August 15, 1982 

Our four year old, Andrew, has of late discovered "bad words". Some of them are even of the so-called "four letter word" variety. The eleven and fourteen year olds at our home were most offended when asked if he got the words from them. What makes the situation more ticklish is that Andrew seems to enjoy trying some of those words out at Sunday School. Recently, after getting a report that Andrew had used off limits language again in Sunday School, his mother marched him home and did as her mother before her had done to her at such a point in childhood: washed out his mouth with soap. Twenty minutes of spitting followed. Yet later that afternoon, when asked what he had said by his brother, Andrew replied: “I can't say it." And then he cupped his hands around his mouth and soundlessly mouthed in lip movements which the worst sighted of us could read: "I said blank-blank." But he didn't mouth "blank-blank"!

From the Ten Commandments to Jesus' teaching in the Sermon on the Mount, we find real seriousness about what humans say and do not say with their language. Certainly, talk can be cheap and often actions speak louder than words. But words are deep expressions of how we feel, what we mean, and what matters to us. Just the right word spoken here or there can cause the highest ecstasy for another person or the deepest agony and hurt.

George Steiner's story The Portage to San Cristobal of A. H. spins a tale about a group of Jewish Nazi criminal hunters who find Adolph Hitler alive hiding in the deep recesses of the Amazon jungle. Steiner writes stirring fiction about the grueling trek out of the jungle of the men with the 90-year-old Hitler. Awaiting them in civilization is Lieber, their leader. The plan is to put Hitler on trial. Through the sputtering radio Lieber communicates to the search party: "You must not let him speak…Gag him if necessary, or stop your ears....If he is allowed speech he will trick you and escape. Or find easy death. His tongue is like no other. It is...hundred-forked and quick as flame." Indeed, it was the mesmerizing oratory of Hitler, his almost magic, magnetic use of words that played an awesome part in motivating a moral people to participate in the Nazi horrors and abominations.

I am not here today to say naughty-naughty because you or I moan an "expletive deleted" type word when we hit our thumb with a hammer. But let us take a serious look at how we use our words. 

1. "You shall not take the name of the Lord your God in vain…” The ancient Hebrews considered even the name of God as holy, something to be said only rarely. For them, God's name was YAHWEH, which is translated in our English Bibles as "Lord". For them, God's name was so special that often they used circumlocutions, that is, phrases which made it clear they were referring to God without actually saying his name. Phrases like, "the King of the universe". In our day, this commandment is taken basically by many to mean that one ought not say the words "God" and "damn" together. But what I want to make clear at this point and with this point is: THERE IS MORE THAN ONE WAY TO TAKE GOD'S NAME IN VAIN.

Some time ago, when we lived in Birmingham, I agreed to be a volunteer back-up chaplain for one of the hospital emergency rooms. When the full time chaplain was off, the volunteer chaplain would be called in when a minister was needed by a family to be with them in waiting for news about their injured or sick loved one. The nursing supervisor who was telling several of us volunteer ministers about the procedures in emergencies said: "I need to warn you about the emergency room language. When things get hairy around here, when seconds are crucial and what must be done must be done fast and right, the language sometimes gets rough. Please don't be offended. It may be hard for you to understand but sometimes around here a "God-damn" said by a medical staff person is more a prayer than profanity. The tension is so high and we want the patient to make it so badly, it comes out in rough language."

I remember the words of an anguished father in a hospital corridor outside the room where his oldest child lay with terminal cancer. With tears in his eyes he said: "God damn cancer." Now, I am not here to defend coarse language today. I am here to question what really constitutes using God's name in vain. 

What I am getting at is that if profanity can sometimes be prayers, then sometimes what seems to be innocent use of God's name can be profanity. And if not profanity at least vanity, that is the trivializing and the perversion of the mystery's name who gives us life and everlasting love. Some cases in point.

Once, I heard a woman say she prays aloud when she comes downtown that God will help her find a parking place. Perhaps not profanity but certainly trivial. OK, what about such quips as "O, my God, it's Monday!" Again probably not profanity but a vanity...a wasted use of God's name.

You have heard me make remarks about my discomfort with persons who say "Praise the Lord" or some other religious phrase after every sentence or two. I am trying to be negative with people whose excitement about their faith bubbles into their speech. Praise the Lord sounds a lot better than some of the coarse words which pepper our talk, Yet repetitive, habitual. "'god-talk" can cheapen and weaken the cause of our God. 

God's name is not meant to be used as a verbal good luck charm. In a marriage, if the partners never say "I love you", there can be problems. Yet if you say I love you to your spouse 50 times a day, somehow the meaning of it lessens instead of increases.

For the ancient Hebrews using God's name in vain meant using God's name in connection with ungodly matters. It disturbs me to hear and read what some of the so-called religious right hooks God's name up with. Some of their statements run sort of like this: "America is God's special people. Because we are God's last hope in the world, we have the right to develop our mammoth armaments and even use them." All people and all nations are special to God! There are security and defense realities in the world. And I don't think I am naive about them. But the only way we should use God's name in relation to the instruments of death is in prayers of confession for our failures to live in his peace. 

One final example of my point is that there is more than one way to take God's name in vain. Please hear me. I believe in prayer. I pray every day. This has to do with the issue of school prayer. I have witnessed in others and experienced in myself the power of prayer to change persons, the power of prayer to help strengthen people to face what cannot be changed. Because I take with utter seriousness the value and holiness of prayer, I am opposed to prayers in school. Why? Because to have a prayer that is acceptable to everyone with all our different understandings of God in this country - and I don't even think an acceptable one can be found – will produce such a "blandized", watered down, generalized, blah prayer that God's cause is trivialized. I do not want our children to have prayer reduced to the muttered generalizations which pass for prayers before athletic events and supermarket openings. Reading, writing, and arithmetic are for our schools. Prayer should be taught and practiced at home and in church. 

There is more than one way to take God's name in vain. Often it is in the trivial use of God's name in ways I have mentioned, the random "Oh My God's" of the days in response to broken fingernails and missed traffic lights. Sometimes it happens with profanity. Sometimes it happens when we use God's name with ungodly causes. 

2. Jesus said, "Let what you say be simply 'Yes' or 'No’…” The second point of today is: WE NEED TO GIVE TO EACH OTHER THE GIFT OF YESES THAT MEAN YES AND NO'S THAT MEAN NO. It almost sounds trite but what a difference life would be if we could say what we mean and mean what we say to each other.

I have had, with more than one person, a version of this conversation. The person is new to the South from some other part of the country. They make the observation that they like the friendliness of the South where people speak to you on the street, are cordial, and smiling. Yet what half tongue in cheek these people complain about is that often times, they say, you are never quite sure where you stand. “In the North, if you don’t like someone, you tell them and that's it. In the south someone may dislike you fiercely but still call you "Dahling" or "Sugar."

Not long ago, in an administrative board meeting, I mentioned the old act from the circus or the Ed Sullivan Show of the plate twirler. You remember how he would get plates twirling on the end of sticks, first a few, then many, and finally to the point of running from stick to stick frantically getting the plates to going again just when they were about to fall off. 

My point in the board meeting and now is that the plate twirler is a parable of many of our lives. Like the twirler, we accept so many responsibilities that we wind up with our tongues hanging out doing a lot of things halfway and resenting it all. We get into these predicaments because we say yes to so many requests we wind up wishing we had said no. Each year in our church when we look for new church school teachers, many have to say no when they should said yes because they said yes to perhaps less important obligations when they should have said no. 

Being a disciple of Jesus means (among many things) the constant evaluation of the priorities of our lives. You and I have to be very careful with what we give the limited time and energies of our lives to. With our jobs, homes, church, community programs, clubs, hobbies, and all the people in our lives, we have to decide who and what matters the most. We have to learn to say YES to certain responsibilities which matter the most. And that means sometimes have to say NO. A person who cannot say NO really never can say a true YES. Furthermore, if you or I are ever so obligated that we cannot say YES to some form of service to our church, then you and I and the church and really the community are in trouble. 

3. Jesus said, "Let your YES be Yes and your NO be No." The final point I would like to make today: Really loving someone means loving them enough to say NO to them when they need it. I'm calling this "loving no's.” Have you ever known a real stinker? You know, the kind of touchy, rude person who is hard to get along with, who demands special treatment which he or she would never consider giving back. Sometimes this person comes in the form of the person who justifies their crabbiness or insensitive remarks to others with such spoken or unspoken excuses like: "I'm in a bad mood.” Or "You know I have had a hard life. "I had a problem childhood," Etc. 

Have you noticed that these people seem to get by with it? We find others and maddeningly even ourselves walking on eggs around them.

It occurred to me a while ago that many people need someone to love them enough to back them against the wall and say, "Look, you just can't act that way, you just can't go through life acting like a turkey and get by with it forever." Oh, yes, I know the flip flop of this. We don't feel comfortable being this frank with people. If you are like me, you fear that the person will question your right when you and I are so clearly imperfect. The risk of telling someone the painful truth about themselves is that they may tell you some painful truth about you.

But this really circles back to the point. As much as I need people to tell me the good stuff about me, paradoxically I need someone to love me enough to tell me the unpleasant stuff too. I guess my wife functions this way for me. She has the guts to tell me that plaid suits and striped shirts don't go together. She has the gall to tell me that I monopolized the conversation with dinner guests. She has the gall to tell me I preached too long and that I kept saying the same thing over and over. She has the nerve to tell me when I blew it with the kids or am getting my priorities messed up. And that's the way I initially take it: guts, nerve, gall, audacity. It is only later that I realize the guts, nerve, and the rest were fronting for love. 

Please don't hear this as a recommendation to tell someone off today. It is however a reminder to you and myself that sometimes we have to love someone enough to say NO to them, that we must realize that it takes great love sometimes for someone to say NO to us, "You can't go on like that.”

And don't hear my sermon today as an excuse to quit all your jobs. But it is to call you to be selective with who and what you say yes and no to. Finally, don't leave here saying the preacher said it's okay to cuss. What he tried to say is that we do as much damage to God's way in the world with our trivial misuse of his name as with our profanity. 

O God, open our lips... 

PASTORAL PRAYER 

Morning has broken like the first morn, Blackbird has spoken like the first bird. O, God, break into our dullness. This is a new day and although millions of days have come before, we have no guarantee of one more. For another new day, we thank you. With each breath we take we begin our lives again and again. This is a new day and a new chance to show the special people of our lives how much we love them. This is a new day and even with our problems we are grateful to have made it to another day. This new day finds many of us struggling with hurts and disappointments, predicaments, thorny decisions, and shaky relationships. On this new day, God, we pray for strength to change what can be changed and for strength to cope with what cannot be changed. O, God, this is a new day, a new chance for the people of the world to try peace instead of war, sharing instead of hoarding, loving instead of hating. God, make us an instrument of your new creating love today and every day. Amen.