Every generous act of giving, with every perfect gift, is from above, coming down from the Father of lights, with whom there is no variation or shadow due to change. In fulfillment of his own purpose he gave us birth by the word of truth, so that we would become a kind of first fruits of his creatures.
James 1:17-27
You must understand this, my beloved: let everyone be quick to listen, slow to speak, slow to anger; for your anger does not produce God’s righteousness. Therefore rid yourselves of all sordidness and rank growth of wickedness, and welcome with meekness the implanted word that has the power to save your souls. But be doers of the word, and not merely hearers who deceive themselves. For if any are hearers of the word and not doers, they are like those who look at themselves in a mirror; for they look at themselves and, on going away, immediately forget what they were like. But those who look into the perfect law, the law of liberty, and persevere, being not hearers who forget but doers who act—they will be blessed in their doing. If any think they are religious, and do not bridle their tongues but deceive their hearts, their religion is worthless. Religion that is pure and undefiled before God, the Father, is this: to care for orphans and widows in their distress, and to keep oneself unstained by the world.
My sermon from the 15th Sunday after Pentecost (September 1, 2024) on James 1:17-27.
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If you could remove one book from the Bible, which one would it be?
Now I know that’s a very weird question to ask since the sixty-six books – as well as the other 10 or so that make up the apocrypha – have generally been accepted by all kinds of Christians as our canon – our Holy Book – since roughly the year 275 or so. We would be hard pressed to imagine ourselves having the authority to cut out a book that has fed the spiritual life of so many people for hundreds of years. Our Bible, though, isn’t really meant to be treated as if it was a novel – with one cohesive narrative, theme, and idea that is easy to follow. It really exists as a kind of library, crafted over a 1300 year period, by people sharing their experience of God in the form of letters, poems, teachings, sermons, histories, and semi-biographical writings. A library of this size and magnitude isn’t meant to be digested in one sitting. It is, instead, meant to challenge, transform, inspire, confuse, and make us wonder what it means to be in relationship with a God who never gives up on us. That complexity – as well as how random our lives can be – is why it’s perfectly normal for us to prefer some books of the Bible more than others. Every one of us, I think, carries within us a canon within a canon – those words we return to over and over again as we live through whatever life might bring. We’d rather spend our time watching Jesus sleeping as a baby in a manger and listen to those stories about being lost and then found – rather than remembering the time he told us to give all our wealth to the poor. That doesn’t mean we’ll be like Thomas Jefferson who physically cut out from his Bible those stories and words about Jesus he thought were too weird to be true. But we, in our own way, often end up treating the Bible as if it is much smaller than it truly is. This approach to scripture – of removing or ignoring books we’re not really into, is something that even Martin Luther thought about when he was busy translating the Bible into the everyday language people spoke. To him, the Bible is not meant to only be seen as a kind of instructional book, telling us how to get on God’s good side. The Bible should be experienced as an event – revealing who Jesus is for us – and for our world. There were times, though, when even he had concerns that some of the Biblical books weren’t as clear as he thought they should be. He was worried their words might obscure us realizing how grace, forgiveness, and faith are always gifts we cannot earn but are freely given by the One who gave himself up for us. There was one book, in particular, he truly disliked – even admitting to a friend he hoped to use it one day as fuel for his stove. And that book, which we’ll spend time listening to over the next few weeks, is known to us as the letter of James.
Now this letter has traditionally been associated with Jesus’ brother though some have wondered if one of the apostles, such as James the Son of Zebedee, might have been its author too. And one of things that makes it interesting is how it doesn’t really flow in the ways we might expect. It often meanders from one point to another, shifting to a new topic before it finishes the one that came before it. This makes following James a bit difficult which isn’t helped by how our lectionary – the three year cycle of readings we use in worship – then chooses to split up the letter. When we focus too much on the details within the letter, we can easily lose our way. And that’s because James has a vision – a bigger picture it’s choosing to focus on which – in the words of Rev. Katie Van Der Linden, is simply: “what does a faithful person look like, act like, [and] be like?” That question, on the surface, implies that James might be focused on what we should – and shouldn’t do. And while we’ll hear a lot of that in the text, James’ attention is on how our actions, thoughts, and life – right now – paint a picture of who we know Jesus to be. Faith, to James, is more than the private piety feeding our souls. Faith is lived out – reflected through the public interactions we have with ourselves and with others. James wants us to see how our life and our faith can be so entwined that when people see us, they witness Jesus himself. This isn’t, though, meant to make us feel somehow superior or better or more perfect than those around us. Faith isn’t a tool we use to impose our will, our thoughts, and our experiences on others. But it is something that, like love, is meant to be a verb – showing up in the lives we actually live.
And so when we keep that big picture in mind while listening to our reading today, we notice three themes which will be expanded on in the weeks ahead. First, James invites us to wonder what it means to be children of God. Through baptism and faith, we have been brought into a community God – like a mother – birthed into being. But that doesn’t mean we are meant to be passive in the community God has crafted. We, instead, are meant to fully participate in it. We do this by learning how to listen and not letting our ego, defensiveness, sense of entitlement, or even our emotions get in the way of learning how to be committed to each other. We’re not supposed to ignore conflict or pretend as conformity in all things is how we cherish one another. Rather, when we live together, we’re not always meant to be the first one who speaks or to react with anger whenever someone – or something – challenges who we know ourselves to be. For James, how we communicate often reveals the God we are following. And finally, James wants us to pay attention to what is fundamental about who God imagines we can be. We should, physically, mentally, emotionally, and spiritually look into the mirror – and not only see what we want to see but also recognize how we are loved, valued, and get to be the body of Christ in our world. In the words of Professor Rev. Margaret Aymer, we are called to switch from “seeing things as [we wish but] seeing things as God wishes” instead.
And so, over the next few weeks, we’re going to spend time in a book we might not know very well. It’s a text that might not even be part of the Bible-within-the-Bible that feeds our souls. Yet James can, I think, help us realize that our imagination about our lives, our world, and our community shouldn’t be limited to only what we see, think, and experience. We are, instead, invited to pay attention to what God chooses to reveal to us. We get to pay attention to Jesus. We get to listen to a Bible full of all kinds of writings we return to over and over again and those stories we would prefer to ignore. And we, as followers of Jesus, get to recognize how we are not only God’s beloved children but that we are surrounded by those who have been made in God’s image too. The picture James invites us to see how our faith is always bigger than ourselves. And once we realize who God has made us to be, then the orphans around us are cared for; the widows who feel alone are supported; and the walls we build to keep others out are broken by a love that knows no bounds.
Amen.