Woe is me!
“Woe is me! For I am a man of unclean lips, and I live among a people of unclean lips.” (Isaiah 6:5)
Really, Rector? Do you have to be so melodramatic? Must you start your article with such a Prima Donna-ish Bible verse?
Sorry for being so shrill, but you’ve got to hand it to those Old Testament prophets – they knew how to grab your attention. Yet Isaiah 6:5 is more than a valiant attempt at winning the award for “Best Attention-Grabbing Opening Line of a Sermon for the year 725BC”. It’s a vital word to 21st Alabamians too. Read on.
The other day I said in a sermon “Literally, God only knows what the world will be like in 12 months.” Nothing in the week since I said those words has made me change my mind! If you can accurately predict what Israel, Gaza, the West Bank, Ukraine, and Russia will look like in Advent 2024 then you are a better prophet than I am, and may even rival the Isaiah whose quote I began with. Then of course, there’s what the US will be like in twelve months, after what will surely be a summer and a fall of the most divisive presidential election in the memory of most people reading this. (That is assuming that the election will even be over in twelve months. I can dream, can’t I?)
So much division, violence, and spite. We’re struggling to cope with this, aren’t we? I am.
I like words. They’re essential. It’s important to pick the right ones – the ones that accurately convey what you think. Choosing the wrong words, either because we are feeling emotionally out of balance or because we haven’t thought through how those words will sound to our conversation partner (or our Facebook friends) can cause havoc. In fact, words cause pain, words create war, and words make worlds.
When emotions are running high, it’s hard to think clearly and make sensible decisions about the words you use. Exaggeration takes over, hyperbole usurps control, and harmful analogies are launched like rockets.
Here’s the truth that I hope counters some the words you may have read in your social media life:
- There has never been anything like the Holocaust, so don’t compare anything to it (or anyone to Hitler).
- There has not been anything quite like apartheid in 20th century South Africa, so don’t call anything else by that technical name.
- No member of the US Senate, House of Representatives, or the presidential administration is a communist or a fascist, so don’t call them those things.
- No current elected politician stood for office in order to destroy America, and none of them hate our country. They just have a different view of what’s in the nation’s best interests. That’s all.
Here’s a pattern for our response to our international, multi-layered traumas. First, we consider our own errors and sins.
- Have I unintentionally added to the flames of spite by my thoughtless words?
- Have I reacted rashly to something I read or heard, and hurt or offended someone else?
- Have I allowed our differences in politics to distance me from members of my family?
- What can I now do about it?
Why do this self-reflection? Because we must. It is that urgent. Our world and our country need healing. We can only be healers if we are honest with ourselves about how we have contributed to the problem.
Advent couldn’t come at a better time this year. We need the hope that can only come from our faith that God is, despite all appearances, in charge and will one day draw this agonizing age to a close. And we need to see the role we can play in helping the world be reconciled to itself and to God.
Duncan