Gracious Lord, may your grace always shine through
us ☩ in the name
of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Amen.
“Do or do not, there is no try,” so says the wise and sage Yoda from Star Wars. In a nutshell, if we had to summarize the entire letter of James, that would be it: do or do not, there is no try. Through the month of September, the epistle readings will take us through this letter. It would be well worth your time this week to read through James – it’s found towards the back of the New Testament, right after the book of Hebrews. It’s five chapters long, so it’s easy to get through in one sitting.
It’s
worth remembering that this is a letter. Perhaps you heard the story this past
week from Wales. A bank received a postcard in the mail that wasn’t intended
for them – not too interesting until we hear that it was postmarked in 1903.
The stamp is the image of King Edward VII who sat on the throne until 1910. It’s
somewhat a mystery of how the postcard got delivered 121 years later. It was, however,
delivered to the correct address. The address it was mailed to was a house that
was destroyed in the bombings of World War II and the bank was eventually built
at the same address. So when the postcard somehow reentered the postal service,
it was dutifully delivered.
Now,
what’s really interesting about the postcard is that we’re reading someone else’s
mail and no one is quite sure what is going on. The note is clearly talking
about something specific, but we don’t know what that something is. A lot of
people think the note-sender is referring to a pair of shoes, but the note
doesn’t say that. The sender asks the recipient to remember them to Miss
Gilbert and John, but we don’t know who those people are or what all of the
relationships were.
This
postcard is written in English, contains only about 50 words, and was written relatively
recently. And yet, we’re still confused about who the sender is and what
exactly they are writing about. The book of James was written in ancient Greek nearly
2,000 years ago in a vastly different culture than our own. Some scholars think
that what we have in our Bible was a sermon, or a series of sermons, that got
written down and expanded into a letter. But that’s just one theory. The fact
of the matter is that we know about as much as the “Miss Lydia Davies” that
this postcard is addressed to as we do about James’ original audience.
We
don’t know what led James, or someone using his name, to write the letter down
or how it was received. Whether it’s a letter in the Bible or a lost postcard
from 1903 Wales, we have to be careful making assumptions when we read someone
else’s mail.
There
are a few things that we know about the letter of James. We assume it was
written by James, the brother of Jesus, sometime around the year 90 and was addressed
to a largely to Jewish followers of Jesus. What makes the letter of James worth
our attention 2,000 years later is that it reads as if James’ concern is about
what it means to be followers of Jesus in a world that is hostile and opposed to
the teachings of Jesus. Though we live in a vastly different time and place
than James did, this is still something that the Church struggles with – figuring
out how to be a person of faith in a complex and challenging world.
By
way of introduction, is also important to acknowledge that the letter of James has
a complicated history. The 16th-century reformer, Martin Luther, infamously
called James an “epistle of straw.” Luther read, and I’d go so far as to say “misread,”
the book of James to suggest that faith is a product of our own making instead
of a gift from God. Luther, and many since then, have dismissed the letter as
being about works righteousness instead of the grace of God. And so there are a
lot of Christians who ignore and reject the letter of James. But there is much
truth, and grace, to receive through the epistle of James.
This
morning, we heard a bit from the opening chapter where James lays out the three
major themes of the letter: encouragement to persevere in trials, our need for
wisdom, and that true religion is about exalting the lowly.
We
heard “Every perfect gift is from above, coming down the Father of lights with whom
there is no variation or shadow.” James is reminding us that though life can be
challenging, though the world might not understand our commitments to peace-making
and forgiveness, though bad things still happen to good people, God continues
to bless us with good gifts. Because when we get passed over for a job, don’t
do well on a test, get hit with another unexpected bill, have our generosity taken
advantage of, or hear the physician say “I think we need to biopsy that,” it’s
easy to get frustrated and scared. It can make us feel like giving up. It can
make us question what difference faith makes.
Again,
we don’t know exactly what was happening when James wrote this letter – but we
do know the Temple was destroyed in Jerusalem in the year 70 by the Romans. And
it wasn’t just the Temple that was destroyed, at least 3,000 Jews were killed
along with it. The Temple was at the very center of the Jewish faith, so this
was a crisis of identity. It would be as if we were told that we could no
longer celebrate Baptism or Eucharist. We know that in the second half of the
first century, under Emperors Nero and Domitian, there was persecution against
those who followed Jesus. And we know that by the 90s, most of the twelve disciples,
the first deacon, Stephen, and St. Paul had all been martyred for being
disciples of Jesus.
It
would have been easy to give up and no longer profess faith as a Christian. It
would have been understandable if they had chosen to “go along to get along.”
But James writes to exhort and encourage Christians to stand firm in their
faith, trusting that God will indeed continue to bless us with good things and
that God is not the cause of our sufferings. He writes that God has given us
the truth that it might lead to fruitfulness in our lives.
And
what is the truth that allows us to endure in hardships? It’s the truth we
heard the reading from the Song of Solomon gesturing towards – that love
abounds and is making all things well. Elsewhere in that poem we hear, “For
love is strong as death… Many waters cannot quench love, neither can floods
drown it.” In other words, our sins and doubts do not stop God from loving us.
Our deaths are not the conclusion of the story of our belovedness. Our dignity is
not dependent on our accomplishments. No matter what the world throws at us,
love is stronger. And when that truth is implanted with us, we are enabled and galvanized
to keep on keeping on.
Later
in this passage, James uses the image of a mirror and says that we ought not to
be like those who look in the mirror and then immediately forget who they are.
As the children of our Music & Arts Camp reminded us last month, we are
made in the loving image of God. We must hold onto that truth with all we have.
Because when we forget whose and who we are, so many things can quickly
unravel. When it comes to the wisdom of “do or do not,” we always start by
remembering the grace of God which enables us to “do.”
Another major theme throughout James is the importance of wisdom. In other words, we don’t want to haphazardly go around doing without a bit of discernment first. This is what James is getting at when we hear “You must understand this, my beloved: let everyone be quick to listen, slow to speak, slower to anger; for your anger does not produce God’s righteousness.” The message is that community is more important than correctness. Yes, maybe we are right and they are wrong, but we should be quick to listen and slow to speak. We tend to do the opposite.
In
the trials and challenges facing the Church, James knows that we need each
other to get through it, and anger will not help. I know that some people like
to talk about “righteous anger” and maybe it has a time and place, but anger is
never constructive. Instead, humility, listening, and love are what build up.
Anger has a place – it alerts us to the fact that something is wrong and needs
to be addressed. But anger is not a constructive tool to build up community. James
cautions us against acting with anger and claiming that we are bringing about
God’s righteousness.
These
days, just like in James’ time, we’re so good at naming our grievances and what
we’re against, but we don’t spend much time naming what we are for. It’s a complaint
that both political parties have about each other – you never say what you’re
for, only what you’re against. In one of his letters, St. Paul writes, “Beloved,
whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is just, whatever is pure,
whatever is pleasing, whatever is commendable, think about these things and the
God of peace will be with you.” Putting love at the center of community is the godly
wisdom James gives us.
The
third major theme in James is that true religion is about exalting the lowly.
We heard, “Religion that is pure and undefiled before God is this: to care for orphans
and widows in their distress.” We do need to be clear that, for us, the word “religion”
means something like your belief system, but for James, it meant the rituals you
participate in. So when we hear the phrase “true religion” it’s not about
thinking the right things, it’s about doing things that align us with God.
Throughout
the letter of James, we will hear exhortations to “be doers of the word, not
merely hearers.” Again, “do or do not,” as Yoda would put it. The idea is that
our identity as followers of Jesus goes from being to doing, not doing to
being. In other words, we serve those in need not to be Christian; rather, we
serve others because we are Christian. This is the language of Grace – not if-then,
but because-therefore. We don’t forgive others, donate to charity, or help
those in need in order to prove our faith or to get a reward. No, we do those things
because that is who we are. That is the image of God that we are made in.
An
Episcopal priest and monk put it this way “Love must act as light must shine
and first must burn.” A flame is not bright because it wants to be fire, rather
it is bright because it is is what it means to be a flame. So though Yoda would
say “do or do not,” Shakespeare would say “To be or not to be, that is the question.”
James wants us to see that being and doing are the same thing – we cannot separate
the two. A Christian who does not serve those in need is as plausible as a fire
that does not burn. It makes as much sense as a square-circle. It’s just not possible.
True religion is therefore about love – an orientation towards others. And if we are oriented toward others, we are in harmony with love and have a mission that keeps us focused and dedicated, even when there are hardships and persecutions to face. So, not surprisingly, it all flows from and returns to love. What it means to be a Christian is to be in the flow of God’s gracious love. That love is what Jesus showed and gave to us. It is a love that helps us to endure hardship, it is a love that aligns us with God’s ways, and it is a love that aligns us with the true religion of lifting up the lowly. As our Presiding Bishop has reminded us: love is the way.
