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SERMONS:
Pastor Peg posts her two most recent sermons on this page. If you are interested in reading more of her sermons you can go to pastorpeg.wordpress.com. For the next five weeks our sermon series is: The Book of James. Enjoy.
Taming the Tongue
June 29, 2025 3rd Sunday of Pentecost
James 3:1-12 Matthew 5:21-26
You know how you remember random events from elementary school? I remember when I was in 3rd grade, and we were shown a picture of people fishing with a description of the picture underneath. But the description, instead of saying: The men are using fishing poles to catch fish, it said: The men are using things to catch stuff. We were told to rewrite the description by replacing the words stuff and things for specific words in the picture.
This was to teach us how to be clearer in our writing, and to show us how important specific words are to describe something. And this also is immensely important with speaking. I can ask my husband nicely: Can you get the thing out of the cupboard in the kitchen? But he's not going to be able to do it because he's not going to know what thing I'm talking about. Is it a glass, a plate, or some spices? Clarity is key with communication.
We use language to convey to other people who we are. Our words and how we use them tell people so many things about us. Whether we're in good health or not feeling well. What we like or dislike, and hope and dream. What we think is important or what is something that we'd rather not have anything to do with. What are important issues to us and where do we stand on them.
Speech is also how we exchange ideas, how we solve problems as a group, and even sometimes how we solve problems by ourselves by talking out loud about a situation. (Yes, talking to yourself feels a little crazy, but I think we’ve all done it.) Speech is how we relate to people and make connections with them; how we let people know how we feel. Words give two people the ability to say I love you to each other and to build a life from those feelings.
Speech is an immensely important part of the human existence. It’s one of the greatest gifts that God gave to us. One that we take for granted. We assume that since nearly everyone can talk, and that we've been doing it since we've been kids, that we must have this skill down. But like any other skill it takes practice, and we don’t always get it right.
Sometimes we simply don't have the vocabulary that we need and so we don't make our intentions clear. But often speech is a little more complicated than that because our speech center sits right in the middle of our brain; and is connected to the three parts of our brain that process our reactions.
The first level is your reactive brain down by your spinal column. It's speech-reactive to pain or pleasure. That's the part of speech that you use when you stub your toe and say Ouch or other bad words that we can’t say in church. Ever take a bite of a delicious cake and you say, Oh, that is so good? You're not even thinking it, you're just saying it.
The second level is your emotional brain. You stub your toe, you get hurt, and, along with the pain, is maybe an emotion of anger or disappointment. So besides saying Ouch, you’re going to tell the table what an awful nuisance it is that it's decided to be in the way as you walked across the room. (Hey, I didn’t say that emotions were rational.)
The third level is the front part of the brain, where we do our cognitive thinking. After we stub our toe and say Ouch, and a few nasty words to the table, we might say: Well, that was a stupid place for me to put the table. I should move it over about 6 inches, so I don't do this again. That's the part of your brain that sees the problem and then tries to solve it.
Stubbing your toe though is a pretty benign event. How do we react when we get angry, or are disappointed, or hurt? Often when we're confronted with strong emotions, or have things happen to us that are connected to strong emotions, we don't go into the cognitive part of our brain. We get stuck in the emotive part of our brain and we lash out emotionally.
Sometimes we lash out to ourselves by telling ourselves that we’re stupid or worthless. Other times we lash out at the people who we perceive are hurting us by telling them they’re stupid and worthless. And yes, maybe they are hurting us, or maybe they're just trying to help us and we're reading the situation wrong. In any case, reacting inside the emotional part of your brain is where and when things get said that are hurtful, or difficult to walk back, and result in a lot of emotional stress, trauma, or abuse.
To avoid that, Jesus wants us to have better self-control, and to think about and deal with our emotions and our tempers in a spiritual way. This doesn't mean that we negate our emotions. It means that we think about them rather than react to them. As Christians we are supposed to think about our emotions and put them into perspective with our faith. We decide where we’re going to stand with our emotions, rather than be ruled by them.
So, how can our faith help us to tame our tongues and tempers?
James gives us a good place to start when he talks about comparing the use of our tongue to guiding horses and ships. When you ride a horse or sail a ship you have a destination in mind and the bit or rudder are what you use to steer the horse or ship in the direction you want to go. So, we have to ask ourselves: What is our destination, or goal, and the direction, or steps we’re going to take to get there? And how do we speak that destination and direction into existence?
If our destination is to be as Christ like as we can, and to live as Christian brothers and sisters, then we need to bridal our tongues and refrain from using our speech to inflict negativity on other people, when negativity is inflicted on us. And instead, use our speech to be as generous, renewing, and compassionate as we can in emotional situations.
Sometimes the negativity is spontaneous, like when someone bumps into us and we say: Hey, I’m walking here. How about saying instead: Oh, my goodness. Are you alright? I’ve done this several times to people on the NYC subway and they were flabbergasted that I didn’t snap at them and instead inquired about their state of being. I could actually see their brains realigning from confrontation mode to: Oh, no. I’m okay.
Sometimes the negativity is strategic, like when someone gives you a backhanded compliment/insult. That dress looks nice on you. Too bad the skit length is out of fashion. Instead of saying something snarky back, smile and say: Thank you. I’ve always liked this length though – it makes me feel comfortable and happy. You’ve just accepted their generosity and renewed your spirit, and demonstrated that you are a person who is comfortable with themselves.
And sometimes the negativity is systemic, like when someone tells me that all those foreigners can’t be trusted; just look at the news. In my case I try to mentally forgive them and tell them that my Japanese-American children would be very sad to hear that. And that I’m sad to hear about that as well.
We break the cycles of unjust-thinking by confronting them with kindness and purpose.
Breaking the cycles of negativity and building cycles of positivity is what living as a Christian is all about. When Jesus tells his people to: Come to terms quickly with your accuser while you are on the way to court with him, or your accuser may hand you over to the judge, and the judge to the guard, and you will be thrown into prison, he is saying that we need to break the cycle of accusation, counter-accusation, litigation, counter litigation, and all the social feuding that accompanies it. Once you let the bad feelings and speeches spiral outward from you, they take a on a life of their own. It becomes a fire that burns everything and destroys not only you but the people around you.
Words are powerful. Remember God spoke the world into being, and we speak our own lives into being with our words, that leads to our actions, shows our directions, and takes us to our destinations. Words can heal people and renew them so that they can go out and carry on with life. Words of compassion can inspire others to be compassionate. Words of generous inspiration can lead to actions that build us up and cause us to make the world a better place.
So use your words to bless others in the name of the Divine Parent, our brother Jesus, and our sister the Holy Spirit. Send your blessings out into the world and you will be speaking into being great exploits of God’s people.
Being Impartial
June 22, 2025 2nd Sunday of Pentecost
James 2:1-13 Matthew 7:1-5 & 12
In our age, the idea of impartiality doesn’t have the same impact as it would have in Jesus and James’ time. The social consensus was that if you were a prosperous person, had been born into a good family, or if your business was successful, that God was blessing you because you were a good person. So, it followed that people who had wealth, status, and who had made their way well in the world, should be given greater respect then those who were disadvantaged in life. Conversely, it was thought that if you couldn't get ahead or prosper, or were afflicted with disease or some calamity, that God was punishing you for your sins or the sins of your family.
But Jesus didn't it adhere to that philosophy. He told his followers that God loved every one of them. He told parables that illustrated that just because you were rich it didn't mean that God favored you. In the parable of Lazarus and the Rich Man, Lazarus begs for food outside the Rich Man's gate, but the Rich Man ignores him. Then one day the two of them die and Lazarus ends up in heaven but the Rich Man, because he ignored the commandment of God to take care of the poor and the needy, ends up in hell.
We know that when the disciples set up their communities of the faithful that everybody shared equally with everybody else no matter who you were; Jew or gentile, rich or poor. But it’s commonly accepted among scholars that this was a continuation of the type of communities that Jesus set up during his three-years of ministry.
Jesus also stressed the empathy that we need to have for each other. The scripture from Matthew tells us that we will all be judged equally, so we should be very careful how we evaluate and judge others. It is not that I’m better than someone because they sin worse than I do. I also sin, so I need to be careful about judging others for their sins.
And withholding judgment does not excuse sin. Spontaneous, strategic, or systemic inflictions of negativity that hurt people are still inflictions of negativity that hurt people, and they must be confronted and stopped, or sin will never stop. But we are told to have empathy for the sinner and for those who are caught up in the blow back of sin, because we might find ourselves in the same situation one day. This was an important point for Jesus because people who had truly done nothing wrong, but who had had the misfortune of being associated with a sinner, were often cut out of their communities.
I recently read an article that discussed the instability that was beginning to creep into the Roman Empire during Jesus’ time. I was amazed at how much uncertainty there was economically and socially, and how people we're getting to be very tired of the privilege and corruption of the upper class.
Judaism was very appealing to a lot of gentiles because of its emphasis within the Laws of Moses of a greater equality for everyone. But Judaism was a very enclosed religion; if you weren't born into it, you weren't considered to be Jewish, or even able to become Jewish. Jesus, however, preached the equality of the law, and he emphasized that God considered everyone to be His children; that He showed no favor; and that He was always willing to welcome back anyone, not shun them, who had strayed from the path and who wanted to get themselves right again. Christianity accepted everyone, and many gentiles were very attracted to this new branch of Judaism and joined the Christian movement.
Still, human nature is human nature, and it's hard to change a society's way of thinking overnight. I'm sure James saw it in his own congregation. Someone who had really nice clothes would walk through the door, and all the greeters would swarm over to them welcoming them and showing them a nice seat at the front of the house. Whereas somebody who didn't wear nice clothing and looked like they were in need of a meal might not be so welcomed and would be shown to the back. That’s probably why James devotes a section of his book to impartiality.
James challenges people and says: If you really believe in Jesus, then you are not going to do this sort of behavior. He reminds people that God does not show partiality. He reminds them that it’s our Christian duty to take care of those in need, and to treat them as lovingly as we would treat anyone else who walks through the door. And he also reminds people that the rich are the ones with advantages and the ones who have the ability to oppress others. It isn’t that the wealthy who walk through the door are going to be those oppressors, but in the world outside the church, they are the ones who already have power. Here, inside the church, everyone is equal. It is not your worldly social status that gives you power in here, it is how well you use your gifts and graces to help others.
And he reminds people that it is a sin to not love your neighbor as you love yourself, because by neglecting that second commandment, you are committing an infliction of negativity against another person. Think about what we get when we don’t treat others as equal: Bullying, below living-wages, denial of education for some people, and slavery are just a few examples. All those things are justified when one group convinces themselves that their better than another. The second commandment is a call to treat everyone that you come in contact with as equal with the love and respect of Jesus.
Now I know that some people are really hard to love. Some people are very negative, or self-centered, or controlling, or discourteous. We can list a whole bunch of very undesirable traits that all of us can indulge in. The question to wrestle with is: How do we set boundaries so that we can relate to difficult people, without writing them off spiritually? It’s one of the greatest challenges that all of us face. How do we not compromise our Christian integrity as loving people?
Jesus gives us a system to deal with difficult people. First he says: Do not judge, so that you may not be judged. In other words – hold off on your judgement, because if you’re wrong it’s going to come back around to you. But how do we hold off from judgement? Well, I think the best way to do that is to try to understand, as completely as you can, what is happening and why. Now I know that it is very hard to understand why people commit murder or serious cons against others. But if we can get to why something happens in the first place then maybe we can prevent the same thing from happening in the future to someone else.
Second, Jesus asks us to remove the log from our own eye before we remove the speck from others. We have to work on ourselves and our own problems, before we can condemn others. If someone is gossiping maliciously about others then they can’t condemn someone from gossiping about them.
For Jesus this isn’t so much about judgment but setting an example of kind and loving behavior as a person who is willing to help someone in difficulty. When someone comes to you and says, “I have a problem,” your answer shouldn’t be, “Well, if you had done this, that, and the other thing, you wouldn’t have the problem. You’re getting what you deserve.” Yeah, and maybe they are but instead, you can answer, “What is the problem and how can I help you to work out of it?” After all, if we go to someone with a problem we’re asking for help, not condemnation.
One of the cores of Christianity is that it understands that our lives are all about relationships. When James was alive, he was trying to get his community to work together in mutual love and cooperation as Jesus taught his disciples to do. Think of what your relationships are in life. You have a relationship with God, a relationship with yourself, a relationship with members of your family and a relationship with people in your community. When you treat yourself with respect, love, and kindness you are honoring your relationship with God. When families work together in respect, love, and kindness, that is a unit that is expressing and supporting their relationship with each other and God. And when neighbors work together in respect, love, and kindness, then everyone is expressing, supporting and their relationships, and the community as a whole rises and becomes stronger under God.
But it doesn’t work unless we all live into the belief that we are all God’s beloved children. But once we do get that idea into our hearts, great things can happen. We can build and strengthen ourselves, our families, our communities, and even our nation. And when that happens we will find that God’s mercy will always triumph over judgement.