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Sermon for June 13-14, 2009
The Second Sunday after Pentecost
The Ministry of Holding One's Tongue
*Trinity/Pentecost a time for growth and reflection.
*Bonhoeffer’s book Life Together (a discussion of Christian fellowship), published nine years after his execution in 1945 by the Third Reich at the age of 39.
*Identifies seven ministries (or callings) to which every Christian must answer … on a repeated basis. Ministry comes from the Latin minus (less) … “the act of becoming less filled with self” (so that we can be more filled with love for God and others)—a servant. Bonhoeffer: “Once a man has experienced the mercy of God in his life he will henceforth aspire only to serve.” Holding one’s tongue—when need to—is an act of service to God and others. What just sang in stanzas 3&4 of LSB 696.
*Bonhoeffer got in trouble, imprisoned, and, finally, killed because he didn’t hold his tongue … when that was the safe and sinful thing to do. Hitler had many supporters in the church; when appointed chancellor in 1933, spoke about completing what Martin Luther had begun … encouraged followers to attend church, but presented a militant Jesus instead of the suffering servant on the cross. Four days before, he addressed danger in church and state on radio broadcast, then later took on the Aryan Clauses which barred those of Jewish descent from service in the church … trouble early on.
*Ecclesiastes 3:7—“a time to keep silence, and a time to speak.” Not simply about “if you don’t have anything nice to say, say nothing at all,” because sometimes we must say hard things, even as Jesus did, to bring things back around to the good. We look at what he wrote about the need to keep silence and the service, or ministry, it is in the church.
*If taken literally, holding one’s tongue looks quite comical … can’t say a thing that way. James 3:2ff: ‘The one who holds his tongue in check controls both mind and body … bits put in horses mouths to control and guide their bodies … ships driven by strong winds but guided by small rudder. So tongue is small member but capable of powerful things. Tongue can be a fire that consumes a whole forest; with it we often bless God and curse others who are made in the likeness of God as well’—important reason for controlling tongue.
*We all know people and situations where we easily “lose it” and don’t always bite (or hold) our tongues. Bonhoeffer:
Where this discipline of the tongue is practiced right from the beginning, each individual will make a matchless discovery. He will be able to cease from constantly scrutinizing the other person, judging him (like Paul wrote about in today’s epistle—2 Corinthians 5:1-17), condemning him, putting him in his particular place where he can gain ascendancy over him and thus doing violence to him as a person. Now he can allow the brother to exist as a completely free person, as God made him to be…. God did not make this person as I would have him. He did not give him to me as a brother for me to dominate and control, but in order that I might find him above the Creator. Now the other person, in the freedom with which he was created, becomes the object of joy, whereas before he was only a nuisance and an affliction…. To me the sight may seem strange, even ungodly. But God creates every man in the likeness of His Son, the Crucified…. Strong and weak, wise and foolish, gifted or ungifted, pious or impious, the diverse individuals in the community, are no longer incentives for talking and judging and condemning, and thus excuses for self-justification. They are rather causes for rejoicing in one another and serving one another.
*Thirteenth century Arabic poet Rumi; every time someone says something stupid, “make your eyes light up as if you just heard something brilliant.” Hard to do, impossible, we might say, but as baptized and forgiven people raised to new sort of life (not the same old one)—people who have the light of the knowledge of God shining in our hearts by the Holy Spirit (2 Corinthians 4:6)—that is our calling as Christians … as people, whom Paul said, are to have the mind of Christ Jesus in us (Philippians 2:5). Jesus who was brutalized yet didn’t even open his mouth; as a lamb led to slaughter and sheep struck silent before shearers, so Jesus didn’t even open mouth … no violence and no deceit in mouth (Isaiah 53:7,9).
*Film Doubt and story of gossip, condemning hand, pillow, and feathers. Christ takes condemnation on self and does not condemn … forgiveness and gathering of feathers we can.
*Called to speak with our life and not just with words … people who see ourselves as servants called to love God with our whole being (including mouth and tongue), and every other person as much as ourselves … as Jesus did most fully in cross and resurrection. Called to be people who in humility, patience, and forgiveness let the seed and tree grow in us, even though it means tearing up the ground of our lives a we like it, so that the glorious tree of God’s shade, with a place for everyone to find a perch and make a nest, comes about (Ezekiel 17:22-24). So that we find, and others clearly see (as we spoke from Psalm 8), that God does not silence the enemy and avenger with quick, deadly replies but with strength from the mouth of babies and nursing infants … no words …. So that we, as people who receive the Body and Blood of Jesus into our mouths, use those mouths in a Spirit-guided way to speak God’s blessing in Christ in this world and in our circles of life ….
*Let us pray: For the control of the tongue, LSB, p. 312.