“We die. That may be the meaning of life. But we do language. That may be the measure of our lives.” – Toni Morrison, Nobel Lecture December 7, 1993
“We have different gifts, according to the grace given to each of us. If your gift is prophesying, then prophesy in accordance with your faith.” – Romans 12:6
When the Jeopardy category is The Bible, I groan. I will lose, either to my mother or my sister-in-law. They were raised Baptist, and they know much about the ins and outs of Biblical trivia. I, because I am a cradle Episcopalian, would do much better with a category called “The Book of Common Prayer.” I do not mean to be flippant; I mean, instead, to draw attention to the formal and foundational nature of the languages in which we are raised. Those languages consist, of course, of the ones we speak everyday: our Mother tongues and the ones we learn alongside them (if we are lucky and smart enough to do so); our literary languages-the books we read and that are read to us as we grow; our Love Languages; our prayers, our promises, our prophecies.
I was not raised on the Bible, but I have studied it, a bit, in my life. And now, in my first year of Efm, I am reading the Old Testament, which has surprised me in many ways… except for its devotion to language. In it, we learn the world-creating force of language. We feel the power of promises made: what happens when they are broken and what happens when they are kept. We see the historical arc of language as it makes and keeps a people against all odds, through all tribulations. I mean, the Hittites, the Assyrians, the Chaldeans, the Babylonians–where are they? The Jews–they live in Williamsburg. That is a powerful Language.
If there is such a thing as a modern day prophet, and I think there is, Toni Morrison fits the category. She writes the world, as it is and as it was, with the force of someone who saw things that other people just did not, or would not, see. She, I believe, did as Paul asked us to do–serve God by paying attention to the Language God uses to create each and every one of us. God made her a prophet, and she shared her Gift with us.
This Lent, may we all strive to do the same. Amen.
