A number of years ago I spent an unpleasant evening at a dinner party. The main reason for the unpleasantness was that one of the guests took it upon themselves to be responsible for the entire conversation, the rest of us were invited to simply sit back, relax and listen to the musings. I quite frankly cannot remember much of what was said because after a while it sort of turned into the conversational equivalent of elevator music, I was vaguely aware that words were being formed and put out into the ether, but like the Muzak version of “Bad Bad Leroy Brown” it became unmoored from meaning at some point. The funny follow up to this story was that I ran into this person months later and they asked me if we had ever met. Which was a fitting conclusion. It sort of reinforced the notion that there was no real need for me to have been there at all, the important thing was the production of words, not the human interaction that is supposed to take place in a conversation. I could have been replaced with a cardboard cutout of Lenny Kosnowski from Laverne and Shirley and the results would have probably been the same.
I bring this up not only to report that through years of therapy I have come to peace with the situation and am once again able to attend dinner parties, but also to have a discussion about words and how and when we should use them. And I don’t do this just out of my own indulgence, but rather because of something we hear from the Prophet Isaiah today. The setup is that Isaiah has seen God and various other things having to do with the heavenly realm and his response is to say, “Woe is me! I am lost, for I am a man of unclean lips, and I live among a people of unclean lips; yet my eyes have seen the King, the Lord of hosts!"
This is rather interesting because on one level the reaction is natural, or at least should be natural when one enters the presence of God, that they realize how far short they fall. I assume it was like one of those nightmares we have where we show up to class and realize that a 40-page term paper is due that day - or that may have really happened to me. But in these dreams there is a sudden and frightening realization of just how unprepared we are. However, the thing I find most curious and also most enlightening is what he chooses to focus on, that being his lips. He does not say that he is unclean in general, or perhaps that his thoughts are unclean, but his lips – the thing through which he conveys his voice to the outside world. There is something special about our lips and the words they produce that we should all ponder for a moment. In the Book of James we get something of the power of the lips (although he uses the word tongue) when he says, “How great a forest is set ablaze by a small fire! And the tongue is a fire.”
We live in a time where it is pretty safe to say that we have more access to more stuff springing forth from people’s lips than at any other time in history, and sadly it is also true that we live in a time where the vast majority the stuff that comes from people’s lips is not edifying or even all that interesting, we live in a world of unclean lips. A world that does not even recognize that it is a place of unclean lips.
One of my favorite stories from the satirical newspaper The Onion is titled, “Drunk Will Show You, Everybody.” It concerns a Youngstown, Ohio man named Todd Stenerud who after consuming eight bottles of Miller Genuine Draft and six shots of Jim Beam says in response to what he “knows everybody has been saying about him” says, “I'll show you. I'll show everybody." The story continues with various drunk rantings by Todd including boasting about how he physically picked up a guy. I assume that most of you, even those who were not fortunate enough to have lived in a fraternity house have had the experience of being around someone who has had a bit too much to drink. There behavior is often marked by a lot of nonsense spilling forth from their lips. But here is the thing, they are drunk and on some level have an excuse, what is the excuse of the rest of society? Why do we so enjoy showing off our unclean lips? I mean Twitter seems to be a museum for them. So what are we to do? Let me go about answering this in a bit of a roundabout way.
Sometimes those from different faith backgrounds criticize those of us from more liturgical traditions because of the stuff we have. That is they think it is a waste to have nice vestments, silver chalices and beautiful stained glass. The argument is basically like the one Judas offers when Mary anointed Jesus’ feet with costly ointment. He asks, “Why was this ointment not sold for three hundred denarii and given to the poor?” They believe we are misappropriating funds. The response to this criticism is that when we come to God we want to bring our best, that is why we have beautiful things because we want to offer God the best that we can offer. This I think should be the same answer that we give when we use words, we want to bring our best.
And what I mean by that is not that we should always speak in iambic pentameter but rather that what we do with our words brings glory to God. In 1st Peter we are told, “He that would love life and see good days, let him keep his tongue from evil and his lips from speaking guile.” It seems that our words are not just things that we launch out to a public audience that have no further meaning but they are also part of who we are. Or as Jesus puts it, “For out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaks.” That is what causes Isaiah such anxiety because perhaps he has not been bringing his best, perhaps it is reflecting an impure heart. As you have heard me say before, if you hang out in a barbershop long enough, you will eventually get a haircut.” We can only use our words in ways that are against the will of God for so long before they eventually infect who we are as people – unclean lips eventually spread the disease of sin.
And so here is my challenge to not just you guys but to myself as well. Let’s take some time and think about using our best words and using them in ways that glorify God and make the world a better place. For some this may mean speaking less or gossiping less, while for others it may actually mean speaking more. We need to remember to tell people something we like about them, perhaps we could say something nice to a stranger. We should thank those who help us and thank people who have been there for us. We need to think of our words as not just something that floats out in the ether but as part of who we are. Meaning not only do we need to glorify God and praise his creation but we also need to avoid those words that are destructive or are just noise. As St. Paul tells us in Ephesians, “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.” Or in the words of our mother, “If you can’t say something nice, then don’t say it.” Our words are one of the main ways that we convey ourselves to the world. And we need to ask if what they are conveying will bring glory to God or will they make us lament that we are a people of unclean lips? I would encourage us to chose the former so that we may glorify God this day and forevermore.