Discipling our tongues

As the reader at the evening service said after saying "The Word of the Lord" - "Yikes!" James' call to us for our discipleship to include our words is a sobering one. Several of you have shared some really good feedback, and I have some more rumbling around about it - specifically what "discipling our tongues" may look like.

I am going to reactivate my Restoration Project blog for a week or so to reflect on this topic of Discipling our Tongues, and thus helping our overall discipleship.

The first reflection I'll share is Paul's word to the Colossians 3.16 Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly, teaching and admonishing one another in all wisdom, singing psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, with thankfulness in your hearts to God. 17 And whatever you do, in word or deed, do everything in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through him.

Nothing comes out of our mouths that isn't already in there, in our minds and hearts - May the word of Christ make its home in us, abide in us, live in us, so richly that "out of the abundance of the heart," we speak words that indeed are a treasure (Matthew 12:34-36), reflecting the riches of our Father and our King. Let us read it, meditate on it, memorize it, delight in it, share it, sing it.

Peace and Joy, Mark +

No human being can tame the tongue, but...

James 3:7 "For every kind of beast and bird, of reptile and sea creature, can be tamed and has been tamed by mankind, 8 but no human being can tame the tongue. It is a restless evil, full of deadly poison."

There may be another piece of good news implied in the passage than I identified in the sermon - and it may be in this verse. "No human being can tame the tongue." But God can. Human nature does not have the resources to heal the heart and make the tongue a perfect instrument of peace. But the divine nature, working in and through a human being, can.

My first reflection including a reference to Colossians 3:16 which tells us to let the word of Christ dwell in us richly and to speak to one another in all wisdom. A parallel passage to this is in Ephesians 5:18 where Paul writes that we ought not get drunk with wine, but be filled with the Holy Spirit, addressing one another with psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, giving thanks always and for everything, and submitting to one another.

May the word of Christ and the Holy Spirit so fill us and so richly dwell in us as our treasure, that they overflow in words blessing, imparting life and peace.

Mark +

Great 'words' from cota folks

At the peace right after my sermon on the tongue and the power of our words, Jake Epker shared with me about "blessing."  We briefly talked about the idea that all our words fall into one category or the other: blessing or curse, that they fall on one side or the other of a gradient that ultimately results in blessing in curse.

Tom Aiken shared with me that when she was sharing a mission update with the church the week before, Stephanie Robinson thanked the people of COTA for "speaking life" into her.  What a great thing!  Let's do that more and more.

Tom also shared that around his house they talk about the fact that their words either build up or tear down - another way of saying blessing or curse, or life or death.

And Jim Lee reflected with me on the phrase "his words carry weight," and that we can think of that as meaning our words can weight people down, burden them with a heavy load;  our words can also relieve burdens and lighten the load.  This is part of Jim's passion and life mission - to share words and stories of grace that help remove shame and guilt and the heavy burden of so much religion, and impart life and peace and joy in our Lord Jesus Christ.

Great words from and for cota folks - those who are making cota an anglican church in a beautiful verbal landscape.

(In fact, newcomer JoJo Healy shared with me that she and Brian first came and loved COTA because of the retreat setting, but they kept coming back because of the beautiful verbal landscape... thanks be to God!)

Spiritual Disciplines for the Tongue...

So, what can we do to help control that feisty little member, that rather small muscle that boasts of such great things?

There are "spiritual disciplines," or exercises, that can help.  We talk about some of these in our newcomers' class section on Formation - how we grow and change as Christians.

First point re. spiritual disciplines:  like all disciplines or exercises or training, that basic idea is that you do what you can do now, so that later you can do what you can't do now.  For example, if you want to participate in a 5k race to help support a local organization or for the camaraderie or just to see if you can do it, you would do what you can do now - which might be walk around the block and jog a little - so that as you keep at it, eventually you'll be able to run 3.1 miles - or just traverse the 3.1 miles...

So one spiritual discipline to help our tongues is, of course, Silence.  This can be engaged in a number of ways:

• a personal or organized retreat of one or more days where you don't speak to others people, only out loud to God.  
• Or you might pick a time, perhaps just an hour or a morning, where you will not speak unless you absolutely have to.  
• Another variant might be to basically observe silence for a day (unless you have to talk, and some of us have to talk regularly during our work day!), but you commit to writing down what you talked about, who you talked about, etc.  This is to intentionally reflect on the nature of our speaking: is it critical, negative, upbuilding?  did I volunteer info about people I should not have?

I'll share another spiritual discipline tomorrow to assist us.  

One that Robert shared with me came from a Cursillo talk on Sin, where the speaker, a priest, began what was to be a 15-20 minute talk by saying:  "Sin,  don't do it!"    We could say, "Negative or critical speech, don't do it!"  

Lord have mercy.  May our words reflect your word - healing, creative, blessing.

taste your words

Welcome to cota, an Anglican church in a beautiful verbal landscape, in a retreat setting removed from critical talk and negative speak.


Oh Lord, may it be increasingly true of us!!

Discipling our tongues  (James 3)

We all stumble in many ways. And if anyone does not stumble in what he says, he is a perfect man (ie. complete, mature, whole), able also to bridle his whole body. (James 3:2)

"The control of the tongue is more than an evidence of spiritual maturity, it is the means to it."  (The Message of James, J.A. Motyer)

This is so intriguing to me - is seems to reinforce this reality that we are whole beings, all of one piece:  not just souls with bodies, or spirits trapped in physical corruption, or spirit-soul-body people with each part fairly separate from the others.  One of James' points in seems to be that how we use our words can aid the transformation of the heart, as well as affirming the truth that the transformation of our hearts will aid how we use our words.

There are actually spiritual disciplines that deal specifically with our words, that help us to "bridle" our tongues - and in turn our hearts and lives.  We touch on them in the Class of New Apostles.  I'll share about them tomorrow.