James 3:13-4:3
Presented September 24th, 2006, by J.D. Kline
The Sixteenth Sunday after Pentecost
Stewardship Theme: Celebrate Abundance—Give Yourself to God
Some years ago I read a novel entitled The Hessians, written by Howard Fast and set in colonial Connecticut. It’s the story of how the Connecticut settlers, largely Puritan in background, respond when a small contingent of Hessian soldiers—professional German soldiers hired by the English—land on Connecticut soil. A young man, who is mentally challenged and largely ignored by the Puritan community, is the only one to spot the soldiers. Fascinated by their uniforms and their precise marching, the young man follows the soldiers. The Hessians, assuming that he is a spy, capture and hang him. A young Quaker boy witnesses the hanging, and after watching in horror, runs to town to report the troubling events. Immediately a militia is formed, an ambush planned, and all the Hessians are killed—all except a drummer, a sixteen-year-old boy, who manages to escape.
The community attempts to locate the Hessian drummer and bring him to “justice”—justice being equated by the Puritan settlers with placing the young man on trial, declaring him guilty, and hanging him. When the drummer cannot be found, suspicion begins to mount that a Quaker family is harboring him. Dr. Leversham, the community doctor, finds himself repulsed by the viciousness of many of his Puritan neighbors. Though he does not fully comprehend the Quakers and their wholehearted rejection of violence stemming from their intent to model the self-giving and compassionate love of Jesus, that does not lessen his disdain for the bloodthirstiness of the vast majority of his neighbors.
When the Hessian lad is found on a nearby Quaker farm, Dr. Leversham urges mercy. One community leader, with whom the doctor has locked horns in the past, responds forcefully to the doctor’s efforts, crying out, “There’s a difference between us, Leversham. I know how to hate, and hate is a lovely thing. A person is strong with hate, stronger than you can imagine.”
The story raises the question, where do we find our strength. As one considers the history of the church through the years since its inception, one of the great tragedies is that there seems to be such an abundance of people of faith who embrace the view of Dr. Leversham’s neighbor, assuming that vengeance carries more strength than mercy and compassion, hatred is stronger than forgiveness and love. But the message of Jesus asserts the very opposite.
Mahatma Gandhi, whose life was deeply influenced by the teachings of Jesus, particularly the Sermon on the Mount, once lamented, “We like your Christ but not your Christians, because they are so unlike Christ.” As followers of Jesus, how do we come to live like Christ, how do we learn to embody the spirit of Jesus in our daily living? The letter of James reminds us that we struggle with two very different understandings of wisdom—human wisdom versus wisdom from above, God’s wisdom. Listen to part of today’s text, as paraphrased in The Message by Eugene Peterson.
Do you want to be counted wise, to build a reputation for wisdom? Here’s what you do: Live well, live wisely, live humbly. It’s the way you live, not the way you talk, that counts. Mean-spirited ambition isn’t wisdom. Boasting that you are wise isn’t wisdom. Twisting the truth to make yourselves sound wise isn’t wisdom. It’s the furthest thing from wisdom—it’s animal cunning, devilish conniving. Whenever you’re trying to look better than others or get the better of others, things fall apart and everyone ends up at each other’s throats.
Real wisdom, God’s wisdom, begins with a holy life and is characterized by getting along with others. It is gentle and reasonable, overflowing with mercy and blessings, not hot one day and cold the next, not two-faced. You can develop a healthy, robust community that lives right with God and enjoys its results only if you do the hard work of getting along with each other, treating each other with dignity and honor (3:13-18 The Message).
More traditional translations speak of this as a matter of embracing “wisdom from above,” wisdom that leads to “a harvest of righteousness” as we seek to live as peacemakers and reconcilers. The writer of James reflects the heart of the gospel, with its challenge to put on a new way of living and relating in the world—living well, living humbly, living wisely.
This morning’s lesson challenges us to embrace abundant wisdom, real wisdom, God’s wisdom. Brennan Manning, former priest, frequent writer and retreat leader, speaks of God’s wisdom as the wisdom of tenderness. In a book with that title, The Wisdom of Tenderness, Manning reminds us that faith is far more than a one-time, initial experience of committing ourselves to Jesus; much more, it is a journey, it is a way of life—a way of life flowing from the hearing and encountering of the good news of God’s tender mercy, the good news that God loves each one of us with a love that will not let us go. God holds each one of us as a beloved daughter or son.
Manning cites the story of a journalist who approaches a spiritual guru, asking, “Are you a genius as some people say?” The guru answers with a playful smile, “You might say so.” “And what makes a genius?” counters the journalist. “The ability to see.”
Frowning, the journalist muttered, “To see what?” The guru quietly replied, “The butterfly in a caterpillar, the eagle in an egg, the saint in a selfish person, life in death, unity in separation, God in the human and the human in God, and suffering as the form in which the incomprehensibility of God himself appears.”
Is this not a description of the life of faith, learning to see in new and fresh, in life-changing and sometimes disturbing ways? Learning that strength comes not in domination and arrogance but in acts of service, strength comes not in vindictive threats but in the courage to envision possibilities for reconciliation and redemption, strength comes not in suspicion and fear but in openness and trust. Learning to see the possibility of sainthood in those bound by selfishness and greed.
</blockquote>Somewhere we’ve gotten the notion that the life of faith comes easily, but truth is, it frequently involves hard work. Did you hear Peterson’s paraphrase of James 3:18? “You can develop a healthy, robust community that lives right with God and enjoys its results only if you do the hard work of getting along with each other, treating each other with dignity and honor.” One of the gifts of this congregation is that we are willing to do that hard work. Oh yes, there are times when we fall short, but how frequently we are blessed and strengthened by one another’s tender and compassionate wisdom—God’s wisdom made incarnate in the gift of one another.
This kind of tender wisdom often only emerges most fully in times of testing, times of struggle and uncertainty and grief. Years ago, you may remember, Henri Nouwen wrote a book entitled The Wounded Healer in which he contends that grace and healing are communicated most effectively through the vulnerability of those who have been broken on the wheels of living. A similar message is conveyed in Thornton Wilder’s one-act play The Angel that Troubled the Waters, as the angel tells a stricken physician, “Without your wounds, where would your power be? … In Love’s service only wounded soldiers can serve.”
Truth be told, there is not one of us here this morning that is not wounded. Some of us may be freshly wounded, struggling with grief, illness or loss. Others of us may be dealing with a long-festering pain, the memory of which continues to eat at our souls. Still others may know the woundedness that comes as long-held dreams disintegrate before us, or perhaps as we struggle with depression or an addiction. No matter how gaping the wound, the good news is that Jesus can bring healing and wholeness to us. And with Henri Nouwen, we can become wounded healers, offering support, encouragement, wisdom, challenge, and grace to one another.
Prayer is a central experience in our healing, and in our becoming wounded healers for one another. Indeed, as John Killinger reminds us in his book Bread for the Wilderness, Wine for the Journey,
Prayer—opening ourselves to God and the many ways God has of speaking to us—is not just a part of the Christian life, but is the Christian life. It is only as we learn to pray that the meaning of faith comes alive to us, and that the presence of God in Christ becomes real to us.
Those Puritan settlers in Howard Fast’s novel may well have thought they were demonstrating strength and living faithfully, but somehow they had missed the mind and spirit of Christ, which offers an alternative experience of strength as compassion and grace, mercy and peace and self-giving love. Wisdom—abundant wisdom—comes as we allow the generous love of our God to create a spirit of generosity within and among us, as we let go of greed and self-centeredness, envy and a thirst for vengeance, in order to experience the wisdom from above that is, as James describes it, “first pure, then peaceable, gentle, willing to yield, full of mercy and good fruits, without a trace of partiality or hypocrisy” (3:17).
My friends, real wisdom, abundant wisdom, is a matter of allowing the spirit of Christ to so touch our hearts that we learn to live well, to live humbly, to live wisely. May our love reveal God’s glory. May our lives be signs of grace. Amen.
Pastoral Prayer
Compassionate God, in the quietness of these moments speak to us of eternal truths. Remind us that there is so much more to life than what we see on the surface. In a world seemingly gone mad with warfare and oppression, remind us of the promise of a peace that passes all human understanding. In a world far more accustomed to envy and greed, suspicion and division, remind us of the promise of grace beyond measure, joy that sustains us in the midst of struggle, hope that overcomes despair.
God of all creation, you who are Lord of each of us and of all of us, how grateful we are for your good gifts—for the bounty of creation, for rain that sustains and greens the earth, for relationships that bring meaning to our lives, for the gift of love, for the unfolding of life in your kingdom—for all this, and more, we give you thanks, O God!
Merciful God, forgive us when we too easily resign ourselves to life that is less than you envision for us. Forgive us when we are prone to hoard rather than to share, to dominate rather than to serve, to use rather than to love. Forgive us, and fill us with the mind and spirit of Christ Jesus.
God of healing and wholeness, hear now our prayers for those in special need of your healing touch ….
God of peace, how beautiful are the steps of the messengers of the good news of peace! Deepen our call to stand and serve among those messengers. Turn us from self-focus to an abiding concern for all people, all creation, that we might truly be a people who do justice, love kindness, and walk humbly in your presence. In the name and spirit of Jesus the Christ we pray. Amen.