Sermon: No Insignificant Question-Is Swearing Ok?

Sermon of the Week:
No Insignificant Question-Is Swearing Ok?

A sermon preached for The Kirk of Kansas City, Missouri, on August 29, 2021.

Part one of a nine-week sermon series inspired by questions submitted by the Kirk community.

Special Music: He’s Always Been Faithful to Me
Hymn: Praise Ye, the Lord, The Almighty

Keywords: Swearing, Promise, Profanity, Interpretation, the Apostle Paul, A Christmas Story. #pcusa

Scripture readings (which you may wish to read prior):
Luke 6:39-45
and Philippians 3:4b-14

Thank you, everyone, for submitting a topic or two
For this reprise of our No Insignificant Question sermon series.

We’ll be exploring various topics over the next eight or nine weeks,
And I’ve divided the sermon series into two parts.
For this first part, I’ve selected a handful of topics
from the 20 or so submissions
that we received this time
topics that range from the quite serious to the humorous
depending on how you look at them.
All of them would be worthy of a sermon,
Some of them more than one,
So I regret, in advance, not being able to get to yours
If it wasn’t one of our selections this time.

The second part will have a more unified theme to it.
More on that in September.

The topic for today, I have to admit
Is a heckova doozy.
I promise.

Actually, it was rather complicated to know how to begin,
Because the person sending it to me just asked “Is Swearing ok?”

And that may seem like a simple question,
but it is not.

On the one hand, “swearing” means a couple of different things
Both of which,
over the long history of Christianity,
over the generations of various ethical and cultural norms
that we have found ourselves swimming in,
both meanings have caused many a sermon-listener to squirm
when a preacher climbed up in the pulpit
and began to offer a Word from the Lord.

Swearing could mean declaring an oath, right?
Place your hand on the bible, and repeat after me
…I, Chad Herring, do solemnly swear…

Or it could mean uttering some sort of profanity.
Profanity, swear words, speech that offends,
Or, better, speech which some people might find offensive…
Like all things offensive,
it depends on the context and the people involved.
You know it when you see it, when you hear it, maybe.

So I had a decision to make, because I didn’t know for sure
Which question was being asked:
Is it ok to swear, as in to make an oath,
to make a solemn, a holy promise?
Or
Is it ok to swear, to utter, sometimes,
and maybe more than just sometimes,
Profane speech, dirty words,
I’ll wash your mouth out with soap young man sort of words…?

///
Now, I know some of us
are probably squirming in our seats right now too.
We know full well that we do both of these, maybe all the time,
Maybe without thinking much of it at all.

The Christmas Story,
that lovable film that runs for days
as a movie marathon over on TBS every year,
has this great moment in it,
as the narrator reflects on
memories of his father from childhood,
a father who, quote,
works in profanity
the way other artists might work in oils or clay…
it was his true medium, Ralphie observed,
he was a master.

Ralphie and his father were stopped
by the side of the road, at night,
trying to change a flat tire,
And Ralphie is trying so hard to help his dad.
His dad didn’t need the help. It was his mother’s idea.
And you can see in Ralphie’s eyes
That it is such a big deal to him.
He’s trying so hard to help,
And he’s holding the hubcap like a bowl
And his dad is putting the lug nuts in there for safe keeping
And Dad is rushing,
trying to race, you know,
to beat his average time for changing a spare tire—
it’s a running theme of the movie,
a character flaw so to speak—
and the tire changing all seems to be going so well…
when his father’s arm jerks up suddenly
and knocks the bowl out of Ralphie’s hands
and nine-year-old Ralphie,
curses there, in front of his father…

Oh oh.
What did you say?
That’s what I thought you said.
Go get back in the car, Ralphie…

Later his mom wants to know,
Hey Ralphie, where did you learn that word
And we all know the answer: his dad. The true artist.
But Ralphie can’t say that.
So he lies. He throws his friend under the bus,
And Ralphie’s mom calls his friend’s mom,
and we can all hear his friend’s mom freak out,
and start punishing him, we can hear it….
And all of it is an episode that Ralphie will NEVER forget…

In our bible study this week,
Some felt that cursing, swearing, appears to have become
much more socially accepted these days
And it certainly has, in some ways,
But we all know that it is not just a kids-these-days thing.
A Christmas Story came out in 1983.
We can look to our childhoods, our parent’s childhoods,
And know that there are true artists in every age.
And in our own lives, too.

Or, to put this another way,
there are at least a dozen
fantastic Shakespearian insult generators online,
if you want to go looking for them,
where you can randomly put together
some of the Bard’s great offensive rhetorical daggers
that you can use
the next time you need just the right thing to say
if you’re looking for highbrow, and quite ancient, swearing.

So there’s that.

And many of us don’t really have qualms
about making a solemn promise either,
Whether about significant, weighty things
that we have given a lot of thought to,
like testimony in court,
or assuming an office of public or church responsibility,
or maybe getting married, which sometimes includes this sort of language,
or maybe more haphazardly, more carelessly:
Yes, yes, I’ll get milk on my way home from work, dear, I swear I will.

The sting of failure to uphold these vows,
to break one’s word,
Is more palpable when we use this sort of language to seal it
Which might be why Jesus, in the sermon on the mount,
Was rather clear when it comes to his take on it:
You have heard it was said…
‘You shall not swear falsely,
But carry out the vows you have made to the Lord.’
But I say to you, Do not swear at all…
Let your word be ‘yes, yes’ or ‘no, no.’

A sermon about either of these would be interesting, don’t you think?

But I think the question was meaning to ask about cursing, not vows,
So that will be our focus,
And we’ll just save all of this for another day

But it is interesting, is it not,
That we seem to be much less concerned, these days,
about making solemn promises
Than we are about cursing
When the former has much more clear biblical language written about it.

You don’t get much more direct than Jesus, do we?
In the sermon on the mount, no less.
Do not swear at all…
And yet, we do, quite regularly, it seems,
Even though plenty of people, out of religious conviction,
try very hard not to.
This is one reason why, if you read the United States Constitution
Three times it calls for an Oath to be administered to a public official,
And each time it offers an accommodation:
That official shall be bound by “An Oath or Affirmation.”[i]

And, it seems, that making an oath, and certainly breaking an oath,
Was at one time seen as the far greater moral concern
Than using language that might offend the sensibilities
of a more sanitized culture.

///
But back to cursing.
There is some question about why we are so concerned
about cursing in the first place.

A study from the early 1970s revealed
That Americans average 80 to 90 curse words a day,
About half a percent of all the words that are spoken.
That study showed that some didn’t curse at all,
Going all the way up to almost three and a half percent of all words,
Which seems like a lot.

Now, I only saw an abstract of that study.
I didn’t see if the difference was that one subject was from New York City
And the other one was watching the Royals play baseball.
(though, much better results of late, no? Go Salvy Go).

There are researchers who study the evolution of language
And the psychology of cursing,
And they have demonstrated that it is a universal human phenomenon.
Every language, every dialect ever spoken or written,
includes these kinds of words.

And because of that,
some theorize that they serve many functions,
From anger management
to demonstration of cunning to peers
to a form of creativity in communication,
A way to emphasize a point or garner attention
Or, perhaps, to cause hurt or humor, depending on the situation.

///
So what’s the big deal about cursing?
Well, Ralphie’s mom, and dad, were concerned.
My mom was mortified when I too
once said something in front of her
As a child
That I didn’t consider to be a curse, then or now, really,
But she sure did.
She spared me the soap treatment, thankfully.

Many of us find it immature, or crass, or unbecoming.
There are other ways to say it, most of the time,
Was one reflection from Bible Study this week,
You don’t need to choose words that are profane.
Fair enough.
And many of us choose to try to speak like that, most of the time,
Though sometimes we miss the cultural judgment we’re casting
On others who don’t have the same value system.

I try hard not to curse from the pulpit.
I know it might really upset some people if I do,
Even if whatever I was talking about
that might elicit such a thing
Might be so much worse,
so much more important.

And some might turn to passages
like what Wendy read for us this morning
To help give us caution.
The good person out of the good treasure of the heart produces good,
And the evil person out of evil treasure produces evil;
For it is out of the abundance of the heart that the mouth speaks…

Those who were more puritanical in our past,
And some voices today, too,
Turn to passages like this to urge clean speech,
To argue that God demands it,
Suggesting that it is a sign of a clean and pure heart
And therefore a sign of one’s goodness,
Maybe even one’s salvation.

This is more than just those who prefer such language.
This is those who would legislate it, in a religious sense,
Who would cast judgment upon others for offensive speech.
We might say, they would curse those who curse.
And I wonder: is it the remnant of this kind of thinking
That lies behind the question: Is swearing ok?

Hidden in there is a question
about worthiness, about salvation
About whether God might love us,
accept us, welcome us,
If we curse when the hammer hits our thumb
When our spouse is diagnosed with cancer
When we hear about a bombing in Afghanistan
that brutally killed hundreds of people, including 13 US soldiers
and wounded hundreds more…
Not to mention the comic or the screenwriter or the singer
Who weaves this language into her work
Or the preacher, like Nadia Bolz-Weber
Who last week was installed
as the first Pastor for Public Witness
for the Evangelical Lutheran Church of America,
Nadia, who peppers her own language with this sort of speech
because it is genuinely who she is
and because it relates more genuinely
with those she’s ministering to.
The BBC once called Nadia
“A Pastor for America’s Outsiders.”
And I’ve more than once been moved to tears by her sermons.
Is SHE an example,
if we read the Gospel of Luke this way,
Of someone with an evil heart?
No, I think not.

///
In one way, this is a compelling case study
That demonstrates the importance
of careful and thoughtful interpretation.

Many have drawn a strict line here,
And many a kid has found it confusing and inconsistent
to be held to a standard that the adults in their lives never live up to.
Many have read about a gracious and forgiving God
And then have searched for someone to help them then understand
What Luke might be talking about, for instance,
Without someone helping them work through it…
Like we all work through these ancient texts
With the help, hopefully, of a broader biblical perspective
The cultural and social context of the time it was written
And, particularly, a helpful understanding
Of what these texts are trying to get at,
And how they might need to be translated for a modern context.

There’s too much to go into there for one sermon.
Many Christian faith traditions are more about the stricture of the rules
Than the freedom that living in Jesus Christ offers us…
As if we don’t quite understand what Jesus is saying
to the Pharisees and Sadducees who challenge him
on his reading of the law
of the rules
whether it is about the sabbath or about who you might eat with
or the woman caught in adultery that they were willing to STONE.

That reading, in Luke, doesn’t say
that curse words are a sign of an evil heart.
It says that our exterior behavior
often mirrors what’s going on inside
And that’s, actually, what a lot
of New Testament ethics wants to talk about,
What Jesus wants to talk about.

What is our intention?
What is our aim?

Jesus says he’s come to fulfill the law, not abolish it,
But with every opportunity, Jesus asks us to look inside
To Love God, and to Love neighbor.
This is the summation of the Law and the Prophets.

And Paul, Paul takes this and runs with it
And it causes him problems among the apostles
and among some of the people in his churches.
Food sacrificed to Idols? What about THAT, Paul?
You mean that hamburger meat
that you bought down at the Temple to Athena,
that’s totally fine…
It doesn’t MEAN anything, because Athena isn’t God.
But what does mean something is your relationship with your neighbor
And if someone is really deeply bothered by that
Maybe you should think twice about eating it in front of them.

Some of you may remember that comes from First Corinthians, right.
I’ve preached about that before.
He also talks about it a lot in Romans.
Apparently this came up all the time.

Those who knew how to interpret
what God was doing in Jesus correctly, says Paul,
Knew that that meat was fine.
Meaning that it didn’t impact one’s standing before God.
It was adiaphora, which means that God is indifferent about it.

Not so, however, about how one chooses to USE that freedom.
For Paul, that freedom is always secondary
to love of one’s neighbor.
Always.

Which brings us to this passage that I read today
From another of Paul’s writings,
From The letter to the Philippians.

If anyone has acted within the bounds
of what the law requires,
it is me, says Paul.

I mean, look:
I am a member of the people of Israel.
I was born into the right family, the tribe of Benjamin.
I was circumcised on the right day.
As to the Law, Paul was a Pharisee.
As to zeal, Paul persecuted the church!
And here’s the big one:
As to righteousness, I was blameless.

And all of that doesn’t really matter.
I regard it all as loss, as rubbish,
In order that I may gain Christ and be found in him.
Not finding righteousness by my own doing,
But in the good that I do because of Christ.

It is quite powerful, is it not?
I press on toward the goal
For the prize of the heavenly call of God
in Christ Jesus.

And right there, in the middle of this passage,
Paul uses one of those ancient,
universally found profane words.
Paul swears, in the Bible,
only you probably didn’t catch it,
Because all of the translators are worried
that it might offend you
If you heard Paul say the S word…
So they say Rubbish instead.

Did you know that the Apostle Paul cursed?
I mean, we might have guessed.
He’s human.
But he did it intentionally here.
For effect.
To stress how serious he is
about what he is trying to say to us.

///
Now, you’re not going to hear
the preacher this morning tell you
that because Paul does it,
go out and curse up a storm today.

But you will hear me say
that we often make a big deal out of this
When there are much more serious
and important things for us to worry about.

In my view, the real problem about this kind of speech
is when we use words to hurt other people,
To break them down, to belittle or demean or marginalize.
Words do matter.
Don’t misunderstand me.
Words carry great power.
I know.
The right words have helped people fall in love
Have guided nations to war, or to find a path to peace
Broken relationships in a way that will be irreconcilable
Or mended ties that once were thought forever torn asunder.

But in any of these,
words can be upright and sanitized,
or nasty and gritty and raw.

The real question, for me, is
what are your words doing.

If they are building up, reaching out,
helping people feel welcomed,
Then thanks be to God.
And ask Nadia if those words
have to be chaste in every circumstance.

On the other hand,
if those words cut down,
harm, wound,
then be gone,
That’s the place where you miss the mark,
Where you find God’s heart break.

But even then, like with all of our failures,
We might strive to do better,
to find a change of mind,
So that our faults might not linger
like a stain upon us forever.

That will be a sermon topic in a few weeks.
For now, may we marvel
at the enduring inventiveness of human language
May we understand
that just like not everyone loves the Royals,
Not everyone dabbles frequently in earthy speech
Though some people do,
And maybe, just maybe, all that matters less
Than what they are doing with their words,
Than their actions,
The inclination of their hearts.

And may we find the wisdom to turn our attention
to what matters
Not what doesn’t.

May it be so.
Amen.

—–

[i] Interestingly, this allows both Christians who have issues with Oaths, and atheists who are concerned that oaths imply a vow before a deity, to find accommodation to this constitutional requirement.

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