B, Pentecost 14 Proper 17 - James 1:17-27 "Doers of the word"

 

Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of lights, with whom there is no variation or shadow due to change.  Of his own will he brought us forth by the word of truth, that we should be a kind of firstfruits of his creatures.  Know this, my beloved brothers: let every person be quick to hear, slow to speak, slow to anger; for the anger of man does not produce the righteousness of God.  Therefore put away all filthiness and rampant wickedness and receive with meekness the implanted word, which is able to save your souls.  But be doers of the word, and not hearers only, deceiving yourselves.  For if anyone is a hearer of the word and not a doer, he is like a man who looks intently at his natural face in a mirror.  For he looks at himself and goes away and at once forgets what he was like.  But the one who looks into the perfect law, the law of liberty, and perseveres, being no hearer who forgets but a doer who acts, he will be blessed in his doing.  If anyone thinks he is religious and does not bridle his tongue but deceives his heart, this person’s religion is worthless.  Religion that is pure and undefiled before God the Father is this: to visit orphans and widows in their affliction, and to keep oneself unstained from the world.  James 1:17-27 (ESV)

Dear Heavenly Father, we believe! Save us from our unbelief. For Jesus’ sake, Amen.

Our Lord Jesus Christ is the Doer of the word.  He is the Word made flesh.  Within his person he carries the perfection of God but this person like all of us was capable of sin.  Yet he did not sin but chose to be a doer of the word.

In James we are called to be doers of the word.  In our quest to discover what being a doer of the word is, what better place to go than into the word to see just what that is!

How we hear the word and what we do with it, however, makes a world of difference!  Said another way, using the word to please us as opposed to letting it work on us to please God separates Jesus Christ from the word, and leads us into error.  We must allow the word to work on us, so we do what God wants.

Jesus reveals this in his word to the pharisees (Mark 7). They were doer of the word but worked the word in a way that did not please Jesus nor our Father in heaven.  They were like those James spoke of who peered into a mirror and immediately forgot what they looked like.

It’s interesting to note that the Pharisees came into conflict with Jesus not because of any radical differences, but rather due to their similarities.  Although their work looked like that of Jesus, their work was completely different due to their motivation.

This stands as a warning to us who like them can easily see only part of the picture and be doers of deeds that please us and disturb God.

Another warning for us is Martha and Mary.  Mary sat at Jesus’ feet while Martha worked in the kitchen.  Martha complained to Jesus that she had to do all the work.  She was a distracted doer of the word.  Martha’s motives were brought into the light by Jesus showing her that her service, and Mary’s lack of it, was not the issue. Rather Jesus’ concern with Martha was her wanting Mary to turn away from him and serve her, placing Mary back in bondage. (Luke 10:38-42)

A third example are the sons of Sceva.  They saw Saint Paul miraculously casting out demons and sort to do the same for their own advantage.  But on trying to exorcise a demon the demon-possessed man overpowered them leaving them naked and wounded. (Acts 9:11-20)

All three examples are religious illustrations.  What they were doing looked like they were doers of the word.  But what they did was blind and faithless work.  They investigated the mirror of the word and forgot what they looked like.  They remembered the flesh but forgot whose image they bore.  They failed to see that, “Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of lights, with whom there is no variation or shadow due to change.”  (James 1:17 ESV)

King David askes of God in Psalm 15, “O LORD, who shall sojourn in your tent? Who shall dwell on your holy hill?”    It’s not clear whether David has become an adulterer and murdered when he led the people of Israel with this word.  However, for us after the fact we know David did not walk blamelessly and despite penning this Psalm it was not even he who this Psalm speaks of.  David like the Pharisees, Martha and the sons of Sceva could not persevere and fulfil the law of freedom.

However, Jesus could, and did!  And the Holy Spirit continues to put us in the place were we can be doers of the word.

Jesus is our answer to all the questions of David’s psalm 15. He is David’s answer too.  In Jesus’ death, resurrection and ascension to the right hand of the Father, God announces before the world an affirmative “Yes!” to Jesus.

Who shall sojourn in your tent Lord?  The eternal answer is “Jesus Christ” Son of God and Son of Mary, Doer of the word.

Who walks blamelessly, does what is right and speaks the truth in his heart?  Jesus, Doer of the word! 

Who does not slander, does no evil, nor scolds his friends?  Jesus, Doer of the word! 

Who is it who can truly discern between one who is vile and one who truly fears the Lord?  Jesus, Doer of the word! 

Who is it who stands firm and does not move even to his own detriment, who doesn’t sell out for his own gain, who doesn’t even take a bribe against the guilty or the innocent?  Jesus Christ, Doer of the word!

James speaks of those who are “religious”.  Many of us today like to appear religious, to be doers of the word, but like David, Martha, the pharisees, and the sons of Sceva in the face of Jesus we learn very quickly our religion is worthless. 

Jesus shows himself to be the only true religious one.  And in demonstrating this at the cross in his faithfulness unto death, God the Father raises him with a heavenly eternal “yes”!  And says “no” to all other religious activity or attempts of doing the word.

Jesus tells us what type of religion humanity emits, and what it does to the person who produces this type of religion.  He says, “For from within, out of the heart of man, come evil thoughts, sexual immorality, theft, murder, adultery, coveting, wickedness, deceit, sensuality, envy, slander, pride, foolishness.  All these evil things come from within, and they defile a person.”  Mark 7: 21-23 (ESV)

Being doers of the word, allows the word to do things to us.  God’s Word made flesh takes the religion we put our trust in and shows us it defiles us before God.  His written word reveals to us that Jesus bears the only true marks of religious fervour before God the Father.  But it also teaches us to trust the freedom won for us through Jesus Christ, the Doer of the word.

You and I now stand on God’s holy hill!  We dwell in his temple! Why? Because Jesus temples in us by the power of the Holy Spirit!

So, what does this look like?  What is it to be doers of the word to the fulfilment of God’s eternal joy? Well, this is not the place to dive back into our religious individualisms for answers.  Rather, we go back into the written word of God and seek the Doer of the Word, Jesus Christ the Word made flesh, and the Doer of God’s word in us, the Holy Spirit. This is what pleases God the Father. 

James says pure and undefiled religion before God is to visit orphans and widows in their affliction and to keep oneself unstained from the world. Orphans have no fathers, and widows have no husband, both have no inheritance and hold no power or advantage for the person who visits them in their need.  In fact, they are those who in their need will drain you of all religious value. 

God has work for all of us which he has prepared in advance for us to do.  But we struggle to do it because of the dead religion we hold within us, with all its idols whatever they may be.  Yet as we stand on God’s holy hill, he calls us to confess these worthless religious idols – that is, our sin.  Confessing sin pleases God!

So, in the freedom of forgiveness we doers of the word can do even greater works than Jesus, The Doer of the word.  Amen.

Dear Heavenly Father, we believe! Save us from our unbelief. For Jesus’ sake, Amen.

B, Pentecost 12 Proper 15 - Psalm 34:9-14 "To Know is to be Known"

Oh yes I know!  I know how you feel!  I know! I know! I know!  Do you know?  I know!  We know how to do it? I know too!  He knows, she knows, they know! Okay smarty pants, how do you know?

You don’t know! You should know! I don’t want to know! I don’t know!  I know nothing!

How do I make it known?  How do I know?

How does one know that they know what they know?

If you haven’t guessed, today’s address is about knowing!  From where does one get knowledge?

People have been struggling to know how one knows since time began.  In fact, Adam and Eve wanted to know and they ended up finding out what they didn’t know, and probably wish they had never wanted to know in the first place.

The experience of all young people is they think they know everything.  Every successive generation has grumbled that their young folk think they know everything.  And the young, likewise, protest for being blamed for not knowing anything.  And as one ages and gains experience, they realise they don’t really know as much as one thought they knew. As teens and young adults there’s a tendency to believe one is invincible.  But failures, accidents, and bad experiences through life teach otherwise.

In Old Testament times elders of the people were those who had grey hair and beards through experience.  They were the knowledgeable ones; they were to whom one went for wisdom.

Wisdom literature in the bible is associated with the books of Job, Psalms, Proverbs, Ecclesiastes, and Song of Songs.  However, for believes in God all of Scripture is the central true source of wisdom.  For believers, our life experiences are secondary to God’s Word and the events of our lives are measured in the Word of God.

However, the Word of God can be used in the wrong way too.  We hear in God’s Word how Adam and Eve first used God’s Word in the wrong way.  Rather than standing under his Word in submission they stood over his Word as they were encouraged by the serpent to question the knowledge of God and then gain their own knowledge of good and evil.  Satan encouraged them to trust in themselves and their own understanding of what God said, and they chose the wrong way even though it seemed so right to them at the time.

Ever since then humanity has struggled to know.  The leaders in biblical times learnt through bitter experience to not trust themselves, realising what they knew, was not going to sustain them.  Socrates and Plato began the western philosophical tradition by asking questions about our being, how we know, and why we do what we do with this knowledge.  Thousands of years of asking questions has left humanity with only more unanswered questions.

Oh, fear the LORD, you his saints, for those who fear him have no lack!  The young lions suffer want and hunger; but those who seek the LORD lack no good thing.  Come, O children, listen to me; I will teach you the fear of the LORD.  What man is there who desires life and loves many days, that he may see good?  Keep your tongue from evil and your lips from speaking deceit.  Turn away from evil and do good; seek peace and pursue it. Psalm 34:9–14 (ESV)

Since Adam and Eve ate from the tree of knowledge of good and evil and were thrown out of the garden, God has sought to teach us.  Here in Psalm 34, we are taught the wisdom of God.  Those who are familiar with the older version of Luther’s Small Catechism will be reminded of the “fear and love” language in what each commandment means for us.  Here, like the Catechism, we are taught to fear, love, and trust God over all things.

The lion is the king of wild animals.  Coming across one in the Israeli wilderness, I imagine, would have caused great fear, especially a lion that suffered want and hunger.  But we are taught this big proud predator struggles with poverty and hunger, but even in the face of death, suffering poverty, and hunger, and one’s desire to live and love many days, those who seek the Lord will lack no good thing.

So, how do we know what is good and what is evil?  Do we turn once again to experience?  What about the senses?  What we see, smell, taste, hear, or feel?  Surely all these things are open to deception because they find their origin in the person.  What seemed good or evil to Adam and Eve, was not so for God. In the same way, what pleases and displeases me is not necessarily what gives God pleasure or displeasure.

Knowing what is good and evil enables us to seek peace and pursue it.  However, when I look at what I seek and what I want, and my pursuit of it, I realise the peace I get from it is rather superficial and subjective at best.  Just like two farmers living next door to each other one wants rain to grow his crop to grain, but the other doesn’t because he has cut his crop and wants to make hay. What one of us believes is good is not necessarily good for the other!

Or like a person being chased by a hungry Israeli lion. As they run, they cry out to God yelling, "PLEASE LORD! CONVERT THIS LION TO BE A CHRISTIAN LION!" They run until they reach a dead end. The hungry lion approaches slowly, as they cry out louder: "PLEASE LORD HEAR MY PRAYER AND CONVERT IT!" The lion stops walking, and the person praises God. The lion kneels, puts its paws together and says: "Come Lord Jesus be our guest and let this food to us be blest, Amen."

What becomes evident in our knowledge, or in our pursuit of knowing, is that we really don’t know what is good and what is evil outside our own narrow perspective.  Generally, we are a little better at naming evil as eviI. But history has proven if a large enough group of people deem something good, it is regarded as such even if the opposite is true for God and those who choose to follow him.

Look carefully then how you walk, not as unwise but as wise, making the best use of the time, because the days are evil. Ephesians 5:15–16 (ESV)

We are called to wisdom.  Paul tells the Ephesians to be careful, to look where they walk.  One needs to be wise because the days are evil and there are many ways that aren’t wise.  And we know this from witnessing what happens in the world and the church is more that often contrary to what God has called us to in his Word.  Inside and outside the church in our fears and desires we continue clinging to many destructive idols because of what we think we know is good.

But God’s Word teaches us to know that we know what we know, only because God knows us.  He knows you better than you know yourself and he has known it from before you existed in the womb. 

“Come, eat of my bread and drink of the wine I have mixed.  Leave your simple ways, and live, and walk in the way of insight.” Proverbs 9:5–6 (ESV)

The way of insight is knowing God knows us better than we know ourselves.  Little by little he makes known to us the grave depths why he needed to send his Son, Jesus Christ, to die for us.  He gives us knowledge of our sin and evil but at the same time increases in us our knowledge of the good which could only be done by his Son at the cross. 

Just like a proud lion whose lost his pride through poverty and hunger, we allow Jesus, the Lion King to devour the poverty and hunger of our sin. In fact, in knowing Jesus consumes our sin, the Holy Spirit increases our knowledge of God’s existence, and our trust in his providence.

Jesus says, “Whoever feeds on my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life, and I will raise him up on the last day.” John 6:54 (ESV)

In a beautiful twist of God’s love, God fills us with faith to feed on him.  And this food of faith fills us with hope that once again we will be with him in the garden of paradise at our death and resurrection on the last day. Amen.   

B, Pentecost 11 Proper 14 - Ephesians 4:26,31-5:2 "Anger and Forgiveness"

Be angry and do not sin; do not let the sun go down on your anger… Let all bitterness and wrath and anger and clamour and slander be put away from you, along with all malice.  Be kind to one another, tender-hearted, forgiving one another, as God in Christ forgave you.  Therefore, be imitators of God, as beloved children.  And walk in love, as Christ loved us and gave himself up for us, a fragrant offering and sacrifice to God. (Ephesians 4:26,31–5:2 ESV)

There is a lot of misunderstanding about anger.  If someone was to ask me if Jesus ever showed anger in the bible or if he is ever reported as being angry, I would immediately say that on Jesus’ triumphal entry into Jerusalem, a week before he was crucified, he was angry when he entered the temple.  After all he overturned tables and drove out those trading sacrificial animals from the temple forecourts.

A journalist with whom I once worked chipped me over Jesus’ so-called “sinfulness” when he seemingly acted in anger.  Jesus made a whip, tossed coins, and drove them out of the temple.  It seems the reporter, saw it wrong that Jesus’ zeal and consumption for his Father’s house would consume him.  Or was the journo, right?  Perhaps his understanding of sin and anger was more about his own misjudgement of anger because of his own sin.

Most people’s anger, like the journalist, is more like that of Jonah’s anger.  Jonah was so angry with God he sat down to die.  A flighty figure of a man, captured by God in the sea, in a fish, and sent to save the barbaric marauding Ninevites made Jonah so self-righteously angry, he sat down to die because God was working repentance and forgiveness through him.  Was Jesus angry in the way Jonah was angry with God?  Although Jesus compares his three days in the earth to Jonah’s three days in the fish, the comparison ends there.

Was Jesus angry?  Do you think it’s okay for Jesus to be angry?  It’s noteworthy to see the disciples remembered Jesus’ zeal would consume him.  Was Jesus so angry he could die?

Be angry and do not sin, do not let the sun go down on your anger.  What does that mean in the context of Jesus’ zeal at the temple?  Unlike my journalist colleague we know Jesus was without sin, this zeal was a jealous anger, but it still wasn’t a sin.

What is anger anyway?  Our society frowns on aggressive behaviour, even on the football field these days.  If argy-bargy on the paddock turns into a bit of biffo one is sent off and thrown in the sin bin.  It’s no wonder passive aggression is on the rise in all areas of life. 

Anger at its basic is a feeling and it occurs because of the fight response provoked within us.  One’s attention is heightened and focused, the heart rate increases, blood pressure rises, and the breathing becomes heavier.  You’re ready for action so you can protect your well-being from threats.  It’s a fear response where one either fights or flees to protect themselves.

Spiritually, anger makes a person narrow their focus, usually turning in on themselves.  When one is afraid, hurt, worried, in pain, or there’s a chance of these occurring, the person is stretched and stressed, threating their stability.  This stability might be a trust in themselves or in something else.  Anger comes because of a loss of stability and control.

Jesus was born with the same physical attributes as all of us.  He had the capacity to be angry like you or me.  But if his actions in the temple were because of anger they were not done from a loss of stability and control.

Jesus’ anger is not a knee jerk reaction to stop instability and to reassure himself of his position in life as is our anger.  Nor is his anger like that of Jonah who was so angry he wanted to stop and die.  Jesus was so angry with sin he didn’t lie down to die, nor did he fight or flee, instead anger propels him on the road to the cross. 

Jesus’ anger was a righteous anger.  The question goes begging, can we be angry with a righteous anger like that of Jesus?

Paul says to the Ephesians, “Be angry and do not sin; do not let the sun go down on your anger.”   He says be angry but don’t react in a way that is sinful.  Do not descend into darkness because you are angry!  Do not let your anger kill you; spiritually, emotionally, or physically.

The problem is our anger affects us in many ways leading us into sin.  Paul lists them in verse thirty-one.  They are bitterness, wrath, anger, clamour, slander, and malice.

When a person become bitter, one can’t walk away from the issue causing anger.  It’s as if that individual becomes chained to what makes them angry or pegged to their suffering.

To best understand wrath, we do best by picturing a rush of hot air, smoke, or one’s hot breath as a release of pressure like boiling water suddenly released as the power of steam. Think of the phrase, to “get hot under the collar”, and “letting off steam”.  Wrath sees one hot even beyond the point of exploding.

Anger appears in the list of things one must put off.  But earlier we are told to be angry and not sin.  Here this is the anger that has allow us to descend into darkness and sin.  It still has the meaning of being stretched but now the stretching becomes a means to a sinful end rather than hoping in a new beginning.  Like a perished rubber band, we have no way of retaining our elasticity and we snap.

Clamour is shrieking and crying out without hope which goes on and on and destroys our hope, as well as others around us.  Think of an annoying sound, like a croaking frog, outside the window all night leaving you exhausted and unrefreshed in the morning.

Slander is straight forward.  It’s bearing false witness.  When we slander another person, we defame someone made in the image of God, and therefore slander God himself.  Slander then is the same as committing blasphemy.

Malice is badness or evil in as far as when one practises malice, they participate in things that are worthless or meaningless in the kingdom of heaven. A person who is wilfully malicious cannot stand before God who has no use for malice.

Paul tells the Ephesians to avoid these six things.  So, know that he wrote to them about departing from these things because they struggled with them.  We like the Ephesians get angry but also like them we sin and let the sun go down on our anger.

It’s here God’s word calls us to let the Holy Spirit kick in with the work of Christ’s love for us. Paul calls this being imitators of God.  Literally, this is being mimics of Jesus where we die to self, to all that angers us, and be kind to one another, tender-hearted or compassionate, and forgive.  We become like a living ventriloquist doll speaking and acting like Jesus, but our actions find their origin in the Holy Spirit and not in what we do.

The good thing in all of this is when we are confronted with our own anger, be it self-righteous or unrighteous, we are invited to lie down and die to self, knowing Jesus was so angry with sin, both self-righteous and unrighteous, he bore all God’s anger on the cross for your self-righteousness and unrighteousness, and mine too.

When Abraham Lincoln was asked why he was helping the defeated enemy in the southern states of America get back on their feet, he replied, “how can I better destroy the enemy than by making them my friends?”

What we need to understand about God’s love in Jesus Christ, moved in us by the Holy Spirit, is that he has made us his friends.  Because ever since Adam and Eve were thrown out of the garden, we were his sinful angry enemies.

So, another way of saying, “Be angry and do not sin; do not let the sun go down on your anger.” Is, “Be angry but forgive; let the sun go down on your forgiveness.”

Let us pray.  We were once hostile to you heavenly Father, but you forgive us our sin and make us your friends.  Help us when we struggle with anger by letting the Holy Spirit put that anger and pride to death in Jesus’ death so we can love others with the freedom of forgiveness in Jesus’ name.  Amen