Words, Words, Words!
Sermon
I remember a children's annual I had as a child, which had a picture of Goofy and Mickey Mouse on the inside front page. One was saying to the other, "Sticks and stones may hurt my bones, but words can never harm me."
Even at the time I thought it was a suspect saying, for it had not been my experience that words couldn't harm.
When words are used with care, they can be very powerful. They have the power to move and to support, to comfort and to encourage, but they also have the power to inflict immense pain and long-term harm. And even when words are used carefully, they're still open to misinterpretation and misunderstanding.
I may not hear exactly what another person has said, for I may not hear the thoughts or the feelings behind the words. And because of my own thoughts and experiences, I may interpret the words in quite a different way to that which the speaker intended. So I may come away from a conversation with a very different impression than the other person with whom I've been talking.
This, of course, can cause all sorts of difficulties in relationships, especially if I'm particularly sensitive or expecting some sort of slight or put-down.
And words can spring other traps too. For instance, they can change their meaning over the years. The opening words of Psalm 30, "I will magnify thee O Lord for thou hast set me up," might be seen to have a very different meaning now to the meaning they had when they were originally written!
Slang and colloquialisms can alter the meanings of words and phrases so much. I wonder what "head over heels in love" will mean to people in 2,000 years time? It's rare indeed to find words which are utterly unambiguous and whose meaning cannot be mistaken.
What about John's concept of Jesus as the "Word" of God? Is that unambiguous and unmistakable? Or, after 2,000 years, is it open to misinterpretation?
Back in the days of the Old Testament, wisdom was seen as a very important characteristic. When Solomon was asked by God what gift he wanted, he plumped for wisdom as the highest attribute anyone can receive.
It was clear that in creating the universe God needed a great deal of wisdom, so wisdom was said to be "with" God from the beginning. Gradually, wisdom became thought of more and more as an actual person, and is pictured in some of the wisdom literature of the Old Testament as a young child playing and skipping with God, while God created the universe. There's a wonderful hymn to wisdom in today's Old Testament reading of Proverbs chapter eight verses 22 to 31.
Wisdom was considered to be a female figure, Sophia, and this has continued in many Christian traditions which regard the Holy Spirit as the female aspect of the Trinity. But in the prologue to his gospel which was read this morning, John takes the idea of Wisdom and applies it not to the Holy Spirit, but to Jesus.
Since Jesus clearly wasn't female, John combines the idea of Wisdom with a Greek idea, the Logos, which was thought of in Greek philosophy as the "founding principle" of the universe. Logos is a male noun, and is translated "The Word". Hence Jesus is called "The Word" and the idea arose that Jesus was with God from the beginning, from the creation of the world. In today's New Testament lesson from Colossians we read an early Christian hymn to that effect.
But this is a difficult idea for us in the 21st century to comprehend, especially as we know that Jesus was fully a man, fully a human being, as well as being fully divine. How can Jesus the man have been with God from the beginning? The answer, of course, is that it's not possible, for if Jesus the person was with God creating the world, then he certainly wasn't a human being. And that's a heresy, for the Christian faith teaches that Jesus was most definitely human.
So perhaps we need to look towards the divinity of Jesus, in other words the Christ, the third person of the Godhead, to begin to understand what all this might be about.
Each of the gospel writers has his own agenda, and each fashions his material to fit that agenda. John didn't simply write a chronological account of the life and works and teaching of Jesus. He wrote some 20 or 30 years after the other gospel writers, and he wrote a theological reflection upon the life of Jesus and all that it had meant in the community in the 60 or 70 years since the crucifixion and resurrection.
Within those 60 to 70 years had come an increasing realisation that Jesus was indeed divine. So unlike Luke and Matthew, John doesn't include any account of the birth of Jesus, but he does describe the Christ as the third person of the Godhead. And God wasn't born. God was always there, from the beginning. Everything, all of life, emanates from God, therefore the Christ, the third person of the Godhead, must also have been there from the beginning.
But all of that would have been quite difficult for ordinary people to understand - it still is! So John uses poetry to make his point, and rather than explicitly talking about Jesus, he talks instead about "the Word" and leaves his listeners to understand at whatever depth they can manage. It's only after reading his gospel to the end, that his listeners would really have begun to understand that when he speaks about "the Word," John is referring to Jesus.
As each generation moves further and further away from the actual time of Jesus, so it becomes increasingly difficult to understand exactly what was meant by some parts of the Bible. And it becomes increasingly important that the gospel, the good news of Jesus Christ, is re-interpreted for each new generation in terms that can be both heard and understood.
In this country we are witnessing a huge move away from the religion which previous generations learned at their parent's knees. Children no longer hear Bible stories over and over again. We now have huge numbers of people to whom religion and God and Jesus and spirituality are utterly alien.
Words are very important. If we want future generations to know anything at all about the Word of God, then we need to find words right now to tell them about the gospel in ways which will inspire them and introduce them to God. And that isn't just my job. It's the task of every Christian to learn enough about their faith to be able to chat easily about it in every day terms which other people will understand.
It's a big challenge and a big commitment and a big task, but the rewards are from our father in heaven.
Even at the time I thought it was a suspect saying, for it had not been my experience that words couldn't harm.
When words are used with care, they can be very powerful. They have the power to move and to support, to comfort and to encourage, but they also have the power to inflict immense pain and long-term harm. And even when words are used carefully, they're still open to misinterpretation and misunderstanding.
I may not hear exactly what another person has said, for I may not hear the thoughts or the feelings behind the words. And because of my own thoughts and experiences, I may interpret the words in quite a different way to that which the speaker intended. So I may come away from a conversation with a very different impression than the other person with whom I've been talking.
This, of course, can cause all sorts of difficulties in relationships, especially if I'm particularly sensitive or expecting some sort of slight or put-down.
And words can spring other traps too. For instance, they can change their meaning over the years. The opening words of Psalm 30, "I will magnify thee O Lord for thou hast set me up," might be seen to have a very different meaning now to the meaning they had when they were originally written!
Slang and colloquialisms can alter the meanings of words and phrases so much. I wonder what "head over heels in love" will mean to people in 2,000 years time? It's rare indeed to find words which are utterly unambiguous and whose meaning cannot be mistaken.
What about John's concept of Jesus as the "Word" of God? Is that unambiguous and unmistakable? Or, after 2,000 years, is it open to misinterpretation?
Back in the days of the Old Testament, wisdom was seen as a very important characteristic. When Solomon was asked by God what gift he wanted, he plumped for wisdom as the highest attribute anyone can receive.
It was clear that in creating the universe God needed a great deal of wisdom, so wisdom was said to be "with" God from the beginning. Gradually, wisdom became thought of more and more as an actual person, and is pictured in some of the wisdom literature of the Old Testament as a young child playing and skipping with God, while God created the universe. There's a wonderful hymn to wisdom in today's Old Testament reading of Proverbs chapter eight verses 22 to 31.
Wisdom was considered to be a female figure, Sophia, and this has continued in many Christian traditions which regard the Holy Spirit as the female aspect of the Trinity. But in the prologue to his gospel which was read this morning, John takes the idea of Wisdom and applies it not to the Holy Spirit, but to Jesus.
Since Jesus clearly wasn't female, John combines the idea of Wisdom with a Greek idea, the Logos, which was thought of in Greek philosophy as the "founding principle" of the universe. Logos is a male noun, and is translated "The Word". Hence Jesus is called "The Word" and the idea arose that Jesus was with God from the beginning, from the creation of the world. In today's New Testament lesson from Colossians we read an early Christian hymn to that effect.
But this is a difficult idea for us in the 21st century to comprehend, especially as we know that Jesus was fully a man, fully a human being, as well as being fully divine. How can Jesus the man have been with God from the beginning? The answer, of course, is that it's not possible, for if Jesus the person was with God creating the world, then he certainly wasn't a human being. And that's a heresy, for the Christian faith teaches that Jesus was most definitely human.
So perhaps we need to look towards the divinity of Jesus, in other words the Christ, the third person of the Godhead, to begin to understand what all this might be about.
Each of the gospel writers has his own agenda, and each fashions his material to fit that agenda. John didn't simply write a chronological account of the life and works and teaching of Jesus. He wrote some 20 or 30 years after the other gospel writers, and he wrote a theological reflection upon the life of Jesus and all that it had meant in the community in the 60 or 70 years since the crucifixion and resurrection.
Within those 60 to 70 years had come an increasing realisation that Jesus was indeed divine. So unlike Luke and Matthew, John doesn't include any account of the birth of Jesus, but he does describe the Christ as the third person of the Godhead. And God wasn't born. God was always there, from the beginning. Everything, all of life, emanates from God, therefore the Christ, the third person of the Godhead, must also have been there from the beginning.
But all of that would have been quite difficult for ordinary people to understand - it still is! So John uses poetry to make his point, and rather than explicitly talking about Jesus, he talks instead about "the Word" and leaves his listeners to understand at whatever depth they can manage. It's only after reading his gospel to the end, that his listeners would really have begun to understand that when he speaks about "the Word," John is referring to Jesus.
As each generation moves further and further away from the actual time of Jesus, so it becomes increasingly difficult to understand exactly what was meant by some parts of the Bible. And it becomes increasingly important that the gospel, the good news of Jesus Christ, is re-interpreted for each new generation in terms that can be both heard and understood.
In this country we are witnessing a huge move away from the religion which previous generations learned at their parent's knees. Children no longer hear Bible stories over and over again. We now have huge numbers of people to whom religion and God and Jesus and spirituality are utterly alien.
Words are very important. If we want future generations to know anything at all about the Word of God, then we need to find words right now to tell them about the gospel in ways which will inspire them and introduce them to God. And that isn't just my job. It's the task of every Christian to learn enough about their faith to be able to chat easily about it in every day terms which other people will understand.
It's a big challenge and a big commitment and a big task, but the rewards are from our father in heaven.
