A Time to Clam Up and a Time to Open Up

Good morning! Here's a little Q&A to get you going this morning and the sermon I'm preaching.


Here's the question and answer from yesterday:
What signs will accompany those who believe? (Mark 16)
Mark 16:17-18 17 And these signs will accompany those who believe: In my name they will drive out demons; they will speak in new tongues; 18 they will pick up snakes with their hands; and when they drink deadly poison, it will not hurt them at all; they will place their hands on sick people, and they will get well."

And here's the question of the day:
What is Nabal’s response to David’s request? (I Sam 25)


And here's today's sermon: "A Time to Clam Up and a Time to Open Up"

PRAYER OF ILLUMINATION
Let us pray: Gracious God, shine the light of your Spirit upon us as we hear these words of Scripture read and proclaimed. Reveal your saving presence in these words, and lead us further down the path of faith. In Jesus’ name we pray. Amen.

SCRIPTURE PASSAGE:
Mark 13:9-11 9 "You must be on your guard. You will be handed over to the local councils and flogged in the synagogues. On account of me you will stand before governors and kings as witnesses to them. 10 And the gospel must first be preached to all nations. 11 Whenever you are arrested and brought to trial, do not worry beforehand about what to say. Just say whatever is given you at the time, for it is not you speaking, but the Holy Spirit.

Mark 13:33-37 33 Be on guard! Be alert! You do not know when that time will come. 34 It's like a man going away: He leaves his house and puts his servants in charge, each with his assigned task, and tells the one at the door to keep watch. 35 "Therefore keep watch because you do not know when the owner of the house will come back-- whether in the evening, or at midnight, or when the rooster crows, or at dawn. 36 If he comes suddenly, do not let him find you sleeping. 37 What I say to you, I say to everyone: 'Watch!'"

The grass withers and the flower fades but the Word of the Lord endures forever, Amen.


INTRODUCTION
I have had my fair share of awkward conversations with friends and family and, yes, even strangers. Some well-meaning person politely asks me a simple question which requires a simple answer in return—which I can normally do. Every once in a while, however, I suddenly find myself saying something terribly inappropriate or offensive. And once I realize that I’m saying something I shouldn’t, I can seem to stop. My brain is shouting, “Stop talking! Stop talking!” And yet my mouth thinks that if I can just keep talking, I can eventually talk myself out of the mess I’m in.

I suspect that I’m not the only one who’s found themselves in the middle of a conversation desperately hoping the floor really would open up and swallow me up. Sometimes, when things are going very wrong in a conversation, I desperately pray for the person with whom I’m talking to be stricken suddenly by some strange short-term memory loss in which the entire conversation we just had would be permanently erased from their memories.

Alas, I have never been saved from an embarrassing conversation because the floor swallowed me whole or because of short-term memory loss. It seems the only way to avoid these kinds of awkward and embarrassing conversations is just to keep my mouth shut. That’s one sure-fire way to keep from making a fool of myself. I just wish I didn’t like to talk so much!

#1
In fact, I think we’ve all realize that the more we talk, the closer the ratio of embarrassing versus non-embarrassing conversations becomes. You know what I mean? The more we talk, the better chance we have of saying something really inappropriate or offensive. And we don’t want to cause any trouble.


So when the conversation starts to head down the path of gossip and slander, what do we do? We clam up. We don’t want to upset the people we are talking with, even when their conversation makes us uncomfortable. So, instead of trying to change the subject or telling our friends that gossiping is wrong, we keep our mouths shut.


You have probably been asked to do something you know is wrong. You may have even been ORDERED by your boss to do something that you know is wrong. So what do you do? You keep your mouth shut because you don’t want to get in trouble.


Or, when someone breaks down into tears or begins to talk about suicide or to talk about the grief that comes from missing a loved one, what do we do? We keep our mouths shut, because we don’t know what to say. And we’re afraid that we’ll say the wrong thing. So we say nothing. But surely saying nothing at all is the worst thing we could do in that situation.


I’m willing to bet that, more often than not, when the conversation gets serious, we shut our mouths. When the conversation starts to involve life or death or God, I bet we sometimes we clam up. These are important conversations, and we don’t want to mess things up by saying something stupid, right?


But this is the worst time to keep our mouths shut. When things get serious, this is exactly the time God wants us to open up, not shut up.

#2
In our Scripture reading today, Jesus is giving advice to his followers about when to clam up and when to open up. In Mark 13, Jesus is encouraging his followers that someday He will come again and he tells them about all the things that will lead up to His return. Some of those things include persecution and being dragged into court to testify about their faith.


In those days, the accused party in a court case didn’t get a lawyer, though the person bringing the charge against you did. So imagine standing in a court of law, representing yourself—which, if you’ve ever seen any episode of “LA Law,” “Matlock,” or “Law and Order” you know that’s the kiss of death. Everyone else around you is knowledgeable about the court and the law and the judicial process.


This is the situation the disciples found themselves in: standing alone, in a court of law, uneducated, and overwhelmed. If ever there was a time to shut up, surely this was it, right?

But that’s not what Jesus has mind. He tells them, in verse 11, “Whenever you are arrested and brought to trial, do not worry beforehand about what to say. Just say whatever is given you at the time, for it is not you speaking, but the Holy Spirit.”


We may never live to see Jesus return; we may never really suffer much persecution because of our faith; and we may never be dragged into a court of law to testify about God . . . but we will always and forever . . . from now until we ourselves enter Paradise . . . find ourselves in situations where we don’t know what to say. And that’s OK, because what happens in that moment of uncertainty is a chance for the Holy Spirit to speak through us.


That moment of uncertainty is our chance to be God’s vessel, God’s instrument of love or peace or rebuke or whatever is called for in that particular situation. We must put aside our fear of saying the “wrong thing” and instead pray that we might say the “godly thing.” The Holy Spirit is glad to give us the words and the wisdom to use them for every desperate situation. But we can’t be afraid to use that wisdom and those words.

CONCLUSION
Some day, Jesus will come again. It might be tomorrow; it might be 1000 years from now. We’ll never know. And really, it doesn’t matter that we don’t know, as long as each day we are trying to live in such a way that pleases God. And a big part of that is to take those moments of uncertainty during a conversation when we’re tempted to clam up because we’re afraid to say the wrong thing and instead to open up and say the godly thing.


I think you’ll find that the number of awkward or embarrassing you might say during a conversation will significantly decrease. I admit, it’s not a totally foolproof plan, but I think, if we are intentional about putting aside our fears and intentional about relying on the Holy Spirit to give us the words in whatever the situation might be, we’ll spend LESS time praying for the floor to swallow us up and MORE time praying for our friends and family, and maybe even some strangers.


And that, my friends, is how you get ready for Jesus to come again, spending more time thinking about others than you do thinking about yourself.


In the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, Amen.