Today’s story from Mark is about words, but begins with a healing. A leper approaches Jesus and expresses faith that Jesus can heal him. Jesus does, but then, for reasons we’ll get to in a minute, he instructs the healed man not to tell anyone what Jesus has done, but to do what was expected: go to the temple and see a priest, who was the only person who could declare him clean and ready to rejoin society. But the man is so thrilled to be without the horrible disease—and who can blame him—that he goes off and immediately disobeys Jesus, telling everyone what happened to him. Jesus is then besieged by people wanting to be healed.

That in itself—the press of crowds—might have been the reason Jesus asked the healed leper to keep his mouth shut. But throughout this first chapter of Mark, which we’ve been reading from for a few weeks now, Jesus heals to make a point—to demonstrate that God’s grace is within him, and that he has God’s power to forgive, to cleanse, to make the broken whole on the inside. In other words, it’s probably not so much that the leper talks, it’s that he talks about the wrong thing, as Jesus knew he would: he goes on his way and talks about the miracle cure of his disease, and not the compassion of the man who touched him when no one else would, and not the spiritual wholeness he experienced as his diseased skin became clean. In response to being healed, the leper behaves in a way that doesn’t help others: he uses words without understanding.

Now, one way or another, brothers and sisters, we are like that leper—something in us has been healed, changed, affected, improved, inspired by our encounters with Jesus Christ. We wouldn’t be here if that wasn’t the case: we are disciples because we have somehow been touched by grace, even if we might not fully understand it or recognize it. And Christ calls us to speak of our faith, to share the good news, to testify to how God has worked in our lives, to be—if I can reclaim a word we too often set aside—evangelists.

Now this call for you and me to tell the story, to testify, to express our faith, to be evangelists, becomes problematic for us, because, in the first place, we tend not to talk about our faith. It’s a private matter, we say. We’re not comfortable using religious language outside the church, and sometimes within it, or with sharing personal beliefs or spiritual experiences. And in the second place, when we do talk, we’re often like that leper again—we talk without understanding, or we talk about the wrong things. That’s not unique to this church, it’s human nature, and mainline congregations like ours maybe haven’t been all that effective at giving us the foundation we need to tell our faith story and be comfortable with it.

For example, if you were asked by a neighbor or co-worker why you attend this particular church, you might say, quite honestly, because you like the people, or because the music is excellent, or because you like the minister who comes down from the pulpit when she preaches, or because worship is in this great old building, or because the location or the time of Sunday service is convenient. All true, but maybe not how Jesus was hoping we’d answer. We’re less likely, I think, to use words like grace and salvation and forgiveness and mercy and healing and peace that passes all understanding. Those concepts simply don’t translate or communicate as easily as the more practical. Like the leper, the obvious good things can overshadow the more subtle amazing things. And yet convenience and nice people and solid programs aren’t exactly the kind of good news Jesus asks his disciples to share. The words we use when it comes to the reasons and inspiration for our discipleship tends skim the surface of good news.

But maybe worse than words that don’t quite pack the punch they should about our faith are words that actually impede that faith. The leper’s words made Jesus’ life more difficult, they got in the way of others hearing the real good news Jesus was trying to preach. Human nature being what it is, not only are our words sometimes not as productive as they should be, especially about matters of faith and discipleship, but they are just as often counterproductive.

One of the questions to which many of us responded in the visioning exercise this past fall was, “What do we want to leave behind” in our church life? And one repeated theme was about dissatisfaction at how we often use words at church. Here’s part of the list: “Underground gossip, ‘people are saying,’ complaining, backbiting, criticism, too much private discussion about church issues, rumors, murmuring, whispering, lack of safety in expressing dissenting opinions, parking lot conversations.” Now that’s not an unusual list for a church, or any institution; we’re not at all unique in that regard. But that fact in itself is too bad, because if we’re using words inappropriately, then we’re not using them to evangelize, to get the good news out, to build up and strengthen and encourage and comfort.

Civil dialogue in our culture is becoming a scarce resource, and if anyone should be modeling it, it should be the church, the community that is all about the power of words and the Word to change lives for the better. Ironically, though, the church doesn’t do a very good job at nurturing faith talk, at helping disciples be comfortable with that language, at empowering connections between personal faith and public descriptions of it, here or out in the real world. And it’s doubly hard because the pervasive cultural model for verbal interaction, starting when we’re young, is aggressive, competitive one-upsmanship. Winning arguments, trading barbs, promoting oneself, parrying put downs that sting, fault-finding—it’s the norm at work, at play, on television and radio, and more and more in families.

If we want our own faith to grow and thrive, if we want others to know and experience the goodness of the God we’ve been blessed to receive ourselves, if we want our church to be ever more healthy and vital and relevant, we have to attend to the words we choose and the way we use them.

I went to the Connecticut Forum at the Bushnell a couple of weeks ago, where the panel was discussing God. The Rev. Peter Gomes, the chaplain at Harvard, Rabbi Harold Kushner, who wrote “Why Bad Things Happen to Good People,” and Christopher Hitchens, author of “God is Not Great: Why Religion Poisons Everything,” sat onstage for a couple of hours and talked about God. Three more different perspectives you couldn’t have wished for, and it could have been quite explosive. But it wasn’t. Yes, there were some very uncomfortable moments when the panel went straight at their fundamental differences, and, yes, there were some convoluted word-webs that needed to be untangled, subtle variations of definitions that required careful clarification. But because each man was deliberate in the words he chose, and was willing to take time to listen to the words from the others, the conversation was a delight to those of us in the audience. The profound differences of the three understandings of God were still there, but I went away feeling like I had a clearer understanding of why the differences exist, I had been given some tough questions about my own perspectives to mull over, and I had deep appreciation for how constructive dialogue can make real connections between very different people.

But let’s be honest: that was a particularly articulate panel, highly educated, very comfortable with the power and play of words. But their example inspires me, as I encounter Marks gospel for today, to affirm the essential importance of the words we use when it comes to our discipleship, and to imagine a modest proposal for making the most of them. At a time of significant transition in this church, at a moment of considerable stress and uncertainty in our culture, and in all the various seasons of our personal lives, I have three modest goals for disciples using words to find our way faithfully.

First of all, every single one of us, asked by a church member, or a co-worker, or a friend, should be able to answer the question in one or two sentences, “What has knowing Jesus Christ done for me?” How well we state that response is a matter of evangelism, of sharing the good news with others. If we speak from the heart and with confidence, those we tell may be moved, or inspired, or motivated to dig deeper. If we stammer and can’t explain and throw up our hands, then we send a much different message, a message we don’t want to convey, but which might confirm negative assumptions our hearers might hold about religious people, or about the effectiveness of church, or about the inaccessibility of God. We are ambassadors, and ambassadors need to speak well, not necessarily as golden-tongued orators, but confidently enough to get our faith across.

Knowing Jesus Christ has given me a heart to sense God’s presence wherever I go. Knowing Jesus Christ has enabled me to live each day as the better person I want to become. Knowing Jesus Christ has brought me a sense of peace I can’t get anywhere else. What words would you use to answer the question, “What has knowing Jesus Christ done for me?” Every disciple needs an answer at the ready.

The second modest goal about how we must use our words goes back to a series of sermons I preached a year ago this past winter on “The Four Agreements,” a book by Don Miguel Ruiz, four rules for living, the very first of which is, “Be impeccable with your word.” Ruiz writes, “Speak with integrity. Say only what you mean. Avoid using the word to speak against yourself or to gossip about others. Use the power of your word in the direction of truth and love.” So if you don’t have the collection of visioning responses, pick one up after church today. And read through the list of word-games we said we wanted to leave behind. And resolve to leave them behind. There is no time to waste by misusing words, in this community of faith, in our families and or in our friendships.

And the third modest word goal is this: be courageous enough to actually use your words. I go back to that panel discussion at the Bushnell. When we use and choose our words intentionally, it means that we are going to get at real issues, and real differences, and truths that may make us uncomfortable. But to dance around what we really mean with casually chosen or even unspoken words only keeps us treading water, only keeps the things we care most about at a distance.

That third modest goal really matters here at church right now: financial issues, interim ministry and staffing configuration, the nurture of children and families, Open and Affirming—everyone has strong feelings, strong ideas, strong opinions about these critical issues. Now is not the time to stay silent about them. Now, especially now, is the time to be impeccable with our words, to be brave enough to speak up and share how we feel and what we think is best, and to be respectful enough to listen carefully and know that our words have power that needs to be used responsibly.

The healed leper in our story did not use his words in a way that helped the cause of Christ. You and I have to. Like it or not, we are Christ’s ambassadors to each other and to the world. We are interpreters. We are witnesses. We are evangelists. What we say or don’t say about our belief in God and our trust in Christ matters more than we might realize. Each of us must become able to simply state our Christian faith to others. Each of us must choose to be impeccable with all our words and shun indirect talk and gossip and criticism. And each of us must intentionally speak up about the things we care about, speak to each other, allow the power of each person’s words to contribute to the emerging collective guidance God is giving us.

Though Jesus was impeded by the leper’s words, his ministry continued and he went on to do what he was supposed to do. Likewise, our misspoken or unspoken words cannot prevent God from prevailing, but we can help the coming Kingdom arrive sooner—and be, ourselves, more confident and fulfilled along the way—by using the power of our God-given words intentionally, wisely and faithfully.