James 3.1-12; Mark 8.27-38

James 3.1-12; Mark 8.27-38

Today’s presentation of Bibles to Sunday School-age members of our church includes a traditional Anglican prayer that speaks of the gift of the scriptures for us all: that we ‘read, mark, learn, and inwardly digest’ the scripture.

Now inwardly digest is an interesting image. I’m not sure what you planned for breakfast this morning—pancakes, eggs, muffin and coffee—but the Bible has examples of prophets tucking in to the scriptures. Ezekiel sees a scroll unrolled with writing on both sides. “Eat what is in front you,” the Lord says to the prophet. “Eat this scroll.” Ezekiel does. “It tasted as sweet as honey to me,” he says. Jeremiah, too. “Your words were found, and I ate them, and they became to me a joy and the delight of my heart.” In the book of Revelation, John the Seer has a vision of an angel holding a scroll. When he takes a bite, he also says the words tasted like honey; but those same words later give him an upset stomach, the reaction many of us have when reading the book of Revelation.

So we don’t just read our Bibles, underline them, or learn them. To ‘inwardly digest’ God’s word is to have the truth of God become internalized within us. It’s the old phrase, ‘You are what you eat.’ We inwardly digest the world and become living words. Today, when Jesus says in the gospel, “If any want to become my followers, let them deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me,” he is describing how his words and his life fill us and make us who we are: people in whom, and through whom, the word of God comes alive.

This is what today’s second reading is about, too: the word Jesus Christ taking on life in us and coming alive through us. The entire New Testament letter of James is a practical application of what it means to follow Jesus and take up the cross. Today James looks at one particular part of our life: the words we use and their potential for good and ill. James wants to make sure that what we say as followers of Jesus and how we say it is guided and shaped by Jesus himself.

This, by the way and as a complete aside, is why some people, in an act of devotion when the gospel is about to be read, make the sign of the cross on their foreheads, lips, and heart. As they do, they might pray silently, ‘May the Lord be in my mind, on my lips, and in my heart.’ It’s prayer for Jesus to fill the very core of our being and set our minds on him, to make something as practical as the words we use echo Jesus’ own words. ‘May the Lord be on my lips.’

Then, to explore the place of the words on our lips, James talks about teachers, specifically teachers of faith. He includes himself among them. “We who teach will be judged with great strictness.” Now with any teacher, a positive word or two can open a student to a world of discovery and interest, ignite a passion that wasn’t there before. As for a word in the opposite direction? Have you ever seen a person become disheartened or their passion and interest in a topic grow cold because of something someone said? Words are powerful; they create and devastate

And James’ word today is not only about teachers; this applies to all of us. All of us are included in what he says about the danger of words. Let the wrong word slip at the wrong moment and a relationship can be hurt, a promise broken, a bad impression made that can’t be repaired. One unwise remark passed along the internet can affect the well-being of people around us or cause a riot on the other side of the world. We’re not meant to bless God with our words one minute then tear down people made in the image and likeness of God the next. James calls us to examine how well we have inwardly digested the life of Christ and to confess the times when our words and deeds have left a bad taste in the mouths of others. “From the same mouth come blessing and cursing. My friends, this ought not be so.”

In recent years, sociologists and observers of culture have noted how language that is a central part of the vocabulary of faith has been declining in use, how words that mean so much in religious life are losing their currency in daily life. With the help of a database that searched millions of printed works stretching back 500 years, researchers have noted a rapid decline in the use of words like grace, mercy, wisdom, sacrifice, honesty, humility, compassion, and gratitude. Those words are fading from us. Dramatically so. And it’s a concern. Because the less we use these words, the less we live out the ideas behind them.

If you’ve ever studied a second language, you know how this works. You reach a certain level of fluency but the less you use the language the more your vocabulary fades and, with it, the way of seeing the world shaped by that language. It becomes foreign. So, too, with Christian language and grammar. Talking less about mercy goes hand in hand with being less merciful. Talking less about grace goes hand in hand with losing the ability to offer grace to people who need it most. Speaking less of forgiveness? Who wants a world where that’s a foreign concept; where retaliation, revenge, and self-righteous judgment are served up daily? But isn’t that where we find ourselves? Words and thoughts become inwardly digested and shape our minds and actions. And there are some words that are shaped by the life of Christ. James, in today’s second reading, gives us some of those words: peace, gentleness, willingness to yield, full of mercy.” We need these words because we need the ideas behind them in our life. These words are filled with the life of Jesus, God’s Word made flesh.

Where does that leave us? James, as you heard, is skeptical that we can develop this vocabulary of grace on our own. He flatly asserts that no one can control speech. The tongue is a fire, he says, a restless evil, a poison. We can domesticate all sorts of animals, James says. But domesticating the tongue? No one can do it. Not possible. Except in God, in whom all things are possible.

When Jesus took up his cross on a Friday afternoon outside Jerusalem—the suffering, dying, and rising that he describes in today’s gospel—he took up his God-given purpose and destiny as the Messiah who gave himself for us in love. The crowds gathered at the foot of the cross used their poisonous tongues and words to mock him. But remember Jesus’ response? It seems like a foreign concept, a foreign language, then and now. “Father, forgive them.” How unexpected. From Jesus comes a word grace, mercy, and kindness for people who didn’t deserve it. And also for us who, as James says today, “make many mistakes,” God has brought us to birth by the word of truth, Jesus the Word, so that we might, in our lives, be the leading edge of God’s desire for the world, tutors to the world of a new language of grace.

“If any want to become my followers, let them deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me.” With those words, Jesus describes how the words and deeds of his life are meant to take on life in us, including our speech. If the brackish, bitter words that so easily come out of our mouths are a symptom of the sin-sick heart of every person—a diagnosis Jesus makes of us all at one point in the gospels—then he is the one who forgives our sin and creates clean hearts in us. In the Gospel of John, Jesus says, “You have been made clean by the words I have spoken to you.” And in another place, “Whoever believes in me, as Scripture has said, rivers of living water will flow from within them.” Not bitter water but living water, the water of life flowing out from us to others in good words and good deeds to accompany those words.

What was the blessing Jodie gave as the Bible were given? “May God’s life-giving word, sweeter than honey, inspire you and make you wise.” These are words for us all. Jesus’ word implanted in us—peace, gentleness, willingness to yield, and mercy—is food for our souls, inwardly digested and internalized that, through the work of the Holy Spirit, bears fruit in us. In Christ, become what we eat, people in whom, and through whom, the life of Christ comes alive.