Cleaning the Well

Brad Sullivan
Proper 19, Year B
Sunday, September 16, 2012
St. Mark’s, Bay City
Proverbs 1:20-33
Psalm 19
James 3:1-12
Mark 8:27-38
 

"Get behind me, Satan!”  Jesus told Peter.   “For you are setting your mind not on divine things but on human things.”  That’s a pretty strong rebuke.  Then again, Peter had been rebuking Jesus.  We don’t know what he said, and in Peter’s defense, it was said in response to Jesus predicting his own arrest, beating, crucifixion, and resurrection.  That’s a lot for Peter or anyone to take in, but Peter’s response is one of rebuke.  Peter responds to Jesus in an adversarial manner, and so Jesus calls Peter “Satan”.  Well, Satan is a Hebrew word which means adversary, usually referring to the adversary, the angel in the book of Job who brings accusations against people before God. 

There’s a lot of Satan in the world, a lot of adversary in the world.  Look at our political discourse, the way we talk about those with whom we disagree.  We often take an adversarial approach.  Look at the way we play sports.  Curse you, other team for playing better than my team, rather than well done other team and thank you for allowing my team to play at all. 

We can still want our team to win.  We can still believe our political or religious views are correct, and we need not be adversarial in order to do that. When we attack and lash out, our defenses get raised, and no one truly hears the other or sees the other as a human being.  When we’re acting in an adversarial manner, we tend to get angry, and when we do, we literally become kinda stupid.  The thinking part of our brain shuts down as we go into fight or flight mode.  It’s in this adversarial mode that we have the tongue acting as a “restless evil,” as James said, “full of deadly poison.”  When we’re in this adversarial mode, we are pretty well untamable. 

So, when Jesus rebuked Peter, calling him Satan, he was saying, “you’re being my adversary, and I need you to be my advocate.”  That’s what Jesus called the Holy Spirit.  The Advocate, the one who is not against us, but for us.  Jesus was saying, “Peter, I’m not particularly fond of this idea of being arrested, and beaten, and killed, and I’m even gonna pray in six chapters that if it’s God’s will that it won’t happen, but I’m pretty sure it is God’s will.  I’m pretty sure it’s gonna happen, and I need you to be for me, not against me.  I need you to be my advocate, not my adversary.  I need your words to bless me, not to curse me. 

That’s a fairly tough row to hoe, to be each others’ advocates rather than each others’ adversaries.  That’s especially tough when confronting our enemies, those with differing political views, or members of the wrong football team.  It’s tough to be filled with the Holy Spirit to be each others’ advocates.  So, how do we do that?  How do we tame the tongue?  Well, let me give an analogy.

Who here ate breakfast this morning?  Going to later?  Lunch, everyone going to eat lunch?  What about dinner?  So, for the most part, all of us are going to eat multiple meals today, and I would guess most of us do that every day.  We have to eat regularly, every day in order to stay healthy.  When we don’t, we become cranky and irritable, and eventually, if we just don’t eat, we’ll become terribly unhealthy and starve.  At that point, if we’ve been without food for days and weeks, we’ll eat just about anything.  We also know that the more healthy food we eat, the healthier are bodies are.

            Ok, so no surprises with that, healthy eating generally leads to more healthy bodies.  Can you tell I’m raising a four and a two year old?  James, in our lesson today, said,

no one can tame the tongue – a restless evil, full of deadly poison.  With it we bless the Lord and Father, and with it we curse those who are made in the likeness of God.  From the same mouth come blessing and cursing.  My brothers and sisters, this ought not to be so.  Does a spring pour forth from the same opening both fresh and brackish water? (James 3:8-11)

Unfortunately, our mouths do pour forth both blessing and cursing from the same opening.  As James points out, this shouldn’t be so, but unfortunately it is, and the reason is we have both fresh water and brackish water inside of us.  As Jesus said in our Gospel a couple of weeks ago, the things that defile us are what come from within us, from within our hearts.  We have darkness and light in our hearts, blessing and cursing, good and evil, and so we have both coming out of us, fresh water and brackish water, blessing and cursing.

James said we can’t tame the tongue, but I believe we can make out tongues into healthier, fresher water by the food with which we choose to feed our souls.  Just like our bodies, our souls need nourishment, every day, multiple times a day.  When we don’t feed our souls, we get cranky and irritable, and eventually if we continue not to feed our souls, we become terribly unhealthy and our souls begin to starve.  At that point, our souls will eat just about anything, and they may not eat something we would generally choose for them to eat.

Have you ever noticed that the more you’re around people who complain a lot, who have a dim view of the world, the more your view of the world grows dim.  Our souls are fed by all that is around us, the healthy and the not so healthy, and the more unhealthy things feed our souls, the more cursing, brackish water comes out of us, and the less blessing, fresh water comes out of us.

So, if we really want to tame out tongues, so that they are not full of deadly poison, we would want every day, multiple times a day to feed our souls with the good food of the Gospel, the good food of Jesus, the good food of God’s word given to us in scripture, of God’s presence shared with us in prayer, of God’s beauty all around us if we would but stop for a moment and notice.  Every day, multiple times a day, if we feed our souls on those things, we might find a marked difference in how we speak. 

I don’t believe we’ll suddenly be perfect and never say a harmful thing again.  Praying, and studying scripture, and noticing the beauty of God around us is not a panacea or a silver bullet.  Peter, for example, was around Jesus all the time.  I’m guessing his soul was pretty well fed on the good food of Jesus and the Gospel, and yet he still had some brackish water in him, but the more we feed our souls with the good food of Jesus and the Gospel, filling ourselves with the Holy Spirit, the Advocate, the more we will find blessing and fresh water coming out of us.  Peter ended up an apostle and a primary leader in starting the church, so his soul was pretty well fed.

Yesterday, Kathy Westmoreland, Kelsey Stuhler, and I were at a conference which the diocese held called “Forming Disciples,” and the conference addressed how we are formed as Jesus’ disciples and how we help form others as Jesus’ disciples.  There were four great speakers and workshops after that, and a common theme was filling ourselves with God in a variety of ways, so I came back from that with my soul pretty well fed on the Gospel.

Then, last night at bed time, Noah, our four year old, asked to make a pillow fort in his room so he could go to sleep in it.  He’s done this once before and he stayed in it for about three minutes and then went on back into his bed, but last night, I was tired, I had this sermon to finish, and I really didn’t want to add building a pillow fort to Noah’s bed time. 

Usually I would have simply said no, and he’d have gotten upset, and we’d but head for a while, I’d eventually win, and he’d go to bed.  We tend to butt heads over things; I have no idea where he gets it, but we tend to operate in this adversarial way.  So last night, I decided instead to be his advocate and asked him to be mine.  I told him that I didn’t want to make the pillow fort last night.  I gave him the reasons why, that I was tired and stressed, and I told him I’d be happy to build him a pillow fort the next night.  He said, “Ok Daddy” and went to bed. 

I’m quite certain this is not going to work every time, but it sure was nice operating in a Holy Spirit way, in an advocate way, rather than in an adversarial way.  Feeding our souls with prayer, with scripture, and the beauty of God all around us helps us to live in a Holy Spirit, Advocate kind of way.  We may not be able to tame the tongue, but we can clean up the springs of water within us so that they pour forth blessing and fresh water.  Amen.