Letting Words Fly

​Photo by Obie Fernandez on Unsplash

On the whole, I am a patient person.  I will put up with quite a bit before my patience is used up and words fly.  As a pastor, I have to work to make sure that I am long on patience and not short tempered.  That can really be a challenge, especially in a culture where letting words fly is the norm.  This last weekend I saw a corner prophet out on the street letting angry, powerful words fly about all of the sinners walking by.  He was calling them to repent for the end of the world is near.  He asked how they were living their lives?  He accused them of behavior he had not seen and then proceeded to call them sinners and hypocrites.  He shouted Gods' judgement upon everyone. Repent or burn in hell! 

As a pastor, I was tempted to go speak with him and ask him where in the Bible he found his teachings. Jesus didn't say the end was near at all.  According to the gospel of Matthew 24: 35-37, Jesus said, "Heaven and earth will pass away, but my words will not pass away. But about that day and hour no one knows, neither the angels of heaven, nor the Son, but only the Father.  For as the days of Noah were, so will be the coming of the Son of Man."  As a Reformed Christian, these words are important because they direct our focus, not to worry about what is to come, but to be doers of the word, caring for others in the here and now.  I wanted to ask the gentleman why he wanted to scare people into faith rather than loving them as Jesus does?  

My son did a great job of persuading me to let the man be.  He rightly was concerned that a confrontation would only result in words flying or worse.  Sure enough, a couple hours later as we walked back by, the man was deep in conversation with a pastor.  He was shouting into his megaphone calling the pastor a hypocrite because he was part of the religious institution.  The pastor was calmly responding with questions.  "Where is God's love in your message?  Why are you judging others?"  The corner prophet lost his cool and began shouting, "Shame on you, pastor!  Shame on you!  You are not a servant of God, you are a hypocrite!"  At first the pastor walked away, but then he turned back and confronted the man again asking, "How dare you stand in judgement of me!  You don't even know me.  How can you condemn me when you have not heard the Word from me?"  I really wanted to go stand up for the pastor, but it was clear that no good would come from it.  The very things the corner prophet had been shouting about when we first walked by were the things he, himself, was doing.  Now he was the hypocrite, shaming a man of God who was asking him to explain his message, a message contrary to what Jesus said.  At best, it was a present day example of religious leaders disagreeing.  At worst, it was a dismal demonstration of the power of words to destroy, even among people who profess the same savior. 

The corner prophet was not all wrong.  We are sinful people who need to repent of our harmful behavior.  We should be living our lives as if the end is near, but not out of fear.  Standing on a street corner condemning everyone who walks by is not the way Jesus modeled for us.  Jesus didn't bulldoze people into believing.  I suspect he would not have liked the confrontation between the pastor and the man with the megaphone.  It garnered attention from others walking by, but not in a positive way.  If anything, it just made people more inclined to want nothing to do with religious people.  The pastor was not wrong, he raised a valuable question when he asked the man to explain how he came to understand Jesus's message as one of  judgment and condemnation rather than love.  I understood the desire to stand up for Jesus the redeemer, not Jesus the condemner. 

As I walked by the heated conversation, I remembered the words from the book of James that I had read in worship the day before, "be quick to listen, slow to speak, and slow to anger."  Our culture is inclined to do just the opposite.  We are slow to listen, quick to anger, and quick to speak."  The result is that we create conflict by letting hurtful words fly, words that can incite violent acts.  I didn't stop to see the end of the confrontation between the pastor and the megaphone prophet.  I left wanting to understand the passion that motivates one to stand on a street corner proclaiming the end of the world and the need to repent.  I wanted to listen to the pastor to hear what it was that motivated him to stop and ask questions of the man.  But I also needed to listen to the anger the corner prophet was raising in me.  I needed a moment to pause, catch my breath, and remember the teachings from James 1: 19-26.  

19 You must understand this, my beloved brothers and sisters: let everyone be quick to listen, slow to speak, slow to anger, 20 for human anger does not produce God’s righteousness. 21 Therefore rid yourselves of all sordidness and rank growth of wickedness, and welcome with meekness the implanted word that has the power to save your souls.  22 But be doers of the word and not merely hearers who deceive themselves. 23 For if any are hearers of the word and not doers, they are like those who look at themselves in a mirror; 24 for they look at themselves and, on going away, immediately forget what they were like. 25 But those who look into the perfect law, the law of liberty, and persevere, being not hearers who forget but doers who act—they will be blessed in their doing. 26 If any think they are religious and do not bridle their tongues but deceive their hearts, their religion is worthless. 27 Religion that is pure and undefiled before God the Father is this: to care for orphans and widows in their distress and to keep oneself unstained by the world.