"IT MAKES A DIFFERENCE" Preached on February 1, 1998
by The Rev. Dr. Thomas C. Sheffield
Text: I Corinthians 13 and Luke 22:14-23
"Words, words, I'm so sick of words," said Eliza Doolittle
as she also tried to shake the controlling manipulations
of Professor Henry Higgins to make her into "My
Fair lady."
It can feel that way. We tire of words. So many words,
So much talk. We ARE sick of them. Yet, this week,
if we learned one thing from Washington, DC, it
is that words do matter. Words have power. Words
said and words unsaid can shake the entire government. They can
cut and kill and deaden life. They can conceal and confuse
and cause one to wonder if there is hope, any
hope at all for our weary world. Listen to a few
of these words, as further evidence of that last ability.
From David Dinkins, former mayor of New York City, answering
an accusation that he failed to pay his taxes: "I haven't
committed a crime. What I did was fail to comply
with the law." From a university athlete describing
his medical condition: "I've never had major knee surgery
on any other part of my body." And from Phillip Striefer, Superintendent
of Schools in Barrington, Rhode Island, come these words to
file under the triple categories of faint praise, mixed messages and
engage brain before speaking: "After finding no qualified
candidates for the position of principal, the
school board is extremely pleased to announce
the appointment of David Steel to the post."
What are they saying? What do they mean? What should
we think? Yet, there is another side to words,
isn't there? In the tradition of the Scottish
church, the Bible, our collection of words is carried each Sunday
and placed on the lectern as the sign that worship is to begin.
"At the climax of the bat mitzvah the rabbi places the
torah scroll into the child's hands. She wraps
it in her prayer shawl, and as the rabbi leads
her around the synagogue and down its center aisle, the congregation
sings. You can see," writes Richard Lischer, "the children of
Moses, Ezekiel and Jeremiah -- people who have been formed by the
word and trained to love it -- sliding down to the end
of the pew or stepping reverently into the aisle
to touch the scroll."
Words have power to reveal and heal. They can lift and
carry us where we have not been able to go and
bring us back to life with their mere cadence
and rhythm. It is with that hope that we have come. We want
to hear words. Words that matter. Words that tell the truth.
Words that open up a whole new way of living. We want
them to do something. We want words to be said
that express, at last, what we have not been able
to say, what has been pent us this week. We want words to bring
us to see what has remained hidden or to remind us of what we have
forgotten.
The words we speak can do that. They can do that because
there is something behind them. There was a life.
There was a life that loved us and died for us.
The sacrament the living demonstration that there is
more to all this than the words. In a few minutes we will say words
that are among the most ancient in all the church. "Take
and eat. This is my body. Drink of it all of you.
This cup is the new covenant in my blood." And
again these words will matter because they have power. Behind
the words there still is life. Each time they are said someone
feels that power. Someone, maybe you, feel the power
of that life. Someone received something beyond
her, beyond him -- that -- what? -- gives courage,
takes away defeat, lifts what had been carried for too long
-- a filling of the emptiness as surely as the cup is filled.
There is power to the words because the power of the
Risen Christ IS here.
But do not miss that other side to these words, too.
The words matter because we live them. Our lives
bring them to life. Our lives show the words have
power. To hear the words, and then to leave them here
is to deny that power. To hear the words of brokenness but to find
no way to come closer to those who are broken, to make
no effort to heal what is broken somewhere in
your life, to have no hope that broken lives can
be restored, makes all these words dead and dull and lifeless. To
hear the words of remembrance and then live as though
we are forgotten people, who must live always
for ourselves, makes the words confusing and hypocritical
and contradictory. To hear the words that life is give for
us, and love is patiently, endlessly offered to us and then easily
give up on those who need love, negates all we have said.
The words we speak and pray, the words we will hear
come alive because we allow them to come to life.
The words of Jesus again will bring bread to the
hungry and drink to the thirsty because we bring bread
and hope and faith and love to them. The words have power because
we live in the power of Christ. The words have power
because today we love with the love of Christ.
