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.