From the same mouth comes a blessing and a cursing. My brothers and sisters, this ought not to be so. 

(James 3:10)

My wife got me a bodhran for Christmas some years ago. Greater love has no woman for her husband than that she buys him a drum. Drums are in some ways the simplest of musical instruments: no strings or tuners or valves or keys, just a membrane stretched over a frame so that when you hit it it makes a sound. And it does it the same way as any other instrument: the drum skin vibrates and those vibrations shake the air around the drum sending out ripples in the air that eventually reach your ear and you experience them as sound. That’s what sound is: ripples in the air. A sonic boom, the cry of a child, the symphonies of Beethoven, the voice of a loved one - all ripples in the air. 

Which can seem so insubstantial, right? And pretty short-lived. You hit the drum, it shakes the air and then the sound is gone forever. You hear the crack of thunder and then it is gone, just a shaking of the air - if a very violent one. You speak a word and then - ah, but there’s the thing. God has given us the most amazing gift in the ability to form words. I can have an idea in my head. I can turn that idea into words I can speak to shake the air. If you hear them that same idea forms in your head. Brilliant, right? That depends.

James talks about the tongue in much more negative terms. A couple of things about the letter of James I should mention before we go on. We’re not sure who James was. Maybe the brother of John. Maybe the son of Alphaeus. My own gut feeling based on the importance of James the brother of Jesus in the Book of Acts is that it’s him. We also don’t know who he’s writing to. This is a pastoral letter like the letters of Paul to folk like the Corinthians, talking about how to live following Christ, but this is probably a group of Jewish Christians.

Either way he’s aware that the gift of speech, the ability to shake the air with words that carry meaning, is something of a mixed blessing. “From the same mouth comes a blessing and a cursing. My brothers and sisters this should not be so.” No. It shouldn’t. But it happens. Sometimes we say things without thinking and that can sometimes turn out to be fine and sometimes not. Peter did that in our gospel reading: one moment he’s saying that Jesus is the Messiah, the next he’s tempting him to turn aside from his path.

Sometimes we speak thoughtlessly and sometimes that hurts others. Sometimes we speak in anger or frustration and forget the feelings of the people we’re speaking to. At Presbytery yesterday we heard that folk at 121 had been on the receiving end of abusive language from members of the church over the phone. My brothers and sisters that should not be so.

Sometimes people speak maliciously. When I was a teenager I suffered badly from acne. Forty seven years later I still remember the cruel names: ‘fester’ ‘crater-face’ and others. There are folk who will say that sticks and stones may break your bones but names will never hurt you. I can tell you that there is no less true saying in the whole of our language. See this amazing gift of voice that God has given us; this gift to shake the air with sound? It can shake others and if we misuse it we can be a curse on the lives of those around us.

But it remains an amazing gift because through it we can also be a blessing on the lives of those around us. If sometimes we speak thoughtlessly we can also speak thoughtfully. If sometimes we speak in anger we can also speak in gentleness and kindness. If we can speak in malice we can also speak with love.

There are things we can say that tell people that they matter. “I love you” is an obvious one. “Let me help” - a hundred years from now a novelist from a planet orbiting a star in Orion’s belt will recommend those words even over “I love you”. “Is there anything I can do?” “Yes I’ll get you a drum for Christmas”. 

The greatest gift you can give to anyone in this world is to let them see that they matter; that they are not alone; that they are loved. And that is the heart of the Gospel of Jesus Christ; that humanity are God’s children - that you and I and everyone we meet matters, that we are not alone; that we are loved, loved so much that God sent his Son - the Word John calls him - to tell us that and to show us that.

Through this amazing gift of being able to shake the air and so shake others we can be a blessing or a curse. Hands up! Who would rather be a blessing than a curse? But how to tame the tongue? Ultimately the answer is learning how to speak with love and that means spending time with the source of all love, God, in prayer. It means taking time to listen for the promptings of his Holy Spirit in our hearts and being willing to be guided by them in our dealings with others. It means taking time to think before we speak and ask ourselves whether we want to harm or heal.

It’s an amazing gift we have, the gift of speech. With it we can shake the air and also shake the world around us. Imagine if everything we said resounded with the love of God; with the love God has for all his children. Imagine if every word we uttered was a blessing on the world. That, my brothers and sisters, should be.

Father tame our tongues. When we speak may we be guided by your Holy Spirit to speak words of love. Words of kindness. Words of justice. Words of truth. May we be your blessing on your world

Preached at Baxter Hall Eastriggs and at Annan Old Parish Church

Complete Service