February 20, 2000 - LESSON: James 1:19-25

SERMON TITLE: What Did You Say?

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INTRODUCTION:

  1. Picture this, two people sitting on a sofa.
    1. The man holds the remote in his hand and is obviously quickly changing channels
    2. The woman is reading a book that must be so interesting that she is not bothered at all by the actions of her husband.
    3. Yes, it is obvious that they are married to one another.
    4. There is one feature about this picture that you would not anticipate.
      1. Both of them have an arm up in the air, the man's left and the woman's right.
      2. Their hand are bent an a 90 degree angle.
      3. On their hands is a hand puppet, each looking at the other and neither of them saying anything.
    5. These two people are so busy with their own activities that they have no time for one another.
    6. You often see these people in a restaurant.
      1. Their arms are not in the air.
      2. That would look silly.
      3. He is looking off in one direction.
      4. She is looking off in another direction.
      5. They still have little to say to one another.
  2. Let's say they have lost the art of communication, of speaking and listening.

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MAIN BODY:

  1. Communication is necessary to avoid misunderstandings
    1. In a February 26, 1995 sermon in Homiletics, Say What? (37-43),(1) is an illustration
      1. "In 1995 KGO talk radio in San Francisco conducted a call-in poll.
      2. "Ronn Owens invited listeners to express their opinion.
        1. "35 percent said 'yes,'
        2. "33 percent said 'no' and
        3. "32 percent were undecided.
      3. "One listener, aghast at the large number of undecideds, protested, 'It's this sort of apathy that's ruining America.'
      4. "The only problem with all these responses was that the radio station had never posed any question."
    2. "Or consider the mysterious Seattle Windshield Pitting epidemic.
      1. "A few years ago people along the Pacific coast became convinced that some unknown force was moving down the coastline causing pits to appear in car windshields.
      2. "Reports of this mysterious pitting phenomena migrating down from Canada toward Seattle were logged everyday.
      3. "Finally the pitting hit Seattle proper.
      4. "Thousands of people reported pits appearing in their previously unblemished windshields.
      5. "In a few days the 'force' moved on to the next community.
      6. "This phenomena proved to be a mass delusion.
      7. "Social scientists studied this impressive example of the effect rumor and gossip have on our concepts of reality.
      8. "People became so convinced that their windshields were going to be attacked that they began looking at their car windows, instead of through them.
      9. "They naturally discovered pits that had been there all the time.
      10. "The power of this collective gossip was so strong that everyone became convinced this ' epidemic' was going to hit, and so of course it did."
    3. The truth would have helped.

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  2. Truthful communication is basis for community
    1. Someone has translated words parents use into terms kids understand them to mean.
      1. Like "We'll see," which as every kid knows means "I'll think about it."
      2. When parents say "I'll think about it," it really means "Maybe."
      3. The announcement that parents are going to "Convention" or "Conference" means "You are staying with a babysitter."
      4. "Tomorrow" is a term used to describe a period of time extending from 30 days to never.
      5. "Ask your Dad" means "No," but it's Dad's turn to tell you.
      6. "Ask your Mom" means "No," but it's Mom's turn to tell you.(2)
      7. It would help if communication were clear and definite
      8. We need to say what is meant and mean what is said.
    2. Anne Morrow Lindbergh writes in a similar way of the human tragedy of being unable to speak the appropriate word at the time it is needed.
      1. In her novel Dearly Beloved,(3) the title of which is taken from the first two words of the traditional wedding ceremony, she tells of a mother's inability to share her deep feelings with her daughter.
        1. Deborah, the mother, is helping her daughter, Sally, just her wedding veil.
        2. "Deborah went to her daughter, kissed her lightly on the forehead, and hesitated for a moment, looking urgently, almost pleading, into her wide eyes.
        3. "Wasn't there something she could say at this moment-mother to daughter-something real?
        4. "Sally, too, seemed to be pleading, asking for some confirmation.
      2. "'Your father will be up' Deborah blurted in a rush.
      3. "All she could say. The words for good-by never came at the right moment....
      4. "The real thing never got said."

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    3. How many children get their sex education "from the street," because real thing doesn't get said.
    4. How many young people become addicted to drugs or alcohol because the real thing doesn't get said?
    5. How are you going to communicate "family values" if the real thing doesn't get said?
    6. How are you going to communicate "spiritual values" if the real thing doesn't get said?
    7. How may people live in the midst of confusion because the real thing doesn't get said.
  3. Telling the real thing in communication can be painful
    1. To say the real thing is one of the driving concerns of the playwright Tennessee Williams.(4)
      1. His observations are given in his preface to Cat on a Hot Tin Roof in which he writes of his own inability to share freely with people and of his desire to deal with, the real thing that so seldom gets said.
      2. Even the title of his preface is revealing: "Person-to-Person."
        1. "A morbid shyness once prevented me from having much direct communication with people, and possibly that is why I began to write to them plays and stories....
        2. "I still find it somehow easier to 'level with' crowds of strangers in the hushed twilight of orchestra and balcony sections of theaters than with individuals across a table from me....
        3. "I still don't want to talk to people only about the surface aspects of their lives, the sort of things that acquaintances laugh and chatter about on ordinary social occasions.
        4. "...And so we talk to each other, write and wire each other, call each other short and long distance across land and sea, clasp hands with each other at meeting and at parting, fight each other and even destroy each other because of this always somewhat thwarted effort to break through walls to each other..."

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    2. In the play, Cat on a Hot Tin Roof,(5) that follows this preface, Tennessee Williams clearly states the painful effort to break through the wall that separates a family.
      1. The wall between them is typical of the wall between all the members of the family.
        1. Each has surrounded himself with lies.
        2. These lies were originally designed to give protection from the hard truth but have eventually built walls isolating each from the other.
      2. The climactic scene comes in Act II when Big Daddy confronts his son, Brick.
        1. Brick describes their predicament nicely:
        2. Brick. "Are you through talkin' to me?"
        3. Big Daddy. "Why are you so anxious to shut me up?"
        4. Brick. "Well, sir, ever so often you say to me, Brick, I want to have a talk with you, but when we talk, it never materializes. Nothing is said. You sit in a chair and gas about this and that and I look like I listen. I try to look like I listen, but I don't listen, not much. Communication is-awful hard between people an' somehow between you and me, it just don't."

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      3. Big Daddy determines that communication is going to take place between them, hard as it is.
        1. In the scene that follows he pursues Brick relentlessly through all attempts at evasion.
        2. He won't let his son go until the truth is revealed.
        3. And in the process Brick, on his part, reveals the truth of his father's terminal illness to him.
        4. Big Daddy isn't satisfied with Brick's account of the death of his friend, Skipper.(6)
        5. Big Daddy. "Something's left out of that story. What did you leave out?" [The Phone has started ringing in the hall. As if it reminded him of something, Brick glances suddenly toward the sound and says:
        6. Brick. "Yes!-l left out a long-distance call which 1 had from Skipper, in which he made a drunken confession to me and on which I hung up!-last time we spoke to each other in our lives.
        7. Big Daddy. "You hung up?"
        8. Brick. "Hung up...Well"
        9. Big Daddy. "Anyhow now we have tracked down the lie with which you're disgusted and which you are drinking to kill your disgust with, Brick. You been passing the buck. This disgust with mendacity is disgust with yourself. You!-dug the grave of your friend and kicked him into it]-before you'd face truth with him!"
        10. Brick. "His truth, not mine!"
        11. Big Daddy. "His truth, okay But you wouldn't face it with him"
        12. Brick. "Who can face truth? Can you?"
        13. Big Daddy. "Now don't start passin' the rotten buck again, boy!"
        14. Brick. "How about these birthday congratulations, these many, many happy returns of the day, when ev'rybody but you knows there won't be any!"

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      4. So Brick tells his father that he is going to die.
        1. It is as if he can no longer stomach mendacity, that is, pretense and lying.
        2. "You told me!" Brick says, and "I told you."
      5. This play of Tennessee Williams points out the cost of being willing to share the truth.
      6. Neither Brick nor Big Daddy wants to face the facts.
      7. Both go through agony in facing the truth, but both come out of it as stronger persons.
      8. They discover that they can live with the facts.
      9. They discover that when truth can be faced and shared, growth results.
    3. Is not this also true for each of us?
  4. The biblical principles help us to face the facts
    1. They help is to understand and apply the principles of good and significant communication.
    2. Let everyone be quick to listen and slow to speak

      (James 1:19-25 NRSV) You must understand this, my beloved: let everyone be quick to listen, slow to speak, slow to anger; [20] for your 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.

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    3. The Wise Man in Proverbs said:
      1. (Proverbs 12:18 NRSV) Rash words are like sword thrusts, but the tongue of the wise brings healing.
      2. (Proverbs 13:10 NRSV) By insolence the heedless make strife, but wisdom is with those who take advice.
    4. We are to speak the truth in love

      (Ephesians 4:15, 31-32, NRSV) But speaking the truth in love, we must grow up in every way into him who is the head, into Christ,..[31] Put away from you all bitterness and wrath and anger and wrangling and slander, together with all malice, [32] and be kind to one another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, as God in Christ has forgiven you.
    5. Keep one's tongue from evil but seek peace and pursue it.

      (1 Peter 3:10-12 NRSV) For "Those who desire life and desire to see good days, let them keep their tongues from evil and their lips from speaking deceit; [11] let them turn away from evil and do good; let them seek peace and pursue it. [12] For the eyes of the Lord are on the righteous, and his ears are open to their prayer. But the face of the Lord is against those who do evil."

CONCLUSION:

  1. So, communication is vital for the salvation of individuals and communities.
    1. It is not only the speaking.
    2. It is also the listening.

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  2. Philip Yancey in Disappointment With God(7) tells the story of a friend of his who went swimming in a large lake at dusk.
    1. "As he was paddling at a leisurely pace about a hundred yards offshore, a freak evening fog rolled in across the water.
    2. "Suddenly he could see nothing: no horizon, no landmarks, no objects or lights on shore. Because the fog diffused all light, he could not even make out the direction of the setting sun."
    3. "Yancey then tells how his friend splashed about in absolute panic.
    4. "He would start off in one direction, lose confidence, and turn 90 degrees to the right.
    5. "Or left - it made no difference which way he turned.
    6. "He could feel his heart racing uncontrollably.
    7. "He would stop and float, trying to conserve energy and force himself to breathe slower.
    8. "Then he would blindly strike out again.
    9. "At last he heard a faint voice calling from shore. He pointed his body to the sounds and followed them to safety."

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  3. The voice of God calls pointing us in the direction in which we ought to go.
  4. God help us to listen.
  5. Communication can be humorous
    1. Former Secretary of State James A. Baker, III in an unpublished manuscript, "Faith, Friendship and Collective Responsibility"(8) , began his address to the February 1, 1990 National Prayer Breakfast, Washington, D.C., by telling a story about the "little girl who went to church on Sunday morning with her grandmother.
      1. Her grandmother had a very long-winded preacher who never gave a sermon that lasted less than an hour and a half.
      2. And as they sat there that Sunday morning and the sermon droned on and on, the little girl got very restless and she looked about her.
        1. And there, extending from both walls of the church all the way down to the altar were American flags.
        2. Underneath each flag, there was a little gold plaque.
        3. For the little girl, the sermon went on and on, and finally she couldn't stand it any longer.
        4. She turned to her grandmother, and she said, 'Grandma, what are those flags up there for?'
        5. Her grandmother said, 'Why, Sarah, those flags commemorate those who died in service.'
        6. The little girl asked, 'Oh, the 9 o'clock service or the 11 o'clock service?'"

1. Copyright c 1999 by Communication Resources, Inc., Used with Permission.

2. Copyright c 1999 by Communication Resources, Inc., Used with Permission.

3. Anne Morrow Lindburgh, Dearly Beloved (Harcourt, Brace and World, 1962), page 10.

4. Tennessee Williams, Cat on a Hot Tin Roof (New Directions Book, 1955) pp viii-ix.

5. Ibid, p 74

6. Ibid, p 112

7. Yancey, Disappointment With God (Grand Rapids, Mich.: Zondervan, 1988), 203., Copyright c 1999 by Communication Resources, Inc., Used with Permission.

8. Baker, "Faith, Friendship and Collective Responsibility" (Unpublished manuscript), Copyright c 1999 by Communication Resources, Inc., Used with Permission.

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