Speaker: Pastor Stephen “Tig” Intagliata
Bible Passages: James 1:19-20; 3:1-12
Summary: In an age of toxic talk, we are called to tame our tongue through practicing self-examination before speaking and through learning to listen before we speak. Being “Q.U.i.C.K to listen” means: asking Questions, being Understanding, small i (consider others before yourself), practicing Compassion, and showing Kindness.
How true it is that from the same mouth can come blessings and curses, words that heal and words that breathe fire that can spread like wildfire.
We’ve seen some ugly examples of fire-breathing dragons in political rhetoric during this election season recently. First there was the lie that Haitian immigrants are eating cats and dogs in Springfield, OH,
which led to bomb threats and fears in the immigrant community in that town, and in other places as well.
Then this past week there was Hurricane Helene which devasted several states with catastrophic flooding. Within hours people were complaining that the government wasn’t doing anything to rescue those trapped in the flooding, which was a lie because they went right to work. The governors of the states confirmed it, but nonetheless the lies and rumors kept spreading.
James 3 is the longest passage in the Bible about the importance of what we say with our words.
He gives the metaphors of a horse bit and rudder of a ship, to illustrate how such a small thing like our tongue can control our whole body and have such a big impact on other people and situations.
The power of words to hurt and cause damage is something that hits close to home with all of us, right?
How many of us have been crippled by criticism, by someone at work, or by a teacher, or by a parent?
How many have been mentioned in a rumor that demoralized you or ruined your reputation?
How many have been silenced or intimidated by the words of someone who was trying to control you or diminish you?
James has some strong words about the rich taking advantage of the poor, and negative speech can do more harm to the poor since they are vulnerable and less able to protect themselves.
James says that the tongue can bless, and the tongue can curse. It can also escalate into anger. We’ve all experienced that, right, how harsh words can raise the temperature and our temper?
So how do we tame our tongues? I want to suggest two ways we can control it. First, look inside ourselves. Second, focus on listening over speaking.
Taming the tongue is a sign of Christian maturity and wisdom, where our words grow out of/ fruit of attitudes in our heart.
Jesus gets at the root of uplifting and destructive language. Jesus always got to the heart of the matter, right? In the gospel of Matthew, ch. 12, Jesus says,
For out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaks. 35 The good person brings good things out of a good treasure, and the evil person brings evil things out of an evil treasure. 36 I tell you, on the day of judgment you will have to give an account for every careless word you utter, 37 for by your words you will be justified, and by your words you will be condemned.”
What we say reveals the character of our inner identity. Toxic talk grows out of toxic attitudes inside us. Hate speech grows out of hatred in the heart. Criticism grows out of a critical heart. Condescension grows out of a condescending heart.
Jesus is calling us to look inside to see what’s there, do some self-reflection to discover what’s motivating us to say the words that we say. That can go a long way in controlling the way we use our words.
Maybe there’s jealousy behind our words, or insecurity, inferiority, or some deep-seated pain from the past?
In Psalm 51:10, David offers us a great model of self-reflection:
“Create in me, a clean heart, o God, and renew a right spirit within me.”
Self-examination can be hard, but it’s necessary to be a whole, emotionally mature person.
Second, focus on listening rather than speaking. We have two ears and only one mouth for a reason. The best cure for taming our tongues is to become good listeners, where we use our ears more than our mouths.
Adam McHugh’s book, The Listening Life – is like a bible for learning how to listen—to God, creation, scripture, others, people in pain, to ourselves. I highly recommend it!
McHugh starts off by saying “Most of us are not good listeners”. That kind of hit home to me, as I have always considered myself a good listener, but over the years I’ve seen how I still have a long way to go.
The word “listen” appears over 1500 times in the Bible, and most frequent voiced complaint in the Bible is that people don’t listen. McHugh says that listening is never passive; it is active and wholehearted, and he gives a great example of it from the world of music.
He says it’s like listening to vinyl records vs. digital music. With records you have to be more active because you have to physically turn over the record to hear the other side or remove it to play a different one.
We had a jukebox in the game room of our house growing up, that could hold about 50 45’s. You choose the song, then after 3 minutes you have to choose another one.
That’s active listening compared to our digital playlists today that can be several hours long, which can be pretty passive and can easily turn into passive, background music.
So how can we listen to others in an active, engaging way? What does it mean to be a good listener, and be quick to listen and slow to speak, as James says?
I want to give us 5 keys in an acronym that spells the word “Quick”.
The Q stands for Questions. Good listeners ask questions more than offer answers. Open-ended questions are especially helpful in conversations, to get beyond “yes” “no” answers to uncover people’s deeper questions and fears.
Too often we Christians have done the opposite—we are quick to give pat answers to people without taking the time to hear their questions, and get in touch with their fears..
As a result, the Bible has often been used as a weapon to silence and condemn people instead of offer them good news.
Some friends of our in another state recently visited a church where a family member attends, and they said “It felt like a church that had an answer for everything, but didn’t leave any room for questions.”
Sure, people who are seeking after God are looking for answers, but first they want to share their questions and engage us conversation about them.
U= Understanding
One of my favorite prayers is the Prayer of St. Francis of Assisi, and I love the line where it says “O Master grant that I may never seek so much to be understood as to understand.
Good listening means really trying to understand the other person and their situation. Too often we pass judgment on people before we know what they’re going through or what they’ve gone through in the past.
Have you ever noticed or experienced personally what happens when we feel like we’re being judged instead of understood? We close down emotionally, and don’t want to be open and vulnerable with the other person because we don’t see them as safe.
Seeking to understand also means listening beyond the words to get in touch with people’s feelings and emotions underneath the words. One way we do this is through paying attention to nonverbal clues.
Studies show that only 7% of a person’s meaning is done through the actual words they say; while 55% is body language and 38% is based on voice– tone, volume, speed and intensity. So noticing these cues beyond the words is a big part of understanding what someone is trying to communicate.
The i in QUiCK is a small “i”, because good listening is focused on the other person, not yourself. As John the Baptist said about Jesus, “he must increase while I must decrease”. To us, this is a challenge, because we humans have this self-centered gene in our nature.
McHugh says that “the opposite of a listening heart is not a talking heart but a selfish heart.”
In some ways we’re like the “N” on the dial of a compass. What does a compass do? The arrow always points toward north, right? So in our relationships and our conversations, we need to keep seeing the other person as the “N”, and not us.
Small i listening also means being willing to give up power and control over other people. It means resisting our tendency to want to quickly fix or rescue other people so they conform to what we want them to do.
Instead of forcing people into our world, good listening means entering into theirs.
McHugh calls this “servant listening”. He says that “Servant listening is an act of surrender, in which we lay down our verbal weapons, or preconceived notions, our quick advice and our desire to steer the conversation toward ourselves.”
A servant listener does not dominate the conversation. We see this in Jesus’ relationships with people, many who were on the margins of society.
A commitment to listening is one of the best safeguards for those who have power and privilege, and it opens ourselves up to being changed. I think of our relationships with children–our children and grandchildren, nephews and nieces.
Many of us grew up in an environment where the motto is “children must be seen and not heard”. Maybe our parents didn’t value what we had to say because their word was the only word that mattered, because they are the parents, in authority.
I believe that good parenting and grandparenting, uncling and aunting takes the time to listen to the children in our lives—their ideas, their needs, their wants, their hopes and their fears. When we do that, we’re being servant listeners who share power.
C= Compassion
The word compassion comes from two latin words “suffer” and “with”. So listening with compassion means that we are willing to suffer with the other person, enter into their world and experience their pain and any other emotions that are going on inside of them.
Compassionate listening is giving people room to grieve and doubt and to be angry. If someone is in the pits, compassion is not standing above them and throwing a rope down to them, but it means going to into the pit with them.
It’s about empathy and staying in the feeling with people, even if the feelings they are expressing are uncomfortable.
McHugh says that learning how to listen well is learning how to love well. It’s about compassion.
Finally, the K in Quick is Kindness. Folks, kindness seems to be a rare commodity in our society right now, in our public as well as private discourse.
Kindness is about showing grace to people, it’s about humanizing people instead of demonizing them, it’s about building people up instead of tearing them down, it’s about looking for the best in others instead of blaming them,
We don’t know all of what other people are going through, so let’s be kind to each other.
In the apostle Paul’s letter to the Colossians he says, let your speech always be gracious, seasoned with salt. Or as Eugene Peterson says in The Message translation:
Be gracious in your speech. The goal is to bring out the best in others in a conversation, not put them down, not cut them out. (The Message)
So to recap: Good listening has to do with:
Questions: don’t offer easy answers, ask open-ended Q;s.
Understanding: seek first to understand, then to be understood.
i: (small i) keep arrow pointed at them, not you; servant listening.
Compassion: suffer with people, “stay in the feeling”
Kindness: non-judgmental, gracious, bring out the best in others
McHugh says “How would our relationships change, and how would we change, if we approached every situation with the intention of listening first?”
Adam McHugh gives his personal mission statement in his book, and I want to close with it because it’s a statement that all of us would do well to adopt:
Above all else, I want the people in my life to know that when they come to me, with whatever is on their mind or heart, they will be heard. I am dedicated to hearing the hearts of those around me.
May we listen in such a way that we hear the hearts of those around us as well. AMEN.
