Sunday Stretch: Vol. 93

Start off your week with a grounded take on Bible, prayer, the world, and your life ...

Hi Readers,

To start off: some sad news. Many of you have been praying with me for all of our loved ones who’ve been diagnosed with cancer. Last week, my father-in-law, Dennis, died about five months after being diagnosed. His funeral was last weekend in Kansas City (thanks to the reader who happened to be there with his partner, who was connected to my husband’s family; it was a blessing to meet you on a sad day). So I write this edition of the Sunday Stretch to all of you less than 24 hours after returning home from Missouri. I thought I’d start this way because I’m guessing many of you are well-acquainted with the miry bog that is grief: its ups and downs, its fatigue, its anger, and the ways it sometimes creeps up on you at times and in spaces where you least expect it.

I know too that many of you - like me - are acquainted with grief on a vocational level, too, as ministers and caregivers and healthcare workers. We understand in different ways the routines and rhythms of dying, and yet when we face it on our own families, without the guardrails of professional responsibilities, sometimes it hits differently.

So just know today - that if you are grieving, whether your loss took place recently or many years ago - you are not grieving alone. Your community is with you. We are praying here together in the midst of loss. And there’s no right way or time or process to grieving. The only thing that makes it tougher is to deny its existence. So there it is.

Thankfully, the word of God goes with us even and especially in our grief. So let’s get to the texts!

You might notice a theme in this week’s readings, and it’s a fitting one for back-to-school (and back-to-church-education) season!

Isaiah 50:4-9

Is. 50:4    The Lord GOD has given me

the tongue of a teacher,^a

that I may know how to sustain

the weary with a word.

Morning by morning he wakens—

wakens my ear

to listen as those who are taught.

⁵ The Lord GOD has opened my ear,

and I was not rebellious,

I did not turn backward.

⁶ I gave my back to those who struck me,

and my cheeks to those who pulled out the beard;

I did not hide my face

from insult and spitting.

Is. 50:7    The Lord GOD helps me;

therefore I have not been disgraced;

therefore I have set my face like flint,

and I know that I shall not be put to shame;

⁸ he who vindicates me is near.

Who will contend with me?

Let us stand up together.

Who are my adversaries?

Let them confront me.

⁹ It is the Lord GOD who helps me;

who will declare me guilty?

All of them will wear out like a garment;

the moth will eat them up.

Immediately as I read this passage, I remembered three years ago, in 2021, when I was preparing a sermon on this set of texts. At the time, I was serving as Pastor of Grace Lutheran Church in Brownton, Minn., and I was fortunate that this congregation had within its leaders a wealth of educators: both retired and actively teaching. Even though I grew up with a primary school teacher for a mom, and my husband’s mom was also a teacher, I think it took being a pastor and a parent for me to really fully appreciate the gift it is to have teachers in your midst. Their gifts were so many: an ability to stand in front of groups and command attention, an eye for how to organize a classroom and provide visuals of all kinds, a talent for engaging and working with kids and adults alike. Again and again in every congregation where I’ve served, I’ve noticed that some of our most dedicated leaders are people with backgrounds in education. So as I read here, “the tongue of a teacher” I thought of these folks who I’ve known and who have taught me with generosity, patience, and exuberance (thanks to you too, Mom!)

Questions to Ponder

What do you think is God’s role in this passage? Is God a teacher, too?

What does it mean to sustain the weary with a word?

Have you ever been sustained with a word when you were weary? When and where and by whom?

James 3:1-12

James 3:1   Not many of you should become teachers, my brothers and sisters,^a for you know that we who teach will be judged with greater strictness. ² For all of us make many mistakes. Anyone who makes no mistakes in speaking is perfect, able to keep the whole body in check with a bridle. ³ If we put bits into the mouths of horses to make them obey us, we guide their whole bodies. ⁴ Or look at ships: though they are so large that it takes strong winds to drive them, yet they are guided by a very small rudder wherever the will of the pilot directs. ⁵ So also the tongue is a small member, yet it boasts of great exploits.

How great a forest is set ablaze by a small fire! ⁶ And the tongue is a fire. The tongue is placed among our members as a world of iniquity; it stains the whole body, sets on fire the cycle of nature,^a and is itself set on fire by hell.^{b  7} For every species of beast and bird, of reptile and sea creature, can be tamed and has been tamed by the human species, ⁸ but no one can tame the tongue—a restless evil, full of deadly poison. ⁹ With it we bless the Lord and Father, and with it we curse those who are made in the likeness of God. ¹⁰ From the same mouth come blessing and cursing. My brothers and sisters,^a this ought not to be so. ¹¹ Does a spring pour forth from the same opening both fresh and brackish water? ¹² Can a fig tree, my brothers and sisters,^a yield olives, or a grapevine figs? No more can salt water yield fresh.

The beginning of this passage reminds me of the statistics about teachers in Scandinavian countries like Finland, where public school teachers are among the highest-paid and most well-respected of the professions. I remember hearing a story of someone meeting a Finnish doctor who told them, “I wanted to be a teacher, but I couldn’t do it, so I became a doctor!”

It’s a sort of sad comparison to the often-maligned and underpaid role of public school teachers in America (hmmm, wonder if that has anything to do with the fact that it has long been a profession dominated by women, who often are more poorly paid and less respected than men in the workplace!) Nonetheless, James here knows the rare value of those who can teach, reserving the role for the strongest and most gifted among the early Christians.

Then James goes on to talk about the judgment poured upon people for what they say. In contrast to the schoolyard taunt: Sticks and stones can break my bones, but words will never hurt me - James knows the power of the pen (and the tongue). I think he is guiding us here not only to think about how we speak but also how we listen, and to think about what words we are putting in our ears or in front of our eyes.

What do you think about the metaphor of the tongue as a fire?