This morning we begin a series of messages from the book of James. There are five chapters in the book of James, and we will do one chapter per week. I hope you will take some time and read through the book of James in the next few days. James is one of the shorter letters – or in proper theological language, epistles – in the New Testament. There are three letters that I especially love – Philippians, I John, and James. All three of them have the commonality of using very basic and simple language. Even Paul, in his letter to the Philippians, writes in a very down-to-earth way, which is certainly different from his letter to the Romans.
Sometimes, we need what is simple, practical, and to the point, and James is such a letter. It is one of the most practical books in the Bible, I think, and in his very practical way of writing, James has some very pointed things to say to us. Whenever I read the book of James, in fact, I often find myself wincing somewhat from the pointed truths contained there.
This morning we begin in chapter one, with a message I have titled A Faith That Is Pure. In our Scripture text for this morning, there is a relatively small phrase offered by James, and the importance of the phrase is much larger than its grammatical size might indicate. Follow along as I read that passage, and perhaps the phrase will jump out at you.
James 1:22-27 –
22 Do not merely listen to the word, and so deceive yourselves. Do what it says.
23 Anyone who listens to the word but does not do what it says is like someone who looks at his face in a mirror
24 and, after looking at himself, goes away and immediately forgets what he looks like.
25 But whoever looks intently into the perfect law that gives freedom, and continues in it—not forgetting what they have heard, but doing it—they will be blessed in what they do.
26 Those who consider themselves religious and yet do not keep a tight rein on their tongues deceive themselves, and their religion is worthless.
27 Religion that God our Father accepts as pure and faultless is this: to look after orphans and widows in their distress and to keep oneself from being polluted by the world.
Here is the phrase I hope you noticed – it’s verse 27, which says, religion that God our Father accepts as pure and faultless is this: to look after orphans and widows in their distress and to keep oneself from being polluted by the world. Pure and faultless. Hmmm. Here is a question I have – is it really that simple, that our faith can be pure and faultlessby looking after orphans and widows in their distress and keeping ourselves from being polluted by the world (which James doesn’t really define in his letter). Aren’t there other requirements we need to think about?
In his simplistic approach to theology, I believe James likes to keep it simple and basic. There is a purity to this approach to faith, I believe, as James does not get weighed down by complicated, ivory-tower questions of theology. Sometimes, I wonder if we get off on theological tangents as a way of distracting ourselves from some of the more basic – but challenging – commands of faith, such as caring for orphans and widows. Isn’t it easier, after all, to argue about matters such as predestination or one’s view of the millennium than to get involved in the lives of people who have important needs, such as orphans and widows?
When I was in the 3rdgrade, my father went to work in a steel mill. He worked his way up the vocational ladder in the mill, arriving at a position in the lab in the final years of his life. He liked to talk about the tests they ran on the steel and would sometimes bring home samples that were used for testing. Unfortunately, I was not always interested as he talked about his work (I was too interested in getting outside to play basketball or whatever else I wanted to do. I wish now that I had listened more). I do remember, however, how important it was that the purity of the steel be tested, in order to guarantee its strength. There were very particular measurements that had to be met in order for the steel to be used, lest it put the safety of others at risk by not being sufficiently strong enough for its use. We think of steel as a generally strong substance, but when it is under great pressure and the strain of much weight, it must meet very specific tolerances for safety, and when it does not meet them, it cannot be used. Purity is the key to quality steel.
Faith has its own need for purity. As James writes about the need for purity of faith, it is a reminder that we must not complicate matters to the point that we fail to meet the most basic requirements of what faith asks of us.
This morning, I want to speak to several important truths that I find in this passage –
1. God is our judge, not any person.
Everyone knows the verse from Matthew 7:1 – Do not judge, or you too will be judged. Even people who have never read the Bible know that verse. It’s a great verse, with a great truth, but we still judge, don’t we? Judgment, in fact, is such a common trait that it’s almost as though judgment is our default position as humanity. Here is why I bring up judgment in relation to this passage.
James is not a major figure in the New Testament, at least not on the level of Peter and Paul. He was, however, an apostle and a leader in the early church, and the importance of his leadership is revealed in what is known as The Council at Jerusalem. We read about this gathering of the church in Acts chapter 15, when the leaders of the church came together to deal with a question that had immense consequences for the future of the church. At that time, there was a debate in the church about what would be required of the Gentiles who were flocking to the church. Would they be required to observe the dietary laws of Judaism? Would they be required to observe the practice of circumcision? The bottom line was the church was confronted with the question of whether or not they would impose requirements upon newcomers before they would be accepted either as a follower of Jesus or as a part of the church. There were two factions within the church on this question, one represented by what Luke refers to as the party of the Pharisees(Acts 15:5) and the other those who were in agreement with Paul, Barnabas, Peter, James, and others who did not want to place requirements on other believers. The view of Paul and his associates won out, thankfully, but there remained a group of individuals within the church who believed it was necessary to have a list of requirements for people to adhere to before they could be part of the church or even to be considered a follower of Jesus.
This is a view that has never really disappeared, and it is one that remains with us to this day, and it is a view that I find troubling. I find it troubling for one primary reason – if we place required parameters upon those who want to be part of the church, where do we stop? Once we begin our journey down the road of requirements, won’t there always be something else that someone will want to impose? I understand the desire to have some expectations and limitations of behavior, and I understand the helpfulness of having some kind of theological parameters, but once we start down that road, where does it end? I think this difficulty is what James has in mind when he writes in verse 27 that religion that God our Father accepts as pure and faultless is this: to look after orphans and widows in their distress and to keep oneself from being polluted by the world. In some ways that almost seems too simple, and yet there is a purity to such a faith that I find very attractive.
Religion that God our Father accepts. That God accepts, not someone else. Let me tell you something that I want you to take to heart and keep it there – there is no shortage of people who will want to judge you, or me, because we do not meet theirstandard of righteousness and theirtests of faith. Notice that I said their, not God’s. Plenty of people take it upon themselves to take the place of God and pass judgment upon others, but that is neither their place nor their right; it is God’s place and God’s right.
In the Disciples of Christ churches, we are fond of the saying in essentials unity, opinions liberty, and in all things love. The leaders of the movement that birthed churches like ours often referenced that statement because they believed that, in too many cases, people were treating their own opinions as though they were God’s eternal truth and were requiring that others hold to those opinions as a test of fellowship. This is why, as Disciples churches, we do not have a creed, a statement of faith, or anything other theological document that can possibly be used as a test of faith. We have one statement that unites us, and it is the confession of faith of Peter, from Matthew 16:13-17 – 13 Now when Jesus came into the district of Caesarea Philippi, He was asking His disciples, “Who do people say that the Son of Man is?” 14 And they said, “Some say John the Baptist; and others, Elijah; but still othersJeremiah, or one of the prophets.” 15 He said to them, “But who do you say that I am?” 16 Simon Peter answered, “You are the Christ, the Son of the living God.” 17 And Jesus said to him, “Blessed are you, Simon Barjona, because flesh and blood did not reveal this to you, but My Father who is in heaven.
2. Use our words to bless others.
Verse 26 says, those who consider themselves religious and yet do not keep a tight rein on their tongues deceive themselves, and their religion is worthless. Do I need to add anything to that sentence? It’s very self-explanatory, isn’t it? As we move further into the book of James, we will find that he has much more to say about the words we speak, so I’m not going to devote too much time to it here, but I will say a few things.
As if it weren’t easy enough to say the wrong things, and if it weren’t already easy enough to say things that hurt others, we now have social media and all manner of electronic communication to make it easier to do so. I text a good deal, because that’s how many people communicate, but I can’t say that I really like that form of communication. I find texting to be a very imperfect manner of communication, to be honest, and that is because it’s so easy to misunderstand what people write in texts. Sometimes, we are not always careful about our language when communicating electronically, as we cut linguistic corners, which makes it easy to create misunderstanding. I might, for example, get a text that says, how are you doing? I can read that and wonder,why are they asking that? Do they think something’s wrong with me? Does anyone else think something is wrong with me? What are people saying about me? What do they think is wrong with me? Even worse, we can be careless with our words, which causes hurt. How many of you have done this – you are working on more than one text string, and you reply to the wrong one, and in doing so say something you did not mean for another person to read? I remember doing that one time, and about a second after I hit “send,” my phone rang. The caller was a person who read what I had sent by mistake. The truth, however, is that what I sent was something I should not have sent at all, to anyone. At the leadership retreat yesterday, we did an exercise to help us understand that what we say isn’t always what is heard. But sometimes we are heard very plainly; too plainly, in fact, because we say things that should not have been spoken.
Remember this – first, the words we speak, speak of what is in our hearts, and what is in our hearts is not always good, and second, the words we speak can cause much pain or much encouragement. Let us use our words to encourage.
3. Living out our faith can be complicated enough, so don’t create unnecessary complications.
I find a very strong parallel between verse 27 of today’s text and that of Micah 6:8, which says He has shown you, O mortal, what is good. And what does the LORD require of you? To act justly and to love mercy and to walk humbly with your God. In that passage it is a very simple declaration of what God asks of us. Another parallel would be Matthew 22:37-40, in which Jesus says,“Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind”. This is the first and greatest commandment. And the second is like it: “Love your neighbor as yourself.” All the Law and the Prophets hang on these two commandments.”
To say that we ought to love God is not a complicated statement, at least in terms of understanding. It is, however, a complicated statement to live and put into practice, because it means that when we take seriously our love of God, we will rearrange the priorities of our lives and many other parts of our lives. To say that we should love our neighbor is not a complicated statement, at least in terms of understanding, but depending on what your neighbor is like, it might be a very difficult statement to live. Following God without always knowing where he is leading is not a difficult statement in terms of understanding, but it is a difficult statement to live, in terms of putting into practice. Loving your enemy; okay, that is a complicated statement. And maybe the complications of putting those kinds of spiritual principles into action are why some people simply say, you know what? I think I’ll just go fishing and forget about all that faith stuff. It’s just too difficult. Yes, it can be difficult, but sometimes it is made unnecessarily difficult when people load so many things upon us in terms of what they believe we ought to do.
And that is why James keeps faith simple and pure. To him, the kind of faith that God declares to be pure and faultless, is defined in two very simple phrases –to look after orphans and widows in their distress, which is phrase one,and to keep oneself from being polluted by the world, which is phrase two. I like that simplicity, because sometimes I make faith more complicated than it needs to be. When I was young, faith was simple to me – I wanted to love God and follow Jesus, and that was about the extent of it. As I grew older, and when I arrived at seminary, I made faith more complicated, as I began to add more qualifications and requirements to faith. As I grow even older, I’m back to simplifying faith. In some ways, I have arrived back to where I was when I was a young boy – I want to love God and follow Jesus. I don’t want to add a long list of qualifying beliefs and doctrines that I must believe, and I don’t want anyone else to add them for me either. Remember this – you don’t need to worry about those who want to judge your faith. You don’t need to worry about pleasing people who want to place all manner of requirements upon you. Worry about what God asks of you, and according to James, that’s not as complicated as some people want to make it out to be.
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