United Methodist Church Hyde Park, NY

IF YOU THINK THAT WORDS DON’T MATTER . . .
Nehemiah 8:1-3, 5-6, 8-10
Psalm 19
 
 
 
Whenever I remark that the language of a song is sexist, usually because of the use of the word man as a generic term, someone invariably says that it doesn’t really matter. Oh, but I disagree. Though some maintain that man means both male and female, it has been clear to me for some time that I as a woman cannot properly designate myself as a “man.” It doesn’t take a diagram on a door to tell me that a restroom labeled “Men” is not meant for me. Because I am aware that words describe reality, define it, and even shape it, literally making worlds, I prefer to use inclusive language. Words matter. Language is important. Words exclude or include, obfuscate or clarify, discourage or encourage, incite or inspire.
 
If words don’t matter, then why do we remember and cherish and quote the Declaration of Independence, the Constitution, the Gettysburg Address, John F. Kennedy’s Inaugural Address, the March on Washington Address of Martin Luther King, Jr.? These words and others like them have created nations, changed the course of history, altered societal norms, and inspired countless people.
 
If words don’t matter, then why does the entire plot of Dan Brown’s latest bestseller center around a word? In The Lost Symbol Dr. Robert Langdon is plunged into a clandestine world of Masonic secrets and hidden history, all of which lead to a single truth: a password. This word – the verbum significatum or lost symbol of the title – is said to hold the power to lift the darkness and unlock Ancient Mysteries, opening them to all human understanding.
 
Words matter. Words have power. Words seem to be the primary way that God works with the world.
 
In Genesis, when God began creating the world, how did God do that? It was through the word. “And God said, ‘Let there be light. And there was light.’” Just by speaking, God creates the world.
 
On a starry night, God speaks to old Abraham, making a promise to him: “Abraham, even though you and Sarah are very old, I am going to make a great people out of you.” Israel is created from the word of God. From out of nobodies, a great nation comes forth that is a blessing to all the peoples of the world.
 
Why are we here this morning? What has convened us? It is the word of God calling us to be the church, Jesus calling each of us to come forth and be disciples. God speaks and something comes into being that was not in existence before God gave the word. It’s amazing when you think about the church. We have so little to hold us together, as the world judges these things. We come from a dizzying variety of backgrounds, perspectives, races, and economic classes. That we are here at all is great testimony to the power of God’s word. God brings something out of nothing through the word.
 
You’ve experienced this in your own life, here on Sundays. There are times when you come here empty, confused, anxious, depressed, despondent. Then, through God’s word – the words of hymns, songs, Scripture, even the sermon preached – it is as if you hear your name called, hear God speak into your darkness. You hear a word, and your eyes are suddenly, almost miraculously opened and you see the miracle of God’s grace in your life. Your whole demeanor is changed. You leave church quite different from the way you came. All that happens on the basis of nothing but the word.
Today’s scripture gives us an opportunity to encounter and celebrate the world-evoking, life-giving power of the word.
 
In Psalm 19, the heavens tell the glory of God, the firmament proclaims God’s work. The whole world rejoices night and day, God’s voice echoes throughout all creation, and we pray this simple prayer: let the words of my mouth, O God, let the thoughts of my heart, be acceptable to you. Creation bears witness to God’s glory by living out its created goodness, each giving praise by being what God made it to be. So it is with God’s people. God’s law – the word of God recorded in the first five books of the Bible – enables us to live as God made us to live, taking our place in the created order with eyes opened to God’s glory.
 
In reading from Nehemiah, as the walls are rebuilt in Jerusalem, a scroll is found. It is a Torah scroll, a scroll that contains the words of Israel’s law. When it is read, the people weep. They weep perhaps because it has been so long since anyone in Israel has heard the law, or because they realize, when the word is read, how far they have strayed from faithfulness to God’s law. Or perhaps, they weep for joy. They weep because they joyfully realize that God has not left them, has not forsaken them. God has come to them in the word. God speaks to them though these words of scripture. Without these words, they couldn’t survive. These words constitute and preserve the people of Israel.
 
You know what that feels like. One of the reasons you come here on a cold January Sunday morning, even if you didn’t fully know that is why you came, is that you need the word. Your faith needs the refurbishment, encouragement, and sustenance that comes from the reading and hearing of the word. This is the way our faith arises, through the word. The word of scripture reaches out to touch you, to grasp your life and redirect it. In the reading and hearing, our faith is reconfirmed. We live by the word.
 
In the Nazi attempt to decimate the Jews in World War II, when they took over Prague, they rounded up all the Jews. In one of the synagogues, before they torched it, they found an old rabbi sitting in his study, working on his sermon for the next Sabbath. To utterly humiliate the old man, they forced him to strip naked, then had him stand up in his pulpit, clad only in his rabbi’s hat.
 
“Say something in Hebrew for us,” they taunted. “Yes, preach to us, preach what you were going to say next service. Preach.”
 
The old rabbi stood there. Then he began to speak in Hebrew, a language none of the Nazi tormentors could understand. He spoke the words that had time and again constituted Israel. “In the beginning God created the world. And God said, ‘Let there be light.’ And there was light. And it was good.”
 
Power shifted from the Nazis to the old rabbi in that moment. In speaking the word, just in speaking the words, the rabbi was assaulting, dismantling all that the Nazis believed in. A new world was being claimed, reclaimed for God. Nothing those Nazis could do, not even their reign of death, could defeat the ultimate triumph of the word, could negate the word’s way with the world. That is the way of God and God will have the last word.
 
In the beginning was the word.