My mother, a fourth grade teacher and Senior High Sunday School Teacher, upheld language rules. When I was in middle school, one of dad‘s younger brothers came to visit and cursed at the table. Mom joked about needing to wash out his mouth with soap. Uncle Dave, feeling himself, smiled and repeated the foul word three or four times. Mom laughed and seemingly let it go. I wondered if cursing was okay now? When Mom came around with dessert, she asked “David, would you like ice cream with your pie?” and when he turned and answered, Mom deftly slid a tiny bar of soap into his open mouth. I suppose this could have gone a number of ways, but uncle David spit out the soap laughing at being bested by my mother.

Mom was fun, but not to be trifled with.  If we ever cursed, mom would look over her glasses and with a soul-level sigh and say,  “Paul Robert, I really thought you had a more extensive  vocabulary and did not need to reduce yourself to such guttural language!” My dad, even with 13 years in the army, abided by my mother’s language rules. Once while putting a transmission in my truck Dad’s finger got smashed up.  Dad shouted “fiddly diddly ding dang day.”  There was no arguing for the therapeutic release of generalized non-human directed cussing. However, I did challenge one of Mom’s catch-phrase rules: “We don’t say that, that is ugly!” . As a high schooler, I was telling some tale when mom interjected, “Oh Paul that is ugly.” I countered, “It is funny.”  Mom said “that is not funny- it is ugly.” I parried “If it is not funny then why is dad laughing?”  Dad muffled a laugh and cut his eyes away to say that I was on my own. “What does that even mean, “that is ugly”?” Mom frowned and shook her head in disappointment and defeat. I had won, until one day twenty years later, when one of my children said something and out of nowhere I said, “That is ugly.”  Mom won the long game. 

Our passage teaches, “Don’t let any ugly, foul, polluted, harmful, unwholesome, profane, worthless, vulgar words come out of your mouth. Only say what is helpful when it is needed for building up the community so that it benefits those who hear what you say” 

Paul and the Pauline disciples who wrote the letters in the New Testament, did not have AI,  word processing software, or inexpensive scrap paper. Books like Ephessians or Corinthians were letters passed between church friends and like many personal letters contain run-on sentences and a hodge-podge of ideas, that make finding the main ideas a little tricky. One of the main ideas in our letter is for the church to grow up. I wonder if Paul, looking at the current state of American Christianity might shout “grow up!” 

God’s goal is for us to become mature adults—to be fully grown, measured by the standard of the fullness of Christ.  What is a grown up Christian?  I think in our western church culture we often measure christian maturity in terms of Biblical, religious, or theological knowledge instead of behavior. I am pretty  sure Paul who wrote, “knowledge puffs up, but love builds people up,” did not see Christian maturity as a matter of theological or biblical knowledge. ( 1 Cor 8). Grown up Christians “are not infants tossed and blown around by every wind that comes from teaching, deceitful scheming, and the tricks people play to deliberately mislead others.” Paul names the theological hucksters and people who love to argue, but in 2 Timothy 2 says plainly “Have nothing to do with stupid and senseless controversies; you know that they breed quarrels”. Grown up Christians are known for their deeds.(Matt 25, James 2) Grown up Christians can leave or even lose an argument trusting that Easter is coming and love will win. 

“(Instead of fighting), speak the truth with love, and let us grow in every way into Christ, who is the head. The whole body grows from Christ, as it is joined and held together by all the supporting ligaments. The body makes itself grow in that it builds itself up with love as each one does its part.

In those two verses, Paul outlines five things that grown up Christians do 

1. Grown up Christians are not always arguing about the Scriptures
2. Grown up Christians speak the truth with love 
3. Grown up Christians dwell in Christ’s presence and strive to imitate Christ
4. Grown up Christians prioritize staying connected to the church (Christ’s body) 
5. Grown up Christian’s actions and words build others up  

There is probably a place for deconstruction in theological education and conversations, but without an effort to build the hearer up, deconstructive speech often leaves people in a pile of spiritual ruins. We are called to build a community of love and forgiveness. This call to build each other up is a radical departure from the speech patterns we see in our culture. Grown up church folks “build up the others with love, each one doing their part.”

How do you respond to people who are deeply committed to your well-being? Are we not more open to their ideas? If someone shapes their words in order to build us up, not with a scheme but with loving transparency, is it not easier for us to receive their words, even words of correction?  Our words spoken in love, crafted to build up the hearer, might create on-ramps for reconciliation and peace.  I have some family members who I no longer talk with about politics. Jesus tells us that sometimes we have to shake the dust off of certain topics or even people and move on. (Matt 10) However, with this family member, we have chosen not to close off our conversations around other interests, family memories and shared bonds beyond our differing politics.  Indeed, I have been shocked by some of the things we agree about! 

How do we break away from the pandemic of toxic speech and learn to speak the language of love? Verse 23 invites us to “Let the Spirit renew your mind, your thinking, and clothe your thinking self with the new person (that soul baptized in God’s love and sure of its belovedness) and be re-created in God’s image with justice and authentic holiness.”  The Pauline school loved this image of renewing our minds with prayer and meditation. Romans 12:2 writes “Don’t be conformed to the patterns of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your minds so that you can figure out what God’s will is—what is good and pleasing and mature.”  If we want to escape unwholesome speech patterns we must become people of deep and daily prayer.   

Prayer changes our behavior:  “Clothe yourself with a new way of being created according to God’s image in justice and true holiness. Stop lying. Tell the truth to your neighbor because you belong to each other in Christ’s body. Be angry. Be angry, but without sinning. Don’t hold onto your anger. (renew your mind, clothe yourself with the image and example of Christ) Don’t let your anger provide an opportunity for the devil. Don’t steal. Work. Use your hands to do good so you have things to share with whoever is in need.”

Paul names anger. Grown up Christians do not pretend everything is sunny and mild. Ezekial 13, defines false prophets as “seers of nothingness, preachers who lead people astray by “saying “Peace” when there was no peace” and plaster over tensions with soothing feel-good words. Martin Luther King grew deeply frustrated with “the white moderate, who is more devoted to “order” than to justice; who prefers a negative peace which is the absence of tension to a positive peace which is the presence of justice… Actually, we who engage in nonviolent direct action are not the creators of tension. We merely bring to the surface the hidden tension that is already alive.”   (MLK 193 Letter from a Birmingham Jail)  It is okay to be angry. Be angry- don’t sin.  Tell the truth, but do not judge someone else’s heart ( you can’t) and be careful about judging their deeds (you don’t know their story! Speak the truth, but not only to deconstruct, but to build people up, to think about what the hearer needs, to help others find the path of liberation, reconciliation, reparation and community. Do not demonize, dehumanize or destroy anyone made in the image of God. Articulate Christ’s alternative kingdom! Build up.“Don’t let any foul, polluted, harmful, unwholesome, profane, worthless, vulgar or ugly words come out of your mouth. Only say what is helpful when it is needed for building up the community so that it benefits those who hear what you say” 

Friends, it turns out our ugly words break God’s heart. “Don’t make the Holy Spirit unhappy —you were created for redemption. Put aside all bitterness, losing your temper, anger, shouting, and slander, along with every other evil. Be kind, compassionate, and forgiving to each other, in the same way God forgave you in Christ. Therefore, imitate God like dearly loved children. Live your life with love, following the example of Christ, who loved us and gave himself for us. Christ was a sacrificial offering like those fragrant offers in the Temple, a pleasing aroma to God.”  When siblings are alienated from each other, it is so deeply painful to parents. God grieves the ugly things we say about each other. May our words become on-ramps for peace. 

How do we break this national fever of unwholesome conversations? Healing begins with the only words we can control- our own. To change our words, we must change our hearts and minds, we must renew our minds in prayer, beginning our days considering how we can live today after the example of Christ. Let the Spirit renew your mind, clothing you with a new way of being, created in God’s image with justice and authentic holiness. We need to end each day examining the times we felt bitter, lost our tempers, got stuck in anger, shouted, slandered, were unkind, lacked compassion, or refused to forgive. Such daily examinations are not for shame but for forgiveness, reconciliation and renewal. And as we move through our days, stopping for even a minute of silent prayer can change everything.  

How do we break this national fever of unwholesome conversations? We need to be part of a church that builds people up, and each of us needs to do our part!  We need to practice (failing and trying again), process, and perfect our words in community.  “Speak the truth to each other with love, and let us grow in every way into Christ body, the whole community growing in Christ, joined and held together by all of us as supporting ligaments. Let us build our community up with love as each one of us does our part.” Oh, that our neighbors might look at us and see us practicing a language of love with each other!  Who knows what God might do with such a movement?  Amen