Sunday 13th September Mark 8:27-38, James 3:1-12, Psalm 19
Can you remember the first time you saw a smiley?
By that I mean the symbol which is made from a colon a dash and a close bracket sign.
It might have been an e-mail, it might have been a text message, it might have been written text or you may be one of the people in the world who have still never received a smiley in a communication.
I think I suppose I probably got my first smiley on an e-mail in 1989, twenty years ago, but they are older than that.
The smiley is now technically and emoticon, and with super new e-mail programs you can get animated smilies that can bounce laugh cry go red or any manner of things. But back in 1982 when the first university based computer message boards were being used the smiley had a simple purpose.
On 19th September 1982 Scott Fahlman proposed the use of the smiley to show that a message had been posted in jest, and also the ‘sad smiley’ with the bracket the other way round was a sign of seriousness.
Thus was a whole new world of emoticons born.
All three of today’s passages are about communication, how God communicates to us, how we communicate to God and each other.
We know that a lot of communication is not about words. It’s about other things. The Psalm begins The heavens declare the glory of God; the skies proclaim the work of his hands.
2.Day after day they pour forth speech; night after night they display knowledge.
3.There is no speech or language where their voice is not heard.
4.Their voice goes out into all the earth, their words to the ends of the world.
And most of us don’t go, don’t be silly the skies don’t speak, they can’t use words.
Instead we go, yes that’s right. Some people might even be humming a little bit of Haydn in their head. The heavens are telling the glory of God, the Universe declares his marvellous handiwork.
We understand, we understand that the communication is about more than the tight constructs of language. We can’t tie God down with human language. The Quakers of course take this to the extreme in their services, they say it is so important we don’t try to tie God down with our language that they don’t have any words in their services.
We don’t do that, but we need to be mindful that we never let us think that the words are enough or all we have, how does God communicate himself to us, not just with words with everything in all creation.
There’s a pop song I like called more than words, West life covered it but it was actually written by a band called extreme. The video is great. Only two members of a four person group perform the song and so in the video the other two are shown sitting with their feet up looking at a magazine each. The song is about being in love about being to do with actions as well as words,
More than words is all I ever needed you to show
Then you wouldn’t have to say that you love me
Cos I’d already know
Even the heavens speak of God’s greatness…but what is it that we speak of?
James gives us a salutary warning of what it is that actually humans speak?
“Out of the same mouth come praise and cursing. My brothers, this should not be.”
I wonder what it is that you most ever regret saying?
I guess for each one of us that it is something of which we are so ashamed that we would never actually want to share it. We might not really ever want to think about it.
James warns us, and we should be more like the heavens and less like poor humans. We should be focussing on proclaiming the goodness of God and less on cursing.
This is hard if you are either naturally, or through circumstance a grumpy person…
But it is important.
It is important that our words and our actions tie up, last weeks passage from James, there is no point in sending someone a horrible message and sending a smiley after it, that just doesn’t add up. It is not consistent, it is not authentic, what is it that we communicate to others about God and what being a Christian is like.
So who is communicating what in the gospel passage?
Jesus says ‘what’s the gossip?’
What has been communicated by my actions, are they speaking louder than the words, are they more than words.
Jesus is important.
Jesus is good.
Jesus is from God.
Peter gets it.
Jesus is the Christ.
Hooray for Peter, Peter has understood.
But not everything.
Jesus says don’t be ashamed of me and my words.
Don’t be ashamed of me and my words.
My words again. Words useful, but not enough.
Work at UCLA has shown that when you give a talk only 7% of what you communicate is actually the words. The rest is to do with your voice and the way you use your body.
Jesus is talking about his death and resurrection, he is telling them about what is going to happen. Jesus knows that the ultimate path to this communication is via suffering.
So today, we recognise the heavens speak of God’s glory, but not with words. We should speak of God’s glory with words, but often don’t, and Jesus, well Jesus came to tell us how God loves us.
When we take communion the technical word for what we are doing is communicating. We communicate with God, but not with words.
More than words is all I ever needed you to show
Then you wouldn’t have to say that you love me
Cos I’d already know