James 3:13-4:10 13 Who is wise and understanding among you? By his good conduct let him show his works in the meekness of wisdom. 14 But if you have bitter jealousy and selfish ambition in your hearts, do not boast and be false to the truth. 15 This is not the wisdom that comes down from above, but is earthly, unspiritual, demonic. 16 For where jealousy and selfish ambition exist, there will be disorder and every vile practice. 17 But the wisdom from above is first pure, then peaceable, gentle, open to reason, full of mercy and good fruits, impartial and sincere. 18 And a harvest of righteousness is sown in peace by those who make peace.
4 What causes quarrels and what causes fights among you? Is it not this, that your passions are at war within you? 2 You desire and do not have, so you murder. You covet and cannot obtain, so you fight and quarrel. You do not have, because you do not ask. 3 You ask and do not receive, because you ask wrongly, to spend it on your passions. 4 You adulterous people! Do you not know that friendship with the world is enmity with God? Therefore whoever wishes to be a friend of the world makes himself an enemy of God. 5 Or do you suppose it is to no purpose that the Scripture says, “He yearns jealously over the spirit that he has made to dwell in us”? 6 But he gives more grace. Therefore it says, “God opposes the proud but gives grace to the humble.” 7 Submit yourselves therefore to God. Resist the devil, and he will flee from you. 8 Draw near to God, and he will draw near to you. Cleanse your hands, you sinners, and purify your hearts, you double-minded. 9 Be wretched and mourn and weep. Let your laughter be turned to mourning and your joy to gloom. 10 Humble yourselves before the Lord, and he will exalt you.
James, in our epistle reading today, outlined some pretty hard hitting words about what being a Christian should look like. He does not hold back naming things and pointing out what was wrong in the communities of Christians he was writing to.
He starts off with calling people to task like this:
13 Who is wise and understanding among you? By his good conduct let him show his works in the meekness of wisdom. James 3:13
Basically saying do, don’t just talk.
A little earlier in James he made this even more clear:
18 But someone will say, “You have faith and I have works.” Show me your faith apart from your works, and I will show you my faith by my works.James 2:14-18
To our Lutheran ears this can sound strange. We know that we are Saved by faith not by works. It is only by the grace of God that we are saved not by anything we do on our own.
Even though it may sound weird to us, James reminds us of an important truth. Just because we are saved apart from what we do does not mean we can checkout. God has important things for us to do and a particular way for us to live.
So what does living like a Christian look like? What does it mean to show our wisdom by the works we do?
Christians have been dealing with this question for over two thousand years now. The actions and way of life for Christians has looked different across many different cultures and timeframes
I want to walk through just a few examples of how Christinas have lived in the past that help frame our understanding of how we are called to live here in our context. Christians have lived under so many different times, languages and cultures. But the common question of what our life should look like is one that we share with all our Christian brethren throughout time.
Early Church
If we go all the way back to the early church, living as a Christian looked much different than it does today. They had no governmental support or protection. Christians were regularly rounded up and sent to the coliseum to be killed for sport. Being a Christian was dangerous.
Because of the persecution Christians had to worship in secret.
Christians were therefore able to worship freely in this creepy hidden place. Can you imagine how valuable worship was to these Christinas that they were willing to go through all this in order to gather for worship.
Living like a Christian in the early church meant giving everything up. It meant being willing to risk life and limb and to find the most obscure and even terrifying places to gather for worship.
Ascetic Life
But as Christianity began to be more accepted in Roman culture. Becoming a Christian turned into a status symbol. Many new people started to identify as Christians who only wanted to have the benefits of joining a church.
Serious Christians noticed this problem of people claiming to be Christian began to live in a new way in order to focus themselves on just how important it was to live like a Christian.
These believers would leave the cities and towns and go live off by themselves in deserts or mountains. This kind of lifestyle was called living an Ascetic life.
These believers worked hard to remove any kind of distraction between them and a life of prayer and meditation of scripture.
But they were not leaving the city to go find a calm, relaxing place to pray. They went to inhospitable places. The desert especially was seen as the home of demons and a place of spiritual battle.
Held to strict disciplines such as the Hours of the office pray every two hours. Nothing comfortable rough on their own body. Even self whipping as a way to remain focused on living like a Christian
These Christians answered the question of what it means to live as a Christian with a very strict and painful way of life.
Living under Christian Rule
But other than these few who took their Christinaity very seriously. Most of Christian history has taken place under rulers who have at least said they were Christian.
Emperors, Kings, Princes all taking a deep interest in the faith lives of their subjects.
The first Ruler like this was Constantine. Emperor of the Roman empire who made Chrstianity legal for the first time. He leaves a legacy as a Christian ruler we still experience today. Whenever we say the Nicene Creed I don’t think many of us remember, or even know, that Constantine was the ruler who called the council of church leaders together to write it. We literally say very regularly words that Constnatine was instrumental in making sure they were written and passed down all the way to us.
Other Christian Rulers had things to say about the way their subjects lived their Christian faith as well.
Even during the time of Martin Luther a majority of Christians lived under political rulers that were thoroughly invested in protecting and maintaining the Christian church. For people in these time periods is was a no brainer to be a Christian.
Some rulers even made it impossible to get married unless you were a Christian. Being a Christian in these time periods and situations was less of a choice than an expected part of life.
This led to many people who lived at either extreme being very committed living like a monk following the Ascetic lifestyle or lived a life where being a christian was just something everyone did but did not mean much to them.
The question of living like a Christian has always been a difficult one. So many Chrstians in so many different situations have dealt with the difficulty of living faithfully in the world around them. This struggle brings us back to the words of James. Words meant for all Christians no matter what kind of political system or era of time we live under.
8 Draw near to God, and he will draw near to you. Cleanse your hands, you sinners, and purify your hearts, you double-minded. James 4:8
Conclusion
How do we draw near to God? Do we go back to a strict Ascetic life? Or do we seek to restore Christian emperors and governors? How do we live as Christians in the here and now? Christians living in America in the year 2021 with a global pandemic loose and division and divisiveness cropping up around us like a bad game of whack a mole.
We again live in a world that is not overflowing with Christian support. We are by no means persecuted like the early church, but we know what it is like for our faith to not be treated as an important thing by authorities and many people around us.
So What does it mean to be a Christian here and now? I want to strip this back to the core of who we are. So many things fight for our attention that we sometimes get carried away from the simple truth of who we are as God’s people.
So forget if you are a republican or a democrat. If you like vaccines or you don’t. If you trust doctors and government officials or if you would rather be free of them. Put all of that aside, especially the swirling confusion of does and don’t. The fears and frustrations of what is here and now and what might be coming around the corner. I know it’s hard but just for a little while set that aside while we go into something simple, something sure.
Sitting in this room we are all God’s children. We have all been called through the washing of baptism into a new life. We have been forgiven, released from our sin and this dying world.
No matter who you are or where you come from. What you do or think. We all have that in common, God’s loved and cherished children.
Let’s sit with that simple calming truth for just a moment. No matter what is going on in our lives or communities. Nothing can take this simple truth away. You are a Child of God and you are loved.
Coming from this foundation then we can approach what James tells us about how to be a Christian
Has some sharp things to say about the way we act
8 Draw near to God, and he will draw near to you. Cleanse your hands, you sinners, and purify your hearts, you double-minded. 9 Be wretched and mourn and weep. Let your laughter be turned to mourning and your joy to gloom. 10 Humble yourselves before the Lord, and he will exalt you. James 4:8-10
This is rather convicting
And what is the cause of us needing to repent and be so mournful of our sins?
What causes quarrels and what causes fights among you? Is it not this, that your passions are at war within you? James 4:1
Turning in on ourselves and wanting what I want. Being focused on me. This turns quickly into shoving off blame to someone else.
We are quick to point the finger outside of us; the issue is them, over there, not me. But at the end of the day, it doesn’t matter what anyone else has or has not done. I am the biggest part of the problem.
This issue started all the way back at the garden of Eden when Adam and Eve pointed the finger at each other.
When we are turned in on ourselves we want to protect ourselves and convince others that we are good.
But being humble is about admitting that I am a big part of the problem. This is what it means to be humble and to be more willing to accept ownership of what I have done to contribute to issues than to jump to assigning blame.
This leads into where are we in this continuum of christian living? Do we seek after an ascetic life fleeing from everything around us to focus on a life of prayer? Or Do we try to fight for control of the government and restore Christian Control?
Regardless of what the future holds there is a core of what being a Christian means that has stayed consistent throughout all different expressions of Christianity.
It is the internal shift from focus on the self, and what I want, to focus on others and what they need.
We are now free for the good of the other, not free from any responsibility.
Not everyone in each time has gotten this right. But all of the great heroes of the faith have led lives that inspire those around them to look outside themselves and care for their neighbor.
What will it look like for you to care for your neighbor?**