James 1:19-27 , August 31, 2003

Rev. David Inglis

"Living Words"

Once upon a time, before computers, TV, and printed books, words were fewer and more potent. Few people could read, and fewer still owned any hand-printed books. So knowledge and wisdom were stored in the human memory rather than on a reference shelf or a hard drive. A person’s word was as good their honor. When someone in authority gave a command, it was respected, if not always obeyed.

In the 1450's, Johannes Gutenberg invented the printing press. This revolutionary invention would put the written word in the hands of the masses. Gutenberg’s first publication was the Holy Bible. And I suspect it wasn’t long before printing presses were soon cranking out tabloids, advertisers, appeals for contributions, and letters to everyone announcing that they had won the sweepstakes. Where would we be today without the printing press and all the words it puts into our hands?

And then came radio and television, e-mails and the Internet, telephones and cell phones, answering machines and fax machines, assuring that we are bombarded with a steady stream of words, words, words. And so words have lost their potency. In the Information Age, talk is cheap, words are "just words," and most information is really infomercials, spin-doctored, or downright misinformation.

Here are some true examples of words spoken by managers in major corporations.

Would you say that words have lost their ring of truth and authority in our wordy world?

So when we hear James saying that we should "welcome with meekness the implanted word that has the power to save our souls," and that we should be "doers of the word," we need to hear the word "word" in a whole different way. In our Christian faith, the word of God is far more profound than stories, instructions and laws, though it often includes those things. And the word of God is greater than the words in the Bible, though we certainly find it speaking to us in those pages too. God’s word is a living word that reaches out to us to create us, guide us and redeem us.

Today I want to look at these three dimensions of this word of God that can become implanted in us and embodied in our actions.

First, the word of God is a creating word. In the very beginning of time, both the Bible and scientists tell us, "the earth was without form and void" (Genesis 1:2). What changed this dark soup of nothingness into a world of days and nights and seasons, a world that is blanketed with plants, teeming with animals, and peopled by creatures who create families and nations, schools and hospitals, symphonies and churches? It all began when "God said, "Let there be light!" God spoke creation into existence, stage by stage. God’s creating word is that mysterious, dynamic, force that emanates from the mind and will of God and orders the raw materials of creation into beauty, harmony, life, relationships, love, and wisdom.

Now let’s look at what it means to "welcome with meekness the implanted word that has the power to save your souls," as James instructs us. In the language of the New Testament, meekness was seen as the opposite of arrogance. It refers to a person who has released their pride and self sufficiency and recognizes their need for God. Are you aware of the place where you are meek–in touch with your weakness, or your hunger for God, or your reverence as you ponder God’s love and God’s greatness? That is the place in us where we can receive "the implanted word" that germinates in us, weaves its roots into our depths, grows into a strong, living thing in us, and bears fruit in our lives.

So if we welcome with meekness God’s implanted creating word, we receive into ourselves God’s power that bring the light of hope into our darkness, that creates order and beauty out of the chaos of our lives. People who have been in the biggest messes you can imagine have opened to God at that place of their meekness and prayed, "Not my will, but thine be done." And God’s creating, ordering word has gone to work in them and brought them back to life and sanity, and has born amazing fruit in their lives. Any time we humbly turn our lives and our powers over to God, God’s creating word goes to work in us and orders our lives according to a higher plan.

Not only can that creating word reorder our lives, but we can ourselves also be doers of that creating word. We can be partners with God’s ongoing creation and ordering of the world. Our hands can create things of usefulness and beauty. Our minds can teach students and harness the laws of physics. Our hearts can create a loving family or help build this family of faith. Our words can create a sacred space where comfort and healing can happen. When our will is submitted to God’s higher will, we help God bring order, beauty and love into the world.

Second, the word of God is a commanding word. We can hear this word being spoken through the law and commandments in the Bible: "Thou shalt" and "Thou shalt not." We can hear it through the words of the prophets: "Thus says the Lord." We can hear it through the teachings of Jesus: "You have heard that it was said..., but I say to you." Commandments have gone out of fashion, because people see them as limiting their freedom and their right to pursue their own happiness and live their own lives in whatever ways they choose. And Christians have too often been guilty of picking words out of the Bible that they happen to agree with, and identifying those words as God’s commands for what other people should do–especially people they don’t like or agree with. We have to remember that the Bible is the inspired and inspiring story of God’s word creating, calling, guiding, and saving humanity. We read the Bible to help us listen for God’s word for us today. But that living word is not at all confined to the words on the pages of the Bible.

But just because we can reinterpret and even discern as irrelevant certain commandments we read in the pages of the Bible, that doesn’t mean that we should dismiss God’s commanding word as constricting and therefore out of date. God’s commanding word is not spoken because God is on some kind of power trip, but to keep us from living futile, frustrating, destructive, empty lives–which is exactly what happens when we only listen to the mundane self-serving words in our world and in our human nature. Following God’s commanding word leads us beyond ourselves and into the fullness of life and into eternal life.

So what would it mean to "welcome with meekness the implanted commanding word that has the power to save our souls"?

The Psalmist gives a wonderful human example of that in Psalm 119. See if you can feel yourself praying these words along with him:

How sweet are your words to my taste,

sweeter than honey to my mouth!

Through your precepts I gain understanding....

Your word is a lamp to my feet and a light to my path....

Your decrees are my heritage forever;

they are the joy of my heart (Psalm 119, excerpts).

To be doers of God’s commanding word means to live in obedience to God’s higher will. "Obedience" is another word that’s fallen out of fashion. But the root word of "obedience" is the same as the root of the words "audience" and "audio". It means to listen. Doers of God’s commanding word are always listening--beyond their own self will and the seductive, manipulative voices around them–listening for a higher wisdom that guides them to become their highest selves and to become forces for good in the world around them.

And third, the word of God is a redeeming word. My dictionary defines redemption as "the saving or improving of something that has fallen into a declined state" (Encarta World English Dictionary). It’s out of fashion these days to say that our world is in a fallen state. We have problems, sure, but what we need is to stimulate the economy, pass better legislation, change the leadership, develop more technology, or offer more human services. Or if we’re in a fallen state ourselves, we just need to read a self-help book, work through our hangups, or differentiate from our dysfunctional family, and we’ll be ok. All of those things might improve things a bit, but they won’t lift us out of our fallen state and make our lives shine with peace, love and wisdom. They won’t make our world a place of justice, healing and shalom. Why? Because what takes us into our fallen state is our pride, our fear, and our selfishness. Until our pride, fear and selfishness are released, we will continue to create our own little hells on earth instead of creating pockets of the kingdom of God.

Because we were lost in our own pride, fear and selfishness, John tells us, "the Word became flesh and dwelt among us..., full of grace and truth" (John 1:14). Jesus was the incarnated word, the embodiment of the Word of God, that came to redeem us from our fallen state and to reconcile us with God, with each other, and with our deepest selves. He showed us that neither our pride, our mistakes or our fear need to separate us from God. If we turn to God in humility and repentance, God embraces us like the father embraced the rag-clad prodigal son. He taught us to heal the divisions that violate each other’s worth as children of God by things like healing the lepers, receiving a drink and offering living water to a Samaritan woman, and teaching us to love our enemies. He opened himself to the full destructiveness of human sin, bore it with grace, and offered his body, his blood, his life, and his death as a bridge to God’s forgiveness. And he offers us his living Spirit, calling us to follow him and imitate him in offering God’s compassion, God’s forgiveness and God’s truth to the world.

What does it mean to "welcome with meekness the implanted redeeming word that has the power to save our souls"? It means letting Jesus’ love, truth and forgiveness work inside us where we harbor our pride, our fear, and our selfishness. It means making a home in our souls for the living spirit of Jesus.

To become doers of this redeeming word means to embody Jesus’ Spirit in the way we treat other people, in the way we handle conflicts, in the ways we seek to create God’s kingdom wherever we are.

James says that those who are hearers of the word but not doers are like people who look at themselves in a mirror, and on going away, forget what they look like. When we hear God’s creating word, God’s commanding word, and God’s redeeming word, we see reflected back to us our marvelous true nature as God intended it. But hearing God’s word without doing it keeps this Good News on the level of words, words, words, and our lives are so full of words and messages and propositions, we quickly forget them.

But receiving the implanted word into ourselves, and embodying it with our hands and minds and mouths and lives–that makes us living words. We become bearers of the Good News. And God uses us to call and redeem our fallen, wordy world.