Timothy Stoner

Float like a Butterfly and Sting like a Hornet: The Gift of Christmas Blessings

Posted on 08. Dec, 2010 by Tim Stoner in Blog, Life

Boxing is, admittedly, a bit of a guilty pleasure for me. I don’t watch it very frequently—I sound defensive already—in fact it has been a long while since I have watched an entire fight. It’s the heavyweight bouts that capture my interest. I think I am drawn in as much by the personalities as the actual sport. Since there have been no champions recently with much substance, it has been a while since I have cared to watch. I do, however, watch the occasional classic boxing match in which legendary bouts are re-broadcast.

Last week, my son Jonathan and I watched a documentary about Mohammed Ali—by any counts one of the greatest heavyweights of all time. Ali, of course, made the claim constantly, often in rhyme, that he was the greatest. I wouldn’t argue the point, if by no other measure than worldwide fame. The film focused on boxers who had met him in the ring. It was a fascinating peek into a harsh, brutal and intensely demanding world. But, more than that it opened a window into the personal lives of famous athletes most of us only see at a very far distance, if at all.

Boxers, especially the heavyweights, are tough guys. They can dish it out and, to be successful, they can take it too. They are as hard as their rock-like abdomens. Their chins have to be as resilient as granite, their shoulders and biceps as strong as that of a charging bull. To win the belt they have to take punishment, and better yet, deflect it. That is where Ali distanced himself from his opponents. He was a master at avoiding the punishing right hook, the stunning jab, and the deadly upper cut. But, there is some punishment that no amount of ducking and weaving can help you escape. These are the stinging jabs of cruel insults and demeaning mockery.

All of the heavyweights interviewed praised Ali for his skills. One even, Larry Holmes, I believe, highlighted his restraint in the ring: as Larry was defenseless and on the way down to the mat, Ali refused to land that decimating blow that guarantees the opponent will stay down for the count. There was only one who was unable to hide his pain. In spite of himself he was forced to stop for a few moments to regain his composure.

Joe Frazier was Ali’s nemesis. Smokin’ Joe was the first to defeat Ali in 1971 in a match billed as the “Fight of the Century.” They would fight two more times, and in both Ali would be declared the winner. But, what prompted the tears to jump to Frazier’s eyes was not the memory of the losses but the sting of Ali’s merciless mocking. Before and after their fights, Ali loved to deride Joe with the epithet, “The Gorilla” imitating his boxing stance and his rampaging charges. The crowd loved it but it was painful to watch. It was obviously a lot more painful to endure. That is where Ali landed his most damaging and lowest blows.

“He didn’t have to do that” a wounded Joe murmured, his reddening eyes telling us all we need to know about the power of the tongue to inflict pain far more intense than fists possibly could. They reveal that 35 years later those jabs still hurt–a lot. Ali loved to chant in front of the camera that he floated like a butterfly but stung like a bee. He was referring to his fists. If he had been waxing poetic about his words instead, he would have had to admit they stung more like a hornet.

This did not come to me until I read something by St. Chrysostom, the gifted and godly preacher who lived in the fourth century, whom I decided this year to adopt as my patron saint. I am reading through his homilies on the Gospel of Matthew– one sermon per day. It should take me three months. He preached these sermons around 390 AD in Antioch his home town. It is the city in Southern Asia Minor (Turkey) where believers were first called “Christians.”

St. Chrysostom’s sermons are direct, practical and personal, and because of their impact he is revered as the greatest preacher of the early church. He is regarded as perhaps the most accessible of all the ancient Fathers. His name commemorates his homiletical prowess—John of the golden mouth.

In his commentary on the Sermon on the Mount he refers to Christ’s injunction against pummeling an enemy with pejorative labels (Mt. 5:22). Jesus has prohibited three verbal assaults: the first that of a general angry retort, the next the contemptuous word, “raca!” and the last, the grievous insult, “fool!” Each of these subject the assailant to increasing levels of potential punishment: “danger of judgment,” then legal sanction before the high court, and finally, the flames of hell.

St. Chrysostom explains that Jesus is trying very hard to quench the blazing passion of anger that can readily flare up into acts of uncontrollable violence. (I will be using my own update of the Victorian English of the most recent translations.) “Don’t you realize,’ he asks, “that most punishments we suffer and most sins we commit have words as their catalysts?” Angry words can start a fire that, as James writes, can set a whole forest ablaze, and Jesus is attempting to prevent the sharp cut of the tongue which often leads to the murderous thrust of the sword. “For there is nothing, nothing in the world,” St. Chrys continues, “more intolerable than being mocked and belittled.”

What he says next made me think about strong Joe, ex-heavyweight champion of the world, choking at the memory of the insults inflicted by a man with fast fists and a faster, sharper tongue. “For insults have tremendous power to sting a man’s soul,” he says. But then, realizing how easy it is to dodge behind technicalities–“I have never called my son a fool!” “When I argue with my wife I never use cutting labels,” he continues: “Don’t try to justify yourself by focusing on a particular word, instead take seriously the tongue’s power, and the feelings of those you cut with it. Take to heart how deep a wound is made by an angry word and how much evil it provokes.”

In support of his argument that words carry much more weight than we wish to admit, he cites Paul’s list of those who will be excluded from the kingdom of God. Lumped in with the sexually immoral, the idolaters, male prostitutes and homosexual offenders are the “slanderers” (I Cor. 6:9-10). “With good reason,” he asserts, “for the insolent man ruthlessly defaces all the beauty of charity, overwhelms his neighbor with innumerable evils, and stirs up life-long hatreds. He can also tear apart the members of the body of Christ. He is, every day, driving off the peace which God so desires and giving the devil strategic beach heads from which to effectively attack. ”

This is what justifies the startling threat of hell that issues from the mouth of Jesus when he prohibits us from insulting each other. “For there is nothing for which God expends more effort as this: that we should be united and knit together as one body in love” St. Chrys remarks.

I had a conversation not too long ago with a friend who has worked for one of the largest and most prestigious advertising agencies in the world. He is an incredibly gifted artist and, surprisingly, an excellent administrator, having headed a section with 200 creative types working under him. He has been at the peak of his profession but he is in pitched battle with a pervasive cloud of failure and self-loathing that can sometimes be almost too heavy to bear. He has become convinced that his family would be better off with him gone since he struggles so intensely with the negativity brought on by persistent depression.

He grew up in a home in which his father also looked back on his own life as pretty much of a failure. He never reached the rung on the spiritual summit both he and his wife longed for. They passed on to their children the same expectations and when my friend failed to grab that brass ring at the top of the Christian career ladder, they withheld their parental approval. Neither ever used the epithet “fool!” but their smoldering anger, their internalized resentment and shame, manifested in words and gestures of disapproval cut just as deep. You don’t always have to be called a fool to feel like one.

This is the season of giving, or so we are told by a mass choir of marketers and salespeople on screens and radios and print media. Christmas is the one time of year when all organs of communication collude in a vast conspiracy to convince us to buy in order to give away. While their motive is hardly altruistic–they could care less if we buy and keep every item we purchase—you can still sense in the air the resilient pulse of a selfless generosity—which I think is the unquenchable cultural memory of the single most generous Gift ever given.

So, how about let’s resist the badgering and incessant pressure of the hucksters and advertisers insisting on gifts of material things—only. Why not make a gift this Christmas that does not cost us money—a gift of kind, grace-filled words; precious, life-giving words that heal by their gentleness and sweetness. Let us make a sacrifice of our tongues—that most potent of instruments, that have within them this amazing power to sting or to sanctify. This Holy season, let us give what money cannot buy—the blessing of affirmation, of approval, of recognition.

This is the one public gift the Father gave His Son while He lived on earth. During the three and a half years of ministry we are told that on two occasions the sky opened up and the Father’s voice thundered. Each time He spoke over His Son words that dripped with holy, wholesome pleasure, words my friend, and many others of us, have never, ever heard: “You are my Son, and I am so proud of you!” (Mt. 3:17; 17:7). These are words that can not only bless but heal. They can take the pain out of a host of cuts and slashes and cruel digs. They can take the sting out of the hornet’s tail.

We can give this gift as an act of charity during this season of all seasons in which we are to bedeck ourselves with charitable works. Some of us may not have much money—it has been a hard, economically tightening year for many—but while we may be restricted monetarily nothing hinders us from lavishing words of healing grace.

Here again St. Chrys comes to our aid: “Let us then put a bridle on our tongue and put cruelty far from us. Let us relieve those in need by stretching out our hands to give generously not only of money but of gracious words as well.” Presents are forgotten, gifts lose their luster, but a gentle, life-giving word of affirmation can seal a destiny and heal a hundred wounds. It can light a flame that can give light and warmth to thousands. 

Those who follow Christ are to be known by these words of priestly blessings, as St. Peter reminds us. “We are not to repay evil with evil or insult with insult, but with blessing, because to this you were so called so that you may inherit a blessing” (I Pet. 3:9). As we are taught in the famous prayer of St. Francis of Assisi, “it is in giving that we receive.” When we give away blessings we store up for ourselves an inheritance of blessing from our generous and happy Father who is making a list and checking it twice.    

Tags: Add new tag, charity, Christmas blessings, depression, failure, Father's blessing, gift of affirmation, insults, life-giving affirmation, Mohammed Ali's words, St. Chrysostom, the tongue, wounds of the spirit