Ephesians 4:25-5:2
Introduction to the Scripture
You remember that last week I said that the first half of Ephesians is full of great theology, while the second half answers the great question, So what? What difference does it make that we have been adopted into God's family as sons and daughters? What difference does it make that God has lavished grace upon humankind, that the walls that had divided us from one another have been taken down. "By grace we are ^{made whole, through faith . . . " So what?}

<sup>Last week the answer to that simple but so important question was that we live out our salvation in community . . . with one another . . . together in the "body of Christ," the gathering of people we call the church . . . this church, for us. Full of frailties, foibles, and faux pas as we are, the church is yet where we meet God, sense the Holy Presence in one another, and together help each other toward the goal of growing into the full measure of the stature of Christ.

This week the answer to So what? is even more specific, and practical, and (sorry to say) more difficult to live out. It was hinted at in last week's reading, where we were told to speak the truth to one another in love [4:15]. Today we hear the command, speak only grace.
Don't let anything unwholesome come out of your mouths, but only what is helpful . . . that it may give grace to those who listen. [4:29]
Oh, the things that come out of our mouths! And oh, how hard it is to control what comes out! But living faith, says Ephesians, must make a difference in not just what we do, (which is hard enough!) but (and this is even more difficult) what we say! Listen now for the Word of God for today.


Sticks and stones can break my bones, but words will never hurt me! That's what we said in our little gang of kids living on Mission Drive, in Akron, Ohio, when I was growing up. We must have said it a couple times a day, a dozen times a day, in the summer especially when we had the whole day to play and compete and get on each other's nerves. When baseball games ended in some dispute over the rules, or whether or not Larry had tagged Sam rounding second, or when Mike would take his ball home with him because he had struck out yet again, things would descend quickly into name-calling.

I tried to think of what those names were back then - probably "cheater!" or "stupid" were the most daring we got. And when there was a full-scale assault on how we looked, or our intelligence, or whatever it was that kids can be so cruel about, we would defiantly and loudly and desperately snap back, not ever really believing it, Sticks and stones can break our bones . . . . But we knew deep inside what human beings have known since words were invented, that yes indeed sticks and stones can break our bones, but words can hurt so much worse.

Three hundred years before Ephesians was written, the Greek dramatist Menander, said, "A sword the body wounds, sharp words [wound] the mind." And he could have added, the heart.

A few hundred years before that, the writer of Proverbs said "A gentle tongue is a tree of life, but perverseness in it breaks the spirit." [Proverbs 15:4] (What a telling, powerful little phrase, breaks the spirit !) And elsewhere,"When words are many, transgression - violation of another, hurt, injury - is not lacking, but the prudent are restrained in their speech." [Proverbs 10:19, NRSV]

The power of the tongue to attack, to cut, and wound deeply is most colorfully and powerfully expressed in the Bible in the letter of James. Something really bad must have happened in his church to make the writer wax so eloquent, and so vehement! Listen to this:

The tongue is a fire . . . placed among our members as a world of iniquity; it stains the whole body, sets on fire the cycle of nature, and is itself set on fire by hell itself. For every species of beast and bird, of reptile and sea creature, can be tamed and has been tamed by the human species, but no one can tame the tongue?that restless evil, full of deadly poison. With it we bless God, and with it we curse men and women made in the likeness of God. All of us make many mistakes, (says James). Anyone who makes no mistakes in their words is perfect, able to keep the whole body in check . . . . (James 3:1-12, NRSV)

Nor was Jesus silent about the power of and eternal importance of what we say to each other every day. Listen to this saying of Jesus,
"I tell you, on the day of judgment you will have to give an account for every careless word you utter; [every "careless" word; let alone the petty, cutting words we say! And then listen to this . . . ] for by your words you will be justified, and by your words you will be condemned." Matthew 12:36-37, NRSV)

I don't think he's saying that someday, somewhere, we will literally be explaining to some heavenly bureaucrat every little careless, tasteless word we said on earth . . . I don't think even eternity could accommodate that! No, Jesus here is using a powerful hyperbole to say what human beings of every time and place have known - that words are important, and have great power. And they reveal something inside. St. Frances DeSales said that "Our words are a faithful index of the state of our souls."

The Hebrews understood the power of words (Jesus was Jewish, we know) and they reflected that in the very way they spoke about words. The Hebrew word for "word" is dabhar. And dabhar means not just a word, or an idea, or a concept, something insubstantial. Dabhar took on concrete dimensions to mean a "thing, an event, a reality of its own." It means both "word" and "deed."

Frederick Buechner says of this, that to a Hebrew "to SAY something is to DO something. . . something that lay hidden in the heart is by speaking, irrevocably released into time, [give heed, Mel Gibson!] given substance, and tossed like a stone into the pool of history, where the concentric rings lap out endlessly." The Hebrews knew that to speak a word to someone is to do something to that person. Our words are as real as any material thing we touch.

Sticks and stones can and sometimes do break bones; but words can do even worse. They can break spirits, and hearts, and dreams.  Which is why St. Paul is so specific and so strong in his command, "Put off falsehood - stop lying. And instead, speak truthfully to your neighbor. For remember," he says, "we are all part of one another." (He always goes back to that idea that in the church we are bound to one another, part of each other. Whatever we do to another, we do it to ourselves, and to Christ himself, for we are the body of Christ.) "Speak truthfully to your neighbor. For remember, we are all part of one another."

And later in the reading again he begins with the negative: "Don't let anything unwholesome come out of your mouths," he says. "Don't let anything abusive, foul, harmful, don't let it even come out of your mouths." "But only what is helpful, what will affirm and build up the other."

Did you catch how high a standard is being held up here? Don't tell lies; OK, we all agree there. Don't tell even half-truths; That's a little harder, but we can go along with that. Don't mislead people - recent political campaigns, take note! But the standard isn't just the negative. Speak the truth, he says.

And even that is not enough. We are to tell the truth that will build up the other, minister to their need. Speaking the truth, always in love, in order make the other stronger.

Which is to say, putting it in other words: speak only grace. There's that word that keeps popping up again and again in Ephesians. To speak the truth in love, the truth that will make the other more alive, more faithful, stronger, more complete, to speak in gracious words and in a gracious manner that reflects the unconditional love of God for all people, for that person to whom you are speaking . . . That is speaking grace to another. And that is the standard. That is what will make us, to use the phrase we heard in last week's reading, that is what will make us "worthy of the calling to which you have been called." [Ephesians 4:1]

We don't need more words of judgment, but of grace. Words of judgment are easy to come by; they flow out like water! I'm good at that. Words of grace . . . that's the challenge.

Speak only that which builds up; speak only that which will imparts grace to the hearer. What a challenge! Speak only grace. It's hard to do. For me it is, and I assume it is for you too. It's hard on just a plain gut level. If I am emotionally involved in some conflict, some difference of opinion, I usually want more to lash out, get even, prove the other person wrong, put them in their place, make their opinion look silly and mine appear brilliant; on a gut level I don't want to speak grace.

But speaking only grace is hard on an intellectual level as well. For it's not always clear what one should say that will build up the other, that will meet their need as the text admonishes us. How do I know what will be most helpful to say? How should I know what that other person most needs, right now? It's hard!

We had an incident at Pilgrim Center last month that called for speaking truth and grace to one of the campers. I'll call her Patty. Patty the very first night could not stop sobbing, saying how unhappy she was, how homesick she was. She continued through the night, into the morning, and off and on through the day, again saying how much she hated being at camp, that she must go home. Her counselor and Carol spent hours with her, and she seemed to get only worse, determined to go home, determined that camp was not going to be any fun at all.

Finally we called in the camp director, Jeff Puhlmann-Becker. Jeff talked to Patty, and to her mother by phone. And from those conversations, and by the wisdom he has collected through nineteen years of directing the camp, Jeff spoke the truth to Patty, in love. And he spoke grace too.

He told her that she was a cherished member of her family at home and her faith family at camp. He reminded her how much she was loved, how gifted she was, how glad we were to have her at camp. He reminded her of the love her friends had for her. He was speaking words of grace that would build up her spirit. But he also spoke the truth that what she was doing - to herself, her cabin and counselor, the rest of the camp, her mom - what she was doing was hurtful, and unacceptable, and she would have to change, because she could change. She was told the truth, in love.

The next morning (and I have to admit to my great surprise) Patty changed. She became a model camper. The power of words - to build up, to affirm, to challenge to be all we can be - the power of gracious words, truth spoken in love!

Speaking only grace does not always have such immediate, dramatic results, do they. But it is to truth and to grace that we are called.

The poster currently on my office door says, Sticks and stones can break my bones, but words will really hurt me. And words will really heal me too. May our words - gracious words, helpful words, affirming words - bring wholeness and healing to one another. Amen.</sup>