So, Lent is about not speaking empty words. The NIV translates Jesus saying in Matthew 12.36: "But I tell you that everyone will have to give account on the day of judgment for every empty word they have spoken." NRSV says "careless": KJV "idle". An old 17th Century commentary paraphrases, "frothy language".
Now this becomes interesting. Matthew uses a Greek word meaning "unemployed, lazy" if it's used of a person. But it means "unproductive" when used of something like a word. Words should lead to deeds. Words that do nothing and go nowhere are unproductive, fruitless, make no difference to the way things are. In that sense are empty of purpose, devoid of practical meaning. Ulrich Luz, the premier contemporary commentator on Matthew (his 3 volume commentary is a prized personal possession over which I inordinately gloat!) connects this hard saying of Jesus to the way the Church speaks and acts: "On the day of judgment human wordas are asked whether they have produced deeds, and in Matthew that means essentially whether they have produced love." (Luz, Matthew, Hermeneia, Vol. 2. p.211) In other words Jesus is warning against talking the talk but not walking the walk.
In a wonderful book, The Language and Imagery of the Bible, G B Caird expands on this idea that words accomplish things. He writes, "The point is not thoughtless words, such as a carefree joke, but deedless ones...the broken promise, the unpaid vow, words which said "I go sir" and never went (Matt 21.29)"
Between them, Luz and Caird guide my Lenten search for responsible stewardship of my words and speech.
How many of my words are deedless?
Can my words, let alone my word, be trusted?
What compels me to speak out and act out of what I say?
What words will best stand the scrutiny of the Judgement if not those uttered against injustice, if not words of performative kindness?
Those questions remind me of a conversation in one of Alan Paton's short stories, in Ah! But Your Land is Beautiful. A conversation takes place between a white man and his black friend about the dangers of protesting against the system of apartheid and its inhumanity to those crushed by state sanctioned segregation and discrimination. I think Paton captures exactly what Jesus words mean if we are going to walk the walk as well as talk the talk:
“When I go up there, which is my intention, the Big Judge will say to me, Where are your wounds? and if I say I haven’t any, he will say, Was there nothing to fight for? I couldn’t face that question."
Well I did say that a Lenten examination of how I use words might be harder than giving up coffee or chocolate.
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