For all our Father, Son, and Holy Spirit Trinitarian apologia, we Christians are mostly Christocentric. That is, in our theology it is Jesus this and Jesus that, with perfunctory nods to the Father and the Spirit when the occasion necessitates it. We use the term “God” a lot, but somehow it is either a footnote to Christ, or if we could use a printing image, it is in “Christ font.”
When we think about the scripture readings that are used every Sunday, it is usually the Gospel lesson which takes that lead. And while we often say that the New Testament does not supplant the Old Testament but fulfills it, we don’t pay a lot of attention to the two-thirds of the Bible that precedes the newer testament.
The Bible is in some ways a strange book. It is a library. There are books of history and prophecy, poetry and wisdom literature, that peculiar literary genre called gospel, correspondence, and fantasy. There are love stories and war stories, ceremonies and legal codes, travel narratives and stream of consciousness pondering. I am sure that you remember the bit of Bible trivia that God is never mentioned in the book of Esther. Another bit of trivia is that the letter of James, which will provide readings for the next several weeks, uses the name of God very sparingly.
So it a great joy to begin our reading in James with a doxology, an outpouring of praise to God. It reminds us, that even when we are mired in our “Jesus this and Jesus that” faith, everything comes from God.
"Every good gift, every perfect gift, comes from above. These gifts come down from the Father, the creator of the heavenly lights, in whose character there is no change at all. He chose to give us birth by his true word, and here is the result: we are like the first crop from the harvest of everything he created."It is a reminder of the truth that shows up in numerous scripture locations:
- When God began to create.... (Genesis 1:1).
- I am the Lord your God, who brought you out of Egypt, out of the house of slavery. (Deuteronomy 5:6).
- Israel, listen! Our God is the Lord! Only the Lord! (Deuteronomy 6:4).
We come back to the succinct and memorable first statement of the Westminster Shorter Catechism: “The chief end of human beings is to glorify God and enjoy God forever.”
So, if we are so richly blessed, blessed through birth “like the first crop from the harvest of everything God created,” then we have a special responsibility. We like to think of blessings as things we receive hand over fist.. We grab them up as fast as we can, almost as if we are looters in an urban riot. Somehow what we grab with our hands hardly ever registers with our heads, our hearts, our souls, however we define the spark of God’s image within us.
James is quick to chide that kind of attitude:
“Everyone should be quick to listen, slow to speak, and slow to grow angry. This is because an angry person doesn’t produce God’s righteousness.”When we are busy getting and grabbing, we are in competition with everyone else and not producing righteousness. We only think of ourselves. More, more, more. It doesn’t matter if we don’t need more. Our egos are involved. My worth is measured by what I have, not what someone else has. Our higher mental faculties shut down. We work out of our carnivore mode. Eat or be eaten. There is a disconnect between our hands and our brains, between the visceral and the spiritual.
Harry Emerson Fosdick, one time pastor of New York’s Riverside Church, observed that in his experience those who reflect on their lives and conclude that they have received far less than they deserved tend to be those from whom no great living comes. However, those who readily reckon they have received far more than they deserved are among those who do indulge in great living.(1)
What a wonderful phrase – “Indulge in great living.” Indulge means, “to allow (oneself) to follow one’s will (it’s usually followed by ‘in’). When we recognize how undeservedly blessed we are we allow ourselves to engage in great living. This is very likely a non-monetary kind of indulgence. We are not talking about three-star Michelin cuisine or first-class airfare jet-setting. We are talking about a magnanimity and a graciousness that doesn’t abuse, belittle, patronize, or marginalize anyone. As James counsels, “welcome the word planted deep inside you—the very word that is able to save you.”
“Indulging in great living” doesn’t just happen of its own accord. “You must be doers of the word and not only hearers who mislead themselves,” James writes. Once we have recognized how greatly and undeservedly we have received from the bounty of God, including our very salvation, that same recognition needs to turn around through our senses and our psyche to come back out our hands. The three smallest bones of the human body, the bones of the ear must connect with all the bones of hand in reaching out to the world, engaging with the world, laboring with the world, cooperating with the world in not only the sharing of the Good News but living that Good News out for others to catch the sense of the undeserved but real blessing of life that God offers.
I saw an image on the internet which very pointedly said: “Stop acting like a Christian. Be One.” So often we think that following Jesus means we have stop doing the wrong things and start doing the right things. Maybe we have got that backwards. We spend such an inordinate time worrying about doing the wrong things that we sap ourselves of the spiritual energy needed to do the right things. Perhaps we need engage in doing the right things in such a way that the wrong things slowly but surely get edged out by our activity.
It often seems that those who make the most noise about doing things the Christian way, are those who have the most to hide. The recent release of names of the Ashley Madison website clients have outed a number of people who should never have been there in the first place and who also were vocal about that kind of activity in others.
None of us gets away without sinning. All of us are in need of grace. This is the table of grace. Here is where the love and the grace of Christ is empowered by the Spirit. Here is where sinners are invited to partake of forgiveness. The invitation is open-ended. We can come as often as we need to. Jesus will not turn us away. He speaks the words of hope and peace and invites us to hear those words and to extend our hands first to receive the bread of life and the cup of salvation, and second to pass the life-giving bread and saving cup to the one beside us. “You received without having to pay. Therefore give without demanding payment” (Matthew 10:8).
Christ gave freely that we may freely give to those around us and to those who will come after us. The integrity of faith embraces self and neighbor. The ear bone is connected to the hand bone. And that’s the word of the Lord. Amen.
(1) Harry Emerson Fosdick, Riverside Sermons (New York: Harper, 1958), 174.
Unless noted otherwise, all scripture references are from The Common English Bible, © 2011 www.commonenglishbible.com.
Copyright © 2015 First Presbyterian Church of Waverly, Ohio. Reprinted by permission.
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