You’ve gone to a shopping mall. It’s busy and as you walk
along you catch a glimpse of someone in the crowd who looks vaguely familiar.
It’s one of those embarrassing moments… Is it really someone you know…. You are
not sure… so you double check by glancing over at them and they seem to be in
the same boat as they are glancing over at you. You catch their eye for a
moment and then you both turn away in indecision. What are you going to do now… You could wave
and smile and they will return it with a blank stare. Who knows they may be
looking at what’s behind you and you got in the way, and you’d look foolish, or
you could simply walk away and risk that awkward encounter latter on when you
meet again and they have you on for snubbing them.
So you turn and wave and smile… and Whew!! you’ve got it
right you must know them because they
wave and smile at you. You take a step towards them and they take a step
towards you. You keep going and extend your hand to greet them as you approach and
they do the same thing although it’s the wrong hand, this could be awkward. Then just as you get right up close bang your figures
hit the glass and you realise that you’d seen your own reflection in a wall of
mirrors and hadn’t recognised yourself.
Now I know it seems really silly. In our world where we are
surrounded by mirrors and screens and fixated with taking selfies and posting
them online and seeing ourselves is an everyday occurrence. We know what we
look like; in fact our culture is almost obsessed with what we look like. I posted this picture on line as a joke or
social comment… I call it being selfie conscious. But when James was writing mirrors were not an
everyday item, they were rare precious items owned by the rich. They were also
usually just polished metal not the silvered glass of modern mirrors. Glimpsing
the occasional blurry distorted reflection was not enough to ensure people knew
what they looked like. James uses this
metaphor to talk about what it is like to be people who hear the word of God
but do not put it into action. He implores his readers not to stare in the
mirror but to look intently into the perfect law which brings freedom and to
put it into action in their lives.
Scholars see the part of James we had read out to us today
as an introduction to what is in the body of the book. He had already broached
the main issue in verses 9-11 when talking of trials he had specifically
mentioned poverty and wealth. The Christians communities James is writing to
were dealing with the tension and challenge of being a mix of both rich and
poor. Paul had to deal with the same issues in 1 Corinthians, where the rich and free would come to a church meeting eat in the dinning room and then the slaves would come when they could and find themselves seated in the outer courtyard. In the body of the book that we will be looking at over the next few
weeks James deals with showing favouritism to the rich and important, not
putting faith into action in terms of simply saying God bless you and letting
people go away hungry and also the very real damage that the tongue and words
could do to the Christian community. He also deals with how the church had
allowed themselves to be conformed to the standards and behaviour of the
society they found themselves in rather than the radically different way of
being the Kingdom of God together. In this introduction James is holding up a mirror to the church to
show them the issues that they are facing.
He starts here with a proverb about relationships. Everyone
should be quick to listen, slow to speak and slow to become angry. This is not
unique to James or to scripture it is common wisdom. It is helpful about being
a community together. One of the things I like about Waitangi day is that as
well as celebrate people actually sit down and listen and talk about the issues
facing Maori and Pakeha in this nation. We celebrate where we’ve come together but
also acknowledge as a country we have made mistakes and we still have a way to
go. It is also a good example of what James says about human anger not bring
about the righteousness that God desires. Human anger cannot bring about real
justice. It tends to drive people apart. James’ sage advice is that instead of
speaking in anger we need to humbly listen to and receive the word that is
planted within you. In terms of New
Zealand that is the treaty of Waitangi as a living document, in terms of what
James is saying to the church it is the gospel.
One of the prerequisites for humble listening says James is
that we get rid of all moral filth and the evil that is so prevalent and the
word used for get rid of here is the word used of taking off a garment. In the book of Zechariah as the people have
come back to Jerusalem and re-established the temple as a sign of a renewal of
God’s covenant, the prophet says to Joshua that he should take of his old robe
with its dirt and put on the new robe. In the New Testament it is picked up as
an image of God giving us a new life a white garment to replace the garment
soiled by all our wrong doing. It fits in with what James had been saying about
resisting temptation, if we approach the word of God with our own
self-interests and desires in mind then we will not allow the word to have its
way in us.
One of the criticisms of the book of James is that it
focuses on salvation by works but this is not the case, here we see that James
is very aware that the word has been planted in us like a seed. Last week we saw James talk about Gods
purpose for us was to be born by the word of truth and here it that is echoed
in the gospel being like a seed that is planted within us that we need to look
to and nurture so that it may do its work in us. David Nystrom says James deals
with the central paradox of the faith: that God’s gift to us also lays upon us
the responsibility of moral behaviour.
Then James turns to that wonderful metaphor of the mirror,
and the person who looks at the word of God and does not put it into action is
like someone who glances at the mirror and then goes away and forgets what
they look like.
Using the metaphor of the mirror the word of God is able to
show us who we are. The limitations of a mirror in James day was that it showed
a blurry distorted image of what we looked like and even in our day a mirror
can only show what’s on the outside. But the word of God shows us what we are
really like. Now can I say when I looked at this passage today it showed me
something’s about myself I did not like. That goes beyond the fresh wrinkles
round my eyes and the fact that more hair seems to grow in my ears and nose
than on top of my head these days when I look in the bathroom mirror. The
passage challenges me about anger and how I use words and what I say actually
matters.
But the perfect law that gives freedom does not simply leave
it there. It is better than any mirror because it also reveals to us the very
character and love of God. It shows us that by the grace of God we have been
put right with God through Jesus Christ and it shows us the image that God
desires us to be conformed to.
There is a scene in the 1985 movie Mask that illustrates this. The movie tells the story of Rocky
Dennis, Rocky’s background is pretty hard. His mother is part of a motorcycle
gang. But his solo mum loves him dearly and he grows up being a
loving and caring person. Rocky has a fatal disease commonly called Lionitis which meant that the bones in
his skull continue to grow and his face is monstrously distorted, and the bone
growth was slowly exerting pressure on his brain. In one scene the gang visit
an amusement park and Rocky goes into the hall of mirrors and comes across one
mirror that is curved in a way that when he stands in front of it his face
appears normal. He calls his mother over to look. The word of God does that for us it invites
us to see the image of what we can be in Christ and as we intently look at that
the spirit can conform us to it.
James then ties that back to the issues he has been
addressing by talking about what real religion is. WE can think it has to do
with rites and rituals, what we do here on Sunday and outward appearances but
James speaking to a church wrestling with division and problems of inequality
and trying to differentiate their behaviour from the world around them. He says
that it is about reigning ones tongue in. and the care of the least and the
vulnerable in the community. And not being confirmed to the image of this
world, but to be confirmed to the image of Christ that we see as we stare
intently at the word of truth… One scholar sums this process up like this “true
religion is not merely work but a humble receptivity to God’s word so that it
can develop deep roots within us, shaping our character until the natural
result is the sort of good that James extols. “
Our churches vision is that we may be an authentic, vibrant
sustainable community, growing as followers of Jesus and inspiring others to
join us on the journey.” I know to fulfil that goal we need to hear James word
about looking intently at the perfect law that brings freedom. That is both and
Individual thing, the discipline of personal bible reading, but also a
community endeavor, for Christians to grow we need to part of a small group
that focuses on studying the scripture and helping each other apply it to our
lives. In the reading I’ve been doing about churches that have turned around
stagnation and decline one of the key elements is the growth of the spiritual
lives of their core members, as they grow in their relationship with Jesus
through studying the word together they grow in their vibrancy and that can
lead to energy needed for renewal, out reach, justice and growth.
No comments:
Post a Comment