Towards Sanctified Language
“The words we say become the house we live in.”
- Hafiz, Syrian Poet
Photo courtesy of University of Vienna: https://studieren.univie.ac.at/en/bachelordiploma-programmes/linguistics-bachelor/
This past summer, I had the privilege to work with a summer camp that intentionally shows the love and care of Jesus Christ to youth who have found themselves in foster care, group homes, or low-income housing. Being the second summer that I have worked there, I have come to deeply value the ministry that has been done there.
Over the summer, the phrase, “Was that kind?” began to be used as an attempt for both staff and campers to use language intentionally and not to let sarcasm become a passive-aggressive method for musing one’s anger. As the summer went on, however, it quickly became overused by staff and itself was used sarcastically so as to become a nit-picky way to really get on someone’s nerves.
Though the phrase became quickly overused, I strongly believe that it came from a profound concern: if we use hateful language, we will become a hateful presence. I want to clarify here that this piece is not interested in opening discourse between freedom of speech and hate speech. I am neither a linguist nor a political scientist. I am a lowly Bible college graduate with an amateur interest in theology, poetry, and literature.
The Hatred of Language
We live in a world that has adopted its worldview from the stories that are shared in its popular culture. I find that a culture is formed by the stories that are told. Further, the stories that are told in our culture largely follow a “good guy vs. bad guy” narrative. The stories of Avengers, Jedi, and Sith have captivated audiences all under the plot of “We, the good guys, must eliminate them, the bad guys.” The clear definitions of Good Guys vs. Bad Guys, Hero vs. Villain, Us vs. Them, has infiltrated our social life, making us view those who are different from our chosen social group as inheriting an evil morality. There is simply no such thing as “common ground”. Not only has this perspective invasively shifted our social lives to become that much more insular, but it has dictated the way we speak.
The idioms of our world has fallen prey to the malice of our society’s habit of making enemies of one another. To our friends we encourage them that they’ll “kill it” or that they should go “break a leg.” Where did these sayings come from? My intention here is not to become a so-called “grammar Nazi” (seriously, that’s an actual saying?), but to call to attention the varying ways that our tongues have been seasoned by hatred and violence.
Jesus teaches that “out of the abundance of the heart, the mouth speaks” (Matt. 12:40). What story do we believe to be true? How does it affect how we view others? How does it affect how we speak about one another?
We cannot be too careful about the words we speak, write, or share. They reveal the heart you have towards the world.
Adopting a Sanctified Language
Along with teaching about the speaking of our words, Jesus also teaches about harboring a murder in our hearts, and thus, in our speech. Jesus sets the bar high:
You have heard that it was said to those of ancient times, ‘You shall not murder’; and ‘whoever murders shall be liable to judgment.’ But I say to you that if you are angry with a brother or sister, you will be liable to judgment…
~ Matthew 5:21-22, NRSV
Here, Jesus parallels murder with anger.
Sit with His words. Do not continue with mine until you have properly registered the weight of His.
The story of Jesus tells us that we are to be formed by self-sacrificial love in both word and deed. This story encourages us to be protestors in an increasingly angry society by being people formed by love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, gentleness, and self-control.
Let our words be seasoned by these qualities. Reversing anger and murder in our hearts and our speech begins with speaking the sanctified language: prayer. Language made holy is words directed to God and formed by God.
Eugene Peterson teaches that prayer always begins with God. We never open prayer, prayer is always open to us.
“Prayer begins when God addresses us. First God speaks; our response, our answer, is our prayer…
Prayer enlarges our imagination and makes us grateful, joyful participants in what has been and what is yet to come.”
~ Eugene Peterson, “Christ Plays in Ten Thousand Places”, pp. 273-274
The future of the Christian’s language is prayerful: language directed toward and shaped by the holiness of God. Prayer is open to us; God is always speaking. Silence must be exercised as we listen. Our response after appropriate listening is God molding our words, with Him and with His world.
As I close this article, I want to focus on three words of Peterson’s perspective on prayer: imagination, gratitude, and joy.
The future of the Christian’s language is one that draws us to imagine and to dream of a world that is seasoned with Jesus Christ’s light and love, using poetry and narrative form to express the love of God in the aesthetics (not just the utility) of language.
The future of the Christian’s language is one that invites us into gratitude for the story of salvation that we find ourselves apart of and that we invite others towards.
The future of the Christian’s language is one that is joyful, not hateful or dividing, but pointing towards the reality that all will be made well.