THE PULPIT: the world in which we live
James 3:13-4:10
13If you are wise and understand God's ways, live a life of steady goodness so that only good deeds will pour forth. And if you don't brag about the good you do, then you will be truly wise! 14But if you are bitterly jealous and there is selfish ambition in your hearts, don't brag about being wise. That is the worst kind of lie. 15For jealousy and selfishness are not God's kind of wisdom. Such things are earthly, unspiritual, and motivated by the Devil. 16For wherever there is jealousy and selfish ambition, there you will find disorder and every kind of evil.
17But the wisdom that comes from heaven is first of all pure. It is also peace loving, gentle at all times, and willing to yield to others. It is full of mercy and good deeds. It shows no partiality and is always sincere. 18And those who are peacemakers will plant seeds of peace and reap a harvest of goodness.
1What is causing the quarrels and fights among you? Isn't it the whole army of evil desires at war within you? 2You want what you don't have, so you scheme and kill to get it. You are jealous for what others have, and you can't possess it, so you fight and quarrel to take it away from them. And yet the reason you don't have what you want is that you don't ask God for it. 3And even when you do ask, you don't get it because your whole motive is wrong--you want only what will give you pleasure.
4You adulterers! Don't you realize that friendship with this world makes you an enemy of God? I say it again, that if your aim is to enjoy this world, you can't be a friend of God. 5What do you think the Scriptures mean when they say that the Holy Spirit, whom God has placed within us, jealously longs for us to be faithful[a]? 6He gives us more and more strength to stand against such evil desires. As the Scriptures say,
"God sets himself against the proud,
but he shows favor to the humble."[b]
7So humble yourselves before God. Resist the Devil, and he will flee from you. 8Draw close to God, and God will draw close to you. Wash your hands, you sinners; purify your hearts, you hypocrites. 9Let there be tears for the wrong things you have done. Let there be sorrow and deep grief. Let there be sadness instead of laughter, and gloom instead of joy. 10When you bow down before the Lord and admit your dependence on him, he will lift you up and give you honor.
Have you all stopped and looked around lately? Have you taken time to notice the world in which we live? One day this week I checked a media web-site to see what newsworthy stories found themselves on the front page. Here are a couple of them:
Thai Military Launches Coup, Takes Power From Prime Minister Thaksin. In Thailand this week, the military, supported by the king, launched a coup to overthrow the elected Prime Minister. Coups are not uncommon in Thailand, according to the article, but it has been a while since the last one. The Prime Minister has been under fire recently as he has alienated much of the middle and upper classes, the intellectual community and the pro-democratic activists by his policies and work with the poor in rural Thailand. While he was out of the county, the military moved in, declared marshal law, and has threatened to arrest the Prime Minister if he should choose to return. This is the world in which we live.
Israeli Ambassador Criticizes U.S. for Receiving Ahmadinejad. “Israel's ambassador to the United Nations criticized the U.S. administration on Wednesday for granting an entrance visa to Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and allowing him to address the U.N. General Assembly… The Israeli delegation to the General Assembly, including Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni, boycotted Ahmadinejad, who has said he wants to wipe Israel off the map and dismissed the Holocaust as a myth. "We didn't think it was correct to honor this man with our presence. I am very sorry that he was even allowed to speak at the U.N.," Danny Gillerman, Israel's ambassador to the U.N., said. "I ask myself if the American administration didn't have an opportunity, even at the expense of violating its agreements with the U.N., not to give an entrance visa to this man," Gillerman told Israel Radio.” This is the world in which we live.
The articles discussing the number of lives lost in Iraq were astounding: U.S. and allied troops, Iraqi troops, Terrorist forces, and most disturbingly the astounding number of civilian citizens, women and children. This is the world in which we live.
On a more local note, perhaps you’ve noticed the way political advertisements pervade the local media. Lines are being drawn in the sand every day. Sides are forming against one another. Even churches are not immune from the trend. It was not long ago that all the discussion was about how the Episcopal Church USA would deal with the ordination of a homosexual bishop. Now the big news is the Pope’s comments about Islam. I just read an article about a major congregation with a very influential pastor who had 20% of his congregation walk out of the service because of something he said. This is the world in which we live.
Those discussions are quite abstract though. They don’t really touch where we live. We are not Episcopalians; we are not Roman Catholic or Muslim; hopefully none of you will be walking out. But controversy and conflicts like this happen in the local church too. A friend just told me about loosing a quarter of her congregation because of a decision she made (a decision supported by most on the board and the DS!). I was right in the middle of a mess in a previous church with good friends on both sides. I have even seen mountains made out of who gets more money in the budget, or gets to use the church’s kitchen (or even better, since I was the janitor, whose job it was to clean it up after a big event!). Everywhere we look, it seems that sides are forming and lines are being drawn. This is the world in which we live.
Conflict like this, however, is not unique to just the world in which we live. It has been a problem much longer than that. In fact, much of how the church exists today is a result, for better or worse, of internal conflict. Judaism in Acts is full of this conflict. Consider the treatment of the Hellenistic Jews versus that of the Hebrew Jews. Stephen, a Hellenist, was condemned to die, while the Hebrew Apostles were flogged and let go with the request that they not preach anymore. The Hellenistic widows were neglected, while the Hebrew widows were cared for.
Even the early church, that many love to idealize as “the way it ought to be,” was ripe with conflict. Christianity and Judaism have not always been two different religions. For much of its childhood, the Christians saw themselves as Jews. Jews believed that one day the Messiah would come and fulfill the Scriptures. Christians were Jews who believed Jesus was the Messiah. They continued most of the Jewish customs. They continued honoring Sabbath on Saturday, but added a resurrection celebration on Sunday. They continued the 2-day fast for repentance. It had been observed on Monday and Tuesday, but the Christian Jews honored the fast on Wednesday and Friday to remember the betrayal and death of Christ. The first Christians, including the great saints we honor today: Paul, Peter, John, James, etc., considered themselves Jews!
This obviously caused much conflict. Imagine today if someone burst onto the scene and claimed to be the second coming of Christ. That person preformed many miracles and attracted quite a following. Many claimed to be his or her disciples and believed that he or she was the second coming. The catch is that it did not really happen the way we thought it would. There was no splitting in the eastern sky. There was no trumpet blast. There was no anti-Christ and no Armageddon. But Christ had returned. Would it be a little contentious? Would it be a little controversial? Would it stir up a little trouble? You bet!
One of the bigger controversies surrounded the idea of missions with the Gentiles. Because part of the Messiah’s ministry was to unite all the peoples under His name, many Jews felt they should evangelize the gentiles. Many Gentiles converted. But remember, Christians were Jews, so they must convert to Judaism. That included circumcision…or did it? Could a person be a Christian and not a Jew? Could a person be a Jew and not be circumcised? Would this be a little contentious? Would this be a little controversial? Would this stir up a little trouble? You bet!
Much of this controversy was centered in Jerusalem where James was the leader of the Church. In this context, his words resonate loud and clear!
In James’ very Jewish thinking, there are two kinds of wisdom: earthly wisdom, and God’s wisdom. It seems in James’ world and in ours, the earthly wisdom controls life. We look around and all we see are wars and rumors of wars, violence and threats, death and destruction, disorder and wickedness, conflicts and disputes, the reckless pursuit of personal pleasure and gain. In typical James thinking, these outward atrocities are a direct byproduct of inward things. “For where there is envy and selfish ambition, there will also be disorder and wickedness. … Those conflicts and disputes among you, where do they come from? Do they not come from your cravings that are at war within you? … You ask and do not receive because you ask wrongly, in order to spend what you get on your pleasures.” If there is division and disputes, conflict and competition even within these walls, then we must begin by look within.
The problem, James says, is this double-mindedness. We are the Church, disciples of the Risen Lord Jesus Christ. We say we follow Christ and God’s wisdom, yet we all too often are motivated by our own selfishness. The war that goes on within us must stop. This is no way for the world to behave. This is certainly no way for the Church to behave! “God yearns jealously for the spirit that he has made to dwell in us.”
In Christ Jesus God has provided for us a solution to our double-mindedness. To bring an end to this, “he gives all the more grace.” Grace upon grace upon grace is lavished upon us. God desires not fractures and dissention. God desires not for us to take sides. God desires not for double-mindedness and division. Rather God desires us to be pure. God desires us to be whole. God desires us to be holy.
I remember going shopping for Antonina’s engagement ring. I knew I didn’t know much about jewelry and I knew I knew even less about women, so I asked my mother to go shopping with me. Who would have even thought so much goes into choosing a ring. First you have to decide what it will be set in: white gold, yellow gold, platinum. Then, do you want a solitaire or multiple diamonds? Then is the hard part: the diamond. What shape? What size? What color? What quality? It really surprised me that when looking at what I thought was a magnificent diamond under the microscope, I could suddenly see all the not so beautiful contaminations: defects, bubbles, foreign deposits. The less defects there are, the more pure the diamond is. Or consider precious metals such as gold. The goal is to have pure metal. They heat it and melt it. The foreign matter is skimmed off. All that should be left is gold.
Something is pure when it is only one thing. It is pure when it has not even a hint of outside contamination. Heart purity is when one’s life is totally surrendered to the grace of God. Heart purity is when one’s whole being is in Christ. Heart purity is the unification of all parts of life by the grace of God for the worship of God. The way of the world is division, fractures, dissention, envy, selfishness. But the wisdom of God is purity, without any hint of hypocrisy.
This process by which we are made pure we call sanctification. We are set apart for God’s worship and God’s work. We are cleansed from all impurities. All of our motives, all of our actions, all of our desires, all of our life is unified, and purified, and transformed by the love of God. The tension in this text is between double-mindedness and purity. The resolution of this tension is only by the sanctifying grace of God.
If sanctification is the process by which we are made pure: whole and holy, then holiness is the life lived by the sanctified disciple. It is the life made possible only by our total submission to God, God’s love and God’s ways. Paul and James both describe the holy life. Paul’s list has become more well known, but James’ list is just as solid: purity (wholeness and holiness) produces a life of peace, gentleness, yielding, merciful, and productive of good fruit.
Brothers and sisters, when others look at us…better yet, when we look in the mirror…do we see a people whose life is characterized by the seeking of peace, by being peacemakers in a violent and warring world? Do we see a people known for their gentleness, for caring about the feelings and well-being of others? Do we see a people who loves God and others so much that they yield their desires, their dreams, their success, their rights, even their very way of life to God and to others? Do we see a people who stand out in a world driven by retribution and revenge, as a people who extend mercy? Do we see a people who produces good fruit?
The wisdom of the world so easily entangles us. It so easily drags us down. It makes it so easy for even the church to be drawn in to petty squabbles. It makes it so easy for us to rationalize attitudes and actions not consistent with the purity God desires for us. It tries to get us confused and to loose our focus on the One True God. It works hard to break the unity we must have within ourselves, with our God, within our Church and within our World. The wisdom of the world works against us, and we are helpless against it. But God gives all the more grace. The Wisdom of God, the grace of God in Christ Jesus frees us from all that entangles us. All that ties us down melts away like a cobweb in a fire. The wisdom from above is a bright light in a very dark world. Christ came to give us life and to give it more fully and abundantly than we can ever imagine.
Oh, Holy one’s of God, look at the world in which we live. It is desperate. It is dying. The world is looking for a light, and we are the light bearers to the world. The world is looking for freedom from the evil that so pervades it. The world is looking to the Church for answers. The world is looking to us for hope, for grace. What do they see when the look to us? What answers to we have for them? Dear people of God, we must “submit [our]selves therefore to God.” We must “resist the devil.” We must “draw near to God.” We must “cleanse [our] hands … and purify [our] hearts.” We must “lament and mourn and weep” for our world that is such desperate need. We must “humble [ourselves] before the Lord, and he will exalt [us].” He will purify us. He will sanctify us. He will make us whole and holy; a light to the world. To the glory of God: Father, Son and Holy Spirit. Amen.
13If you are wise and understand God's ways, live a life of steady goodness so that only good deeds will pour forth. And if you don't brag about the good you do, then you will be truly wise! 14But if you are bitterly jealous and there is selfish ambition in your hearts, don't brag about being wise. That is the worst kind of lie. 15For jealousy and selfishness are not God's kind of wisdom. Such things are earthly, unspiritual, and motivated by the Devil. 16For wherever there is jealousy and selfish ambition, there you will find disorder and every kind of evil.
17But the wisdom that comes from heaven is first of all pure. It is also peace loving, gentle at all times, and willing to yield to others. It is full of mercy and good deeds. It shows no partiality and is always sincere. 18And those who are peacemakers will plant seeds of peace and reap a harvest of goodness.
1What is causing the quarrels and fights among you? Isn't it the whole army of evil desires at war within you? 2You want what you don't have, so you scheme and kill to get it. You are jealous for what others have, and you can't possess it, so you fight and quarrel to take it away from them. And yet the reason you don't have what you want is that you don't ask God for it. 3And even when you do ask, you don't get it because your whole motive is wrong--you want only what will give you pleasure.
4You adulterers! Don't you realize that friendship with this world makes you an enemy of God? I say it again, that if your aim is to enjoy this world, you can't be a friend of God. 5What do you think the Scriptures mean when they say that the Holy Spirit, whom God has placed within us, jealously longs for us to be faithful[a]? 6He gives us more and more strength to stand against such evil desires. As the Scriptures say,
"God sets himself against the proud,
but he shows favor to the humble."[b]
7So humble yourselves before God. Resist the Devil, and he will flee from you. 8Draw close to God, and God will draw close to you. Wash your hands, you sinners; purify your hearts, you hypocrites. 9Let there be tears for the wrong things you have done. Let there be sorrow and deep grief. Let there be sadness instead of laughter, and gloom instead of joy. 10When you bow down before the Lord and admit your dependence on him, he will lift you up and give you honor.
Have you all stopped and looked around lately? Have you taken time to notice the world in which we live? One day this week I checked a media web-site to see what newsworthy stories found themselves on the front page. Here are a couple of them:
Thai Military Launches Coup, Takes Power From Prime Minister Thaksin. In Thailand this week, the military, supported by the king, launched a coup to overthrow the elected Prime Minister. Coups are not uncommon in Thailand, according to the article, but it has been a while since the last one. The Prime Minister has been under fire recently as he has alienated much of the middle and upper classes, the intellectual community and the pro-democratic activists by his policies and work with the poor in rural Thailand. While he was out of the county, the military moved in, declared marshal law, and has threatened to arrest the Prime Minister if he should choose to return. This is the world in which we live.
Israeli Ambassador Criticizes U.S. for Receiving Ahmadinejad. “Israel's ambassador to the United Nations criticized the U.S. administration on Wednesday for granting an entrance visa to Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and allowing him to address the U.N. General Assembly… The Israeli delegation to the General Assembly, including Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni, boycotted Ahmadinejad, who has said he wants to wipe Israel off the map and dismissed the Holocaust as a myth. "We didn't think it was correct to honor this man with our presence. I am very sorry that he was even allowed to speak at the U.N.," Danny Gillerman, Israel's ambassador to the U.N., said. "I ask myself if the American administration didn't have an opportunity, even at the expense of violating its agreements with the U.N., not to give an entrance visa to this man," Gillerman told Israel Radio.” This is the world in which we live.
The articles discussing the number of lives lost in Iraq were astounding: U.S. and allied troops, Iraqi troops, Terrorist forces, and most disturbingly the astounding number of civilian citizens, women and children. This is the world in which we live.
On a more local note, perhaps you’ve noticed the way political advertisements pervade the local media. Lines are being drawn in the sand every day. Sides are forming against one another. Even churches are not immune from the trend. It was not long ago that all the discussion was about how the Episcopal Church USA would deal with the ordination of a homosexual bishop. Now the big news is the Pope’s comments about Islam. I just read an article about a major congregation with a very influential pastor who had 20% of his congregation walk out of the service because of something he said. This is the world in which we live.
Those discussions are quite abstract though. They don’t really touch where we live. We are not Episcopalians; we are not Roman Catholic or Muslim; hopefully none of you will be walking out. But controversy and conflicts like this happen in the local church too. A friend just told me about loosing a quarter of her congregation because of a decision she made (a decision supported by most on the board and the DS!). I was right in the middle of a mess in a previous church with good friends on both sides. I have even seen mountains made out of who gets more money in the budget, or gets to use the church’s kitchen (or even better, since I was the janitor, whose job it was to clean it up after a big event!). Everywhere we look, it seems that sides are forming and lines are being drawn. This is the world in which we live.
Conflict like this, however, is not unique to just the world in which we live. It has been a problem much longer than that. In fact, much of how the church exists today is a result, for better or worse, of internal conflict. Judaism in Acts is full of this conflict. Consider the treatment of the Hellenistic Jews versus that of the Hebrew Jews. Stephen, a Hellenist, was condemned to die, while the Hebrew Apostles were flogged and let go with the request that they not preach anymore. The Hellenistic widows were neglected, while the Hebrew widows were cared for.
Even the early church, that many love to idealize as “the way it ought to be,” was ripe with conflict. Christianity and Judaism have not always been two different religions. For much of its childhood, the Christians saw themselves as Jews. Jews believed that one day the Messiah would come and fulfill the Scriptures. Christians were Jews who believed Jesus was the Messiah. They continued most of the Jewish customs. They continued honoring Sabbath on Saturday, but added a resurrection celebration on Sunday. They continued the 2-day fast for repentance. It had been observed on Monday and Tuesday, but the Christian Jews honored the fast on Wednesday and Friday to remember the betrayal and death of Christ. The first Christians, including the great saints we honor today: Paul, Peter, John, James, etc., considered themselves Jews!
This obviously caused much conflict. Imagine today if someone burst onto the scene and claimed to be the second coming of Christ. That person preformed many miracles and attracted quite a following. Many claimed to be his or her disciples and believed that he or she was the second coming. The catch is that it did not really happen the way we thought it would. There was no splitting in the eastern sky. There was no trumpet blast. There was no anti-Christ and no Armageddon. But Christ had returned. Would it be a little contentious? Would it be a little controversial? Would it stir up a little trouble? You bet!
One of the bigger controversies surrounded the idea of missions with the Gentiles. Because part of the Messiah’s ministry was to unite all the peoples under His name, many Jews felt they should evangelize the gentiles. Many Gentiles converted. But remember, Christians were Jews, so they must convert to Judaism. That included circumcision…or did it? Could a person be a Christian and not a Jew? Could a person be a Jew and not be circumcised? Would this be a little contentious? Would this be a little controversial? Would this stir up a little trouble? You bet!
Much of this controversy was centered in Jerusalem where James was the leader of the Church. In this context, his words resonate loud and clear!
In James’ very Jewish thinking, there are two kinds of wisdom: earthly wisdom, and God’s wisdom. It seems in James’ world and in ours, the earthly wisdom controls life. We look around and all we see are wars and rumors of wars, violence and threats, death and destruction, disorder and wickedness, conflicts and disputes, the reckless pursuit of personal pleasure and gain. In typical James thinking, these outward atrocities are a direct byproduct of inward things. “For where there is envy and selfish ambition, there will also be disorder and wickedness. … Those conflicts and disputes among you, where do they come from? Do they not come from your cravings that are at war within you? … You ask and do not receive because you ask wrongly, in order to spend what you get on your pleasures.” If there is division and disputes, conflict and competition even within these walls, then we must begin by look within.
The problem, James says, is this double-mindedness. We are the Church, disciples of the Risen Lord Jesus Christ. We say we follow Christ and God’s wisdom, yet we all too often are motivated by our own selfishness. The war that goes on within us must stop. This is no way for the world to behave. This is certainly no way for the Church to behave! “God yearns jealously for the spirit that he has made to dwell in us.”
In Christ Jesus God has provided for us a solution to our double-mindedness. To bring an end to this, “he gives all the more grace.” Grace upon grace upon grace is lavished upon us. God desires not fractures and dissention. God desires not for us to take sides. God desires not for double-mindedness and division. Rather God desires us to be pure. God desires us to be whole. God desires us to be holy.
I remember going shopping for Antonina’s engagement ring. I knew I didn’t know much about jewelry and I knew I knew even less about women, so I asked my mother to go shopping with me. Who would have even thought so much goes into choosing a ring. First you have to decide what it will be set in: white gold, yellow gold, platinum. Then, do you want a solitaire or multiple diamonds? Then is the hard part: the diamond. What shape? What size? What color? What quality? It really surprised me that when looking at what I thought was a magnificent diamond under the microscope, I could suddenly see all the not so beautiful contaminations: defects, bubbles, foreign deposits. The less defects there are, the more pure the diamond is. Or consider precious metals such as gold. The goal is to have pure metal. They heat it and melt it. The foreign matter is skimmed off. All that should be left is gold.
Something is pure when it is only one thing. It is pure when it has not even a hint of outside contamination. Heart purity is when one’s life is totally surrendered to the grace of God. Heart purity is when one’s whole being is in Christ. Heart purity is the unification of all parts of life by the grace of God for the worship of God. The way of the world is division, fractures, dissention, envy, selfishness. But the wisdom of God is purity, without any hint of hypocrisy.
This process by which we are made pure we call sanctification. We are set apart for God’s worship and God’s work. We are cleansed from all impurities. All of our motives, all of our actions, all of our desires, all of our life is unified, and purified, and transformed by the love of God. The tension in this text is between double-mindedness and purity. The resolution of this tension is only by the sanctifying grace of God.
If sanctification is the process by which we are made pure: whole and holy, then holiness is the life lived by the sanctified disciple. It is the life made possible only by our total submission to God, God’s love and God’s ways. Paul and James both describe the holy life. Paul’s list has become more well known, but James’ list is just as solid: purity (wholeness and holiness) produces a life of peace, gentleness, yielding, merciful, and productive of good fruit.
Brothers and sisters, when others look at us…better yet, when we look in the mirror…do we see a people whose life is characterized by the seeking of peace, by being peacemakers in a violent and warring world? Do we see a people known for their gentleness, for caring about the feelings and well-being of others? Do we see a people who loves God and others so much that they yield their desires, their dreams, their success, their rights, even their very way of life to God and to others? Do we see a people who stand out in a world driven by retribution and revenge, as a people who extend mercy? Do we see a people who produces good fruit?
The wisdom of the world so easily entangles us. It so easily drags us down. It makes it so easy for even the church to be drawn in to petty squabbles. It makes it so easy for us to rationalize attitudes and actions not consistent with the purity God desires for us. It tries to get us confused and to loose our focus on the One True God. It works hard to break the unity we must have within ourselves, with our God, within our Church and within our World. The wisdom of the world works against us, and we are helpless against it. But God gives all the more grace. The Wisdom of God, the grace of God in Christ Jesus frees us from all that entangles us. All that ties us down melts away like a cobweb in a fire. The wisdom from above is a bright light in a very dark world. Christ came to give us life and to give it more fully and abundantly than we can ever imagine.
Oh, Holy one’s of God, look at the world in which we live. It is desperate. It is dying. The world is looking for a light, and we are the light bearers to the world. The world is looking for freedom from the evil that so pervades it. The world is looking to the Church for answers. The world is looking to us for hope, for grace. What do they see when the look to us? What answers to we have for them? Dear people of God, we must “submit [our]selves therefore to God.” We must “resist the devil.” We must “draw near to God.” We must “cleanse [our] hands … and purify [our] hearts.” We must “lament and mourn and weep” for our world that is such desperate need. We must “humble [ourselves] before the Lord, and he will exalt [us].” He will purify us. He will sanctify us. He will make us whole and holy; a light to the world. To the glory of God: Father, Son and Holy Spirit. Amen.
posted by EF + at 1:32 PM
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