11 Brothers
and sisters, do not slander one another. Anyone who speaks against a brother or
sister or judges them speaks against the law and judges it. When you
judge the law, you are not keeping it, but sitting in judgment on it. 12 There is only one Lawgiver and Judge, the one who
is able to save and destroy. But you—who are you to judge your neighbor? ~
James 4:11-12
It’s always interesting yet hard
to remember that the early Christian world of which James was a part did not
have the New Testament. Their Bible was the Tanakh, the Scriptures of Israel or
what we call the Old Testament. And many texts that make up the New Testament
are commentaries/sermons on the Old Testament, a practice which Jesus himself
started. When Jesus pronounces “You shall love your neighbor as yourself” to be
the second greatest commandment and a restatement of the first commandment to
“love the Lord” (Matthew 22:37-40; see Leviticus 19:18), he sets up a way of
reading and understanding the Hebrew Scriptures that marks his own faith and
shapes ours forever (James 2:8). Had he chosen, for example, “You shall not ...
tattoo any marks upon you”
[Note: After I wrote my sermon
but before I preached, my wife threw a bit of a wrench into my sermon by asking
about toxic individuals who use both Scripture and the niceness of Christians
to abuse others. It was a good a good question but rather than rewrite my
sermon I chose to offer a brief caveat to what I am about to say. 1) James text
is not all the Bible has to say about the topic of toxic communication. There
is plenty to think about in terms of communicating with people, even abusive
people, and we should not too quickly lump together all kinds of problems or
communication styles. 2) The second caveat is that James is primarily concerned
with “how” Christians should communicate but doesn’t focus too much on content,
which leads us to the third caveat. 3) James is not advocating a “doormat
theology” which settles for abuse. Yes, we are to love our neighbor which
certainly curtails certain things but love can and should oppose other things,
as well. James, for example, is himself opposing zealous teachers who are
promoting division and violence in the church, as well as opposing rich
Christians who are oppressing the poor.]
1. Avoid
“kata-speak”
The word in our passage which is often translated “speak
against” or “speak evil” or “slander” is the word katalaleo. It’s a
compound word which joins a preposition to a verb. In this case, kata –
against, down to or upon; and laleo – to talk or speak. So two meanings
stand out that we are not to do.
First, there is the kata that means “against” – translated
as slander, evil, speak ill of. It’s negative speech that opposes someone,
verbally treats them like an enemy rather than a child of God, brother, sister,
or friend. It’s speech that seeks to offer nothing good, spreads harm (e.g. to speak
ill of, like you’re spreading disease intentionally), but that doesn’t mean
it’s lying or deceptive. A kata-word may be perfectly true: we do not
have to tell lies in order to harm another. If you tell a slanderer to stop
slandering, 99% of the time he/she will respond with, “Well, it is true!”
People think that as long as something is true, it is free to be said. But the
fact that it is true gives us no right to say it. James has already noted that
the truth can be weaponized.
But kata can mean more than “against.” There is
also a second kata that means down to or upon – think belittling, or
speak condescendingly to. It’s a reminder that we can also misuse speech when
we speak from the wrong place – from above, as if we know more than others, or
believe we can see all that we might need to see. It imagines that we are
better, immune from the things that so easily seem to trap others. It’s when we
think we can speak like God.
In my previous church, I was lucky enough to have a
number of college volunteers
who were often eager to help with the youth program. I was
surprised, however, by the odd way that so many began their volunteering.
Rather than focus on relationships with the kids, which they were perfectly
suited for given their age, many of them would become overly worried about
discipline, constantly correcting the kids only to be utterly ignored. I would
often advise these volunteers – “You’re trying to take the role of the cop.
Unfortunately, you don’t have a badge or gun. Without authority or a weapon,
you look pretty silly trying to get people to obey. It’s not your job to get
people to obey, it’s your job to know them and love them.”
Last week James said to “resist the Devil.” Do you want to
resist the Devil? Then don’t talk like him. It’s so interesting to me that we
imagine a foul mouth as one who uses “bad language” and when the Devil
possesses anybody in a movie one of the more common features is that the
possessed person spews curse words. But if the Scriptures are our guide as to
how the Devil talks, we should be sobered by the fact that the Devil or “Satan,”
which means “the Accuser,” is often revealed to be a pious, religious figure
who quite enjoys quoting Scripture. To “resist the devil” then we need to
recognize that you can do both “katas” (speaking against or belittling) using
Scripture – the Devil did so in the temptations of Jesus. You can use the Bible
to talk to neighbors in ungodly ways.
2.
Speak Reasonably
The one who speaks down to, or against another, James says,
is one who sits in judgment but James go on to say that such a person also slanders
and sits in judgment over the law. What does that mean? Well, we are helped by
remembering how Jesus summarizes the law with the two greatest commandments:
loving God whole-heartedly and loving our neighbor as ourselves, which James
calls the “royal law” (2:8; c.f. Leviticus 19:18). James the brother of Jesus, follows
Jesus’ lead. He loves the Old Testament, and you should too. Leviticus is James’
book and he is carefully restating it. Let’s reassert Leviticus 19:18 in some
context:
Leviticus 19:16-18: 16 You
shall not go around as a slanderer among your people, and you shall not stand
up against the life of your neighbor: I am the Lord. 17 “You shall not hate your brother in your heart,
but you shall reason frankly with your neighbor, lest you incur sin because of
him. 18 You shall not take vengeance or
bear a grudge against the sons of your own people, but you shall love your
neighbor as yourself: I am the Lord. (English
Standard Version)When we recognize that James’ own letter is a commentary on Leviticus 19, a number of things become helpful. We recognize that we aren’t simply being told to say nothing but to speak in a certain way – to “reason frankly.” A couple of practical things stand out:
a. Speak as a brother and sister – there is an
b. Don’t gossip. Go to them. – Slander is a corporate sin
involving speaking to others about someone. In Jesus’ own playbook about how to
handle to conflict in the community – Matthew 18:15-20, he says, 15 “If your brother or sister sins,
go and point out their fault, just between the two of you. If they listen to
you, you have won them over.” The going is important. To speak about difficult
things demands a going that brings us face to face. Don’t try to speak of
difficult or intimate things in an impersonal way. And listen to this command,
“Don’t use email to talk about a difficult topic!”
c. Don’t speak like God. To “reason frankly” is to recognize
that that we are commanded to do these things because God says, “I am the
Lord.” So we do so with a great amount of respect and nuance for who God is and
whom God loves. This also means that we should repeatedly remind ourselves – “I
am not God.” I find it helpful to be careful of my language. I try and ask
questions, use words like “I wonder . . .” or “I imagine . . .” because I don’t
know like God. I try and restate what I am hearing because I don’t reason like
God. James is right to ask in vs.
12 – “who are you?” - you aren’t able to save or destroy. You shouldn’t judge,
because these are God’s “special” activities and only God can do them well. We
(and we can all admit it) make terrible gods.
3.
Let’s give them something to talk about.
Holiness!
But let’s take a look at an even bigger context. Leviticus 19
is all about holiness: God's holiness and the holiness of God's people. The
word “holy” appears in Leviticus far more frequently than in any other biblical
book. The backdrop for the commands from Leviticus 19 is found in vss. 1-2: “The Lord said to Moses, 2 “Speak to
the entire assembly of Israel and say to them: ‘Be holy because I, the Lord your God, am holy.”
If holiness is in
God's nature, it is important to understand that nature. Leviticus 19 begins
with a call to be holy, for “I the Lord your God am holy,” and it ends by
telling us what this means: “I am the Lord your God, who brought you out of the
land of Egypt” (19:36). True, God is holy simply because God is God, but --
even more important for biblical theology – God, unlike other gods, is holy
because God liberates captives, sets people free, stands opposed to tyrants and
oppressors. If Leviticus 19 is the backdrop for our text from James then our
speech is not simply policed speech, it’s not simply about what we don’t say
and how we shouldn’t say it. It also should be liberating speech, love of
neighbor speech, speech that advocates for others rather than accuses. Does
your speech liberate people?
If we are going to be holy and if we are
going to love our neighbor, we are going to have talk about how we do it
without falling prey to the divisive forces of hateful rhetoric. By linking
holy speech to Leviticus 19, James is doing more than asserting how we are to
talk but what we must talk about. If we wish to be holy as God is holy, we will
have to engage difficult topics without slander or backbiting, without
condescension or sarcasm, and without a claiming that we can’t have these
conversations at all. If Leviticus 19 and God’s holiness inform us about what we need to be talking about with one another, then as a holy community we should be talking about
- how to care for the poor and immigrants (19:10),
- fair wages for workers (verse 13),
- care for the disabled (verse 14),
- better laws and justice (verse 15),
- how to avoid hate or vengeance (verse 18),
- care for the aged (verse 32),
- not cheating on the poor (verses 35-36),
- and--again, surprisingly, for a people who understood themselves to be uniquely the people of God -- love not only each other but also the immigrant as ourselves (verse 34). Speaking about these things and for these things is what mark us as a holy people.
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