A Sack full of Feathers
James 3:1-12
This morning we are back on the subject of a faith that works. We have been looking into the book of James and dealing with the direct teaching about faith and trials and expectations.
According To James self-control is a part of our faith as Christians being slow to anger is important. Temptations and trials will be a part of our everyday life. Two weeks ago we talked about the delicate subject of faith and works. Which I explained that if a person has faith then they will have a changed life…ultimately they will have works. Works offered before salvation are no eternal good but, a nice thing to do but they don’t…can’t save you.
If you take the time to read through the book of James you will find a lot of things to help you when facing a variety of situations. There is not really a good way to outline his thoughts. As we read, he seems to just be flowing from idea to idea.
And today’s scripture picks up on something he said back in Chapter 1:26 “If anyone considers himself religious and yet does not keep a tight rein on his tongue, he deceives himself and his religion is worthless.”
In today’s reading he starts talking about people that want to be teachers.
James says, “Not many of you should presume to be teachers, my brothers, because you know that we who teach will be judged more strictly.”
I don’t think that James is talking to people that want to be teachers for the right reasons. I believe that he is speaking to people that really want to be teachers for less than the right reasons.
What is a less than right reason? The teachers in the early church filled the same role in the Jewish synagogue. A position of respect and importance, a resource for wisdom and influence. In James’ time some of the Rabbis were in it for the power. James is discouraging people from seeking the position for sake of personal importance.
He is suggesting that not everyone is called to teach, he says “not many of you.” Almost all the translations I looked at said, not many of you. I don’t think that he is saying that most people are inferior.
He does not give an exact reason but we might guess that one might be that a person that is new to the faith and understanding should probably not teach right off the bat. Perhaps he is encouraging some kind of training with an apostle or another teacher.
All he really gives is a simple statement that not everyone is called to teach. And then he offers a reminder of why.
We teachers are held to a higher standard when Judgment day comes. Teachers have a responsibility to teach the right things. We teachers have a responsibility to prepare and be a proper teacher.
Personally, I worry about that warning regularly. I feel pressure to prepare for every teaching opportunity, spoken or written.
Something we have learned about James is that he does not sugar coat the truth and what to expect as people of faith.
If I did not feel enough pressure from myself I have had a church member in my past that thought it was his job to remind me of this higher standard. He was at every service and Bible study and meeting as an observer. He used this same passage to disqualify himself from accepting an official leadership or teaching role in the church.
We also hear from James that people are not perfect.
He says, “We all stumble in many ways.”
I am not clear if he is talking about teachers or believers in general. Either way he is saying that a teacher is never going to be perfect. Everyone is going to mess up in one way or another.
So the higher standard for teachers does not require perfection.
It requires the right motives and a willingness to teach God’s truth and avoid personal ideas and opinions. A teacher also must be willing to live as a good example. A teacher is always being observed by his or her students. A Christian teacher must live a life of faith in order to be believed when they teach.
He adds, “If anyone is never at fault in what he says, he is a perfect man, able to keep his whole body in check.”
Let me read that one again, “If anyone is never at fault in what he says, he is a perfect man, able to keep his whole body in check.”
I have watched little bits of the Olympics over the last couple of weeks. I get discouraged when I look at all those young men and women with their perfect bodies. Muscles showing in places that I did not know we had muscles.
They have a lot of discipline.
They eat right and exercise.
They train and train and train their bodies until they have reached a point where they allow their every move and breath to be judged by millions of people.
But James suggests that only a perfect person, with that kind of discipline, can tame, to train, their tongue. He suggests that somehow that controlling the tongue, our words, is the hardest thing to do.
Do we agree with James?
Let me ask a question; is there anyone here that is able to say the right thing the right way all the time?
Is there any one here that does not speak the wrong or harsh words when we are angry?
Is there anyone here that can say that they NEVER exaggerate when they talk to friends of family?
Never gossip or belittle, or judge or swear, or yell or lie……
James tells us we all mess up. And he seems to believe that the most common failure has to do with the things we say.
James gives us three examples of how powerful the tongue can be.
He describes how a bit (2 or 3 pound piece of metal) in a horse’s mouth can allow a small person to control a 1200 or 1500 pound animal. If a rider does it right the bit applies pressure and not pain to direct the horse that might have its own movement plans.
Next he uses a description of how ships are controlled by a pilot can steer a ship against the wind and currents. The ships on the Mediterranean sea of his day would have seemed massive to him.
But I did not have any pictures to get the feel of the size of a rudder. So I looked up the specifications on the RMS Titanic. Its rudder was 13 feet at the widest point and around 35 feet tall. It weighed 101 tons. So, it is about as tall as a 3 story building and about three feet wider that a basketball goal is tall.
That sounds huge. But the ship it was designed to steer was 882 feet long 92 feet wide, weighted 46000 pounds.
It is hard to imagine that the math works out on that. How a 13 foot wide piece of steel can change the direction of a massive ship. But it did then and it still does today.
Then James basically says but that is nothing compared to the power of the tongue, a small part of the body can make great boasts.
Has you mouth ever gotten you into trouble? Have you heard someone else say something that just couldn’t be true?
He gives the description of how a forest fire is started by a spark.
I remember the day my phone rang and my child’s voice said to come home fast the woods were on fire. The firemen were amused because when they arrived everyone in sight us and our neighbors were beating and stomping the smokey spots left from the initial fire. And one of my other children was spilling their guts about the smoke bomb that “someone” was playing with.
James says, “The tongue also is a fire, a world of evil among the parts of the body. It corrupts the whole person, sets the whole course of his life on fire, and is itself set on fire by hell.”
Have I mentioned that James can be a bit direct?
As far as he is concerned the tongue can be the source of indescribable destruction. It can be the source of all kinds of evil.
James explains that man is able to control all kinds of animals and sea creatures. There are people that train all kinds of animals to do amazing things. Bears ride motorcycles. Elephants work with large loads and entertain in circuses. People ride horses and teach dogs to do all kinds of tricks on command.
And yet NO man is able to tame the tongue. It is a restless evil, full of deadly poison.
That word picture makes me think of the tiger at the zoo that constantly paces back and forth in the cage looking for an opportunity to escape.
No man, no woman, no child can completely tame the tongue. It is like our tongue is just waiting to spill our some tidbit of news about another person’s troubles or some judgmental word.
My first thought is that there is no hope. If no one can do it so what is the use?
But, then I find a hope that it is not just me that can’t keep my words on track.
The tongue is restless, we can’t just stay quiet and the worst part, it is full of poison. Words we speak can injure others, make others sick and even kill in a way.
James goes on to challenge us, “With the tongue we praise our Lord and Father, and with it we curse men, who have been made in God’s likeness. Out of the same mouth come praise and cursing.
My brothers, this should not be. Can both fresh water and salt water flow from the same spring? My brothers, can a fig tree bear olives, or a grapevine bear figs? Neither can a salt spring produce fresh water.
Let me give you the Tom translation…
The tongue is a “tattle tale” of your soul. It will expose to the people that hear you talk what you are really like on the inside.
James points out that in all of nature that what you see is what you get. Fig trees make figs and olive trees produce olives.
Even in man, the tongue will produce the fruit that is on the inside. The sinful nature may only appear from time to time but it is a sign of what is happening within.
The book of James is about faith and how to grow in righteousness. He is direct and plain in his teaching. He wants us to be aware of the power of the tongue for good and bad and to judge for ourselves what our words say about who we are on the inside.
There is a story of a woman in an Indian village who maliciously gossiped about another lady and her family in the village. One day she found out that she was wrong about this lady and her family and had a change of heart. She went to the village’s wise man and asked how she could take back all the wrong she had done. The wise man told her to go home and kill her chickens and pluck there feathers and put them into a bag. After this she was to come back and see the wise man again, but on her way back she was to scatter all the feathers she had plucked from the chickens.
The lady did as she was told. When she got back to the man, he told her, " now go back and pick up all the feathers that you have scattered. "
The woman was astonished at such a command and said, " By now the wind has carried the feathers through out the village and beyond." The wise man then told Her, And so it is with your careless words. They are like the feathers scattered in the wind. You can not retrieve them.
I read another story about words. There was a young man entering college and he met his roommate in the dorm for the first time. The room mate could hardly take his eyes off of the young man’s face. He had what was obviously a birth mark on his face it was larger than a baseball and bright red. After a few days the roommate just has to ask.
Tell me about the mark on your face. The young man said, oh that. My dad told me it was the place where an angel kissed me so that he could always pick me out of the crowd.
Our words are important. Our tongue is hard to control because is a tattletale of the imperfection which is still inside of us.
According to James, people of faith will mess up when we depend on we own abilities. The tongue will reveal both positive influential words and also destructive evil flaws.
If we yield ourselves to our pilot, our captain, our savior, he can steer us to safety. He can guide us in the best direction no matter what trials and troubles we encounter. Our life will reflect that we are persons of control and wisdom.
If we live a life growing in faith we can give control over to a power that can help us use our tongue for good uses.
Folks we all have a bag of feathers, words that can be spoken with our tongue. Opinions, prejudices and facts that can never be taken back after we speak them aloud and that will happen when we try to be the ones in control.
Think for a moment of the feathers you have spread on your journey. Are you satisfied with the influence that you spread? Or have you left a path of destruction that you wish you could take back.
All Glory be to God!
