“Pastor.”

One word. Said in such a way, I knew what would come next. Tragedy. Tears. Heartbreak. Grief. One word, said with that tone. I knew what came next.

“He’s dead. My husband died last night.”

Ours is not a tonal language like Mandarin, Norwegian, or Japanese and many others. Despite that, tone communicates a lot. We can tell a lot from tone. I’m not always the best in picking up tone I miss certain inflections. Sometimes in others, mostly in my own. Once in a heated debate with someone, they asked “Why are you yelling at me?”

“It’s how I’m processing all of this!” I yelled… hearing myself for the first time. When my brain gets going trying to connect the dots, sometimes I SOUND LIKE THIS!

Tone matters. Especially when we’re in a debate with someone. When we disagree, that is precisely when tone matters the most. I’m slowly learning this. Being an external processor, SOMETIMES IT IS HARD TO REALIZE what tone… I’m speaking in.

Imagine if I used this Movie Trailer Tone for Blanket Sunday: You are the only thing that stands between someone and this cold, cold world. $10 Provides one blanket.

$50 Gives blankets to an entire family.

$250 Stocks shelves in a shelter with blankets before wintry lows hit.

And you can write a check or give online and select CWS BLANKETS. In a world that needs some warmth, one group decided to stand up and be a blessing.

Maybe we’ll put it in the bylaws that all church announcements have to be read in that tone. Or with an ice-cream cone hat on our head.

When I was little, my mom worked the afternoon shift in the factory.  My sister and I stayed at my grandparents’ house while she worked. They fed us lunch and dinner and put us to bed. My mom would come in the night and get us, and put us in the car. She’d carry my sister and I would shuffle alongside, bleary-eyed. I would settle in and rest, but I would resist falling back asleep. I wouldn’t sleep until I heard my grandma say, “Oh, bless their hearts.”

A benediction. One I carry with me to this day. Those evening scenes when I was so little are etched into my brain. My sister and I in the warm car. My mom and grandma catching up on the back porch, talking about the day in the glow of the porchlight. My grandma, backlit by the bright kitchen saying into the dark… “Oh, bless their hearts.”

That is of course, before I knew the Southern usage of that phrase. English might not be considered tonal, but that phrase sure is. “Bless their heart” can mean many things, depending on tone.

It can be literal. A benediction. Like my grandma’s tone and use. Those words tucking me in once again for a good night’s sleep.

Yet depending on tone, this phrase can be the Southern way of insulting someone without “being ugly.” Oh. You don’t like my stole? Well, bless your heart.

I once said something sarcastic in one of my doctoral classes and one of my classmates from Tennessee looked directly at me and said, “Bless your heart.” That tone didn’t sound like my grandma’s. I knew what she was saying.

Tone is important. So I’m wondering about today’s text…. Jesus’ first words in Mark. The words are “The kingdom of God has come near. Repent and believe the good news!”

How did he say it? To whom? What tone did he use?

Was it a whisper? A realization he had about himself? The kingdom of God has come near! Repent. And believe.

That doesn’t seem right. It says in the verse before that he was proclaiming the news. THE KINGDOM OF GOD! HAS COME NEAR! REPENT AND BELIEVE! THE GOOD NEWS!

I would like to think with the term “good” in there, Jesus used a joyful tone.

It has become a bit of a trope to use the word “repent” in an angry tone. If we use the Greek word, metanoia, it has a different ring to it. Metanoia and believe the good news! Or the Pastor Luke paraphase: “Think differently after believing the good news!”

It’s not a tone of solemn duty. Or a tone of guilt inducing shame. Or the tone of an angry god with sinners in his hands. Can we scarcely imagine a joyful tone around such a phrase? We have been conditioned to hear this phrase only one way but hear it again as an invitation. A joyful invite to adventure! Think differently after believing the good news!”

Buckle your seatbelts! The beloved community of God has come near! It is within and among you! This community includes every single group of people you can imagine and even more. Including you.

You with your shame and regret.
You with your joys and celebrations.
You with THAT. TONE.
You with that history with another community of faith that you fear might have ruined your manners toward God.[1]
You who have that diagnosis, or that undesirable language.
You who feel helplessly lost and lonely.
You who feel at home anywhere you happen to be.
Yes, you!
You who are tried beyond all measure.
You who are ready to try again.
You who have never given up.

We have long thought wrongly of the church as an unmoving building wrought of brick and mortar when it has always been a community embarked on God’s mission of reconciling flesh and bone.

We are the church. You. Me. Us. Together here in the moment in worship. Each of us as we spread love, joy peace, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control. A place of justice rolling like mighty water from a community baptized in cleansing water, the fire of the Spirit, and in communion. The promise of God. A place of justice where every tear shall be wiped away.

I’d like to think that was Jesus’ tone as he proclaimed those words. The first words uttered by Christ in the Gospel of Mark. Words specifically used to set the tone of what is to come. What has come. What is presently among and within us.

The kingdom has come near! That’s pretty good news when you think about it.

Jesus proclaims and then calls Simon-Peter and his brother Andrew. Two fishermen. One will become his best friend. Ol’ Pete who is quick with the right answer as well as the first to stick his foot in his mouth. A little further, he calls James and John, sons of Zebedee. “Fishermen.” I say this with air quotes and a hint of sarcasm. Zebedee means “commotion” or “thunder.”[2] Sons of Thunder. Sounds like a biker gang to me. And some scholars believe they were… not a biker gang but the name of a zealot group seeking the overthrow of Rome.[3]

James and John could be callous. Uncaring. They wanted to cast down fire on a town that wouldn’t hear Jesus’ good news. The normal tone we take when we don’t get our way. But Jesus receives that and speaks of his own death. But they misunderstand. They ask for places of honor for when Jesus comes into power. It’s like asking for a friend’s car when they tell you they have a week to live.

Yet even these stubborn mules are transformed by Jesus. The brash Sons of Thunder are called. If they can be called, you can be called.

Called to use your God-given gifts to help your neighbor. To welcome. To love. And serve all God’s children.

Today we’re collecting funds for Blanket Sunday, to help Church World Service blanket the world with love.[4] Through your generosity, vulnerable neighbors can keep warm after a disaster. For that is the tone we wish to set for the world. No one left out in the cold. After disaster, love comes in. Placed on our shoulders like a mantle. It’s one way we can set the tone for the world. The worlds tone can be harsh and discordant. Especially following a disaster that literally leaves you out in the cold. To have someone show up and put a blanket around your shoulders, it can quiet the discordant and chaotic tones for a minute. If we would want that for ourselves, the same then is true for our neighbor. That’s the tone we want because tone matters.

Tone matters. The tone in which we speak. The tone we set with our actions. The tone we seek to change as we become children of God instead of children of commotion. May you think differently that the beloved community has come near and has blessed your heart. Amen.

Works Cited

^[1][1] I love this phrase which comes from Jane Kenyon’s poem Having it out with Melancholy from her collected poems. Pages 231-235.

^[2][2] http://www.cnview.com/bible_study/james_and_john.htm

^[3][3] Marcus Borg, Jesus: The Life, Teachings, and Relevance of a Religious Revolutionary. HaperCollins 2015.

^[4][4] https://cwsblankets.org/