Sept. 15, 2024 Text:  James 3:1-12

Dear Friends in Christ,

Hello.  You have heard a lot about them.  Here they are.  My headphones.  These help me survive in public places.  Ball games – I wore them to the Illinois football game last weekend.  Grocery store.  Airports and airplanes – needed going to and from Germany.  Will be on my head this Tuesday and Friday, flying to and from my trip to see my friend.

Why are they needed?  Because the world cannot control the tongue.  I see more and more people doing what I have been doing for five years.  Verbally we have reached what one commentator calls a sad state of “hyperinflation” in our verbal tools of outrage.  One can no longer say anything shocking enough to grab anyone’s attention.  We might rightly ask, “How did we ever arrive here?”

The tongue as a means of destruction is as old as the Bible.  James under timeless truth given from the Holy Spirit says the tongue “is a fire.”  

“CAN YOU SMELL THE SMOKE?”

Our speech is burning our decorum and kindness down to a mere ember.  Like the western wildfires that gave us a haze in the Midwest, the smoke of our language makes its way throughout our country.  

Our tongues set “fires.”  A small bit can direct a horse, a tiny rudder can direct a massive ship.  A tiny fire can engulf a forest.  The language we use matters.  We have been in the gutter for quite some time.  

The path or course of human existence is engulfed; the source of the devastating flames is hell itself.  Hurtful words do damage not only to the one who speaks them; the hearts and mouths of those who hear such sin-soaked speech are set ablaze as well.  Sin multiplies sin.  James observes that for one and all the tongue influences the course of life – and seemingly not vice versa.

We are told in verse 7 that every living creature can be tamed by man.  To control the tongue is the faithful Christian’s constant quest, never finished, always under God’s grace.  The goal is so near and yet so far.  The best way to control one’s sinful tongue is simply to keep thy mouth shut before damaging words and hurtful thoughts emerge.  No human being since the fall has completely succeeded in this straightforward task.  This is why we must turn to Christ and His Gospel constantly for the healing balm of the forgiveness of our sins.

The last warning James gives is the pitiful irony of our sin.  This same mouth can curse and bless.  James says that a tongue on fire, creating a lot of smoke is like freshwater and salt water.  You mix the two and the saltwater is going to overtake the freshwater.  Our society is the pro facia case of the salted tongue making all of us a bit salty.  We are trying to be freshwater in our words, but it’s tough.  Even Christians use forms of the word “God” in their speech.  I learned in confirmation that this breaks the 2^nd commandment.  Knock it off with God’s help.

I don’t buy the argument that the tongue cannot be tamed.  I know from my own history it can.  I also recently saw it played out in a very public place.  A football team.  Name – Chicago Bears.  They were on a TV series called “Hard Knocks.”  A behind the scenes look at their day-to-day operation.  There was no profanity.  Do you know why?  Out of respect for the McCaskey family who owns the Bears.  Amazing.  If ballplayers and coaches can do it there is hope.

We need restoration.  We need someone to clear the smoke.  Control the fire, the bit, the rudder.  Jesus has restored our tongues to his great good by enduring the fire of God’s wrath against all our sins – including the sins of the tongue – in our place.  He undoes the chaotic damage that has been done.  He suffered scorn and abuse, physical and verbal, on the cross.  His death there has effectively extinguished the fiery danger of God’s judgment into hell for all who use their tongues to confess his name.

He has undone the damage by preaching the healing, life-giving, divine Word that sets all things right where all has gone terribly wrong.  Such preaching continues today – for our forgiveness, for our life, and for our salvation.

Let us continue, through the strength of the Holy Spirit to train and use our tongues as instruments that able to accomplish good.  May our blessings be stronger than our curses.  May our compliments be more numerous than our complaints.  May our tongues show the non-Christian and struggling Christian that words make a difference.  The cleansing, pure fountain of the Gospel can spring forth so that it changes hearts, puts out fires and diminishes all the smoke around us.

Amen.

Sept. 8, 2024 – Christian Education Texts:  Ge. 22:1-14, Hebrews 1:1-3a, John 1:1-5

Dear Friends in Christ,

Are things ‘ok’ in your life?  In our speech we tend to ask people, “How are you doing?”  We get answers from “living the dream” to “better than I deserve.”  Many times, we get the “not bad,” “pretty good,” and then the proverbial “I’m doing ok.”  You have to listen to the tone of their voice, but it has been my experience that many of the people who answer this way are not ‘ok.’  They tend to have something that is troubling them.

How long do you think ‘ok’ has been around?  On March 24, 1839, the Boston Morning Post first published the initials “O.K.” – the abbreviation for “oll korrect,” a popular slang misspelling for “all correct.”  Eventually, OK would become part of everyday speech in the United States.  At the time, misspelling words intentionally was a favorite pastime for the younger, educated crowd.  They would often take words, misspell them as slang when conversing with one another.

Today is Christian Education Sunday.  The three readings serve as the texts.  We look at our world and wonder, “what’s next?”  We question if we are ok.  Thank God for His Holy, Life-Giving Word!  We can walk confidently when asked . . . 

“ARE THINGS ‘OK’ IN YOUR LIFE?”

How might Abraham and Isaac answer that question?  In our Old Testament lesson, Isaac asks his father, “Behold the fire and the wood, but where is the lamb for the burnt offering?”  You’re the parent how are you going to answer?  In some form, we are going to let our child know things are ok.  Abraham answers, “God will provide for himself the lamb for a burnt offering.”  Simple, concise, even while his heart must be aching.

We have always admired the faith of Abraham in this scenario.  But what about Isaac?  He could have overpowered his father, but he didn’t.  When things didn’t look ok, both father and son trusted.  God will provide.  And He did.  A Son who became our sin offering.  Wood that was cut into a Roman Cross where God offered His Son.  God literally took the fire and knife, so to speak, when He had His Son beaten, whipped, mocked, and crucified at Calvary.  For you.  For me.  It is what God did: provided.

God spoke to Father Abraham.  In our day He speaks to us through His Son.  That is in our Hebrew reading.  God speaks through Law and Gospel.  The Law shows us a need for a Savior.  We are not always ok.  We have problems, challenges, sins we can’t shake.  The Gospel shows us a Savior.  Christ is the Word (we’ll get to that in a minute from John).  God promises that His Word will accomplish His will in your life.  God sends this Word to you in the person of Jesus.  His does it in various ways – sermons, worship, bible studies, prayer, sacraments, the support of a friend.  Where one path is blocked, He opens another.  God’s Word can forgive and heal.  God spoke to our ancestors in days past, He still speaks that same Word to us today.

John writes, “The Word was God.”  Did you catch this part?  “In the beginning was the Word.”  Christ has always been.  Christ is eternal.  God was thinking about us long before the creation of the world.  He was already making plans for our salvation.  He knew life wasn’t always going to be ok.  We never tire of sin, or if we do, we can’t stop it.  Confession and absolution are not just a Sunday “to do”, they need to be a part of our daily lives.  The Lord hears our pleas.  He sends the light into the darkness.  It’s not, “I’m OK, You’re OK.”  It is forgiven for the sake of Jesus Christ.

I am going to share with you one of my favorite sermon illustrations.  Maybe you have heard it in another church.  In over 25 years I have never shared it with you.  Maybe you’ll see why.

John Griffith was a man who lost all in the stock market of 1929.  He took a job in Mississippi tending a drawbridge over a railroad trestle.  This happened in 1937.  He took his 8-year-old son Greg with him to work.  They joked around in the office, but then John got back to work.  He heard a train approaching with around 400 passengers.  He couldn’t find Greg.  When he saw him, he was climbing on the gears of the drawbridge.  He yelled, but the train noise made it impossible.  John Griffith faced a horrible dilemma.  He could try to rescue his son, but 400 people would probably die in the crash.  If he closes the bridge, his son gets crushed.  He pulled the lever and closed the bridge.  The train went by, and nobody realized he had sacrificed his son their behalf.

God knows we are not always ok.  We struggle in mind and body.  The devil plays on our impatience.  Sometimes, we can’t see an end.  But you see things are OK.  They are “all correct,” because God pulled the lever.  He gave His Son for the life of the world.  Our journey has a happy ending.  So, how ya doin?  God’s Word tells us, “OK, I am doing OK.”

Amen.