The Power of Words

The other week, my youngest came home from school having learned a little sign language, and we ended up talking about Helen Keller who was the first deaf/blind person ever to achieve a university degree.

Helen was born in Alabama in 1880 and she was struck down by meningitis when she was just 19 months old, and the illness left her unable to see or hear. And as we talked about Helen’s story I was trying to get Isla to understand how difficult it would have been to get through to someone like Helen.

If you’re blind, you can still learn by hearing, and if you’re deaf, you can still learn by reading and through sign language. But if you lack both senses, how on earth can anyone get through to you in a meaningful way?

Fortunately for Helen, a young instructor called Ann Sullivan found a way. She would give Helen objects to hold, while at the same time spelling out their names on her other hand. At first Helen didn’t know what was going on and grew increasingly frustrated, throwing the objects away.

But the breakthrough came one day while Ann was pouring cold water over one hand and spelling the word water on the other. In a flash, Helen understood that the motions Ann was making symbolised the idea of water. And from that point on there was no stopping her. From that one spark of insight the whole world of words and communication opened up to her.

Helen’s story reminds us just how powerful words are in our lives, and how much we would struggle without them.

We spend our infancy learning how to name things. If she’s told often enough, the toddler learns that the round thing she likes to hold is called a ball.

Then she discovers it’s a yellow ball. Her naming takes on more precision. And then she realises it’s good for playing with. When she says ‘ball’ and looks at her dad, sometimes he sits on the floor with her and rolls it back and forwards to her. They smile and laugh together. She’s happy.

The naming, the basic information, is where we all start; but even in infancy, we learn that the power of words is in their meaning.

“Ball” means play and fun; or sometimes possession. “My ball!”

Mama means cuddles, love, food, consolation, help, plasters on skinned knees,

We learn that the higher forms of language aren’t so much about giving out information, but forming relationship and meaning.

We learn that our language has the power to move and shape the world, even as we’re being shaped by the words that wash over us.

The words we listen to, and internalise, can have a huge influence in our formation

For good or for ill, I’d guarantee that every one of us here carries other people’s words around with us in our heads.

I mostly enjoyed my education, but my last couple of years at school were made difficult by a wee group of lads who’d singled me out for their own particular brand of nastiness. It never got violent, but the words stung, at the time.

But alongside that, I placed the words of the English teacher I had for my first three years. She was a wonderfully eccentric but perceptive lady who was good fun but didn’t suffer fools gladly. And in her last few days with us she went around everyone in the class and told us - pointedly but not unkindly -  exactly what she thought of us.

 

And when she came to me she said “Paul – you are the essence of a man”. And when the smart alecs started sniggering she rounded on them and said “if you weren’t so stupid you’d realise I’ve just paid him a real compliment!”.

 

And to this day, I still think that’s the greatest compliment I’ve ever been paid.

You have your equivalents of that. You have words that echo around in the caverns of your mind. Things that people should never have said to you. Accusations; lies; words that are meant to crush and destroy. 

And words that bring life and hope – words that affirm who you are and what you’ve done and send you on your way with thankfulness in your heart.

Words are powerful because they help to form us.

And they’re also powerful because words are one of the main ways in which we express ourselves.

It’s a standing joke in our house that our eldest daughter’s first sentence was three words –‘need more cake’!

From our earliest years, it’s words that we use to try and express what we’re thinking and feeling. What it is that we really want.

And when we get good at it, or some of us get good at it, we find that we’re able to point beyond the immediate and use our words to clothe our ideas in - to try and express the inexpressible, and put a name to a feeling or a desire that we couldn’t otherwise describe.

That’s why the poets and authors and songwriters are important people to have around, because they take the things we’re feeling and articulate them for the sake of the rest of us who can’t seem to find the words.

And maybe that’s why some words touch us very deeply, at times. Why the lyrics of a particular song stick in our heads. Or the words of a poem. Or the words that person said that were exactly what we needed to hear in that particular moment.

Like a compass needle turning north, we turn to the truth that their words have captured, and we know that it’s a true north. A true word, spoken into our lives. Not just by the person bringing the words, but by the God to whom all truth belongs.

The primary function of language is about forming relationship and meaning.

And more than anything, God wants to draw us into relationship with himself; and I believe that if we listen well to our lives, to the voices around us and within us, we’ll also hear the still small voice of God, bringing us the words that we most need to hear.

And it’s words that are the link between the three Bible readings we heard earlier on in the service.

You might not know the story of Nehemiah because it’s one of the less familiar ones in the Old Testament, but it’s the story of one of the greatest comebacks in history.

The Old Testament is really the story of God’s dealings with the nation of Israel, whom he chose to be an example to all the peoples of the world.

We know the stories of how he saved them from slavery in Egypt and led them through the Red Sea and into the land he promised to give them. And for a while all was well. But over time they began to grow complacent, and in judgement God sent the Babylonians to overrun Jerusalem and carry the people off into captivity.

And there they remained, as slaves, for over 50 years, wondering if God had washed his hands of them altogether.

But he hadn’t. Another power arose in the Middle East – the empire of Persia, and when the Persian armies overran Babylon, their king, Cyrus, allowed a remnant of the Jews to go back home and begin to rebuild Jerusalem.

The work took decades, but eventually, after lots of opposition, the temple and the walls of Jerusalem were restored, and the city was re-established.

 

But now, how were people to live? They’d fallen away from God before. Could it all happen again?

Well that’s why Ezra had the law read to them. The law that many of them had never heard, and others had simply forgotten. The law that had first been given to Moses set out what God expected of his people, and it came with the promise that those who lived within it would be blessed.

To us it seems bizarre that these folk should respond in the way that they did – with tears and celebrations – but the simple truth is this – they wanted to know how to live. They knew they’d let God down in the past and they didn’t want to make the same mistakes all over again.

And here – in Ezra’s hands - were the words they needed. The words that would help to form them, and to set them free.

Now come forwards with me five hundred years. Jesus is standing in the Synagogue in Nazareth, and all eyes are fastened on him

He’s just read a passage from the Scriptures, from the book of the Prophet Isaiah. It was written 7 centuries before his time, but he’d allowed it to seep into his being, and it became his manifesto for life.

“The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he has chosen me to bring good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim liberty to the captives, and recovery of sight to the blind; to set free the oppressed and announce that the time has come when the Lord will save his people”.

I want you to realise this morning that Jesus wasn’t born with those words on his lips. He had to grow into them. He had to receive them for himself and come into an understanding of what God wanted for his life. It took time, and prayer, and dedication.

But those words took root in his life, and from them, everything else in his ministry blossomed.

Now come forward with me another 2000 or so years to last week’s induction of Gillian MacLean, the new minister at Udny and Pitmedden. My good friend Matt was preaching her in. And I smiled when I heard the text he’d chosen. It’s a passage from Isaiah that we’ve talked about often: Isaiah 30:15

¹⁵This is what the Sovereign Lord, the Holy One of Israel, says:

“In repentance and rest is your salvation,
in quietness and trust is your strength,
but you would have none of it.

¹⁶ You said, ‘No, we will flee on horses.’

Therefore you will flee!
You said, ‘We will ride off on swift horses.’
Therefore your pursuers will be swift!

Hearing Matt preach had a particular poignancy for me that evening because he’ll be moving back to the States in the summer and all the McKeowns are really going to miss all the Canlis’s. But it was a blessing to hear him reflect on those words of Isaiah and how they’d prepared him to go back to the hundred mile an hour, lets get it done yesterday culture of the States,

Over his time in Methlick, he’s been shaped by those words from Isaiah. He’s had to unlearn the lie that salvation comes by frantic activity; by finding swifter horses. He’s had to learn that salvation is found in repentance and rest, in quietness and trust. Those words have shaped him deeply, and they’ve set the course of his future ministry. Now that he’s grasped what they mean for him, he’s ready to go back home and minister in a different, counter-cultural way.

My argument this morning is simple - words are powerful. They form us. They shape us.

So what words are you living by today?

There are so many words echoing in the caverns of your soul and mine. Some are louder than others. Some are life giving, some soul destroying. But they all have real power. And if we let them, they can set the trajectory for our whole lives

My counsel this morning, is that we need exposure to another word – the word of God, spoken to us in Scripture. A living word that meets us where we are and gives us a wholly different perspective on how things are. A word that reveals a truth we wouldn’t otherwise have seen.

We need to hear those words for ourselves, and we need to hear them often.

Much as we try week in and week out, Peter and I can only offer you what little insight we bring to this business of trying to live a God-centred life.  However helpful it may, or may not be, listening to a sermon can never be a substitute for encountering God in the detail of your own everyday life.

Reading, praying, reflecting. Listening hard to discern what God’s saying to us at this particular time, in these particular circumstances. Sifting experience for valuable truth like prospectors panning for gold. That’s how we grow, as disciples. By holding on to the insight God brings as we listen for his word in our lives. We can encourage one another on the way, but no-one can do that work for us.

You’ll know the old music-hall gag about the Blackpool landlady who asked a prospective lodger “have you a good memory for faces?” ”Aye – why are you asking?. “There’s no mirror in your bathroom”.

 

James says that looking into the word, listening for God’s word, is a bit like looking into a mirror.

And the thing is, you wouldn’t look in the mirror on a Sunday morning and think that’s the job done ‘til next Sunday. So why would you assume that about your soul?

We began this morning by remembering that words are powerful. They have the power to shape our lives.

And we remembered the amazing story of how, with Ann Sullivan’s help, Helen Keller came to understand the significance of words by having cold water poured out on her hand.

Life keeps pouring out on us, all of the time. A constant flow of experience that at times we find hard to process. May God bring us the insight we need to come to understanding, and bless us with life-giving healing words to live by.

An Emptying and a Filling

Last week in the children’s address I was quoting the Hobbit, and this week I’m starting the sermon with a Lord of the Rings reference, so I feel I ought to begin by apologising for the limited range of my literary sources!

 
But the bit that came to mind this week is right at the end of the story, when the four hobbits, having travelled halfway round the world, faced countless dangers, played their part in defeating the greatest evil of their age, and earned the appreciation and respect of the great and good of the land, finally return home to Hobbiton.

Needless to say they’ve changed, and the locals struggle to come to terms with the fact that these are the same Merry, Pippin, Frodo and Sam that set off on their travels a few years back.

“It’s all well and good” says Sam’s old gaffer, “but what’s become of his waiskit – that’s what I want to know!”

Tolkien’s poking fun at parochialism – the tendency to miss the big picture because of the narrow horizons we’ve grown up with.

And in church life, and in faith, we’re not exempt from that tendency. We tend to think of church in terms of our particular expression of church, forgetting that Christianity’s a multifaceted and many-splendoured thing, encompassing a vast range of beliefs and expressions of belief.

Picture a Wee Free congregation turning up at a charismatic Afro-Carribean Church one Sunday, or a Korean Pentecostal congregation settling down to worship in  silence at a Quaker Meeting.

Same God; but we approach things very differently depending on our culture and our tradition.

And I begin with that observation because today’s readings, which are about the Spirit and his role in our lives, give rise to different theologies and expressions of faith within the churches.

And it’s good – right at the beginning – to remember that our way of seeing things is only one part of a much wider story and if we want to avoid being parochial, we need to be prepared to listen to other viewpoints with an open mind and without feeling threatened by them.

The gospel reading this morning sets the scene nicely for the later reading from the book of Acts.

John is baptising in the Jordan, and lots of people are going out to him, but he freely admits that someone is coming after him who is far far greater than he is.  “I baptise you with water” says John. “But he will baptise you with the Holy Spirit and with fire”.

John’s baptism was a baptism of repentance. People would come out to him, confess their sins, and seek a new beginning. Jesus’ submitting to John’s baptism was evidence that he felt in solidarity with the kind of folk who wanted to do that. But even John admitted that his form of baptism wasn’t enough. He realised that we needed more.

Fast forward to Pentecost – the day we think of as the birth of the church. Jesus has taken leave of the disciples after the resurrection, but he’s promised to send the Spirit in his place.

The disciples are gathered in the upper room, praying and waiting, when a sound like the wind fills the air and tongues of fire alight on their heads. Spirit and fire, just as John the Baptist had predicted. A remarkable, immersive experience.

And in those early weeks and months of the newborn church’s life, this same pattern repeated itself. As the apostles went round preaching the word, and praying for folk with the laying on of hands, the Spirit descended on Jew and Gentile alike, sometimes with remarkable manifestations, and sometimes not.

And that’s what’s happening in Acts 8.

“The apostles in Jerusalem heard that the people of Samaria had received the word of God, so they sent Peter and John to them”. 

“When they arrived, they prayed for the believers, that they might receive the Holy Spirit. For the Holy Spirit had not yet come down on any of them. they had only been baptised in the name of the Lord Jesus. Then Peter and John placed their hands on them and they received the Holy Spirit.”

So let’s pause for a moment to summarize all of that, because there’s a lot there to take in.

In the waters of the Jordan, John offered a baptism of repentance – and though it was a dramatic and powerful statement of commitment, even he recognised that it wasn’t enough.

Turning away from sin is half the story; being empowered to live a God-centred life is the other half. For that, we need God’s presence not just around us, but within us. We need to receive God’s Spirit for ourselves.

So a normal Christian birth, if you can put it that way, involves two movements: repentance – a turning away from sin – and then a receiving of God’s Holy Sprit. An emptying, and a filling.

But here’s the thing – although all churches agree that you need both to be fully alive as a Christian, they disagree on what order those two things happen in, and how they happen.

Some churches hold that a child receives the Holy Spirit in infancy when he or she is baptised, and that repentance comes later in adulthood.

Some hold that you can’t receive the Spirit until you’ve repented. That God doesn’t send his Spirit into a person’s life until they’ve humbled themselves before him and acknowledged their need of him.

Still others argue, on the basis of texts like Acts 8, that there’s such a thing as a second-blessing. A particular endowment of the Holy Spirit that takes the believer into a new and deeper experience of God, often accompanied by the spiritual gifts of speaking in tongues, prophesy and healing.

As I said earlier – Christianity is a multifaceted phenomenon and there’s no neat way to tie up all these different theologies. But rather than focus on our differences, I want to hone in on what we have in common for a moment.

Because every expression of Christian faith, however it’s manifested, holds to one important truth that we can’t afford to miss. They all hold that where faith is exercised, the Spirit of God is more than ready to take up residence in the human heart.

The hope of the Christian is not that God, at some infinite distance, will hear our prayers. But that God will enter our lives and become our lifelong companion through his Spirit.

That’s the promise.

But hang on, someone might say. Isn’t God’s Spirit already in everyone?

And the answer to that, according to the Bible, is both a yes and a no.

In one sense everyone does indeed have the Spirit of God. The word Spirit in the Old Testament and the New means ‘breath’ or ‘wind’, and you’ll remember that in the Genesis story God forms Adam from the dust of the earth and then breathes life into him. And we’re told that at that point “the man became a living being”.

So in that sense, every living being has the breath of God, the Spirit of God as their animating force. The thing that gives them life.

But, even in the early chapters of Genesis, we begin to see that there’s more to the story than that.

In Genesis 41, Joseph, without the help of his technicoloured dreamcoat, has just saved the day for Pharaoh by interpreting his dreams and implementing a massive stockpiling of grain to see them through a famine. And Pharaoh praises him to the rest of his court, saying “Can we find anyone like this man? One in whom is the Spirit of God?” 

Pharaoh’s not talking about breath here. He’s talking about God’s character, God’s presence being manifest within a person’s life.

And when I was thinking about that I had a good idea for a wee illustration – need a prop.

Blow up balloon – putting some of my life force into it. I am animating it, so to speak. But I’m not putting myself in there. My character. My essence. There isn’t a wee bit of my soul in there.

The teaching of the Bible seems to be that we all have the breath of God that animates us and makes us living human beings. In that sense we are all God’s children, and we all share his breath. And when the breath goes, so do we! (let go).

But the Bible is just as clear that some within the human family go further and open their hearts and minds to God in trusting faith. And where he finds that faith, he sends his Spirit to live with them and to be in them.

As he prepared to leave his disciples and return to his Father, Jesus comforted them with the promise that he would not leave them on their own. That God would continue to be with them, but in a different way.

“I will ask the Father, and he will give you another Counsellor to be with you for ever— the Spirit of truth. The world cannot accept him, because it neither sees him nor knows him. But you know him, for he lives with you and will be in you.”

Paul, the apostle, often spoke of the presence of Christ and the presence of the Spirit interchangeably. And in his letter to the Colossians he said that the essence of the gospel, this great mystery of which he’d become a servant, was “Christ in you – the hope of glory”.

Faith means a double movement – an emptying of sin and self, and a filling with God’s Spirit to enable you to live God’s way.

I wonder how that sounds to you today. Maybe it sounds strange. It shouldn’t sound new because I’ve said it often enough before; but I’m aware that I come from a church culture where we spoke more often about becoming a Christian, or making a decision to follow Christ and maybe that’s not your background.

But I want to be very clear that this business of opening your life up to God; this promise of his coming to live with you and be in you, isn’t a funny notion that Paul has because he was brought up in Northern Ireland and they’re all a bit enthusiastic over there!

This is what the Scriptures teach. Christ in you, the hope of glory.

If I had a pound for every time we’re urged in Scripture to open our lives to God and receive him, I might not be wealthy, but I could have a good lunch out at the Marcliffe.

The apostle John writes of Jesus. ¹¹He came to that which was his own, but his own did not receive him. ¹²Yet to all who received him, to those who believed in his name, he gave them the right to become children of God”.

“Behold, I stand at the door and knock.” says Jesus in Revelation. “If anyone hears my voice and opens the door, I will come in and eat with him, and he with me.”

And just a few weeks ago, we were singing:

“O Holy Child of Bethlehem, descend to us we pray

Cast out our sin, and enter in
be born in us today”.

Did you hear it there - that same theme we picked up earlier? There’s an emptying, and a filling that goes on in a growing Christian, and we need to experience both if we’re going to become mature disciples of Jesus Christ.

Now that, I’m guessing, will have left you with a whole host of questions.

Some of you might be thinking “I’m not sure what you mean here, Paul. How can I know if God’s Spirit’s in me?”

Well, for me, that’s a wee bit like asking how can I know if I’m married! It should be fairly obvious! You’re either sharing your life with someone or you aren’t.

But for what it’s worth, all I can do is tell you what it’s been like for me.

I’m one of those folk who can tell you a time and place when I made a commitment to God, though there are many committed Christians who can’t

I was 18, about to go away to uni and thinking hard about what kind of person I was going to be. For me that was a watershed. I was going to have to jettison the whole Christian thing, or I was going to have to begin live it out. I knew that God was calling me to choose, and I chose the latter. I prayed a prayer asking God to come into my life, and in my deepest self I felt that prayer answered,      How?

It’s hard to put into words, but it’s like there was a presence in that room that entered my life. And that same kind, wise, presence is still with me today, whether I attend to him or ignore him. When I close my eyes and focus, God is there, around and within. An unseen presence.

In a way, the analogy of marriage is a really good one. When you’re married, you’re with someone almost all of the time. There are exciting times and dull times; times when you give each other your full attention and other times when you don’t seem to speak for days. But the presence of the other has become a fundamental reality of your life. He, or she, is just there!

And if you choose your marriage partner well, all kinds of blessings follow when you ask that person to be with you. You’ll be loved, challenged, counselled, held, defended, encouraged by someone who knows you through and through and has your best interests at heart.

And that is what God’s Spirit wants to do for your soul and for mine.

Now at this point I have an eye out for the worriers. Because the worriers will be sitting there thinking “Am I a Christian then? I don’t recognise this experience you’re talking about’.”

Well in all honesty, folks, I don’t care too much whether God gains entry to your life through baptism or laying of hands, or praying the prayer; whether he walks through door, climbs in the window or slides down the chimney like Santa Claus.

How he gets in to your life doesn’t’ really matter. What matters is that today, sitting here in your skin, right at this moment, you know that he is for you and with you and in you.

And if you don’t know that, don’t panic. All you have to do is ask.

“You do not have” says Jesus “because you do not ask”.

“Behold, I stand at the door and knock. If anyone hears my voice and opens the door, I will come in.”

If you haven’t ever done so, or you’re in any doubt about it, make today the day you open the door. Don’t settle for a distant God. To settle for that is like being the child at Christmastime who settles for playing with the cardboard box instead of enjoying the fantastic present that’s inside.

 
God has promised to be with us, through his Holy Spirit. Who among us doesn’t need that kind of a friend?

What are you waiting for?