SNARK WEEK!

Offense Series:

Watch Your Mouth

August 14, 2011

James 3:6-12 ⁶ And the tongue is a fire. The tongue is placed among our members as a world of iniquity; it stains the whole body, sets on fire the cycle of nature, and is itself set on fire by hell. ⁷ For every species of beast and bird, of reptile and sea creature, can be tamed and has been tamed by the human species, ⁸ but no one can tame the tongue-- a restless evil, full of deadly poison. ⁹ With it we bless the Lord and Father, and with it we curse those who are made in the likeness of God. ¹⁰ From the same mouth come blessing and cursing. My brothers and sisters, this ought not to be so. ¹¹ Does a spring pour forth from the same opening both fresh and brackish water? ¹² Can a fig tree, my brothers and sisters, yield olives, or a grapevine figs? No more can salt water yield fresh.

Offense Series: Watch Your Mouth

James 3:6-12

We’ve just completed the 24^th annual “shark week” on the Discovery Channel, the yearly tradition began in 1987 when the network aired its whole line-up of shark themed shows. Shark week (for some) is the best television of the year…sort of tough on the beach resort crowd, but interesting stuff. It’s meant to be entertainment, I guess, and it’s meant to be helpful in teaching us a little more about sharks and how to avoid being sliced, diced, and devoured by one.

Shark attacks are deadly. One hit from that gaping mouth and your body is torn. You know, the same is true with our mouths. One hit can tear a person apart—or can tear a body of people apart. Yet offensive remarks and cutting words are common. Sharks aren’t the only brutes out there…

I’m not sure whether it is reality TV that’s brought this upon us, or maybe it’s reality TV that has given a public forum to the sickness, but there seem to be an awful lot of folks who make catty remarks, snarky comebacks, and just plain offensive references to others, and our culture has decided that it’s entertaining. Making fun of people; being offensive towards others. Evidently, it’s not just a modern problem. In approximately 49 A.D., James felt he needed to write to Jewish Christians about the way they were talking to each other.

It would seem that people then as well as now need an effective mute button between their mind and their mouth. Many seem to believe that just because they are saying “what they think” that the rest of us should have to hear it. Especially when what they think is nothing more than them being callous, uncaring, and ugly toward others. A calm sweet word can be just as effective…perhaps more effective.

Alice and I stood outside on the sidewalk of our first little congregation in North-central Nebraska. In kindness I shouldn’t tell you the man’s name, but Wayne Galyen a local car dealer and lawyer stood outside with us. Wayne was pretty callous toward the feelings of others. So on this Sunday after church Wayne was telling us how he had done this or that, upset some people, but he didn’t care, he had accomplished some things around town. (It was one of his favorite subjects.) He said, “I say what I think, and I don’t lose any sleep at night, I don’t worry who gets upset, and look at me, I don’t have any ulcers.” His wife, who was standing close by, patted him on the arm and said sweetly, “No, you don’t have ulcers; you just give them, dear.” She was right. I’ve heard more ugly things said by people who believed they were “just being honest” than I care to recall. You probably have too. And maybe you’ve spoken those words yourself.

We need to repair and learn to use the mute button between our minds and our lips. If we cannot think better thoughts, we can at least use better sense. Not every thought is worth speaking. Silence is preferable to saying the wrong thing. James says the tongue is dangerous…it’s a fire. Some of you know that if you insult someone in a public email or on some internet forum, it’s called a “flame.” Call someone an idiot. Tell them their ideas are dumb. That’s a flame. The slang of the internet agrees with James. And it only takes one flame to start a fire. James gives us a perfect picture, because like fire “things said” can get quickly out of hand, can’t they? It only takes one thoughtless comment, one moment of carelessness in conversation, one gusty moment from a windbag and a conversation becomes destructive. The tongue can turn harmony into chaos, throw mud on a reputation, destroy personal friendships and church fellowship. Perhaps this is why one of the earliest practices of Monasteries was silence. One way to break free of ugliness in speech is to just stop.

“Sticks and stones may break my bones…but words …keep on hurting long after the bones heal.” Whoever wrote that other rhyme that begins “Sticks and Stones” didn’t have a clue. Words hurt. And because they can hurt or heal, our words are important. James, in this passage, makes it impossible for us to underestimate the significance of words. There are no “mere” words. However small they may seem, they have great impact. As parents, as teachers, as friends, as neighbors, as church members, and Christian witnesses, as husbands, wives. I cannot think of a single human interaction in which care with words is not important. It’s words that either pour gas on the emotional fire, or bring calm to the waters.

Rabbi Joseph Telushkin, author of Words That Hurt, Words That Heal, has lectured throughout this country on the powerful, and often negative, impact of words. He often asks audiences if they can go 24 hours without saying any unkind words about, or to, another person. Invariably, a small number of listeners raise their hands, signifying "yes." Others laugh, and quite a large number call out, "no!"

Rabbi Joseph responds: "Those who can't answer 'yes' must recognize that you have a serious problem. If you cannot go 24 hours without drinking liquor, you are addicted to alcohol. If you cannot go 24 hours without smoking, you are addicted to nicotine. Similarly, if you cannot go 24 hours without saying unkind words about others, then you have lost control over your tongue."

It’s possible that you regularly offend people without knowing it. Either by the words you use, or the attitude with which you use them. Sometimes people do not fight back, sometimes they do not confront us or tell us when they have been offended. Do you know what they do? Even though they may not tell you, they do tell someone…another friend of theirs hears about you. Their spouse hears about you. Their co-workers hear about you. And their words about you affect a host of people’s attitudes toward you. You can’t really afford to simply go through life thinking it doesn’t matter if you offend people. It does matter. It makes a difference to you…and if you claim to be a Christian, it matters to the kingdom of God.

A man was being tailgated by a stressed out woman on a busy boulevard. Suddenly, the light turned yellow just in front of him. He did the right thing, stopping at the crosswalk, even though he could have beaten the red light by accelerating through the intersection. The tailgating woman was furious and honked her horn, screaming in frustration as she missed her chance to get through the intersection, dropping her cell phone and makeup. As she was still in mid-rant, she heard a tap on her window and looked up into the face of a very serious police officer.

The officer ordered her to exit her car with her hands up. He took her to the police station where she was searched, finger printed, photographed, and placed in a holding cell. After a couple of hours, a policeman approached the cell and opened the door.

She was escorted back to the booking desk there the arresting officer was waiting with her personal effects. He said, "I'm very sorry for this mistake. You see, I pulled up behind your car while you were blowing your horn, flipping off the guy in front of you, and cussing a blue streak at him. I noticed the 'What Would Jesus Do' bumper sticker, the “I Work for a Jewish Carpenter” license plate holder, the 'Follow Me to Sunday-School' bumper Sticker, and the chrome-plated Christian fish emblem on the trunk… Naturally...I assumed you had stolen the car."

James says, “With our tongues we bless God our Father, with the same tongues we curse the very men and women he made in his image. Curses and blessings out of the same mouth! My friends this can’t go on.” Can you believe that? Can you believe that there were Christians in those first-century congregations who were full of praise for God, singing hymns and making confession and entering into the prayers, and then out on the street they were gossiping, cursing, and belittling their fellow Christians with their words? We can believe it because we’ve all done it. It’s easy to bless the God who we know loves us, to praise the Christ who we believe saves us, and then to snarl at the woman who irritates us or cuss at the man who stops too quickly in front of us. But James says this cannot go on. If we’re being offensive, our church, our fellowship, the name of Jesus in the community is at stake.

James wrote this letter to Christians—people like us who were laying hold of new life in Jesus. So James points out their hypocritical practices and lifts up right Christian behavior. He talks about being doers of the word and not hearers only; he talks about being impartial in the way we treat others; he tells us that faith without works is dead faith; then he talks about the difficulty and the necessity of taming the tongue. He says we can’t curse and bless out of the same mouth. How many of your mothers felt the same way? Anyone else get your mouth washed out with soap?

Our mouths have to get cleaned up, James says. Well, no he doesn’t actually say that. He just asks some questions to make his point. He says, “A spring doesn’t gush fresh water one day and brackish water the next, does it? Apple trees don’t bear strawberries, do they? Raspberry bushes don’t bear apples, do they? You’re not going to dip into a polluted mud hole and get a cup of clear, cool water, are you?

What’s he saying? He’s pointing out the inconsistencies of those who bless God and curse people. He’s saying if you’re claiming to be a Christian, watch your mouth. Clean it up. Quit offending people. Quit setting fires. Instead of being destructive, be constructive. Instead of flaming others, refresh them with your words.

Who knows how this would change your relationships? A lady named Lauren Daisley decided to not say anything snarky for a month. In case you haven’t heard that term before, snark is a combination of the words snide and remark, so a snide remark is a snark. (You didn’t know you would get a slang lesson hear today, did you? And it’s all for free!) Lauren Daisley said: “It started when my husband, baby and I drove away from a visit with my aunt, who has Stage 4 breast cancer. I thought back on the 30-some years I've known her. I have never once in all that time heard her say anything unkind. Not even in the subtext of her words. That's one [heck]—or, in this case, heaven—of a legacy…. I began to wonder, how would holding my tongue—or at least changing what came off it—alter my relationships?”

That's when she began her "month-long campaign" to practice kindness in her speech. Daisley discovered that it's not easy to live without snark. Instead, she wrote, "It's so much cooler to be more sarcastic …. It says, I am so above this scene—above other people, even."

After her month-long experiment she concluded, "Kindness [of speech] doesn't have to imply repression. It doesn't rein in humor or impede the fight for justice. But it does require discipline and substantive engagement with others."

Lauren put her finger on the problem behind unkind comments. It’s pride. When we are being critical, when we are making snide comments, when we are being snarky, when we are flaming others, it’s because we think we’re better than they are—we know better; we do better; we think better. We’re above them. That pride comes out in our speech and it can’t help but damage our relationships. People know they’re not safe with us—they might get zinged at any moment. Either to their face or behind their back.

But the opposite is true, too. When we are kind in our speech. When we’re thoughtful and humble, it helps people feel safe with us. In his book Sabbath Time, Tilden Edwards tells about a family with teenage children who decided, as part of their Sabbath commitments, that they would not criticize each other on Sundays. As the months went on and they kept this commitment, they realized more and more of their children's friends were coming over on Sundays just to hang around. No one in the family had talked about this commitment, but somehow other teenagers knew this home was a good place to be.

Could we make this congregation like that? A safe place for everyone? A good place to be? A place where no one had to worry about being put down or gossiped about? Could we watch our mouths well enough to be consistently kind? Or have too many of us lost control of our tongues? Unedited opinions, critical remarks, are devastating to a church.

In his book, “Fresh Wind, Fresh Fire”, Pastor Jim Cymbala tells about receiving new members into his church at the Brooklyn Tabernacle. He writes, “About 20 years ago, I said something impromptu to the new members standing in a row across the front of the church. As we received them, the Holy Spirit prompted me to add, "And now, I charge you that if you ever hear another member speak an unkind word of criticism or slander against anyone—myself, an usher, a choir member, or anyone else—that you stop that person in mid-sentence and say, 'Excuse me—who hurt you? Who ignored you? Who slighted you? Was it Pastor Cymbala? Let's go to his office right now. He'll apologize to you, and then we'll pray together so God can restore peace to this body. But we won't let you talk critically about people who aren't present to defend themselves.'

"I'm serious about this. I want you to help resolve this kind of thing immediately. And know this: If you are ever the one doing the loose talking, we'll confront you."

“To this day,” he continues, “every time we receive new members, I say much the same thing. That's because I know what most easily destroys churches. It's not crack cocaine, government oppression, or even lack of funds. Rather it's gossip and slander that grieves the Holy Spirit.”

Offensive remarks kill love and fellowship in the home and community and the church. They divide, devour, and destroy, kinda like sharks. Just as shark week teaches people enough about sharks to avoid them, I’d like to challenge you to observe “snark week” to help you deal with relationship-killing snarkiness in your own life. Here’s the snark week challenge: Starting today, right now, finish today without saying anything snide or cutting about anyone. And then repeat that on Monday through Friday. If you have several of you from a household…help each other. Maybe put out snark jar on the table and require offenders to toss in a dollar in the jar for each snark. (Kids could probably get a discount). Then go do something together with the money next weekend. This is “snark week,” if you play along, you’ll learn a lot about yourself. And you’ll be very pleasant to be around… what could be wrong with that?