Sunday, September 15, 2024

Seventeenth Sunday after Pentecost
“Names”
Rev. Brent Gundlah

First Reading (James 3:1-12/NRSVUE)
Gospel Reading (Mark 8:27-38/NRSVUE)

The Fields Medal is one of the highest honors that a mathematician can receive; indeed, it’s often described as the Nobel Prize of that discipline. Named after the Canadian mathematician John Charles Fields, this medal has been awarded every four years since 1936 to between two and four math scholars who are under the age of forty.

I remember the day that my hopes of winning a Fields Medal were pretty much dashed. I was only in fourth grade (so I certainly met the requirement of being under forty), but I was having some problems converting and combining compound fractions (making my path to winning a Fields Medal a difficult one).

I was a very shy kid, so it wasn’t ever easy for me to ask a teacher for help, but it was especially difficult that day since you could have heard a pin drop in that classroom where my fellow students I were busily toiling away on a timed worksheet (man, I hated those things). As the clock ticked away, I found myself having a really tough go of it, so I decided to put my fears aside and make my way up to the teacher’s desk.

She was sitting there in her swivel chair seemingly oblivious to the fact that I was standing right next to her. With her perfectly coiffed white hair and gigantic glasses with dark tinted lenses, she bore an uncanny resemblance to Carol Channing (not from the “Hello, Dolly” era, mind you, rather from the guest star on “The Love Boat” years), but my teacher definitely lacked Ms. Channing’s disarming smile and sense of humor.

When she finally sensed my presence there beside her desk, she was obviously annoyed by it. She didn’t say a word to me as she spun around and ripped the paper from my outstretched hand; she gazed judgmentally at the mess I’d made of my work, then glared at me and asked in a voice loud enough for everyone in the class to hear: “What are you, stupid?”

I frankly don’t remember much of what happened after that. Yet, I do remember this: I hadn’t really ever considered the possibility that I might be stupid, but I started to consider it that day. And it was a long time before I was finally able to make some semblance of peace with mathematics.

My teacher probably forgot about this incident as soon as it had happened, but I didn’t; she likely didn’t give a second thought to what she’d said, but I did. And while I’m mostly over it now (which is good, because it happened almost fifty years ago), that experience remains one of my most vivid memories of elementary school. It’s strange how words that people throw around without much thought can have a profound and lasting impact on us.

I sometimes wonder how things would have turned out if, rather than berating me, my teacher had chosen to be kind and encouraging instead? What if she’d invited me to sit down and work through those difficult problems together? What if she’d made an attempt to instill in me the understanding that failure is a necessary part of learning? Who knows? Maybe I would have gone on to win that Fields Medal. Instead, to this day, I get stressed out whenever I see a compound fraction.

“Sticks and stones may break my bones, but names will never hurt me,” is how the old saying goes. I don’t know who actually came up with that little gem, but they couldn’t have been more wrong, because names do hurt and words do matter. And we never truly know how the things we say might affect people — for better or for worse.

In our first reading, James expounds upon an idea he raised earlier in his letter: “If any think they are religious, and do not bridle their tongues but deceive their hearts, their religion is worthless.” He wants us to understand that our speech is to be used carefully, and kept in check when necessary, because words can be both powerful and dangerous.

James begins today’s passage by telling his readers that “Not many of you should become teachers, my brothers and sisters, for you know that we who teach will be judged with greater strictness” for what we say. Martin Luther, who was not a fan of James, supposedly declared in response, “Indeed you should have observed that yourself,” which wasn’t very nice. I guess even the pillars of the faith can have an off day.

On the one hand, this higher standard for teachers might seem kind of unfair — I mean, anyone who’s taught or knows someone who has, understands how tough a teacher’s job is without that additional burden to worry about. On the other hand, though, it makes sense because teachers do have tremendous influence on those they teach, and with that amount of influence comes a great deal of responsibility. Yet, it becomes pretty clear, pretty quickly that James’s words about words here are not aimed only at teachers; they’re meant for everyone to hear, regardless of their profession.

The speaking tongue, though it is a relatively small part of the human body, dependably causes a whole lot of trouble. Let’s face it, throughout the course of our lives we say all sorts of things that we probably shouldn’t say (anyone who’s driven with me in Salt Lake City traffic can testify to that); and this is just part of being human, I suppose.

As James observes, “All of us make many mistakes. Anyone who makes no mistakes in speaking is perfect, able to keep the whole body in check with a bridle.” And, of course, his statement about perfection is mostly rhetorical because, as we all know, no one is perfect; but that doesn’t mean we shouldn’t strive to do and be better.

What really seems to get under James’s skin is hypocrisy in our speech: saying one thing but then doing the opposite of that thing — you know, like calling yourself a “teacher” and then nastily refusing to help a kid who comes to you just wanting to understand how compound fractions work (sorry, I digress).

Sadly, this kind of thing happens in church too — a fact that James is lamenting when he writes, “With [our tongues] we bless [God], and with it we curse those who are made in the likeness of God. From the same mouth come blessing and cursing. My brothers and sisters, this ought not to be so.” Indeed, it ought not be so, but it often is so.

At a very basic level, the gospel that Jesus came into the world to share with us isn’t really so difficult to understand — it’s not a compound fraction, for crying out loud. Love God, and love your neighbor as yourself; care for those among you who are in need; forgive others as God forgives you; keep your word; love your enemies; be reconciled to one another.

But consider the context in which James is writing this letter. It wasn’t long after Jesus lived — heck, some of the people in the Jerusalem church that James leads not only knew Jesus but also heard him say some of these things in person; you’d think that it’s all still be pretty fresh in their minds. And yet, in spite of this fact, James feels compelled to write this letter to congregations like his own because they’re not doing what Jesus had called upon them to do; they’re not doing all of the things they say that they believe.

And the question we need to ask ourselves, two thousand years later, is whether we’re really doing any better than those folks did. With Election Day less than two months away, the temperature in our country continues to rise, people are stressed out — and rightfully so — about how that’s gonna go. And yet, amidst all of this tumult and divisiveness, we continue to come here on Sunday mornings and raise our voices in unison, proclaiming the following words at the beginning of worship: “Whoever you are and wherever you are on life’s journey, you are welcome here.”

While I don’t doubt for a second that we mean this when we say it, our views and opinions and priorities and biases (which are also part of being human) can get in the way of acting in way that aligns with what we say. Be honest: Are there some people we might not actually be so quick to welcome here? For example, in today’s highly-charged political environment, how far are we really willing to go to love our enemies and to be reconciled to one another?

Look, the gospel might be simple, but it’s definitely not easy. As we seek to live into all of the things we say we believe, we’re going to screw up — that’s just part of being human. As Jesus, who was fully human, demonstrated to us in last week’s story (you know the one in which he called that woman and her kid “dogs”), there will be times when we say words that we shouldn’t say, there will be times when we do things that we shouldn’t do; there will be times when the ways in which we live our lives don’t line up very well with what we profess our commitments to be. Sometimes we behave like hypocrites, saying that we believe in Jesus and all that he stands for, but not acting like we do. And for James, as well as Jesus, this is sinful.

But perhaps the greater sin lies in our unwillingness to acknowledge when our deeds fall short of our beliefs, in our failure to make amends when our words or deeds have done harm, in our stubbornness about changing our hearts and minds and actions to show our love for God and neighbor.

How they will know that we are Christians? As the old song tells us, it’s by our love, by our love, and I suppose that’s true. But maybe, just maybe they’ll also know that we’re Christians because they’ll see us continually striving to do better and be better even though we know that we’re often going to fail.