Judged by Our Words

I spend most of my work days driving throughout northeastern Wisconsin and visiting patients who are dying. I’m a hospice chaplain. For better or worse, I often listen to the radio. It’s hard nowadays to find a radio station that has decent programming, other than some FM stations that play recycled music all day long—and that gets old, too.

I listen to sports updates, but I also tune in to conservative talk shows. I try to give the hosts a chance every time, and every time I turn them off after about ten minutes because that’s all I can take. The hate-talk, the bombastic rhetoric, the stereotypes and generalizations, the one-sided propaganda—it’s all too much for me.

But I always wonder about those people who digest this stuff day in and day out…what effect does it have on their minds and souls? I believe thoughts have karmic consequences. That is, we are what we think, and we become what we think. Not only this, our words proceed from our heart. Our words reveal our heart. To me, talk radio reveals a bunch of hearts that are really in trouble and words that can set off karmic ripples of negativity and prejudice.

Don’t ever think that words are irrelevant. Words do matter. Words are powerful. Words can save us or harm us. Words can build up or they can destroy.

One of the things that disturb me most about America today is intemperate speech. We’ve reached the point where “freedom of speech” means the freedom to say whatever we want, no matter how obscene or hateful it is. I don’t believe that is what is meant by the First Amendment.

But why limit ourselves to the First Amendment. Let’s go further back to Jesus, who said, “Out of the abundance of the heart, the mouth speaks . . . on the Day of Judgment you will have to give an account for every careless word you have spoken. For by your words you will be justified, and by your words you will be condemned” (Matt 12:34-37).

Speaking of words, these are some of the most stunning words in the New Testament. I’m fairly certain, however, that radio talk show hosts aren’t listening. After all, they aren’t getting paid to really listen, are they? But I think God is listening . . .

The Resurrection and God's Future

Christian faith is openness to the future because the future is God’s future. Christian faith includes a living hope that leans into God’s future. It is not hope in this or that, or hope in utopia, or even hope in “heaven.” It is hope God alone—the God of Jesus Christ, the God who raised Jesus from the dead, “the coming God.” This is why Christian faith is eschatological. It always keeps “the end” in view and interprets the present in the light of God’s coming future. There can be no selling out to the present, as if the present is all there is, without a future horizon: “Live for today because tomorrow we die!” That’s nonsense. The present without God’s future makes no sense, and Christian faith without Christian hope is a contradiction. Christians await “the new creation.” All creation is groaning for the coming of God’s future.

God’s coming future is the presupposition of the New Testament. We cannot understand the New Testament apart from the awareness that “the times” have shifted. Salvation has arrived in Christ. The cross and resurrection have inaugurated “the new age.” We are already living in “the last days,” and the Spirit is the “first fruits” of “the age to come.” The first rays of dawn are shining. We eagerly await the full light of God’s glory. There is a horizon! Therefore, to work for the kingdom of God here and now is to also keep in view the kingdom yet to come, the kingdom established by God alone, by God’s initiative.

This eschatological perspective drives the theology of the New Testament. Christians never lose hope in the present because they never lose hope in the coming God who is the ruler of both present and future. This is the God who raises the dead and brings life out of death. Jesus has been raised from the dead! God’s future has already begun! There is more to come! This, to me, is the theological meaning of the resurrection.

I live today with hope, no matter what. Why? Because Christ lives! And his life is the guarantee of God’s ultimate triumph.