Last Sunday we heard in our Gospel reading how Jesus healed a man who was deaf and mute, and we hear a very similar healing by Jesus in today’s Gospel reading.  We focused on how God opens up our ears to hear His Word, and then opens up our mouths to declare His praise. 

Let me ask you this: Because your ears are open to the Gospel, how have your used your words this last week?  Have you declared His praise from your lips? Have you blessed the Lord?  Have you told other what Christ has done for you and invited them to come have their ears and mouths opened as well?  I sincerely hope and pray that you have. 

But I have another question for you as well: Do St. James’ words describe you from our Epistle?  “With our tongue we bless our Lord and Father, and with it we curse people who are made in the likeness of God.”  I would venture to guess that it describes us all too well.  Our words, once spoken, take on a life of their own and continue to cause damage. Words cannot be called back or unsaid. Like a lit match in a dry forest, a hurtful word quickly ignites a chain reaction of offense, anger, pain, guilt, rumor, slander, deception, and hostility.

Our words are so important that there are two commandments that deal specifically with them.  The Second Commandment, “You shall not misuse the name of the Lord your God.” And the Eighth Commandment, “You shall not bear testimony against your neighbor.” s Luther explains the commandment, Christians are absolutely forbidden to speak evil of other people—even if what they say is technically “true.” The only exceptions are those who are commanded, in their God-given vocations, to judge others so that evil does not go unpunished. But the commandment also enjoins a number of positive good works of love and service to others. “We should use our tongue,” says Luther, “to speak only the best of all people, to cover the sins and infirmities of our neighbors, to justify their actions, and to cloak and veil them with our own honor.” The right use of words is so difficult (and rare!), and the abuse and perversion so pervasive, that Luther concludes, “There is nothing around us or in us that can do greater good or greater harm in temporal or spiritual matters than the tongue, although it is the smallest and weakest member.”

It is not hard to multiply examples of this destructive power unleashed so often through our words and speech. Simple lies are everywhere; they mask our selfishness, cover our sins, and corrode our relationships. We lie to other people and we even lie to ourselves. But the evil of the tongue is not limited to lies: we often enough turn even the truth (at least partial truth) into a weapon and an untamed fire. And then we excuse the loveless damage and the cascading pain we cause by saying, “It’s just the truth!” Spiritually, we lie even when we tell the truth, and the tendency is at least as conspicuous in the way we talk about each other in the church as it is “out there” in the unbelieving world. If anything, we might be tempted more strongly to excuse and justify our slander and backbiting and lies by claiming that we are defending the Truth.

It should be obvious that what is called a sin of the “tongue” by James is now performed and extended on a shocking scale with the help of technology, even if we don’t utter a word out loud. Text messages, Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Snapchat, email, and who knows what else all serve as powerful amplifiers for our flaming, poisonous tongues—or rather, our flaming, poisonous hearts. In fact, technology seems to give us license to fling nasty words out into the world that we might be ashamed or embarrassed to say aloud, to someone’s face. Every day we are invited to slander people and spread lies and filth by simply clicking “like” or “share.”

For the “tongue” itself is not the real root of the problem. Our words are a vicious, contagious symptom, but the disease is one of the heart. Jesus says in Mark 7:21-23, “For from within, out of the heart of man, come evil thoughts, sexual immorality, theft, murder, adultery, coveting, wickedness, deceit, sensuality, envy, slander, pride, foolishness. All these evil things come from within, and they defile a person.”

“From the same mouth”—our mouth—“come blessing and cursing. My brothers, these things ought not to be so.” Indeed, they should not, but they are. Your words matter.  They matter because they reflect your faith, and what and who your faith is in.  The words you say and the way you say them bear witness to the Word of God

Our God has words for us as well, that reflect what is in His heart. The same Word of God that created all things, speaks from the tongue of Jesus, condemns our sinfulness. But the Word does not stop there. For where there is repentance and where the heart believes and the tongue confesses that Jesus is Christ, the Son of God, God’s Word for you is “forgiven.”

In spite of the restless evil of our tongues (and hearts), we have been harnessed by a new Master and turned to a different kind of speech: “blessing our Lord and Father.” That, in fact, is the miracle of faith and salvation in Christ. The evil power of our words is common human experience; but our Creator has done something new and wonderfully surprising: He has “worded our mouths” with praise and prayers and blessing. God’s Word to you today – the Word become flesh, the Word who died and was raised again – the Word to you today is, “Forgiven” for the sake of Christ. Amen.