In the beautiful hymn that begins John's Gospel, Jesus is called "the Word." What a profound way to highlight the importance of words. They are central to our humanity. Words are what God used when God wanted to create somethings. God said (used words): "Let there be light," and light came into existence. When humans were getting "too big for our britches" (as my grandmother would have said) and God wanted to put a stop to that, God interfered with our use of words (See Genesis 11: 1-9). God reveals Himself to us in scripture with words. Words are in a very real sense the predicate to our thought and our logic. We simply wouldn't be human without the use of words. Today we see Jesus' use of words (Lk 4: 31-37) as well. He teaches with words, and the people are amazed because His message had such authority. He uses words to cause a devil to leave an afflicted man. The people are amazed at His words. Given the importance of words, I sometimes wonder how we can use them with such thoughtlessness. We throw them around carelessly. We misuse them. We use them to create false impressions. We use them deliberately to lie. Since words matter so much, and since we can so easily misuse them, we might consider holding folks to a higher standard when it comes to how they use words. For someone to deliberately misuse words-- to lie-- seems like it should disqualify them from positions of trust and importance. How can you trust someone who uses words like they don't matter? A big part of the clergy abuse problem is the misuse of words. Some leaders of the Church didn't tell the truth, or only told part of it so as to create a misleading impression, and folks simply can't tolerate that. And we shouldn't. Words matter-- they matter a lot. So we can-- really we should-- judge people on how they use them. Let's be on guard against leaders who lie.