Frederick Buechner tells of a question asked by his hostess at a Sunday dinner shortly after he concluded he had been called to ministry. Because she was deaf, she spoke louder than most and so all of the guests at the long table heard her and stopped to hear Buechner’s reply.
“I understand that you are planning to enter the ministry,” she said. “Is this your own idea, or have you been poorly advised?”
Buechner had no answer. If he had, he wouldn’t have wanted to shout it, and if he had shouted it, she wouldn’t have heard it. He later understood that she meant no harm. But, even knowing that, her words stayed with him – for years – and every time he recalled them, the feeling of hurt returned.*
“Death and life are in the power of the tongue,” says Proverbs 18:21 (ESV). “The tongue is a fire, a world of unrighteousness,” James adds (3:6). We know verses like these well enough that when we hear them, it’s a review.
Most of us don’t question the need for that review. We know we are not perfect and that our tongue is often why (Jas. 3:1-2). Periodic reviews help by bringing to mind several relevant biblical texts and times we’ve erred with “filthiness … or crude joking” (Eph. 5:4) or with words of “wrath … anger … and slander” (Eph. 4:31). We feel shame because we recall when we were too much like the pagan world Paul described with its “gossips, slanderers, … boastful, [and] inventors of evil” (Rom. 1:29-30).
Buechner’s story, however, doesn’t really fit any of those texts. It reminds us how often our tongues can inadvertently wound, if not destroy. Something we say lingers for years, influences a person’s view of herself, or reinforces feelings that make his life of faith more difficult. Thus, Ephesians 4:29 fits better: “Let no corrupting talk come out of your mouths, but only such as is good for building up, . . .”
Because they are often inadvertent – and sometimes colored by the hearer’s perceptions and the complexity of the communication process – it’s hard, if not impossible, to eliminate these failures. But, what if our goal is more modest? What if what we learn from Paul, and Buechner’s experience, is to think more before we speak and say less than we often think we have to say? David Anguish
* Buechner’s story, from his book, The Alphabet of Grace, was recounted by R. Wayne Stacy, “The Power to Bless: James 3:1-12 (A Sermon),” Review and Expositor 97 (2000).