Sticks and Stones

 Matthew 18:15-20

 August 30, 2015

Mark S. Bollwinkel

 

            What do you think when you hear the name “Jose Canseco”?

            For those of you who don’t follow professional baseball, Jose Canseco is the former Oakland A’s outfielder.  Throughout his career Canseco has been reported in the media as receiving traffic tickets for driving expensive cars too fast.  He is reported to have been disrespectful to the police.  He has carried loaded guns in his car.  Jose Canseco says he will live as a woman for one week to show support for Caitlyn Jenner (SJ Mercury News, Jul 30, 2015).   He is volunteering to be Donald Trump’s Vice Presidential running mate.

            At least that is what has been communicated about him in the press.

            Bill Mandel, a San Francisco Examiner columnist, a man who has never met Jose Canseco, called him a “schmuck”.

            But did you know that at the Miami Youth club, Canseco plays hours of basketball with the kids, attends their spaghetti dinners and donates hundreds of pairs of sneakers at a time?

            Did you know that he is deeply involved with the “Make A Wish Foundation”, which fulfills the fantasies of dying children?   He has raised money for children with leukemia and paralysis.

            Those kinds of stories don’t get into the papers about Jose Canseco as much as the other kind.

            Words are powerful instruments to do good or evil.  They can build up or tear down.

            Jose Canseco may indeed by a “schmuck” but how can we determine that if we only know the man by what is written about him in the papers?  Much of which may be gossip and rumor.

            The same can be said for just about anyone we judge from secondhand knowledge.

            Such negative communications happens all the time in human relations.  It happens even in the Bible.

            In Exodus, as Moses leads the children of Israel out of bondage into freedom through their wanderings in the desert, they “murmured” against him, saying “why did you bring us out of Egypt, to kill us with thirst?” (17:1-17)

            They find fault with their leader.  They even whisper to each other, “Is God with us or not?!”

            Imagine!

            YHWH God brings seven plagues upon Pharaoh, splits the Red Sea for the Israelites escape, provides manna when they are hungry for bread, quail when they get bored with manna and will give them water from a rock to quench their thirst.

            What more need God do to prove whether God is with them or not?!

            And yet they gossip and rumor among themselves, “well, who is this Moses anyway…at least in slavery we had things to eat…is God with us or not…”

            What a stiff necked and stubborn people.

            Do you know any body like that?  [Don’t raise your hands, please!]

            In the New Testament (Mark 9:33-37, Luke 9:46-48) Jesus has to break up arguments with his disciples over who is the most important. 

            Paul writes to the Corinthian church, urging that there be no “dissension” between them (I Corinthians 1:10-f).  He expresses fear of finding them slandering, backbiting and gossiping about each other (II Corinthians 12:20).

            Negative and harmful communication has been a problem for the church since the beginning because truth is rarely as much fun as a rumor…or a juicy bit of gossip.

            Let me give you an example.

            In a previous church where I served, I took the Bible off the altar.

            It is my opinion that the Bible is not an ornament.  Its power and meaning is when we read it and live by it, not when we display it on our coffee tables…or…altars.

            With that in mind, one day, I put it away.

            I didn’t tell anyone.  And that is where the problem began.

            I didn’t communicate.  No one knew what was going on with the Bible.  I left everyone in the dark.  It was a mistake, one of many I have made in the ministry [more of which will probably come along because I am anything but perfect].       

            Well, after a few weeks, Nellie finally let me have it.

            Nellie and I had gotent to know each other during a surgery.  We prayed together in the hospital.  At the time, Nellie as 92, had survived two world wars, the Depression, the death of her beloved daughter and two husbands.  She was tough as nails.  She was also the kind of person to go to the heart of the matter.

            One Sunday Nellie accosted me in the back of the church after a worship service and minced no words.

            “Where is our Bible?!  We want it back where it belongs!!”

            In the days following, I was to learn that there had been a raging debate among a number of people in the church about the “Bible on the altar”.  Folks were concerned.  People were talking among themselves, wondering what was going on, what kind of Pastor would do such a thing.  They were talking about it in the parking lot, at brunch, over the telephone lines and at choir practice.

            But no one, until Nellie, spoke to the source of the problem.

Me!

And I thank God she did.  She didn’t put me down or patronize my intelligence, she just told me what was important to her and what she wanted.

I should have known better.  Most people in the Central Valley have a Bible on their coffee table in their homes as a family heirloom.  I had “disappeared” the collective family heirloom, donated to the church one hundred years before by the founding saint of the congregation.

I put that Bible back on the altar, and it is still there today!  Although I would take it off for communion Sundays every now and then…

We can work out differing views about altar Bibles…or how we take Holy Communion…or which hymns we ought to sing.

Pastors don’t have to get their way all of the time.  And some changes aren’t only for change sake.  But the only way we can insure that change is good is if we talk about it, with each other, not around each other.

In numerous places, biblical writers suggest how we might love each other with open and honest communication (Luke 17:3, I Cor 6:1-6, Gal 6:1, James 5:19-20).  They are based on these four principals:

Make your words plain and simple.

The Apostle James encourages Christians to “let your yes be yes and your no, no” (James 5:12).  Peter is praised by Jesus for simply and clearly confessing “You are the Christ”, while the disciples hedged their theological bets at Caesarea Philippi (Matthew16:13-20).

Jesus teaches “do not swear at all, either by heaven…or by the earth…or by Jerusalem…and do not swear by your head.  Let your words be ‘yes, yes’ or ‘no, no’, anything else comes the evil one” (Matthew 5:34-37).

When we make our needs and opinions plainly known with simple language, few people object.

 

Let rumors and gossip stop with you.

Rumors and gossip seem to have lives of their own.  No one ever admits to starting them but everyone encounters them daily.  Where rumors and gossip gain power is when we pass them on.

You know those chain letters or emails or Facebook posts we get every now and then from some well meaning friends or distant relatives, promising fortune or blessings if we pass them on to five other folks?  Sometimes they come with a threat that if the chain is broken, something bad is going to happen to you.

I love to get those kind.  I delete them right away.  I tear them up and throw them away.  If you every get them and are afraid, just give them to me.  Such threats will stop with me.

The same is true for rumor and gossip.  When you hear accusations and innuendo about someone or thing, you don’t have to condemn the person sharing with you but you don’t have to give such talk any power either.

Let the rumors and gossip stop with you.

 

Go directly to the source of your concern.

Jesus says, “If another member of the church sins against you, go and point out the fault when the two of you are alone…” (Matthew 18:5)  What a novel idea!

If we hear things that trouble us or see changes that concern us, the best route to go is always direct to the source.  All too often we talk to everybody but the people in question.

Of course, chatting and socializing about events is one of the ways we build friendships and make alliances.  But problems are rarely solved and often exaggerated in the parking lot, at brunch, over the internet.

If you’ve got a problem with something or someone in the church go and talk to them about it in Christian love and try to work it out.  If having done so, you are still at odds with each other, bring along some other loving church leader or members and talk with each other.

Unless we communicate directly with the source of our concerns very little will be accomplished but to increase our frustration and ultimately to alienate others.

 

            Be care-full not care-less with words.

            Sister Helen P. Mrosla of St. Mary’s School in Morris, Minnesota writes this story of the power of care-full words.*

            Many years ago, one Friday in her High School math class the kids were unusually rambunctious and fidgety.  It was obvious they weren’t going to be able to accomplish anything in mathematics.  And so, Sister Mrosla stopped the verbal crankiness of the class before it got out of hand with a special assignment.  She asked each of the thirty students to write down the nicest thing they could say about each of their class mates.  It took the remainder of the period to finish the assignment and as the students left the room each one handed the papers to their teacher.

            That Saturday, she wrote down the name of each student on a separate sheet of notebook paper and listed what everyone else had said about that individual.  On Monday, she gave each student his or her list.  Before long the entire class was smiling.

            “Really?” she heard whispered.  “I never knew that meant anything to anyone!”  “I didn’t know others liked me so much!”  “What a nice thing to say”.  The class of thirty students had written many wonderful and positive things about each other.  The exercise had accomplished much more than quieting a grumpy group of kids on a Friday afternoon.  The students were happy with themselves and with one another.  And they shared it through the gift of their teacher.

            Several years later, Sister Mrosla’s parents picked her up at the airport after a vacation with terrible news.  Mark Eklund, a former student, has been killed in action in Vietnam.  The family had called and asked for Sister Mrosla to attend the service the next day.  She says to this day that she can point to the exact spot on the highway where her Dad told her about Mark, the impact of his death was so great.

           After the funeral, family and friends gathered at the Eklund’s house.  Most of Mark’s former classmates from St. Mary’s were there.  Mark’s father approached Sister Mrosla.  “We want to show you something”, his father said.  “They found this on Mark when he was killed.  We thought you might recognize it.”  Opening the billfold, he care-fullly removed two worn pieces of notebook paper that had obviously been taped, folded and refolded many times.  Sister knew without looking that the papers were the ones on which the class had listed all the good things they could say about their classmate, Mark.   His mother said, “As you can see, Mark treasured it”.  His old friends gathered around and said, “I still have my list in the top drawer of my desk at home”  “I have mine too, it’s in my wedding album”   “Mine is in my diary”.

          Vicki, another classmate, reached into her pocketbook took out her wallet and showed her worn and frazzled list to the group, “I carry this with me at all times.”

           Sister Mrosla sat down and cried.  She cried for Mark and the friends who would never see him again.  And she quietly thanked God for the power of kind words.

          When Jesus describes the Judgement Day, he says when we stand before the heavenly throne of Almighty God (Matthew 12:36-37), we will be held accountable for every “careless word” we have uttered in this life.

Every careless word.

Christian communication is marked by the care-full, loving use of words which don’t condemn or judge, but declare openness and concern.  “Sticks and stones can break our bones”, but care-full words can build and heal and empower.

 

            Amen.

 

*(from Snopes.com, http://www.snopes.com/glurge/allgood.asp.)