Sticky Words

The Holy Gospel According to St. Matthew, the 11th Chapter

“But to what will I compare this generation? It is like children sitting in the marketplaces and calling to one another, ‘We played the flute for you, and you did not dance; we wailed, and you did not mourn.’ For John came neither eating nor drinking, and they say, ‘He has a demon’; the Son of Man came eating and drinking, and they say, ‘Look, a glutton and a drunkard, a friend of tax collectors and sinners!’ Yet wisdom is vindicated by her deeds.”

At that time Jesus said, “I thank you, Father, Lord of heaven and earth, because you have hidden these things from the wise and the intelligent and have revealed them to infants; yes, Father, for such was your gracious will. All things have been handed over to me by my Father; and no one knows the Son except the Father, and no one knows the Father except the Son and anyone to whom the Son chooses to reveal him. “Come to me, all you that are weary and are carrying heavy burdens, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you, and learn from me; for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light.”

Yo mama’s so ugly, she threw a boomerang and it refused to come back!  Yo mama’s so stupid, she yelled into the mailbox to leave a voicemail!  Yo mama’s so fat the only letters from the alphabet she knows are K.F.C.  Ugly… Stupid… Fat… these are Sticky Words.  

Sticky Words aren’t just Yo Mama jokes, of course.  Words become Sticky when they land on a particularly tender part of who you are and can’t easily be shaken loose.  Sticky words are those words that, once they glom on, demand more of our focus and attention, even as we more and more desperately try to shake them loose.  Sticky Words are those words that people say to us that we know we should just brush off, but like a piece of fly paper, the more we try to brush them off, the more we’re stuck.  First our finger, then our hand, and then our shirt, and our hair and anything else that dares come near.  Sticky words are the words that drive us deep into the dark, unhelpful corners of our minds where we stew and struggle to fight back.  Sticky Words get us to churn and churn and churn away in our minds, until our brains are up to their axles in mud.  Sticky words immobilize us, bog us down and stop us from moving toward the things and people that matter most to us.   

When the religious and political leaders saw John the Baptist out in the wilderness, not living like “normal” people and not eating like “normal” people but still drawing crowds to hear what he had to say, they loaded up their Word Canon and fired a volley of Sticky Words in his direction.  “He has a demon!”  Wow!  Those were Sticky Words!  When Jesus commissioned his disciples and they started working their way through the towns and countryside telling people and showing people that God’s love, grace and compassion was for everyone, the political and religious leaders loaded up their Word Canons and fired off some Sticky Words.  “He’s a glutton!”  Wow!  That one’s maple syrup sticky!  “He’s a drunk!”  Whoa, that’s bubble gum-in-the-hair Sticky!  “He’s friends with Tax Collectors!”  Dang!  That’s cocklebur-in-your-wool-socks sticky!  He’s friends with SINNERS!  Holy Moly!  That’s superglued your hand to your face Sticky!  

Sticky Words go in through our ears and head straight for our reptilian brains, never bothering to check in with our higher, human brains to see if they really deserve our attention.  Our reptilian brains have only two tools in their lizard-brain-box.  Fight or flight.  Run from it or bite it.  What Sticky Words do is to drive us out of our minds and down into a place where we don’t think… we simply react.  It drives us to be much less than the human beings God created us to be.  

When Jesus asks, “To what will I compare this generation?”  He says this generation is acting like a bunch of kids in the market or on the playground.  Both want to play with the other, but all they seem able to do is to fire Sticky Words back and forth at each other.  Each volley is absorbed and stews and then the next volley is bigger and stickier when it gets launched back in the other direction.  

Todd W. rode my bus in elementary school.  He was younger, smaller and slower than me, but that sucker was a Sticky Word Ninja!  He would launch Sticky Words at me from a few seats away on the bus and they would land hard and stick fast!  I’d stew on one Sticky Word and while I was stewing on that one, he’d launch another.  When the bus dropped us off and finally pulled away from our stop, his lizard brain made him RUN and my lizard brain gave him the best reaction it could muster… right in the nose! 

Jesus calls us out of our lizard brains and offers us a way to return to the fully human, abundant lives that God created us to live.  Standing on either side of the marketplace, bus stop, churchyard, Twitter-verse or political aisle hurling Stickier and Stickier Words back and forth at one another is a never-ending, soul-sucking, wearisome, burdensome way of living that in no way leads us toward the abundant life God created us to live! 

Forty years or so after my lizard brain got the best of me at that bus stop, I know now that Todd’s sticky words were launched out of his brokenness and my reaction came right out of mine.  After all, hurt people, hurt people as they say.  But in Christ’s death and resurrection we have been given the power to rise out of that endless cycle of Sticky Words and broken people passing on their pain to others.  When we’ve had enough... when we’re tired of always being stuck in a mire of sticky words and weary of endlessly throwing them back and forth at one another, Jesus shows us there is a more restful, peaceful, less burdensome way to live. 

“Take my yoke upon you” Jesus says.  In other words, allow Jesus to steer your life.  Allow Jesus to steer you toward compassion, understanding, gentleness, humility and peace.  That way no matter what gets thrown at you so you can choose your words, like Jesus chose his words… words of welcome, words of inclusion, words of healing, forgiveness and new life.  When you’re finally weary of retaliation, retribution and revenge; when the stickiness, weariness and burden of always needing to hit back ten times harder has finally weighed you down so you just can’t do it anymore, Jesus says, take MY yoke upon you… the yoke of repentance, redemption and reconciliation.  That yoke, Jesus promises, shines life giving light into the deepest darkness, calms the roughest storms of our most horrible demons and even takes death and transforms it into new and everlasting life.

We will never be able to stop Sticky Words from coming and because those Sticky Words automatically trigger our lizard brains, we’ll never be able to simply brush them off, so as St. Paul observed we will always find ourselves NOT doing what we want and instead we’ll find ourselves doing the things we hate!  But in Christ’s life, death and resurrection, we’ve been given the power to absorb those Sticky words, and learning from Jesus, we’ll be able to reply with words of gentleness and humility… words that shine light into darkness, words that heal and forgive and words that open never-before-seen possibilities.  “Come to me, all you that are weary and are carrying heavy burdens, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you, and learn from me; for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light.”  Amen.