Behold! The Power of Words

Preparing the music for this Sunday’s service brought me back in contact with Jeremiah’s call to prophecy. Previous contact with this passage (Jer 1: 4-10) has always drawn my focus to the prophet’s foreordination and the philosophical debate still taking place about free will vs. destiny. This time, however, I was drawn to the end of the passage. Yahweh puts his words in Jeremiah’s mouth and tells him that by doing so, He has put the prophet over nations and kingdoms. Yahweh’s words in Jeremiah’s mouth have the power to tear up, knock down, destroy, and overthrow. They can also build and plant. Does this sound familiar in our day?

 

The power of words. Jesus was the Jedi master when it came to using this power. His words to the people of Nazareth, his hometown, were enough to incite them to attempted murder (Luke 4:21-30). It’s never comfortable to hear one of your own people tell you that you’re too shortsighted, doubting, and stubborn to be worth performing miracles for, but their reaction was extreme, a witness to the power of the words directed at them.

 

Jesus’s words also had the power to heal. Stories of that healing power sometimes involve physical touch, but just as often, all Jesus does is speak and healing miracles occur. The words of Jesus have retained their power for over two millennia. “Neither do I condemn thee: go, and sin no more.” (John 8:11) “Peace I leave with you, my peace I give unto you…Let not your heart be troubled, neither let it be afraid.” (John 14: 27) Powerful words, indeed!

 

The most powerful words attributed to Jesus might be these: “As the Father hath loved me, so have I loved you: continue ye in my love…This is my commandment, that ye love one another as I have loved you.” (John 15: 9, 12)  Later, the apostle Paul sent some additional words about love to the Corinthians, hoping to heal the divisions among them. In the thirteenth chapter of his first epistle to them, Paul writes of the body of Christ, how Christ’s disciples are members of His body here on Earth, and of each member’s importance in that body. Each member brings with them essential gifts. Lest any member think its gifts more essential than the others, however, Paul goes on to say that all the gifts shall at some point fail and that none of them are perfectly manifest in humanity anyway.  Then he tells them only faith, hope, and love endure after everything else has failed, and that of these three gifts, the greatest is love. He’s not wrong about that.

 

As a verbal and vocal human, I’m keenly aware of the power of words and sounds to hurt or heal. I’ve always been sensitive to it. My love of and strong opinions about music are a direct result of that sensitivity. In my fallible, imperfect way, I do what I can to use the power given me for healing and the expression of love. I’ve seen hearts forever changed by the utterance of loving words. I’ve also seen the deep wounds rendered by careless or malicious words.

 

We have the power given us by the Creator to heal the rifts in our world by healing the hearts of those around us. The question in this life for each of us is whether or not we will choose to do just that.​

By Their Fruits

I have yet to see a battle that hasn’t sown the seeds for future conflict. Perhaps that’s why I do whatever I can to avoid participating in one. There’s a maxim I heard years ago that says: “Be careful who you make your enemy for you shall become them.” While I can’t find the source of it, that statement agrees with what I see in the world. It’s like in Orwell’s Animal Farm where the pigs end up looking just like the humans. That’s an extreme and fictitious example but it’s valid.

Taking out a bully by being one means there are now two bullies. Preventing or avenging a murder by murdering still leaves a murderer running around. In World War II, we were supposedly the “good guys” and all of the violence we committed was justified because we on the right side of the issues. Were we the good guys to the citizens of Dresden when we fire-bombed them? Were we the good guys to the citizens of Hiroshima or Nagasaki?

I don’t know how we could have better responded to the threat of Hitler or Hirohito but I do know we continue to feel the fallout from what went on, some of which came about because of how we chose to respond to the actions of others. After the war, we fell prey to some pretty shocking hubris that allowed us to think we could and should police the world and manipulate other peoples into acting in our best interests even if it was to their detriment. “We never lose a war” got us into Korea, Vietnam, Afghanistan, and Syria. We deposed a democratically-elected leader in Chile in 1973 because we disagreed with his ideology. We have held ourselves up as a model of liberty and virtue yet we have committed acts of oppression and depravity. I could go on, but I hope these examples will suffice to illustrate where I’m coming from.

On a much smaller scale, the toxic online culture we currently experience shows how little is truly resolved by drawing lines in the sand and screaming at each other, and it spills over from our PC’s, laptops, and smartphones into our streets and churches and schools. Nothing is fully resolved and the fights intensify.

I don’t know what the answer is. I know humans are inherently tribal. I know we easily view the world as “us vs. them”. I know there are times we don’t see any other choice but to fight for what we feel is right. That said, my friends, if you see me hanging back while a fight is going on in front of me, please understand that I’m trying to gauge what is right and what the right response is. I’m evaluating if I can truly help resolve the conflict by entering into the battle. I’m attempting to discern as clearly as I can in this human state where the truth actually lies and what my Lord would want me to do. I might even be seen speaking to your enemy, hoping to discern their intent. If you choose to interpret that as disloyalty or weakness, I can’t control that. If you choose to sever our relationship because I haven’t sided with you, I can’t control that either, but know this: I can only do what I feel is right and I will always welcome the opportunity for healing and reconciliation.

Peace.