Sermon of the month for September, 2006
REMEMBERING WHO WE ARE
James 1:17-27
17 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. 18 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.
19 You must understand this, my beloved: let everyone be quick to listen, slow to speak, slow to anger; 20 for your anger does not produce God's righteousness. 21 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.
22 But be doers of the word, and not merely hearers who deceive themselves. 23 For if any are hearers of the word and not doers, they are like those who look at themselves in a mirror; 24 for they look at themselves and, on going away, immediately forget what they were like. 25 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.
26 If any think they are religious, and do not bridle their tongues but deceive their hearts, their religion is worthless. 27 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.
Have you ever had a good admonishing? As a child we can probably remember being admonished...it comes with the territory of early childhood development. But how about as an adult? Pretty hard to take... My dictionary defines "admonish" as
"To warn of a fault; to reprove gently or kindly but seriously; to exhort; to put one in mind of something forgotten."
No one at any age enjoys being admonished. There are some who seem to have admonishment as a special calling - we usually duck and cover when we see them approaching. But most of us, I suspect, prefer not to admonish because it's difficult to pull off that "gently and kindly but seriously." How easy to begin with the goal of admonishing and end up "losing our cool," and maybe a friendship - or on the other hand, water it down so as not to risk offending: "Now this is just a suggestion...take it or leave it...not everybody feels this way...doesn't matter much to me..."
The Apostle Paul admonishes followers of Jesus to be admonishers of one another. In Colossians 3, in the midst of a string of pleasant encouragements - "Clothe yourselves with compassion, kindness, humility, meekness, patience ...and love...Let the peace of Christ rule in your hearts...Be thankful...Let God's word dwell in you richly...Sing psalms, hymns and spiritual songs." And, oh, by the way, "admonish one another in all wisdom." (see Colossians 3:12-17)
I think James gets it right in his epistle. I think of James as a letter of admonishment - serious but in a spirit of gentleness and kindness. And getting to the heart of things: why live in obedience to God's word? Not out of fear of punishment or rejection, but because we know who God is and we know God's heart as revealed in Jesus.
Walter Wangerin is an author and professor and Lutheran pastor. I'm grateful to Rev. Heidi Husted for relating one of Wangerin's remembrances: he wrote once about finding his young son reading a big stack of comic books and asked him "Where did those come from?" "I took them out of the library." "You mean you borrowed them?" "No..." So off he marched his son to the library where Wangerin made him apologize to the librarian, who delivered a stern lecture about stealing. Sometime later, the father found another stack of comic books. "Where did you get these?" There was no use lying. "When we were on vacation last summer, I stole them from the general store." Too late to return them, so the father ripped them up and burned them in the fireplace.
When his son stole comic books a third time, the father was at the end of his wits, anguishing over how to correct his son's behavior. And though deep down, he really didn't believe in physical punishment, he told his son that this was the last straw and he'd have to spank him good. And he did...and the son, his head hanging in shame, tried to hold back the tears. Then immediately, the father excused himself, stepped into another room and began sobbing.
Years later, the son and his mother were reminiscing about those days. "After that incident with Dad, I never stole anything again," the son said. "I'm sure that spanking cured you," said his mother. "Oh no," the young man replied, "it was because when Dad stepped out of the room, I could hear him crying." (Related in "The Christian Century," August 2-9, 2000)
It's not the fear of God's punishment that motivates us to live obedient lives; fear never transforms. It's knowing that our disobedience breaks the Father's heart, the Father who loves us much more than we love ourselves. James knows the source of transformation:
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 1:17-18)
James knows and lovingly admonishes that living by the word of God means being "doers" of that word, not only "hearers." The walk of faith is both remembering who we are and becoming who we are: God's beloved children and ministers of God's love.
He likens the wholeness of faith to looking into a mirror, something that we all do once or many times a day. He likens those who hear the word but don't live the word to those who look at themselves in a mirror, see themselves clearly...and them go off and live like someone else without God's love in their hearts. What a telling picture. We know that when we look into a mirror, it reflects back more than just a picture, but a story...a history...a lifeline of joy and sorrow, success and failure, weariness and enthusiasm, faith and doubt, courage and fear, hope and despair. It's all there; the face looking back at us tells who who we are, not only that we nicked our self shaving or that the lipstick is slightly smeared. That image reflects back to us how and by whom our life has been shaped...where we have placed our trust and commitment...who or what we have worshiped as the center of our life. It's all there for a moment. That why, when tempted to do or be something "out of character," something that runs against the grain of our self-identity, we often say, "But...I'd have to look at myself in the mirror in the morning." We look...and there's our life. Then we walk away from the mirror and into life. James admonishes: "Don't be like some who see who they are, then walk away and forget who they are."
Now James is a very practical Christian, so his letter contains some of the practical implications of "walking the talk," being hearers and doers of God's word and God's way.
For one thing, it means being "quick to listen, slow to speak, slow to anger." For our anger, he says, does n ot produce God's righteousness. How is our progress coming along in developing "a listening heart"? Without it our words are empty and pious and pompous and hurtful. Can we hear another without too quickly imposing our "considered opinions"? Can we tame our tendency to strike back in anger at those with whom we disagree or from whom we are different? These are marks of growing faith.
And...this walking the talk means "caring for orphans and widows in their distress." That's pretty specific, no ambiguity there. James is saying that one of the marks of the integrated spiritual life is care for the disenfranchised and discarded people of life. In those days widows and orphans were a dominant concern. In our day we would add to those the homeless...the neglected or abused children...those trapped in cycles of poverty...the chronically ill and disabled...victims of cruelty, injustice, racism. This caring is how James defines religion "that is pure and undefiled." Notice he doesn't say that it has much to do with believing the right doctrines or observing the right rituals; it has rather to do with how people care for people who have been wounded or marginalized.
And finally, this way of living involves "keeping one's self unstained by the world." which goes back to our identity in Christ. Being unstained does not mean avoiding the world or standing aloof from the world in judgment. But rather remembering that who we are are people who are not "of" the world but very much "in" the world. The world is not to be escaped but transformed, for it is nothing less than God's good creation and the world that God loved so much as to send and sacrifice his only begotten Son, our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. We are called to stand for God's way and against the things in our culture which deny God's way: hatred - prejudice - callousness - racism - coercion - winning by dominating or undermining - regarding others as lesser persons - self-absorption - and the many more ways that proceed toward death rather than life. Remember the person you have seen in the mirror, transformed not be fear but by the love of Christ. Amen.
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