I think James is the most pragmatic idealist that I have ever met. He’s an idealist because he isn’t really interested in solving the specific problems of one little community. In fact, he never refers to a specific audience in his letter. Nor is James’ concern either relating the history of Jesus, the Christ or presenting a vision of the future. James is not, by and large, very concerned even with individual salvation or any one person’s inner relationship with Jesus. No, James’ idealism meets his pragmatism, in that James’ primary focus seems to be the Christian community in the here and now, and his emphasis on the inner life of individuals flows out of that concern. He wants the community to incarnate Jesus’ call to care for those around us, especially those who are most in need.
James really has much more in common with the Wisdom literature in the Old Testament than with the other letters we find near it in the Bible. In this morning’s reading, James reminds his hearers that true Wisdom comes from God and is far different from the false wisdom of the world. And he gives them a list of characteristics. True wisdom, which in the words from the Wisdom of Solomon that we heard last week, “enters into holy souls and makes them friends of God” is characterized, according to James, by being “first pure, then peaceable, gentle, willing to yield, full of mercy and good fruits, without a trace of partiality or hypocrisy” (James 3:17). And the presence of Wisdom herself is what leads, in James’ view to the actions that build up the community of Christ.
He want their works to be “done with gentleness born of wisdom” (3:13) but James is also that pragmatist. He gives them a simple test. He tells them to look not just to their inner motivations, to see about purity, peace, and gentleness and so on, but to the works themselves and the results of those works. The works themselves can serve, he argues, as an indicator of whether or not they have yet accepted the Wisdom of God. And he fully realizes that Wisdom of God is in many cases in direct conflict with the wisdom that he calls “earthly, unspiritual, [even] devilish” (3:15). That false wisdom that puts the self at the center of the universe, subjecting or ignoring all others in an attempt to fulfill its own needs first. For true Wisdom, to James, is the Wisdom that places the good of the other before one’s own good, leading, in the end, to the community that truly incarnates God’s vision of a good creation, in which no one goes hungry, no one is assaulted, no one is ignored or marginalized, and everyone is always welcome.
The trouble is that to live this way does truly mean to live in tension with the wisdom of James’ world and with the so-called wisdom of our own world. But the tension did not start with the communities of which James was a part. Even as early as the original followers of Christ, we see this same dichotomy. In the Gospel today Jesus takes his disciples away from the crowd for a while. We read that they were traveling through the country and he didn’t want anyone to know they were there, precisely so he could have some focused instruction time with his followers. Now, there is a certain merit, of course, in removing distractions in general from anyone whose attention you would like for any given period of time. But in this case I think it was more than the teacher’s instinct for holding the student’s attention. I think there was something in the adulation of the crowd, and by this point in Mark’s Gospel there have been lots of crowds, and lots of dramatic miracles, that not only distracted but actually pulled the disciples away from what Jesus was trying to teach them, to live with them. You see, at this point in the story, Jesus is a success from the point of view of that worldly wisdom. He’s a wonderworker a genuine miracle man with a devoted following and an impressive reputation. He can, seemingly just by showing up, attract huge crowds of admirers. But every time this happens the unspoken message to the disciples, the very ones he wants so much to truly follow him, is that following Jesus will lead to admiring crowds, adoring fans, all the trappings of worldly ‘success.’ And so Jesus, knowing that this is not his real message, yanks them out of that rock-star life takes them out into the wilderness, and tries, once again, to teach them what they have so spectacularly failed to grasp thus far. That following him does not assure worldly success. That following him means not putting themselves at the center at all.
Of course, as they do throughout the Gospel of Mark, the disciples still fail. Jesus tries to tell them that following the one whom Peter has correctly named as the Messiah, does not mean what they think it means. But even after he tells them that he will be killed, they still have an argument not about what he means, or better yet, the best way to carry on after his death, but about which one of them is the greatest.
I bet Jesus almost lost it when he figured out what they’d been arguing about on the way to Capernaum. I bet he had to take not one but at least five or six deep breaths to keep from completely exploding at them. They just don’t get it!
But Jesus does take those breaths. He does go back, again, and try one more time to help them comprehend, not just with minds but with hearts. And perhaps he sees their blank stares, or perceives the internal barriers we all use being thrown up once again in the face of a truth too hard to face. And he knows that against that resistance mere words cannot prevail. So he turns to another strategy. He brings a child to them (where this child comes from, how old the child is, what the child’s name was, or even whether the child was a boy or girl, we are never told) and he says to them that they are to welcome children such as this one because in welcoming children, they welcome Jesus himself. Now in that day and time, children were no higher up the social ladder than slaves. The concept of child development was wholly unknown. Children had no rights, no property, and were wholly at the mercy of the adults around them. The idea that children had any inherent worth, or that they possessed gifts and graces of their own would never have occurred. If a child survived to become an adult, then they might have some value, but not until that point. And it is these nobodies, these non-persons whom Jesus is telling his followers to welcome because Jesus and the one who sent him are present in a special way within these most powerless most marginalized persons.
You see, when they welcome these powerless, when they become, “servant of all,” Jesus’ followers put the good of the community, the good of the world, the vision of God, above any visions they might have for their own advancement. In order to do something so strikingly counter to the common wisdom that I should always be first, that my needs come before everyone else’s needs, their actions have to flow from that gentleness of heart that James talks about, from the Wisdom that is pure, peaceable, gentle, willing to yield, full of good fruits.
I learned two new songs recently. One was written by Sam Hensley, who grew up in this church, and who is still active with us through his music ministry, which he brings to Glory Ridge every summer. I don’t actually know what Sam calls the song. I call it River Jordan. The words to the first verse are, “Lay me down in the River Jordan, let your spirit be my guide, let my heart be overflowing, in love let me abide.”1 The next verses are the same as the first one, except that the opening line shifts from lay me down to wash me clean, or make me whole, heal my heart, almost anything you like. To me, though the overall image is one of surrender, not in a violent sort of way, but the way that water, if you lie flat on your back, will hold you up, as long as you are willing to lay flat and quiet, and let it do so. Receiving Wisdom in our hearts, the sort of wisdom that can enable us to step back from the center of our own lives, seems to require that sort of surrender to me.
The other song is by one of my favorite artists, a singer-songwriter named Peter Mayer, who lives in Minnesota somewhere, I believe. Although most of his songs have both original words and music, this song is new set to an old tune called Hyfrydol, better known perhaps as “Alleluia Sing to Jesus” or “Love Divine All Loves Excelling.” And I love both of those hymns. But this new set of words gives us a different vision. I won’t try to quote the whole song for you, but the final line of each of the three verses is something like “the wide universe is the ocean I travel and the earth is my blue boat home.”2 To me the song offers a vision of the kind of life we can live together, when we are willing to lay ourselves down and receive God’s Wisdom, when we choose to welcome not just the powerful, but the powerless, not just the adult but also the child, not just the ones who are like us, but the ones who are different as well.
We’re working toward this vision at Holy Trinity. That vision is at the heart of all the programs we offer to our children and youth. Up on one of the bulletin boards in the Youth Ministry Center is a sign that reads “in every creature the light of God is shining bright.” This is true not just of youth and children but of everyone. Our task, then, is to welcome that light, that light that is already present, and give it space to grow and develop. We provide children a nurturing supportive space, in which they are accepted for who they are and also given the space to grow into what God dreams they can be. We offer the stories of our history, and help them make those stories truly their own. We support the formation of an alternative community, one that can help them stand up to the patterns of destruction they encounter in so much of their lives. The patterns that tell them that their personal success or failure is all that matters, that the end justifies the means, that anything is okay as long as it leads to the right job, the right amount of money, the right house, and so on. These ministries are part of the whole of Holy Trinity, not just the province of the incredibly dedicated adults who are willing to give part of their lives to be with our children and youth. And I think that all of our lives are enriched, however subtly, by the presence of the Holy Spirit embodied and enlivened by our young people.
That’s the second part of Jesus’ promise, the part that James tells us in his last line today. Draw near to God and God will draw near to you. If we are willing to welcome the child, to welcome the stranger, the exile, the homeless, then we will find, in the end, that in each and every one of them God is present. And perhaps, as we learn to see God in the Other, we may eventually receive the Wisdom James tells us to ask for, the Wisdom that shows us that within our community and within our very selves is that same Spirit, traveling with us as we journey through the universe together.
Amen.
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Complete words to “River Jordan” are below.
River Jordan
By Sam Hensley, written July 2009
www.samhensley.com
Lay me down in the River Jordan
Let your Spirit be my guide
Let my heart be overflowing.
In love, let me abide.
Complete words to the song “Blue Boat Home” are below.
Blue Boat Home
By Peter Mayer, released on the CD Earth Town Square
www.petermayer.net
Though below me, I feel no motion
Standing on these mountains and plains
Far away from the rolling ocean
Still my dry land heart can say
I’ve been sailing all my life now
Never harbor or port have I known
The wide universe is the ocean I travel
And the earth is my blue boat home
Sun, my sail and moon, my rudder
As I ply the starry sea
Leaning over the edge in wonder
Casting questions into the deep
Drifting here with my ship’s companions
All we kindred pilgrim souls
Making our way by the lights of the heavens
In our beautiful blue boat home
I give thanks to the waves upholding me
Hail the great winds urging me on
Greet the infinite sea before me
Sing the sky my sailor’s song
I was born upon the fathoms
Never harbor or port have I known
The wide universe is the ocean I travel
And the earth is my blue boat home