Weighty Words

One mark of a good sermon is that no matter how many times you hear it, you can still get something out of it. A case in point is our daughter Sara Anne’s most recent sermon which I have now had the pleasure of hearing four times—twice at worship, and twice at two Presbytery meetings.
Her sermon was on Jesus’ words to the Pharisees that they should not be worried about all the ritual cleanliness and dietary laws because it’s not what goes into the mouth that matters but what comes out. Specifically, Jesus was referring to words and Sara Anne’s point in the sermon was that words have great power.
Each time I’ve heard her sermon, I’ve heard something helpful or new. Last week, I focused on Sara Anne’s quote from an expert on bullying who said that people who were bullied as children remember quite clearly into adulthood the hurtful words they heard. This week I heard Sara Anne speak about the choices we make when we speak—do we use words which include or exclude, words which encourage or discourage?
Hearing her sermon(s) caused me to think about random words that I remember other people speaking to me. Do you ever find yourself recalling something someone said which wasn’t profound but was for some reason unforgettable? A relative who turns to you at a family gathering and says, “You probably shouldn’t wear yellow, that’s not your color,” and you avoid wearing yellow for the better part of your life? Or you watch your intake of bananas because someone said, “never eat two bananas in one day.”
We all have lots of unforgettable but useless phrases floating around in our memories, but I think that the breeding ground for unhelpful but unforgettable words is funerals. Words spoken with all sincerity to a grieving family members are some of the least helpful—and sometimes hurtful—words ever spoken. It is for that reason that I have advised people who don’t know what to say at a funeral to simply say, “I’m sorry.” “I’m sorry” pretty much covers it all—there’s no need to say more unless you were close to the deceased and want to add, “I’ll miss him/her.” There are, however, a million memorable but unhelpful things NOT to say at a visitation or a funerals like, “God must have needed her more than we did,” or “We can’t understand it, but this was all part of God’s plan,” or, these unhelpful but unforgettable words which were spoken to me last November at my mother’s funeral, “I hope what happened to me doesn’t happen to you. After my mother died, I gained a ton of weight.”
I’ll confess that I didn’t quite know how to respond to that statement—it was more like a funeral fortune cookie, “may you stay thin in your grief.” The really irritating thing is that while I can also remember the kind and loving things that were said to me on the day of my mother’s funeral, those unhelpful and somewhat jarring words keep bobbing up in my brain. To make matters worse, I didn’t even know the speaker of those words! I’m guessing this woman knew my mother, but for all I know, she wandered into a fellowship hall full of good food and began randomly to speak to strangers. She didn’t introduce herself to me, and she didn’t say anything more than those ominous words of comfort/warning. But I can clearly remember that she stood before me, holding a full plate of food, leaning her face towards mine as she gave her peculiar condolence, “I hope what happened to me doesn’t happen to you. After my mother died, I gained a ton of weight.”
Now I am not a large person but I’ll confess that her words alarmed me, and I’ll also confess that since I heard those words, I have indeed gained weight. I don’t know whether I gained weight because I am no longer pushing my mother about in the wheelchair, or no longer skipping lunch because I was going to visit her, but that unknown woman’s words have settled like a curse on me. I step on the scales, see my weight and hear those words, “I hope what happened to me doesn’t happen to you. After my mother died, I gained a ton of weight.”
I haven’t gained a “ton” of weight but I do so wish I had never heard those words, however well-intended they were. So going back to our daughter’s sermon, I would echo the importance of words. Think before speaking–or texting or posting on Facebook or tweeting! There is power in words, whether thoughtfully spoken or randomly tossed out like a piece of bad fruit. Words can heal and words can hurt—and some words just add unnecessary weight.

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