Sermon Tone Analysis

Gospel Reading:

"Not Many of You Should Become Teachers”

Gospel Reading:

The World Tries to Tell Us How and What to Say

My dear friend Alan starts off every sermon by saying, “Good morning!”

Even if he’s already said good morning to you earlier in the service or before church.

We frequently exchange sermons before Sunday morning to check each other for heresies or jokes that aren’t actually funny or stories that are too long-winded.

Every time, it strikes me as weird that he starts his sermons with “good morning.”

Not that there is anything wrong with it, but it’s just never occured to me to start a sermon that way.

It feels completely foreign.

I’d never actually heard him preach one of these sermons prior to this morning: I’d only read them.

We weren’t in the same section of preaching class in seminary.

Now that I’ve heard it live in his voice, it fits.

I have no earthly good r

I tend to start my sermons one of two ways: I either dive right in by saying what is weird in the scripture passage for the day: something I have been struggling with that week in the passage, or I launch into a story, like I did today.

Alan opens his sermon like a Pauline letter with a formal greeting: “To the saints in Freehold, good morning!”

I begin mine more like one of the Gospels: “Hey guys!

This thing just happened!”

We have very different voices.

But that’s ok!

One of the things that they taught us in seminary - which I’m sure after checking the notes I shared with him, Alan can confirm - is that the key to preaching is to find your own voice.

No two preachers preach in the same way with the same style.

How boring it would be if all preachers preached the same way.

Even among those who ARE called to be teachers and preachers and leaders, there is a great diversity, a uniqueness.

But sometimes we feel like we have to preach or act or talk or vote a certain way to be taken seriously as a church leader.

Elders, Sunday School Teachers, and other church leaders often feel this same way.

Christians in general feel like that.

And while it’s true that James tells us - ad nauseum - to be careful with our speech, he’s not saying that we all have to have a list of rehearsed lines that we say or a particular way of sharing the gospel in order to be “doing it right”.

James wants us to take a close look at the heart of the matter.

Our words have to have purpose.

Trouble in the Text

Words matter.

Words can hurt people or words can heal people.

Ugh! Analyse the discrepancy

There is alot of pressure in the world to communicate in certain ways that are not actually good for us - not just for Christians, but for all people.

As humans, we find it all too easy to drop into the prescribed ways of speech and the same old words for the sake of having something to say.

How easy is it to get into an angry facebook comments war with someone?

How quick are we to say hurtful things to and about people on the “other side” of the political spectrum (regardless of which side we are on)?

I went to Bible study a number of years back with a woman who would not accept “fine” or “good” as an answer to her asking “how are you?”

She would insist you answer on a scale of 1-10 because she wasn’t asking just to ask.

She really wanted to know how you were and she wanted to make sure you knew that she really wanted to know how you were.

She was tired of the way that we use the “how are you today?” exchange as if the words mean nothing.

I like that.

She made everyone feel valued because she valued the words we were saying to each other.

We just throw words around and use them without thinking.

A couple years ago, Microsoft introduced a bot - a computer program designed to interact with people online through conversation.

If you’ve ever chatted online with customer service for a big company, you’ve probably talked to one without knowing It.

This particular experimental bot was on twitter - the social media platform that gives users a limited number of characters to post short statuses and links for others to read.

The bot - named Tay - was designed to learn about human conversation and speech as it interacted with other users on Twitter.

James is telling us to stop talking like fools.

Fools use bitter, harsh speech.

Words have power and just one wrong word or mis-spoken idea – a small mis-communication - can set a whole community on fire.

This project had some surprising results.

Within 24 hours, the bot had learned some pretty terrible things about how to communicate with people.

It learned how to:

Repeat back whatever people wanted to hear.

Bad mouth everyone who disagreed with it on whatever it said.

https://www.theverge.com/2016/3/24/11297050/tay-microsoft-chatbot-racist

Make racist comments, including comments about how Hitler was right to kill Jews.

It learned these things simply by listening in on the way people were talking to each other on Twitter.

https://www.theverge.com/2016/3/24/11297050/tay-microsoft-chatbot-racist

In some ways, our tech-connected culture brings us together.

We’re able to keep in touch easily with friends around the world.

On the other hand, we as a culture have a great outlet for being less careful about filtering what we say.

We just talk for the sake of talking, even if it’s not very nice.

And when you program a computer to follow the same patterns we’re conditioning ourselves to, it gets really mean really fast.

Before I sound like a grumpy old woman complaining about the evils of technology, let me bring this back around to our scripture passage: this is nothing new - we can’t blame social media for people talking like fools to one another.

It’s the same thing James is talking about, we just have a new medium with which to be nasty to each other.

James is telling us to stop talking like fools because words matter.

Stop repeating the same old Christian platitudes our of one side of your mouth while repeating the same old nasty world garbage out of the other side.

Words can hurt people or words can heal people.

Words have power and just one wrong word or mis-spoken idea, a small mis-communication, a harsh word uttered toward a sister or brother, can set a whole community on fire.

I’ve seen it with my own eyes, and you’ve probably seen it too.

Those who are not careful with their words - will reap the consequences of their folly.

There is an infamous saying that “It’s better to keep quiet and be thought a fool than to open your mouth and remove all doubt.”

We all fall into the traps of careless speech from time to time.

We all fall into the traps of careless speech from time to time.

Aha! Clue to the resolution

This is something that we are all challenged to care about: Don’t let that “not many of you should become teachers” line throw you off.

He’s saying “everybody has a special role to play” and “it takes a great deal of restraint to be a good leader” not “so the rest of you can just say whatever you want.”

Fortunately, wise speech is not unattainable.

It’s not available to just a few select people.

Wisdom is not in some far off place on the top of a craggy, snowy, remote mountain like a fancy levitating guru.

Wisdom is not available only to the rich or the smart or the noble or the people who are called to be teachers.

James says once we get control of our tongues, other things start to fall into place.

Our tongue is so physically little, we tend to forget about it.

We use words so much that we take them for granted.

But if we can change our words, control our tongues, just a little bit, we find ourselves counted among the wise.

We just have to slow down and quiet down before we start talking.

We just have to slow down and quiet down before we start talking.

This is where this passage gets fun for a community that is entering into a new season as you all are!

If we can just control our own chatter for long enough, reign in our own foolish tongues, we can hear the Holy Spirit calling us and guiding us.

That is always vital to the health and well-being of a faith community and what better time to enter into a purposeful habit of careful speech and listening to the Holy Spirit’s movement than at the beginning of this new season!

If we can just control our own chatter for long enough, reign in our own foolish tongues, we can hear the Holy Spirit calling us and guiding us.

This is where this passage gets fun for a community that is entering into a new season as you all are!

If we can just control our own chatter for long enough, reign in our own foolish tongues, we can hear the Holy Spirit calling us and guiding us.

That is always vital to the health and well-being of a faith community and what better time to enter into a purposeful habit of careful speech and listening to the Holy Spirit’s movement than at the beginning of this new season!

Whee! Experience the Gospel

At my children’s school, they have a great way of getting the kids’ attention when there is a large group who they need to quiet down.

The teacher will say, “If you can hear my voice, clap once!”