Sticks and Stones
Those of us of a certain age will remember the old children’s rhyme, misguidedly intended to make us able to withstand verbal bullying, not to retaliate, and by repeating the words of the rhyme, remain calm in the storm. I say those of a certain age because I checked with my grandchildren, and none of them had heard this nonsensical advice. Thank God for that because we all know that despite saying it, often through tears, in reality, a blow from a stick or being hit by a stone, whilst painful, does not inflict the pain of words that can last for years. Even reading these few thoughts may remind you of unkind things spoken into your experience.
Early records attribute the words to a “little Irish girl” who used them to break up a quarrel between her peers; for those unfamiliar with the rhyme, it says.
Sticks and stones may break my bones,
But words will never hurt me.
The Deuterocanonical book of Sirach gives a far better understanding when the author penned the following words.
Sirach 28:17
“The blow of a whip raises a welt, but a blow of the tongue crushes the bones.”
James, the brother of Jesus and leader of the early church in Jerusalem, in his epistle, wrote;
“The tongue also is a fire, a world full of evil among the body parts. It corrupts the whole body, sets the whole course of one’s life on fire, and is itself, set on fire by hell.”
Proverbs 15:4 says
“The soothing tongue is a tree of life, but a perverse tongue crushes the spirit.
The King James Bible renders that as “The wholesome tongue.”
The recent change of President in the USA and his plethora of executive orders, many of which restore what we as Christians hold as true, such as gender definitions and legislation controlling abortion, are a turning point, but these matters coupled with issues such as border controls gives rise to an increase in a type of triumphalism that is questionable and emboldens many to speak in a way that is cruel and discriminatory. Amidst the lavish celebrations, a lone voice, the Episcopalian bishop of Washington, Bishop Budde, a female bishop. Under her administration, she replaced the stained-glass windows of her cathedral, which honoured Stonewall Jackson and Gen. Robert E Lee, with pictures showing the African Americans’ struggle for fundamental civil rights. She protested the use of force during the George Floyd protest, used not for public safety but to clear an area for a photo-op with a bible for President Trump. Like many in her denomination, she is liberal and left and woke. In the president’s response to her sermon, he branded her “A radical Left hard-line Trump hater”.
But in her soft voice, she called out for “mercy” for the gay, lesbian and transgender people, for the weak, the marginalised, and the poor. And her voice called for us to remember the words of Exodus 22:21: “Remember, in the past, you were foreigners in the land of Egypt. So you should not cheat or hurt anyone who is a foreigner in your land.”
Although Bishop Budde and I share the same year of birth, and both claim to serve Jesus, I am sure if we sat together, we would disagree on most things.
But her words challenged me, in some ways, stopped me in my tracks, and caused me to wonder if my voice and words carry that sound of mercy. Do I extend mercy to those who “in our spiritual land” are foreign in their views, foreign in their lives, foreign in their behaviour, just as I once was a foreigner and an alien, cut off from God and His covenants and promises, but now brought in by Christ. Do I speak the truth with that edge of condemnation that is harsh and cruel, that keeps the broken and the lost from hearing the merciful words of Jesus that call them to life in Him? Or do my words call them to a loving God who saved me from my pit of darkness and evil?
Dr. Martyn Lloyd Jones, in his commentary on Romans 6: 1-2, “What then shall we continue in sin, that grace may abound?”, wrote: “The true preaching of the gospel of salvation by grace alone always leads to the possibility of this charge being brought against it. There is no better test as to whether a man is really preaching the New Testament gospel of salvation than this, that some people might misunderstand it and misinterpret it to mean that it really amounts to this, that because you are saved by grace alone, it does not matter what you do at all, you can go on sinning as much as you like because it will redound all the more to the glory of grace.” He continues, “This is a good test of gospel preaching. If my presentation of the gospel does not expose it to that misunderstanding, then it is not the gospel.”
In simple terms, we may be branded a liberal, or of being soft on sin, and we may be accused of “cheap grace”, but our goal is to know nothing but “Christ and Him crucified”, not to the fact of that but the total completeness of our salvation in that atoning reality.
So, while we rejoice at any pushback on liberal legislation, let’s make sure that the tone of our conversation is loving and gentle and Christlike.
The words of Paul in Colossians 4:6 can guide us.
“Let your speech always be gracious, seasoned with salt, so that you may know how you should answer each person.”
Pastor Paul Carley