Third Sunday of Epiphany
Sunday 23 January 2011
I Hate You: The Power of Words
A sermon by Revd Will Morris
Readings: 1 Corinthians 1.10-18; Matthew 4.12-23
“I hate you. I hate you. I HATE YOU.” Words are strange and powerful things. When we use a
word like “hate”, we take what was previously unconscious, subconscious, painful perhaps, powerful
probably, and turn that feeling into a thing, into an object, into something outside ourselves. And
once we name it, once we have given it a form, we fix it, it becomes a fact, and the more extreme that
fact, the harder it is to subsequently change it.
And that’s important because as human beings we are naturally argumentative. In an argument
there’s usually a point before which it can be solved without either side losing face. Then, suddenly,
we pass that point, and it’s no longer possible. Now someone has to lose, and for that very reason
the argument is likely to get even harder to solve. And we cross that line where a mutual solution
becomes impossible much more quickly, much more easily, if we start off close to it. So the more
extreme, the more insensitive our language, the closer we are to another bitter, insoluble argument.
Words matter. They are really powerful things.
Rosy in her newsletter article this week talks about the US in the aftermath of the Tucson shootings,
but let me give two examples from my own experience. The first relates to taxation and developing
countries. Some NGOs, non-governmental organisations have had the insight that collecting tax
revenue is a crucial ingredient in building a sustainable country. They also note that many large
multinational companies don’t pay much by way of tax in such countries. They want to change that,
so several have launched campaigns that have been very effective in mobilising public opinion.
However, a strand of at least one campaign claimed that tax dodging by companies cost developing
countries $160bn a year which, it went on to say, translates into 350,000 lost lives every year. Or,
put differently, the tax dodgers kill 1,000 babies a day. It’s difficult to have a conversation which
starts from that point. Certainly the people in those companies are out to make a profit, but as they
see it they’re creating jobs in those countries, investing in plant and infrastructure, educating the
local workers and their families. And then they’re called a baby-killer. What level of mutual
engagement, what mutual dialogue are we going to get there do you think?
And my other example is even closer to home: the church. We seem to be in an ever-escalating war
of words between factions in the church over a range of issues. As a small example, late last year the
outgoing Bishop of Fulham described General Synod as vindictive, vicious and fascist in its
behaviour. Where do you go from there? You’ve actually started pretty close to the point of no
return. And, just to be clear, you could pick equally extreme examples from liberals and
evangelicals as well. But the thing to note, and to note well, is that all of this, this extreme language,
this demonising, this dividing into factions, this self-righteous-holier-than-thou-drawing-a-line-inthe-sand-fighting-for-my-beliefs type of language, is profoundly un-Christian. Today’s epistle
makes that abundantly clear. Paul, no mean fighter himself, tells the church in Corinth to get a grip.
To get off their high horses as followers of Paul, or Apollos, or Cephas, to stop arguing, and to
remember that they are Christians. Remember by whose grace, he says, this is happening. It’s not
our own – not us as individuals, or us as groups – but that of God, and his Son who died for us. In
naming our divisions, we give them life. We fix them. They breathe and grow. So, stop using the
words that divide, Paul says, you’re moving in exactly the wrong direction.
But we are faced with the fact that we are argumentative beings and we seem, despite ourselves, so
often to head in the wrong direction. So what can we do? Well, St Paul also gives us a steer there.
Ours is a ministry of reconciliation: with God, and with each other. Therefore, we should focus on
what unites us, rather than on what divides us. And as words can divide, so also can they unite us.
Words, sensitively used, can bring that reconciliation by explaining our hurt and expressing our
love.
Now as a church, and as individual Christians, we can do this in two important ways. First, by
allowing people the opportunity, the space to step away from their emotions. And second, quite
simply, by modelling that reconciliation ourselves. In relation to the first, I talked a moment ago
about the tax and development debate. One very specific thing we try to do here at St Martin’s, is to
provide some neutral ground in that debate. We have a group of business people and NGOs and
others, that meet in private to discuss how they feel about being labelled as baby-killers on the
business side, or as ignorant anti-business troublemakers on the other. Does it do much good? I
don’t know. But it does allow both an opportunity for people to be faced with effects of their own
perhaps intemperate language on others; and it also gives people time to pause and consider what
might unite rather than divide them.
And what about modelling this reconciliation? What about damping the fire down, rather than
stoking it up with inflammatory language? Last Tuesday I went to a lunchtime bible talk with a
friend who’s a curate at one of the leading evangelical City churches. The bible reading was a pretty
bloodcurdling piece from Luke about sinners being cut up into small pieces. So I went with some
trepidation, all the clichés about Evangelical preaching at the forefront of my mind. And it was a
very good talk. Did the preacher say things I disagreed with? Certainly. Might I have phrased some
things a little differently? Absolutely. But I also heard someone who had struggled with the text to
find meaning. Someone who believed that God, and his Son, Jesus Christ, who came to save us all,
was first love, and only second judgment. So when the preacher came up to speak me afterwards, I
guess I could have done one of three things. Told him what I disagreed with. Said nothing. Or
concentrated on what I did agree with. Well, I choose the last of those. I told him what I agreed
with – especially the need to struggle truthfully with difficult biblical passages. And he responded
to that. I could have rehearsed all of the real and imagined insults about faithfulness hurled by
evangelicals at liberals. And he could have rehearsed all the patronizing sophistication, again real
and imagined, heaped by liberals on evangelicals. But I didn’t, and so he didn’t either. And we
talked instead about what united us. About the love and the sacrifice of God.
It wasn’t a big thing, not so much a blow, I guess, as a pin prick for reconciliation. But it did, in a
small way, make the point that I am a follower of neither Paul, nor of Apollos, nor of Cephas. I am a
Christian, and so are you. And in this Week of Christian Unity we need to reinforce that, rather
than work against it in the words we use. Carefully chosen words. Words that make space. Words
that move us forward. Words that heal. Words that create a future. And above all words that move
us away from, that exclude, that banish, hate.
Amen