We Need Smart Mouths

Stick out your tongue and say, “Ahhh.” Trust me. I’m a doctor—of ministry.

You’ve come to Good Faith Media’s website for a checkup and a dose of what Barbara Brown Taylor calls “gospel medicine.” Parenthetically speaking, I don’t understand how Ezekiel could eat an entire book in one sitting.  

With milk or even honey, the thought leaves a bitter taste in my mouth. Still, Taylor wrote, “the medicine of the gospel—those healing stories did more to put people back together than all the potions in the world.” 

And so it is for all of us who live according to “the praxis of togetherness,” clearly demonstrated by that ubiquitous pronoun “one another.” Allelon in Greek is repeated in Paul’s letters to multiple churches.

“Outdo one other in showing honor,” he said to the Christians in Rome. “Wait for one another,” he advised the community at Corinth.

“Bear one another’s burdens,” he told the believers in Galatia. “Comfort one another, build one another up,” he instructed the Christians in Thessalonica. 

“Be subject to one another,” he explained to the faithful in Ephesus. “Forgive one another,” he wrote to the members at Colossae. Allelon, Paul stretched that word out and made it enough for the members of all these churches to feast upon. 

There was some left over for John the Apostle, who wrote, “Beloved, let us love one another, because love is from God; everyone who loves is born of God and knows God” (First John 4:7).

Truth be told, I still see more left to be consumed. Pull up a chair and grab your Tupperware. 

Thomas G. Long wrote in a chapter titled “Talking Ourselves into Being Christian, “How strange if our faith didn’t show up in our everyday talk.” So let me hear it. Give me an ear full. 

If you do not have ears to hear, then read my lips: this word will upend the world as we know it and dump out all that we have become content with. Because we have gathered work-words and play-words, title-words and status-words, fancy words and rich words, elite and exclusive words, hierarchical and privileged words. Yet, we’re still not satisfied by our “relationships of ruling.” 

This is why so many Christians still go to church. It is because we couldn’t find a word for it and we won’t be able to put our finger on it alone. That will require a faith community. 

Stanley Hauerwas wrote in “Working with Words: On Learning to Speak Christian,” “[L]earning to use the word ‘God’ requires that one learn to use the words that surround the use of the word ‘God.’ For Christians, we learn to use the word through worship and prayer to the one called God, and this requires a lifetime.” He continued, “Thus, the process of learning entails a transformation so that we can hear rightly before speaking rightly…”

See the raven-word. Taste the manna-word. Touch the word-enfleshed, embodied, incarnate and in our midst, that is Jesus.

Then, take the words right out of his mouth. Because we cannot live by bread alone or on a 24-hour news cycle.

Life and death, the here and now, and how the world gets around are because our motor mouths move about. This is a creative tool, so be mindful when you move your lips.

While others watch our weight, let us watch our kisser. Let me look way down in there but also see the words that are stuck in between your teeth, that even with prayer and fasting, you can’t seem to come clean of. 

Open your mouth wider, please and say, “Ahhh.” 

There are so many words at our disposal. It is easy to lose track of how many we have said and what kind. We can forget where they came from, with whom we left them or where we left off. 

But when was the last time you said the words “wisdom” or “sagacity” or “discernment” or “sapience?” Which words do you say often? Daily, even? 

What are the words that you return to regularly? Because they are familiar and you like the way they sound?

And why? What do you always find yourself talking about?

To be sure, I am not asking that you count your words. Instead, this is an invitation to hold your tongue and get clear on where our words come from. 

Let us examine those expressions that center, marginalize and minoritize. Let us inspect those terms that stigmatize and pedestalize. 

Let us audit those designations that racialize as if people come from colonizing colors and not continents, countries and cities, those names that recreate people based on the image we have in our minds. Because what are we really saying when we call one another “the other”?

The late Eugene Peterson warned, “We cannot be too careful about the words we use; we start out using them and they end up using us.” 

Can you hear Señora Wisdom calling? She is shouting, “Listen and write down what I’m saying because it will improve your life and the way you live it. I will only tell you the truth because I’m a straight-shooter. There’s nothing crooked about me.”

She has an offer for all who hear her. Take it or leave this world with nothing. It is not a brief exchange. 

This is a conversation that lingers and loiters, that stays too long and wears out its welcome. Wisdom interjects and then takes over the conversation. 

But now she competes with memes and gifs. Selah.

Still, check Wisdom’s employment history. Her references go back to the beginning and even God takes delight in her. So, listen to Mama Wisdom if you want to be happy and at peace. 

Listen and pay attention to her teachings. Watch her ways and mark her words. Repeat after her if you want your life to speak. 

Just because it’s open doesn’t mean it’s a smart mouth. Ahhhh-men.