A Word About Lips.

When I was in the fifth grade, one of the things I remember is that once a week, Mr. Meyers would show up at our school. He wasn’t what I called a ‘regular’ teacher at our school. Mr. Meyers was the band teacher. And once a week, he would come to our school and teach beginner students how to play various instruments. I chose the trumpet, and every Thursday afternoon for about thirty minutes, I’d get to leave my seat in Miss Graham’s class, and go to the music room to try to learn how to play the trumpet.

Mr. Meyers was really big on teaching us beginners what you might call ‘trumpet technique.’ When I put that trumpet to my mouth, he wanted that instrument slightly tilted to the right. Not a lot. Just a bit. And he wanted my fingers curled so the pads of my fingers touched the tops of the three valves that trumpet players push to change notes. And Mr. Meyers had a fixation on something he called lipping and tonguing or embouchure, too. Tonguing is when you make your tongue bounce back and forth on the mouthpiece to create really short notes. And Embouchure? Mr. Meyers said embouchure was everything. It’s hard to exactly define. It’s easier to describe. Embouchure is that puckering thing that trumpet players do with their lips to make the notes go higher or lower, without having to push any valves at all. If you want to think about the importance of embouchure, think about the difference between a trumpet and a bugle, for example. A bugle doesn’t have any valves, but buglers can play all kinds of sounds and songs, just by making their tonguing different, and their embouchure tighter or looser.

I’m not sure there’s a more important body part in a human being than our lips. In fact, I think we would all do ourselves and the world around us a huge favor if we paid more attention to what I call the theology of lips, and how Scripture frames lips as instruments of life, death, praise, or ruin. Many bible scholars believe James was the very first book written in the N.T. Written to new believers, beginners you might say, in the fine art of using their lips, their tongues to make great music for God. His instructions in chapter 3 of James make for great lessons in life:

James 3:2 (NIV): “We all stumble in many ways. Anyone who is never at fault in what they say is perfect, able to keep their whole body in check.”

“The tongue also is a fire, a world of evil among the parts of the body. It corrupts the whole body, sets the whole course of one’s life on fire, and is itself set on fire by hell.”
( James 3:6 )

James 3:9–10 (NIV): “With the tongue we praise our Lord and Father, and with it we curse human beings, who have been made in God’s likeness. Out of the same mouth come praise and cursing. My brothers and sisters, this should not be.” 

Our lips are rarely neutral. We can make all kinds of impact with our lips, just by making our words sharper or looser. Our lips have the power to either heal and bless, or wound and corrupt. A reminder then: Guard your lips. Mr. Meyers would say, “Embouchure is everything.”