Set, O Lord, a Guard Over My Mouth, Ps. 141

Words are made up of sounds and letters, or the combination of sounds and letters we use to express meaning. We use them to communicate and express all of our thoughts and feelings. We use them to ask questions, give directions, and explain things. We can use them to encourage or challenge one another. With words, we can express our disapproval and disappointment, or our approval and our appreciation. Our words can bear the creative, liberating force of truth, or they can disguise or damage the truth and reality with a lie.

The psalmist here recognized the reality and the potential destructive power of words. He is particularly aware of his use of words. As all of us should be, he is properly concerned with his own capacity to use words for reasons that are less than noble. He is also expressing his desire to not do so. We can believe that he has felt the sting of words used against him. We can imagine that he has experienced the pain of having been deceived by others. Or that he recognized that he has fallen, on occasion, for the magnetic pull of various cultural and societal deceptions and illusions, only to experience the loss of his integrity. As a fellow human being, we can imagine that the psalmist knew the guilt of consciously using his own words to lie at times, either to manipulate others for his purposes or to protect himself from his mistakes. We can also imagine that he knew how powerful words are when used to express the truth about things, or to encourage and even to heal a broken heart.

The psalmist is no different than you or me. That is why his own words here can touch us so deeply. He knew his weakness and came to see the wisdom of asking God for help. It is for this reason that he cries out in prayer saying, “Set, O Lord, a guard over my mouth;/ keep watch, O Lord, at the door of my lips” (Ps 141: 3). He does not want his “heart to incline to evil, or to perform deeds in wickedness” (v. 4), like so many around him. How often do we reflect on the way we use our words? How often do we reflect on their power? How many of us recognize the terrible weight of responsibility to use our words righteously and avoid the terrible power we wield when we use them to deceive others?

The psalmist prays so, not just because he has heard others use words deceptively or destructively. More importantly, we can imagine that he has also felt the guilt of using words improperly, especially in how he has used them for or against others and the truth. In reality, human beings in the time of the psalmist were no different than we are today. The times and the cultures were different in many ways, but our shared humanity was, is, and always will be the same. He recognized the deceptive elements of his society and the temptation to ‘go along to get along’ that is always present. We have our temptation today. The great lie of our times, and the deepest source of unhappiness, is the illusion that so many have fallen into, believing that one can find life without God, and happiness without moral truths and personal responsibility.

Jesus, in his time, also warned us about the use of our words. “But I tell you that for every careless word people speak, they will give an account of it on the day of judgment; for by your words you will be justified, and by your words you will be condemned” (Mt. 12: 36-37). In that sense, we should all pray to the Lord constantly, that he would give us the graces we need to help us guard our thoughts and our own words, that we might use our words righteously, only to give him praise by always adhering to and expressing His truth in our words with one another.

Jesus, the Word of God, challenges each of us to use our healing words, for telling the truth of the Gospel. We are to honor the Word of God by emulating him, by using our words to lift others, rather than to tear them down. We are to use our words to encourage and to give hope to others, rather than to injure and destroy others, or to create false divisions with manipulative deceits. We are to use our words to praise God and bring others to his truth, his goodness, and his beauty. Let us, then, pray with the psalmist: “Set, O Lord, a guard over my mouth;/ keep watch, O Lord, at the door of my lips.” Amen.