World Communion
October 7, 2018
William G. Carter
Who is wise and
understanding among you? Show by your good life that your works are done with
gentleness born of wisdom. But if you have bitter envy and selfish
ambition in your hearts, do not be boastful and false to the truth. Such
wisdom does not come down from above, but is earthly, unspiritual,
devilish. For where there is envy and selfish ambition, there will also be
disorder and wickedness of every kind. But the wisdom from above is first
pure, then peaceable, gentle, willing to yield, full of mercy and good fruits,
without a trace of partiality or hypocrisy. And a harvest of righteousness is
sown in peace for those who make peace.
“Blessed are the
peacemakers, for they shall be called children of God.” That’s one of the
blessings Jesus offers in the Sermon on the Mount. And of all the traditions
and speculations surrounding the New Testament, some think the James who wrote
our scripture text was none other than the brother of Jesus.
We can’t say for sure.
Somebody named James signed the letter and added, “a servant of God and the
Lord Jesus Christ.” He hardly mentions Jesus at all, with just two glancing
references to the Lord’s name. But they were more than a little acquainted.
The letter of James extends
the teaching of Jesus to a wider circle. He offers practical advice about how
to live a life that honors God. As we have heard as we’ve worked through the
letter, he also offers his discerning observations of those lives that run
counter to God. The brief paragraph today offers a little bit of both.
The destructive life is easy
to recognize. It begins with “bitter envy” and “selfish ambition.” It is
expressed in “being boastful” and a “liar.” It results in “disorder and
wickedness of every kind.” Oh, my goodness; it’s as if Brother James has been
reading our newspapers!
He nails it, because the
wisdom he offers is timeless wisdom, God-ordained wisdom. At the heart, the
wisdom is obvious: you will make a mess of your life, and of other peoples’
lives, if you have unsettled business in your own heart. The person who creates
constant chaos is the person who has been living in chaos. The person who
wrecks one relationship after another is the person who has never received a
lot of love, and therefore cannot give a lot of love.
Some of this originates with
“bitter envy.” That’s a pretty good translation of the Greek, but it’s more
than merely wanting a fancy lawnmower like your neighbor has or desiring a
bigger car like the people down the street. This is “bitter envy” – like the
husband who fiercely interrogates the wife on the way home from a wedding
reception because she was talking to another man. Or it’s the mom who spreads
vicious gossip about the leader of her daughter’s cheerleading squad, simply
because her daughter didn’t get picked to be the leader.
This is envy because of a
deficit. Something is lacking. There is some emotional black hole in the soul
that sucks out all the light and could collapse in on itself. When there is
“bitter envy,” chaos and destruction are certain to follow.
Another problem is the
“selfish ambition” that James mentions. It’s more than the desire to advance,
more sinister than the climb to the top. It’s the desire to win at all costs,
and to destroy whatever gets in the way. It’s the scorched earth plan of
General Sherman in the Civil War, who decided he had enough of those
Confederate rebels, so he would have his army torch a wide swath from Atlanta
to the sea. It’s also the way that a victim of abuse, who courageously dares to
come forward to tell what she can recall of her story, is publicly trashed by
people who must win at all costs.
This is what “selfish ambition”
does. It destroys a lot of lives. Eternally speaking, it will even destroy the
lives of the destroyers. You might notice how Jesus never says, “Blessed are
the brutal,” or “Blessed are the winners.” From the vantage point of God, he
declares, “Blessed are the meek,” “Blessed are the merciful,” and “Blessed are
those who are persecuted for doing what is right.” God is on their side.
In this moment of our
national life, for instance, the destroyers are on every side. The new way to
“win” is to fire up a small minority, convince a lot of other people to stay
home and not speak up, and then set on fire everybody who disagrees. If that
kind of divisiveness prevails, there will be no winners. None at all. What
might have been exceptional about us becomes the laughing stock of everybody
else.
Anybody want to live that
way? I don’t want to live that way. I want to hear what James says about the
alternative to “bitter envy” and “selfish ambition.” For this is World
Communion Sunday. Jesus Christ, who blesses the peacemakers, wants us to live
in peace.
So, what is the alternative?
James offers up a basket of good words and phrases. The first is “pure,” in the
sense of “fault free” and immaculate.” It’s the kind of word that they use on
TripAdvisor.com to describe hotel rooms. Did you ever stay in a dirty hotel room? There
are whiskers in the sink, mold in the air conditioner, and bugs in the bed. How
did it get that way? Because nobody was taking care of the place, nobody was
paying attention, nobody was making the effort to scrub away the accumulated
grime. It takes some effort to live a peaceable life.
Another word is “gentle.”
It’s “gentle” as opposed to brutal, or pushy, or intrusive. It’s about respect
and receiving people as they are, and not forcing them to size up to what you
think they should be. “Gentle” is paired here with “willing to yield.”
This past Friday, I was
thinking about that phrase on the highway between New Brunswick and
Philadelphia. Nobody was willing to yield. Everybody had to push. In that survival-of-the-fittest
environment, “bitter envy” and “selfish ambition” emerge. What if we yielded?
What if we gave room for other people? Call it, if you will, a practical
gentleness, “full of mercy.” It’s another way to make our way down the road, rather
than laying on the horn or directing traffic with the gesture of one of our
fingers.
Here is another phrase of James: “without a
trace of partiality or hypocrisy.” Well, now, what would that mean? It means we
don’t distinguish between people. It means God is color-blind when looking at
people, because God made them all. It means the educated and the ignorant are
loved equally. It means Merrick Garland and Brett Cavanaugh should both receive
a fair hearing, “without a trace of partiality.” Anything else would lead to
hypocrisy.
Beloved church of God, here is the bottom
line: To live in peace is to love every neighbor as ourselves, no exceptions.
This is the way to peace, and it is difficult work. It’s continuing work. It’s
never-ending work, because “bitter envy” and “selfish ambition” are always
threatening to sneak in.
James knows this. He has had to contend with
it in his own congregation. In chapter two, he barks at the ushers of his
church. “Why are you showing the rich folks to a good seat, and shooing away
the poor folks who are already seated there? Why do distinguish between God’s
own people?” God loves the poor, says brother James, and if the rich want a
good seat, then they should get there early. They should also stop stepping on
the necks of the poor.
It’s there in chapter two: “You do well if you really fulfill the royal law
according to the scripture, ‘You shall love your neighbor as
yourself.’ But if you show partiality, you commit sin and are convicted by
the law of God” (James 2:1-9).
It is possible to live in
peace. That is what this Table is about. In the mercy of God, the ancient words
of the 23rd Psalm come true. Remember the words? “You prepare a table
in the presence of my enemies.” Well, here it is, the Table that our Good
Shepherd sets among the people who have preferred to go their way rather than
his way. The Table reminds us of our ongoing challenge, to set aside all the
ways that the world has infected us, twisted us, and corrupted us – and to
receive what is pure, then peaceable, gentle, willing to yield, full of mercy
and good fruits, without a trace of partiality or hypocrisy.
We can live this way, with
works “done with gentleness born of wisdom.” We don’t have to live at odds with
one another, even if this makes us odd. We can live as Jesus lives – offering a
place at the Table for every person. He receives all of us as we are, and
offers us the grace to become so much more.
And he makes a special
invitation for those who wish to live in peace, for those who are courageous
enough to make peace. They are the ones he declares as “blessed,” and they are
his sisters and brothers.
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