Battling Prattling

Sermon preached at St Peter and St Paul’s Church, Swanscombe on 17th September 2006 based on the epistle of St James iii.1-12.

Mr. Young’s year 8 class is a little boisterous today.

It’s all because Eric has brought in
his new mobile phone
which can take photographs,
play Gnarls Barklay’s number one hit
as a ring-tone
and has 37 different games
of Tetris on it.

Eric is just showing his friends a Tetris cheat when Alan,
a larger boy with bit of a reputation,
takes Eric’s phone out of his hand
and steps on it,
breaking it into a thousand pieces.

Of course, all this gets back to Mr Young
who soon has Alan in detention
with a flea in his ear.

“How dare you treat someone else like that!
Listen to me!
You’re a wicked child,
and you won’t amount to anything
with that attitude in life.”

Fair?

[PAUSE]

The trouble is Alan
has always been called a “wicked child”.

You see,
Alan’s mother died in giving birth to him,
and as a result,
his father has difficulty loving him.

What do you think of Mr Young’s choice of words?

Is Alan really a wicked child?

If he’s told that he’s a wicked child,
mightn’t he eventually come to believe it?

[PAUSE]

As Christians know,
we’re all capable of evil acts,
but we learn to separate
who people are
from what they do.

“Hate the sin, but not the sinner”,
that’s what we say,
isn’t it?

The trouble is,
Mr Young is not saying that to Alan.

Mr Young’s tongue has slipped up.

In his anger, he is just prattling.

[PAUSE]

We join the Lord and His disciples
as they walk around Caesarea Philippi.

Peter is feeling quite thrilled
at having won
the “spot-the-Messiah” competition.

And then Jesus starts talking about
what has to happen to that very Messiah:
humiliation,
pain,
torture
and death.

And this upsets Peter, because,
having found the Messiah,
he’s being told that
the One to Whom he wishes to devote his life
is going to meet
a terrible, horrible end.

The thought
“If you don’t do something,
you’ll lose your Messiah,”
burns within him until,
at last,
Peter can stand it no more.

Taking his beloved Lord to one side,
Peter says, “for goodness sake, Jesus,
don’t talk like this.

This is not how it’s going to be
and you know it.

We’ll be there to stop any harm coming to you.”

Jesus looks around at the others,
then the reaction:
"Get behind Me, Satan!

For you are not mindful of the things of God,
but the things of men."

Harsh, don’t you think?

Would you like to be called “Satan”
by one whom you love,
and one who loves you?

And what has Peter done?

He seems to have demonstrated concern
about the Lord’s welfare.

Is it a crime now to care about the people we love?

[PAUSE]

Peter’s words upset Jesus
because they show that
Peter is not yet ready
to be a teacher of the Truth.

God knows full well that
Peter will lead the Church well as a bishop
ordained by Christ Himself,
defending it against all the horrors of the world.

God knows that Peter will end his days
crucified upside-down on Vatican Hill
for love of Jesus.

But Peter is far from ready.

Suppose Jesus had listened to his words.

“Okay Peter, you’re quite right,
let’s go back to Galilee
and forget the whole thing.

Phew!

Nearly came a cropper then, didn’t I?”

No Resurrection, no Salvation.

Peter’s words obviously tempt Jesus to give up,
just as Satan tempted Him in the wilderness.

But Jesus knows the Truth,
and, despite that truth,
will not spare Himself
the scourge,
the crown of thorns,
the nails
and the spear.

At the moment, Peter’s words are unreliable.

He’s just prattling.

[PAUSE]

This is a problem that teachers face.

Just how does a teacher put
thoughts and ideas into words
so that students can understand them,
and then go on and use them well?

It isn’t easy, because you have
to know how you are thinking
and how the student is thinking!

Teachers would love to know
the thoughts of their students
just to make sure that their lessons are sinking in.

If you use even one wrong word,
then you can utterly ruin
any potential understanding that a child could have.

It’s a reality that all teachers have to face
- have they explained things clearly enough?

Is what they have taught accurate?

Are they guilty of prattling?

[PAUSE]

If one word can cause a child to go wrong,
what about a culture which is
saturated with words and noise?

Look at the information
and misinformation
that we meet on a day by day basis.

One year we are told eggs are good for us,
the next year they’re bad for us.

We’re told there are weapons of mass destruction in Iraq,
and then that there are none.

The world in which we live is filled with prattle
–meaningless noise,
thoughtless words,
and irrelevant information that corrupts us all.

No wonder people are being misled
into some very dark paths.

[PAUSE]

And no wonder
that they will not listen to the Church.

The Church has become one voice among many,
and God’s still small voice of calm
is drowned by cries of all kinds.

No one wants to hear a voice of love
that says that submission to the will of God
is the road to everlasting happiness.

No wonder
we don’t get new people through the church door
if we are just adding to the noise around them.

They only hear words,
not what God is saying.

Even the places where we worship
we can fill with noise,
so that we fail to hear the word of God.

“Lord, we just want to praise You,
we just want to glorify Your name,
we just want to give You thanks.”

And God says, “I just want to get a word in edgeways.”

One theologian calls this condition
“the Prattler of Pious Platitudes”
- the tendency within each of us
to block out the words of God
with faint and empty praise.

[PAUSE]

If the message of God
is being drowned out by the noise of prattle,
then perhaps the only way
to ring out God’s message of love
loud and clear
is to live the truth of that message of love
in our lives.

Perhaps we don’t have to say a thing
in order to show the love of God to people,
just let our lives be an example to everyone.

The more closely we follow God,
the more His light shines in us,
and that light is utterly unmistakable.

So how do we live our lives
as beacons of the love of God?

Have you been listening?

Have I been prattling?