Echoing Jesus--June 27, 2023

Echoing Jesus--June 27, 2023

[Jesus said to the disciples:] "So have no fear of them; for nothing is covered up that will not be uncovered, and nothing secret that will not become known. What I say to you in the dark, tell in the light; and what you hear whispered, proclaim from the housetops." [Matthew 10:26-27]

We keep inventing new and more powerful ways to communicate with more and more people. The only question is the one that so often goes unasked: what is worth saying?

There was a leap forward with the invention of the printing press, to be sure, which made it possible for large numbers of copies of a book, treatise, or pamphlet to be distributed to many people.  And the arrival of radio and television made it possible to communicate at even longer distances to larger audiences.  But now in our time, you don't need to own a publishing house or broadcast tower to get your ideas out.  Now with the click of a button or the swipe of a finger on a screen, ideas can be shared all over the world in real time for free, and you can share videos of your personal thoughts and opinions to anybody in an instant with the advent of cell phones and social media. But... to see how many of us use those technological leaps to share pictures of what we ate for lunch or to troll people whose politics differ from ours, I'm not sure we're using these platforms of ours very well.

Americans like to talk a great deal about defending the right to free speech, and about how each of us is guaranteed by the Constitution the freedom to say whatever we want to say, no matter how trivial, foolish, hateful, provocative, scandalous, or just plain incorrect it is.  And it is all well and good to have safeguards that protect people from being silenced just because their perspectives are unpopular--after all, without some kind of protection like that, the little child who cries out that the emperor is wearing no clothes would be silenced by the crowd.  But for all the energy we spend on insisting to each other, "I can say whatever I want and you can't stop me," we spend precious little giving even a passing thought to the question, "What should I say with my opportunity to speak?" or even, "What message should I amplify with the platform and megaphone that I have?"

These are the questions that Jesus calls us to wrestle with--not just "Can they stop me from saying it?" but more fundamentally, "Is this something that's worth saying in the first place?"  And if you are anything like me and find yourself sometimes just fed up with the sheer noise of frivolous and furious voices, then our way of responding to the babble is to choose wisely about what we use our voices, screens, and soapboxes to say.  Every time I drive through the not-too-distant town with the video billboards cycling through a loop of angry messages that range from partisan vitriol to unfiltered bigotry to casual racism, I find myself thinking, "What message do I send with my life? And what am I amplifying with my public presence?"  Every time I go past a flagpole blaring profanities, not-so-veiled threats (like the all-black flag that means "no quarter given"--yikes!), or white supremacy, I have to ask myself, "In my own life, where I only have the space to send one message, what is worth announcing to the world?"  And every time I find myself behind a vehicle in traffic whose bumper stickers or decals spread hatred, I have to stop and think about what I'm communicating to strangers in the course of my day through my words, actions, and sure, my car's decorations.  And when I take that extra moment to reflect, I find the only thing I'm really convinced is worth amplifying is the voice of Jesus.

That's what Jesus says to his disciples here, too.  If we are going to be Jesus' followers, and if we are seeking to live out his kind of love, then it's not enough to stop with declaring, "You can't stop from saying whatever hateful thing I want..."--we are compelled to ask further, "What would Jesus have me say?"  And Jesus' direction on that question is simply, "What have you heard me say?"  It may not be easy or popular, but it really is that simple.  What is consistent with the way and words of Jesus?  What messages reflect the Reign of God that we've come to know in him?  Those are the things to amplify.  The rest is noise and nonsense.  Jesus is the one worth echoing, until his words become our own.

That doesn't mean we can only ever speak in Bible verses or quote hymn lyrics at people.  But it does mean that the character and content of what we say, and the ways in which we say it, need to sound like echoes of Jesus.  That's how we'll know what is worth saying, and what is best left to silence.

Imagine for a moment what that might look like--what that might sound like!--and how just that look inward at ourselves, without needing to censor or silence anybody else, might make a difference?  What words might be kept from being shouted in anger, or lobbed from insecurity?  What words that we've been afraid to speak would find their voice because we realized we were meant simply to echo and amplify Jesus--to shout from the housetops what we first heard whispered in secret?  And how might others come to hear Jesus... in our voice?

Let's dare it today.

Lord Jesus, let our voices be echoes of your truth and love, rather than just more noise.