Words Create Worlds

Words create worlds.

Since language is so common, we may sometimes take for granted its power. Consider that language is one of the first gifts God gives to humankind. In the second creation story in Genesis, God tasks the earth creature, adam, with naming every other being whom God creates as a potential partner.[1] As you recall, neither the birds of the air nor the animals of the field quite make the cut. But finally ishshah is similar enough to the earth creature– “bone of my bone and flesh of my flesh,” says adam– to be called a proper helper.[2] Of course, none of this foundational story– indeed, no story at all– is possible without language. Words create worlds.

The key question is what kind of words, and what kind of world?

“Not many of you should become teachers,” warns the author of our second reading from James, “for you know that we who teach will be judged with greater strictness.” Don’t take that too hard, teachers, especially if you’re already exhausted two weeks into a new school year. This caution is not only for you, but for anyone who dares to speak while others listen. As one interpreter puts it, “We all end up teaching something to the people around us– whether we realize it or not.”[3] Consider the impact of what a candidate says in the course of a political campaign, especially to denigrate or accuse a minority community. Consider the impact of what you say on any given occasion to a friend or neighbor, a classmate or coworker, a fellow citizen, a child. Your words have weight beyond your ability to predict or control; words create worlds.

So choose your words wisely, says the author of James. “How great a forest is set ablaze by a small fire! And the tongue is a fire…. No one can tame the tongue—a restless evil, full of deadly poison. With it we bless the Lord and Father, and with it we curse those who are made in the likeness of God.” Words have the power to bless and curse, that is, to build up and tear down, to heal and hurt, to nurture hopes and to dash them. “Language can be a wild thing,” writes another interpreter, “it does great good and great harm…. It is [a kind of… catalyst,] a small and even ephemeral thing that makes big things possible.”[4]

Maybe I’m overstating the case. Maybe talk is so cheap these days that it’s hard to believe simple words can create worlds. But consider the role of language at least in shaping your own life. As Maya Angelou puts it, words are things that “get into your walls… and finally into you.”[5] What are those words that have burrowed into your space, into your being? What language has stuck with you over time– has become part of your consciousness, your reality?

[Excerpt from Andrew Root and Blair D. Bertrand, When Church Stops Working, pp.107-8]

“When there is no way, I’ll make a way.” Those words certainly got into Dr. King’s kitchen walls that fateful night in 1956, got into him. And in hindsight, it’s hard to argue that those words didn’t also set about creating a new world. The movement for civil and human rights continues today, and the work is plentiful. The world Dr. King envisioned has not yet become a reality; still, the word of promise that came to him in his moment of deepest despair was like a spark that lit a fire that spread through the American South to the United States Congress and finally into our collective imagination. “When there is no way, I’ll make a way.” Words create worlds.

“The Lord God has given me the tongue of a teacher,” declares the prophet in our first reading from Isaiah, “that I may know how to sustain the weary with a word.” We who dare to speak while others listen would do well to remember that priority: words that bless, and do not curse, are words that sustain those who are weary. Friends, the good news is that God sustains us, a weary people, with the Word made flesh, full of grace and truth.[6] And it is only by that Word that we are formed for gracious and truthful words of our own. “Lord Jesus, you shall be my song as I journey,” we’ll sing in a moment. “I’ll tell ev’rybody about you wherever I go: you alone are our life and our peace and our love. Lord Jesus, you shall be my song [my word] as I journey.”

[1] Kathy L. Dawson, in Feasting on the Word, Year B, Vol. 4, 64.

[2] Genesis 2:18-23.

[3] Sundays and Seasons Day Resources for September 15^th, 2024, members.sundaysandseasons.com/Home/TextsAndResources#resources.

[4] Mark Douglas, in Feasting on the Word, Year B, Vol. 4, 64.

[5] Sundays and Seasons Day Resources for September 15^th, 2024, members.sundaysandseasons.com/Home/TextsAndResources#resources.

[6] John 1:14.