A little while back, in a moment of desperation, I decided to buy her some talking buttons. The idea is that you record a different word on each button (food, outside, play, treat, etc.) and the dog communicates with you by pressing them. Tiktok is littered with videos of dogs making requests, commenting on what’s happening around them, and even seeming to ask existential questions, all using these buttons. Now, I’m under no illusions that Maya will ever turn into a canine philosopher, but my thinking was that if she’s gonna be making an ungodly amount of noise anyway, the buttons would be less likely to drive me up the wall or do actual physical damage to my eardrums.
Since then, we’ve managed to achieve a modest level of success with these buttons. Maya’s only ever learned to use two with any consistency, and if she’s too worked up, she just mashes them randomly. But every once in a while, I’ll hear my own voice calmly saying, “outside” from the other side of the house, and if I don’t react quickly enough, I hear it again a few moments later. So I know she clearly understands the concept. That’s why, whenever she starts barking to get my attention now, I’ve gotten into the habit of saying, “use your words” to remind her about the buttons. After all, it’s still better than the alternative, even if she needs to be prompted.
I imagine that when she DOES remember to use them, the buttons must almost feel like magic to her. When she barks to get my attention, I get annoyed and frustrated, but when she “uses her words” instead, I stop what I’m doing, praise her, and give her exactly what she wants. The buttons might as well say, “Abracadabra!” as far as she’s concerned. While this explanation probably seems perfectly logical to her, it seems pretty ridiculous to us. WE know that the words themselves aren’t anything special. They DO have a sort of power, in that they facilitate clear interspecies communication, but they’re not magic. They’re just plain old words.
Before you rush to judgement of my poor dog, I want to remind you that this is exactly the same way that we tend to understand the creation story in Genesis 1. God brings everything in the entire world into existence using nothing more than words - “Let there be light” - and whether consciously or not, we tend to make the assumption that this must be accomplished through some kind of divine magic. We take for granted that when God speaks, it’s somehow fundamentally different than when we do. Creation is only able to happen, we assume, because God uses magic words.
But this line of thinking is just as silly as Maya’s magic button theory. In fact, it’s disproven by Scripture itself. Biblical Hebrew has two different words that mean “to say” or “to speak”: “dabar” and “amar”. Although these words have the same basic meaning, they aren’t necessarily synonyms; they each have a different nuance. “Dabar” is used when the statement being made has a particular weight to it - a command, or pronouncement, or formal speech. “Amar”, on the other hand, is a much more common term, used for average, everyday conversation. Prior to five minutes ago, which of these words would you have assumed scripture uses in the creation story? Probably dabar, right? God declared, God announced, God commanded. But given the clear direction of this sermon, which one do you suppose it ACTUALLY uses? Amar, of course. God didn’t proclaim or pronounce; God simply said - and there was light, and it was good.
God isn’t uttering magical words here. God’s just talking. And that’s enough to create light and darkness, day and night, the heavens and the earth, plants and birds and insects and wild beasts and human beings. It turns out that regular words have creative power. It may seem hard to believe, but think about it. We already know that words can do incredible things. They can create vivid images in another person’s mind or emotions in their heart. They can give birth to brand new ideas that have never been considered before. They can generate sympathy and even empathy for someone you’ve never met. They can produce understanding from confusion. Just as God’s words did in Genesis 1, our own words have the capacity to bring order out of chaos and goodness out of meaninglessness. Just because they can’t produce physical matter doesn’t mean that they’re not an equally powerful creative force.
And yet, many of us never even TRY to use our own words in this way. If you’re like most people, you probably still harbor a suspicion that somehow, YOUR words are the exception. YOUR words aren’t clever or profound or fancy enough to do any of this. YOU’RE not an author or a poet, a reporter or a blogger, a prophet or a preacher. Well, let me tell you a secret from someone who IS: you’re not alone in feeling that way. We’ve all been there at one time or another.
For all intents and purposes, I craft words for a living. Now, there are times that I DO feel like I’ve managed to say something powerful, like I somehow landed on the actual magic words that will change the Church and the world forever. Other times, though, and far more often than not, I wind up feeling like my words are coming up woefully short. I find myself wondering if everything I’ve ever said has just been pointless shouting into the void, because it never seems to change anything. My words feel insignificant and utterly powerless. So I get it.
I wonder if God ever feels the same way. In Genesis, God’s words create all this incredible stuff, beautiful in its diversity, and yet we take it for granted. We abuse it. We exploit it. We push it to its limits and deny its complexity and interconnectedness. God must feel, at least sometimes, that all of God’s words of creation were in vain. Certainly, the flood narrative a few chapters later provides strong evidence to that effect. It tells us, “God regretted making human beings on the earth, and [God] was heartbroken.” What’s worse, God is omniscient, meaning that God knew that all of this was coming from the very first word.
I don’t think any of us would blame God for just avoiding the heartache altogether and never speaking the universe into existence at all. But obviously, that’s not what happened. Even with the knowledge that humanity would ultimately dishonor what God’s words had created, God didn’t choose not to speak. God didn’t not create. God did it anyway. God spoke these words, powerful in their ordinariness, not so that they would be honored and celebrated, but because they were worth saying.
Even though my own words often feel powerless and impotent, I keep preaching anyway. Not because I have any reason to believe that I’ll eventually find those magic words, but because ordinary words of love, mercy, and hope are always worth saying. And whether or not I’m ever able to see my words have the kind of impact that I crave, I trust that they DO have the power to create good things in the hearts and minds of those who hear them. Because that’s something that all words - not just the magic ones - can do.
You may not have the platform of a pastor, and you may not think you have the lyricism of a poet, but just like Maya and her buttons, you, too, need to use your words. When they seem inadequate or worthless, speak them anyway. Have that spontaneous conversation with a friend; make that brief social media post; tell that stranger what’s on your mind. Your words have power, even though you might not be able to see it. That’s part of what it means to be created in the image of God. Every interaction you have gives you the chance to open a mind, mend a heart, plant an idea, or challenge an assumption - no magic words required.
So now that we know we HAVE this power, the question, as always, is how will we choose to use it? There are plenty of people who choose to use the power of their words in ways that hurt others, ways that destroy instead of creating. But that dishonors the image that we bear. Let’s all choose, then, to use OUR words to create things that God will see as good. Things that bring about light and life, just as God did when God’s wind first swept over the waters of creation. Now that we understand the power of ordinary words, let’s use them to co-create the world that God has intended from the very beginning: one of beauty and diversity, one of compassion and mutual care, one of truth and goodness. Don’t let this power go to waste. Use your ordinary words - and see what extraordinary things they can do. Amen.
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