faith took root in the early church.”

         However, the author of our letter was not out to one up Paul when it came to abstract theology or lengthy prose.  In contrast, we find the author to be quick and dirty – and preeminently practical.  And it all has to do with words:  Words, words, words!

         You see, words are important, and the author of James recognized this fact. Surely he sensed that…“In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God – and the Word was God.”  In the Word was life, our life.  The word of truth was born into us from the very moment of creation.  That is what makes us God-like, first among creatures.   We are given the most divine gift of speech – and with it, we, like God, are able to create or destroy. 

       It seemed like a good plan at the time.  However, as Episcopal priest Barbara Brown Taylor so eloquently writes:  “The problem with this plan is that we turned out to be really, really good at it.  In short order, God’s precious word babies were all grown up, using language to blame each other, curse each other, mislead and lie to each other. 

       Of course, they also used language to praise, bless, and woo each other, but the words rolled off their tongues so easily that sometimes people did not even know what they were going to say until they heard themselves saying it. The words just flew out of their mouths, floating in front of their eyes in shimmering globes that looked like soap bubbles at first, then hardened into small worlds of their own creating that spun away from them to go do whatever they were created to do. 

       The people who made those worlds could say, ‘Wait! I didn’t mean it!’ all they liked, but once the words were out of their mouths it was too late - because God had made them capable of speaking things into being the same way God had, even when they had second thoughts.  That was how much power those speech creatures had. 

       The only power they did not have was to uncreate what they had created.  Once the worlds of their words were made, they were made – some of them spinning away to do great harm while others spun away to do real good – with the breath of their human creators still warm inside of them.”

       Words, words, words.  They are indeed a pesky - and powerful - gift from God.  And so the author of James writes, “Lead with your ears, follow up with your tongue, and let anger straggle along in the rear… Everyone must be quick to listen, but slow to speak and slow to become angry.”

       That is an admonition that we should all take to heart – our politicians, certainly, whose words mean less and less to us each day, so filled with venom toward each other  and toward those who are different from them. are they and overflowing with quasi-honesty when it comes to us. 

       Oh yes, and we woo should take the advice of the author of James to heart – each one of us: to listen before we speak when it comes to our own personal moments of anger toward those in our families and communities we love deep down inside, when it comes to the gossip we invoke about those we call our friends.  

       “Sticks and stones may break your bones, but words can never hurt you.”  Isn’t that what our mothers taught us when we came home from the playground, our eyes burning with tears?  Even as children, we knew it was not true. 

       We knew that sticks and stones were nothing compared to the mean things that other children – or even teachers or parents – and one day spouses and bosses - could say to us.  “Lead with your ears, follow up with your tongue, and let anger straggle along in the rear.” 

       Words, words, words:  They are both pesky – and oh so powerful.  “Take your time,” Brown reminds us, “Think twice.  Choose your words with care because once you have given them life with your breath, they will spin away from you, taking on lives of their own out there where you cannot control them anymore.”

         That also is a sermon unto itself – the power and peskiness of words - but yet again, the author of this letter does not stop here.  He is on a roll, and so he speaks a few more very important words worth taking to heart, especially for us religious folk:  “Don’t fool yourself into thinking that you are a listener when you are anything but, letting the Word (that is, God’s word) go in one ear and out the other. Act on what you hear! (The author writes.)...Anyone who sets himself up as “religious” by talking a good game is self-deceived. This kind of religion is hot air and only hot air. Real religion, the kind that passes muster before God the Father, is this: Reach out to the homeless and loveless in their plight, and guard against corruption from the godless world.” 

         When it comes to our Christian faith, serving others is not a nice little extra, a few additional stars in our crown, grace points in heaven.  No - it is fundamental to our faith.  It is the foundation. It is the Word of truth. Take it away, the author of this Book of James maintains, and we have taken away what matters most to God. 

         Words, words, words:  Our faith must be more than words – more than our prayers and ours songs, more than this sermon even.  Our faith is more than our wordy worship here on Sunday mornings.  We are challenged to think beyond Sunday because what happens on the other days of the week is vitally important.

         Writing to a Denmark filled with “Christian” people who did not act very Christian, theologian Soren Kierkegaard once told this little parable. Once upon a time, there was a land inhabited only by ducks. Every Sunday morning, the ducks got up, washed their faces, put on their Sunday clothes, and waddled off to church. They waddled through the door of their duck church, proceeded down the aisle, and took their familiar places in the pews.

         The duck minister entered the pulpit and opened the duck Bible to the place where it talked about God’s greatest gift to ducks—wings. “With wings we can fly. With wings we can soar like eagles. With wings we can escape the confines of pens and cages. With wings we can become free. With wings we can become all God meant us to be. So give thanks to God for your wings. And fly!”

         All the ducks loudly quacked, “Amen.” And then all of the ducks waddled back home.

         Words, words, words:  In the end, they all merge together and, like straw, are blown to the four winds.  And we are left with only one word, the Word Incarnate, the Word become flesh, the Word of the Gospel imploring us to watch our words, to understand their peskiness and power, to seek commonality rather than polarity and transformation rather stagnation.  Because, when we do, our words cannot help but encourage and challenge and nurture, and we will become peacemakers, reconcilers, and seekers of justice.  And that is what God’s first Word called us to be. 

by Rev. Nancy Foran, Raymond Village Community Church U.C.C., Raymond, Maine