When I was around five years old, I spent some days with my sister and her husband, and I remember liking their yard. They had neighbors with kids I could play with. There was some kind of ornamental berry that fell off the bushes onto the ground. The neighbor boys and I would collect the berries and throw them at each other in play war. These berries didn’t stain our clothes or hurt all that much which made them just about perfect.
In the thick of one of our battles, my sister called me in for lunch.
Before we ate that day, my sister opened her Bible and showed me the verses about God and Jesus and sin, how he loves me and died on the cross to make me clean and did I believe and want to pray to make him king of my life.
It all made perfect sense, so I said yes, and I prayed with her help.
Then it was time for lunch and she made my favorite soup.
When my brother-in-law came home, she told him something really exciting had happened that day.
What? he asked.
Go ahead and tell him what you did today, she said to me.
Being a finicky eater, I answered that the big news was that I ate all my soup at lunch. Eating it all was a big deal for me.
He thought that was good, but my sister insisted that, while true, that wasn’t the right answer. I was supposed to tell him about praying to Jesus, saying yes to the God of everything.
All these years later, I still remember that event, but on the day it happened, my mind was on the soup.
I still love a really great soup, but I hope I love God more. It’s not the same, but I do think of that when I teach the Kindergarteners about Jacob and Esau and that other bowl of soup. Esau was fixated on his exhaustion, his hunger, the immediate as he said, “I am about to die; of what use is a birthright to me?” My birthright for a bowl of red stew.
I can relate to Esau. Honestly, most every day I find the dumbest things coming out of my mouth. Sometimes I catch them before they slip out, but not often enough. So, when the gospels record the disciples talking, I take heart at some of the things they say and do.
I’ve heard some people trying to explain away this kind of disciple-talk. They explain the less-than-perfect words away, saying things like Jesus wasn’t raised from the dead yet, so they didn’t really understand, or the Holy Spirit hadn’t come yet. The disciples didn’t know better.
Jesus is raised and ascended. I have the Bible and the Spirit. So, what’s my excuse?
“Lord, it is good that we are here. If you wish, I will make three tents here, one for you and one for Moses and one for Elijah.”
“Teacher, do you not care that we are perishing?”
“You shall never wash my feet.”
“Who are you, Lord?” (not yet a disciple, I know).
“You are out of your mind. …It is his angel!”
We don’t have the exact dialog, but the disciples argue about which of them is the greatest or who will sit closest to Jesus. They say these things right up against Jesus foretelling his death, and “after three days he will rise.” (Mark 10:34). Like my prayer of faith and the bowl of soup, so often our minds go to the finished bowl of soup accomplishment of the moment.
Seemingly clueless like me, I find solace in the disciples, not because of anything in them, but because of God working in and through them anyway.
Honestly, when I look out at the world, I so easily fall into one of my Pharisee moments. I can even sound wise like David’s true but in a sense, stupid words, “As the Lord lives, the man who has done this deserves to die…”
We long to be the judge and with our training and knowledge and position and whatever, we can speak the true words of judgment on someone else. True, but, oops.
Somehow God strengthened the disciples to stand true to the end. Their roads were not smooth and easy. They were no lightweights. And David’s words, and Nathan’s to follow, were not his undoing.
Somehow blessing came through these people in their jars of clay. Weakness over strength.
Somehow, they were also used by God to speak even to speak to us all these years later.
If the Spirit of him who raised Jesus from the dead dwells in you, he who raised Christ Jesus from the dead will also give life to your mortal bodies through his Spirit who dwells in you.
If we say we have not sinned, we make him a liar, and his word is not in us.
Though you have not seen him, you love him; and even though you do not see him now, you believe in him and are filled with an inexpressible and glorious joy, for you are receiving the end result of your faith, the salvation of your souls.
Our words don’t always have to be stupid. David’s weren’t.
So on the heels of the words of unknown self-condemnation, in humbleness and repentance, David turns to God and sings his psalm.
O Lord, open my lips,
and my mouth will declare your praise.
For you will not delight in sacrifice, or I would give it;
you will not be pleased with a burnt offering.
The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit;
a broken and contrite heart, O God, you will not despise.
From stupid to sage.
God, use our tongues today to speak words of love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control.