Your Lips Are Movin

Bearing testimony with our actions more than words

11/28/2018

Luke 21:12-19 Jesus said to the crowd: "They will seize and persecute you, they will hand you over to the synagogues and to prisons, and they will have you led before kings and governors because of my name. It will lead to your giving testimony. Remember, you are not to prepare your defense beforehand, for I myself shall give you a wisdom in speaking that all your adversaries will be powerless to resist or refute. You will even be handed over by parents, brothers, relatives, and friends, and they will put some of you to death. You will be hated by all because of my name, but not a hair on your head will be destroyed. By your perseverance you will secure your lives."

An old adage teaches that actions speak louder than words. To change the metaphor, talk is cheap. Let me give you a couple of examples to illustrate this point. Americans rightly cherish our freedom of speech, protected by the first Amendment of the Constitution. But the Constitution itself is about freedom of action. Listen to all the action words in the Preamble to the Constitution: “We the people of the United States, in order to form a more perfect union, establish justice, insure domestic tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general welfare, and secure the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United State of America.” In the Preamble alone there are eight actions the Founding Fathers were about to undertake. Their words had worth because they were backed up by their actions, namely, the Revolutionary War, their readiness to bleed for what they believed.

Meghan Trainor sings a kind of music called “bubblegum pop” and one of her hits is the song called “Lips are moving.” It’s about a philandering and untruthful man, and the refrain goes: “If your lips are movin’, then you’re lyin’ lyin’ lyin.” The singer has had enough of boyfriends who were not honest, whose actions spoke louder than their words because their words were lies. The same principle, therefore, underlies the song as well as the Constitution, namely, words are worthless unless they are underwritten by your actions.

This principle may shed some light on a sometimes troublesome passage in the gospel of Luke. Jesus says: “It will lead to your giving testimony.” And then he adds: “Remember, you are not to prepare your defense beforehand, for I myself will give you a wisdom in speaking that all your adversaries will be powerless to resist or refute.” This passage is troublesome, I say, because some priests interpret that to mean they don’t need to prepare their homilies beforehand and can just shoot from the hip. After all, Jesus said he would give us a “wisdom in speaking.” I bet you really enjoy those shoot from the hip homilies, don’t you?

But that is not what Jesus means at all. The English word “testimony” is one translation of the Greek word “marturion,” which is what Luke used, and it is also where we get the word “martyr.” In other words, the “testimony” Jesus means is not one of words but of actions, indeed it is the action of bleeding for what you believe. That is the wisdom that adversaries cannot resist or refute. Why? Because our actions always speak louder than our words, and no one argues with actions.

My friends, we live in times in which talk is terribly cheap. We can’t help but agree with Meghan Trainor when we see certain people talking, that “if your lips are movin’, then you’re lyin’ lyin’ lyin’.” Politicians’ words seem mostly motivated by partisan purposes. Their words are not worried about the truth but about pleasing their base and winning political points and elections. And even more sadly, we the electorate, believe them. Parents can be guilty of relying too much on rhetoric when their child-rearing consists of “do as I say, not as I do.” In other words, coaching from the couch, or armchair parenting. But children know innately that actions speak louder than words, and such parents lose credibility.

We Catholic priests and bishops have been taken to task for failing to give testimony with our actions in light of the clergy sexual abuse scandal and the subsequent cover up. Indeed, we are urged by Jesus to give testimony that is equivalent to martyrdom, that is, we have to be ready to bleed for what we believe, no less than the Founding Fathers of this great nation were. That is why Catholic clergy have lost so much credibility, and our words have lost their worth.

In the movie, “The Princess Bride,” when Wesley meets the six-fingered man, he says serenely: “We are men of action, lies do not become us.” So, too, we Americans, and especially we Christians, should be men and women of action, indeed, we must be ready to bleed for what we believe.

Praised be Jesus Christ!