Sermon for the Seventeenth Sunday after Pentecost (September 15, 2024) (Proper 19, Year B)

Sermon for the Seventeenth Sunday after Pentecost (September 15, 2024) (Proper 19, Year B) at St. James’ Episcopal Church in Hyde Park, NY. View the scripture readings and the Collect of the Day.

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Transcript

Apologies for the garbled audio--transcript is limited by audio quality.

I love these five weeks where we get to read the letter of St. James. I saw a post somewhere on social media: "no biblical literalism except for the letter of St. James." All of these crystal clear instructions about how to live. Sometimes it's worth reading a letter literally. James is saying, watch your mouth. Watch your mouth. "The tongue is a fire and it itself is set on fire by hell." It has the power to set the whole world on fire.

Remember that our St. James is the Great Compromiser. All these of these pastoral letters were written in the earliest days for churches. They're written by for churches, instructions on how to be a community that follows Jesus. And St. James is known as the Great Compromiser because he was in Jerusalem trying to work out between two groups of people. One group saying, if you want to follow Jesus, then you have to follow these dietary laws. You have to be circumcised. And you have another group saying, we feel called the follow this man, this teacher. And we don't want to do all those laws. This was really a difficult, painful conflict, attested to in the Acts of the Apostles, in the letters of Paul.

And James is talking about: what are we saying about the side that thinks differently from us? Watch your mouth. The tongue is a fire. He was witnessing in this growing movement of people following Jesus, he's witnessing people turning on one another. People called to follow Jesus, but turning on one another because of deep conflict.

So this is so relevant now! This is so relevant now because we turn on one another. Want to talk about the tongue being a fire and the power that it has to set things, ablaze harm, right? James says, how can you praise God with that mouth and then curse the children of God? How can you do that? Both those things with the same mouth. You kiss your mother with that mouth?

Now St. James' Church has a long term partnership with the New York Haiti Project. We are committed to being in Christian partnership with the children and the families of St. Luke's School in Martel, Haiti. And then we watch the presidential debates and we hear someone who would be a leader, a teacher... I hope you will forgive me, I'm not being partisan, but it is not right for one who wishes to be a teacher, to set a a blaze with false reports of immigrants from Haiti, our brothers and sisters and siblings in Christ, to say that those people would eat our pets. What is it like for the high school student to walk into school on Wednesday morning when that rumor has been put abroad about their own family? That same tongue that says, "I love God," can curse the children of God.

And James is very explicit just as he was last week. If we find that with our mouth we're cursing our neighbors, if we find that with our mouth we're sowing fear and division and conflict, then we're called to change. Because Jesus didn't come so that we could despise and dehumanize one another. Jesus came to unite us. Jesus came to bring healing. Jesus came to reconcile the whole world to the God of love. And so when I think about that tongue, and then I think about this reading from Isaiah: the Lord God has given me the tongue of a teacher that I may speak a word to the weary.

And Isaiah talks about how do I get that tongue, that healing tongue, the tongue of prayer, but the tongue that brings together what the world would tear apart.

If we use our tongue to bring healing, we are telling the world, we are answering that question that Jesus puts to his disciples: who do you say that I am? We are called to answer. And with every word that comes out of our mouth—remember Jesus says, it's not what comes into the body, but what comes out power to defile—It's what comes out that has the power to harm and sew division.

With every word we speak, we're telling the world who Jesus is.

With every word we have the chance to sew harm or to be healers.

And it's got to come, as it always does, from that openness to God, from listening to God.

This week we observed the 23rd anniversary of 9/11. And every year I'm struck the tenderness of that day. And this year I think it was you, Deirdre Mae, she sent me a video of one of Father Mychal Judge's brothers talking about him, talking about giving the eulogy at his funeral. And so I was thinking about Mychal Judge all through the week, and on 9/11. He was a chaplain at Ground Zero; he was the first... he died at Ground Zero.

He had this wonderful prayer that I have always held close to my heart. He was a man who gave his life to service. And the prayer he would repeat as he went about his day was this. He said to God, take me where you want me to go. Let me meet who you want me to meet. Tell me what you want me to say and keep me out of your way. And that's what Jesus is talking about when he says, those who wish to save their life will lose it. If you want to follow me, pick up your cross. Come on.

Because to follow Jesus means not what I want to say. Not necessarily my first thought. Would I want to come out of my mouth, but to pause. What would happen if every one of us in this room were to pause before something comes out of our mouth and say, is this healing? Is this loving? Is this true?

What would happen if everyone who professes to be a Christian paused to ask God, tell me what you want me to say before I open my mouth and blurt something out. Tell me what you want me to say and keep me out of your way. Not my will, but thine be done. That's what Jesus said.

The tongue can be a fire or it can be an instrument of God's healing. It can set the world ablaze with hatred and fear, or it can set the world and every heart on fire with hope. So take me where you want me to go, let me meet who you want me to meet. Tell me what you want me to say, and keep me out of your way. Amen.