Thought for the Day-Bridle your tongue

Photograph of Albert Einstein by Arthur Sasse/ AFP

A ‘Thought for the Day’ given at a lunchtime service of Holy Communion at St Giles-in-the-Fields on Wednesday 26th February 2025 based on the text of James 1:19-27 and Mark 9.38-40. You can listen to an audio recording of the bible readings and reflection at this link.

In his book ‘Life Together’ written during rise of the far-right in Germany and published on the eve of the Second World War, the theologian Dietrich Bonhoeffer explained that the seed of discord is embedded deep within every human fellowship - even the most devout Christian communities. The desire for power and control over others.

“From the first moment a man meets another man [Bonhoeffer wrote], he is looking for a strategic position he can hold over that person.”

We glimpse that seed of discord beginning to take root in today’s gospel reading. The disciples have been preaching and healing in the area around Capernaum. They have just been arguing about which one of them was the greatest and have been told by Jesus that anyone who wishes to be first should be the last and servant of all. 

Now, embarrassed perhaps, they attempt to deflect attention away from themselves by projecting their one-upmanship onto someone else. A man they met who was healing in the name of Jesus but not part of their gang. They appeal to Jesus to rebuke him.

It’s a firm no. Anyone who is not against us, is with us, Jesus explains.

Dietrich Bonhoeffer places this truth front and centre of his thinking about Life Together. He states that the only authentic way for Christians to encounter another human being is through Christ. To learn to see Christ at work in and through them. Something we – like the disciples – need to work on.

Bonhoeffer lived in the real world – he’d met his share of difficult people and recognised the scale of this challenge. In his book he offers a series of strategies (translated as ‘ministries’) to foster this distinctly Christian outlook – many are based on the wisdom in the Letter of James. Be quick to listen and slow to speak, the letter exhorts us. Bridle your tongues.

“It must be a decisive rule of every Christian fellowship that each individual is prohibited from saying much that occurs to him,” Bonhoeffer writes.  This “Ministry of Holding One’s Tongue” is one of the most effective ways, he says, of learning to live well together.   

When we hold our tongue, we find we stop scrutinising others, he explains. We stop judging them. We allow the other person to exist as God made them to be and not as an object for us to dominate or control. Eventually we learn to see Christ at work in and through them.

Bonhoeffer understood that this form of listening is not just about hearing the word but living it. As the letter of James puts it, by holding our tongue and limiting our own words, the seed of God’s Word that has been grafted into our lives will grow within us. 

And the seed of discord – our desire for power and control over others – will wither. 

Image : Photograph of Albert Einstein by Arthur Sasse/ AFP