It's Just a Word

“It’s just a word.” I heard that this week, not for the first time. In fact, I hear it often. There are few statements with which I could possibly disagree more. Words have power. Words represent ideas and ideas have shaped the world and changed the course of history. A story like Beowulf could not survive over a millennia, if words did not have the power to move people.

If you doubt the power of a single word, you’ve never seen an angry young black woman call a white man a “cracker” or an infuriated white country boy call an old man the n-word. The fact that I can call it the n-word and you know what I mean is proof by itself. It could even be argued that the central issue of the last election was one word for many people, though maybe a different word for some than others, hope or race or change.

In recent months, one of the f-words, repeated often enough and with enough vitriol has been responsible for many tragic young suicides. And the word homophobe has stifled at least as much dialog as has been started by those deaths. If you doubt the power of words, ask the mother of a young college boy if she believes in the power of words.

Maybe the n-word doesn’t phase you. Maybe you don’t find the f-word offensive. Maybe you would call someone a homophobe without a second’s hesitation. But I guarantee you those words mean something very deep and powerful to someone else. I believe the context in which I heard, “It’s just a word,” this week was about obscene language and its harmlessness. I’d have to disagree. A word may not offend you. It may not offend me. It may not offend anyone in earshot. But if you do not believe that words, even a single word has power, you’re utterly mistaken.

It is no accident that our creation story is that of a God who speaks the world into existence. Everything that exists was spoken into our reality by our creator. In fact, our scriptures tell us that everything that exists was made by and through Jesus, who again by no accident, the Gospel writer calls, The Word. Words have great power and convey so much more than the sound they produce or the recognition they display. They carry meaning. They carry ideas. My prayer would be that your words convey love and hope and may you know the depth and the breadth of them for all those with whom you speak.