Welcome to a new sermon series from the Epistle of James.
St James – this James was the brother of Jesus – this is the James that you can read about in Acts 15 leading the first recorded PCC meeting.
You can also read about James in the writings of Josephus, a non-Christian, Jewish writer, of the 1st Century, who tells us that James the brother of Jesus was accused as a law breaker and stoned to death.
So when James opens his writing with – to the 12 tribes scattered among the nations – he’s writing a general letter to go out to as many different Churches as possible.
He’s aware that people like Paul, who was previously called Saul – as Saul, Saul had made a living out of going about hunting out Christians, particularly those hiding among Jewish communities and at Synagogues. When Saul got converted, I suspect they readvertised for his job and this hunting-of-christians continued.
We know that in 66AD there was the beginning of an uprising against the Romans and this added to the tension, and this led to a lot of the Jerusalem Christians scattering themselves as far away as they could get.
Whilst St Paul’s letters are mostly written to a particular church for a particular reason, this letter of St James seems to be quite general.
But it does go straight into an awareness of pain and struggle, of trials and tests and the need to persevere.
It offers up the encouragement that persevering through the troubles will lead to either a maturer faith or it will lead to death and so winning the crown of life.
No wonder then that James starts off with a call to Joy! Consider it Joy whenever you face trials! Joy. Of course. That might not be your reaction, but for James it comes from an understanding of the God that we worship as the God who Gives, not a god who takes, this God we worship gives us Joy, gives us Wisdom, Listens to us.
This God gives all sorts of good and perfect gifts.
This God is a reliable God unlike the capricious sort that the Roman pagans worshipped – changing like shifting shadows.
This is the God who chose you and me. If you’re here today, tuning in, then that’s a good thing because God is glad that you’re here, and you’re here because God has called you, chosen you, given birth to a New You, so that as St Paul would put it – you are a new creation, an adopted son or daughter of God – or as St John put it: a child of God, born again.
This is really good news. God is glad that you’re here.
What God has done is He has put His word in you, the word of truth.
I like this idea of Scripture sinking deep in, like a seed, growing in us, growing us to be more like Jesus, or more like the person that God has made you and I to be.
Keep watering that seed of faith, so to speak, by putting it into practice.
In which case there are only 2 pieces of advice for this morning, the first is to read it, and keep reading it, and the second is to apply it.
I think that applying scripture to your faith, to your life, has a way of showing you yourself how powerful God is, how effective His Gospel is, and even encouraging you to see that your faith is making a difference, both to you and to those around you. Your faith is showing you that you are living a life worth living.
Your faith may only be the size of a mustard seed but it is moving mountains. Keep at it.
Read the bible, Apply it.
There’s plenty of bits of the bible that we don’t understand. Don’t worry about that. There’s enough here that you do understand, there’s enough to be getting on with.
Now, here’s a quick summary of what St James want you to put into practice.
He wants you to be Quick to listen, slow to speak, and slow to become angry. On the whole that’s not that difficult.
Of course there are times when we forget this teaching. And it might be that you’re thinking – C’mon Quick to listen, Slow to speak, slow to be angry – that’s hardly uniquely Christian, you don’t need Jesus to follow that teaching.
Yes I suppose you’re right.
Except that when God told Moses something of His character He said: I am the LORD, the compassionate and gracious God, slow to anger and abounding in love. So this is really a call to be like God.
You might want a little Divine help with that.
Then James says – Keep a tight rein on your tongue. Oh that is tricky.
There’s a writer and preacher called Tony Campolo – he had a go at being a Pastor once, he said ‘I knew that I was not called to be a Pastor when after a service a nice lady came up to me a scolded me saying Do you know how many grammatical errors you made during the intercessions?! To which I curtly replied: Madam, I wasn’t talking to you!
Oh we do love a quick witted reply. But maybe we should learn to rein it in.
But really so far the practical advice has been:
Be quick to listen, slow to speak, slow to get angry,
keep a tight rein on your tongue. That’s about it.
That’s not too difficult so long as you can remember to apply it at the time, in the moment.
A while back I came across a very angry person, and I really didn’t know what to do, how to react, but when someone said to me – Did you ask them if they had taken their medicine?
I suddenly gasped and realised that actually I wasn’t looking at them through the lens of compassion.
Ok so now maybe you’re ready for the difficult stuff. It boils down to the call to get rid of Malice. I think I preached about that from St Paul’s letter to the Ephesians a couple of weeks ago!
The punchline there was that the Malice that we carry about with us is not the sort that can be conquered simply by being quick to listen and slow to speaking. That will help but it wont cure you.
Some things can only come out by prayer. And you might want someone to pray with you along that journey.
St James is aware that evil is so very prevalent. Nowadays we tend to use the word Evil for really extremely clear examples of, well, Evil. Capital E, Evil.
But St James is getting at that insidious aspect of culture that allows nastiness and bad feelings to go unchecked. You know, that humour that allows a racist remark – after all its only banter, but its not difficult for that sort of thing to settle in and then confusingly for so many, suddenly there are riots and fire, and some group or other have found an excuse to let loose their anger.
James says: Don’t get polluted by the world. And he gives a couple of examples – look after orphans and widows in their distress.
This in Roman times was astonishingly counter cultural. It was: Look after number one. There’s no guarantee that being part of your family would mean you get looked after. Money is short and if you’re a drain then you might be cast out. So make sure that you continue to demonstrate your financial value.
?Who then is going to look out for Orphans and Widows in a world where it was socially acceptable to leave an unwanted child out in the streets for the wolves or slave traders to take?
Christianity, with thanks to Judaism, was beginning to bring about a Change in the known world, a peaceful revolution of attitudes that would lead to financial provision and care for the orphan and the elderly. That’s a radical change where the Church has infected society with compassion, and society – around the world- has changed.
St James says this all starts with me, with you,
With reading the scriptures and when they, like a good mirror, tell you – you really need to brush your hair! Or something – then you go to it –
When scripture says to you – We really need to explore that shadow in your life, that unforgiveness, that blind spot of prejudice – then you need to be Glad because God is inviting you grow in faith, to allow God to grow in you,
So Read a Gospel, Read the letter of James, put it into practice – start with being quick to listen, slow to speak, start with orphans and widows, and see where that leads you
And you will find that your faith is showing you that you are living a life worth living. Amen.
(Photo is of one of the archery teaching team helping at a Family Support Work day near Ashburnham last week)