"Let no evil talk come out of your mouths, but only what is useful for building up, as there is need, so that your words may give grace to those who hear. And do not grieve the Holy Spirit, with which you were marked with a seal for the day of redemption. Put away from you all bitterness and wrath and anger and wrangling and slander, together with all malice, and be kind to one another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, as God in Christ has forgiven." [Ephesians 4:29-32]
My grandfather used to have a quick one-sentence argument for avoiding cuss-words. "Using profanity," he used to say, "is a sign you are not intelligent enough to find another way of saying what you have to say." Case closed. Game, set, match, Clifford Shotwell.
Now, you and I might quibble over whether our real-life experience lines up with that sentiment. After all, I know plenty of people who are very smart and whose language choices are as rough as a corncob. You could even say that there's an undeniable cleverness in the wordplay in George Carlin's old routine, "The Seven Words You Can't Say on Television," even though it is precisely about... well, the seven words he claimed you couldn't say on television.
But where I think my grandfather was vindicated is the basic underlying idea that there is a connection between what we say, and what we reveal about our inmost selves. That's not merely about using potty-talk or profanity that would get bleeped on radio or TV broadcasts, but it's about the deeper content of what we say, of how we use (or abuse) language. Our words do reveal what's going on in our hearts, for good or for ill, and because of that, they matter.
Curiously enough, the Bible has surprisingly little to say about any particular four-letter words (and the commandment against swearing is literally about our use of God's name, rather than about scolding scatological humor). And for that matter, the apostle Paul himself had occasion to use some pretty salty language that we sometimes forget is in the Bible, or have watered down in English translations to minimize blushing in church (Galatians 5:12 and Philippians 3:8, I'm looking at you...). But the New Testament does repeatedly call the people of God to consider the ways we use all words. It's less about whether we would get a G or PG rating for a movie made from the transcript of your every conversation, and more about whether we use words as vessels of grace, or whether we lob them at people like recklessly aimed hand grenades to puff ourselves up or bring someone else down. There's the real language issue for the people of God--and in that case, our words really do (as my grandfather would have told you) reveal what's going on inside your deepest self.
In fact, these verses from Ephesians today take our words so seriously that the writer here raises the fear that we might be "grieving" the Holy Spirit when are not graceful in our words. That is to say, it reveals a great deal about whether we are open to the movement and whispers of the Spirit or not, how we speak and how we use words toward other people. Because honestly, our unchecked tendency is going to be to be childish with our words--to attack other people with them, to puff ourselves and make ourselves look great, and to cut other people off at the knees to belittle them and make ourselves feel bigger in the process. The petulant child inside me, that bent-inward-on-self pettiness that is all about me, me, me, that part of me would want to use words to attack others, to put myself in as good a light as possible, to threaten others when I don't get my way, to attack others whether or not they deserve it, and to respond to insults with more insults. That's the way my four-year-old thinks. That's the way childish hearts act--they hit me, so I will hit them... they insulted me, so I will insult them back... they used words to upset my feelings, so I will fight fire with fire and launch an attack back. We are all prone to it, but the letter to the Ephesians says that the Spirit has a way of calming us down and seeing another way. And if we are still stuck in that childish, self-serving, "you-insulted-me-so-I-insult-you" way of thinking and speaking, Paul here says it is a sign we might have drowned out the voice of the Spirit in our lives. It is certainly a sign that we are not grown-ups.
And against all of that childish, thin-skinned pettiness, the letter to the Ephesians offers us a hopeful alternative. We don't have to be so... pathetic. We don't have to be so... insecure. The movement of the Spirit among us, within us, keeps pulling us away from the old patterns of lashing out and getting defensive. The Spirit frees us from the need to puff ourselves up--the question, really, is whether we will leave the Spirit move us in that direction, whether we will let the Spirit uncoil the bentness of our hearts that get so sadly curved in on themselves.
Because truthfully, words can do amazing things. For all our culture's tendency to dismiss our words--whether spoken, written, typed, instant-messaged, tweeted, or posted--as so much forgettable buzzing, your words really do have amazing power.
You and I have the fantastic ability to speak courage into the heart of someone teetering on the edge of the precipice of fear.
You and I have the wondrous capacity to speak welcome to someone who has been told they are not good enough, not attractive enough, not normal enough, not stylish enough, or whatever else, and when you speak such welcome--it becomes real.
You and I have the infinite potential to speak forgiveness for someone who has been too afraid to ask for it, and to find ourselves set free at the same time.
You and I have the same creative power--in words!--as the Creator whose Spirit brooded over the chaos in the beginning and brought the universe into being with the sentence, "Let there be light..."
See that? The power of God is seen in speech--and in particular, in words that give life, in words that create, in words that give good things away to newly created beings. Not once in the Scriptures will you find the living God being petty and lashing out because someone has wounded the divine ego, or because of Christ being self-centered and defensive. Not once will you find the Spirit speaking childish "you-made-fun-of-me-so-I'll-make-fun-of-you" insults to us, even when we have disrespected and dishonored God or those who bear God's image (all of us). Not once is Jesus goaded into losing his cool by hecklers or those who taunted him. And not once does Jesus pray, "Father, let me unload on them because they did it to me first."
Rather, the power of the living God is the creative power of speech--speech that "calls into existence the things that do not exist," as another New Testament voice says it, speech that raises Lazarus from the dead at the sound of his name, speech that restores poor ol' despondent Peter who had given up hope, speech that brings grace to Zacchaeus' table as Jesus invites himself over for supper, speech that breaks down boundaries and declares, "No longer free or slave, no longer Jew or Gentile, no longer male and female," speech that claims us from wherever we were and says, "I have called you by name--you are mine."
Anybody can pick a fight. Anybody can lob an insult. Anybody can use words to knock something down--that is kid stuff. Literally, it is the height of childishness.
But the Spirit leads us to more. The Spirit leads us to tap into nothing less than the creative power of the divine in the ways we use words.
How will you use yours today?
Lord God, direct first our hearts to align with your creative goodness, and let our words reveal where you are leading our hearts.
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