This is our second to last Sunday with James’ Epistle and we’re coming to the heart of his letter, the core of his message. We now know that James wants to make sure Christians see the difference between true and false religion, between what is deep and real piety and what is an imitation of faith – whether this imitation happens by intentional affectation or because we delude ourselves with shallow and empty feelings. To make the difference between what’s real or not, James says that the best thing to do is to look in the spiritual mirror, to look at the way we live, concretely and how we treat each other. This is what we do (or don’t do) that will testify about our faith. In our text today, James asks us to “(…) show by [our] good life that [our] works are done with gentleness born of wisdom” and the he goes on to describe what wisdom looks like – and this is on that that I would like to spend a little time with you today.
First of all, James notices that everybody is wise in their own eyes, which is probably a very accurate observation! Most of the time, caught in our own inner reasoning, or just because of our blind spots and prejudices, we assume that “this is the way it is” or “this is the way things work”. We don’t hear often people saying about themselves that they are silly or foolish – unless they have just realized they’ve made a big mistake! We naturally assume we are clever and that we know what’s best…And I don’t think James is criticizing that directly – after all, if we were always convinced that we are stupid and wrong it would be very hard to make any progress in life – but James tells us to be careful. Not just because maybe we are not that clever, but also because wisdom is not about being clever, or at least not in the sense we understand it most of the time.
So what’s the difference? Well, James tells us that being wise is not so much about being intellectually sharp or educated. Rather, according to James, wisdom is “(…) peaceable, gentle, willing to yield, full of mercy and good fruits, without a trace of partiality or hypocrisy” (remember how we talked about partiality before?). And so this is what wisdom is really about: it’s about being humble and gentle. You may remember that I told you at the beginning of this study that we could tell that James was indeed Jesus’s brother, because they have the same character! In Matthew Ch 11, Jesus says of himself that he is “gentle and lowly in heart” – and we see that is the personification of wisdom for James! That, and to resist abuse of power and hypocrisy too – which is what Jesus spent his life doing. Being gentle and lowly does not mean that you have no opinion or that you are a doormat. Often today when we say we seek peace or concord, we mean something like: “Let’s not talk about what could bring conflict”. Yet this is not the way James describes it, or the way Jesus lived his life. Seeking peace is not about avoiding conflicts at all cost, by not talking about what goes wrong, peace is about being able to move beyond conflicts by looking for what’s best for everybody, honoring everybody’s right to be a full person – and as we said last week – honoring in each other the likeness of God.
Now what is the problem with us, that so often we think we are wise when we actually lack true Christian wisdom? Well, for James, it’s actually quite simple. He says that what prevents us from being wise is that we are too self centered. And we can be too self centered in two different ways: Either we are focused on pleasing ourselves (we are too self indulgent, we want more than what we really need) or we are focused on our own ambition (we want to be right, to be admired, to have more power). In both cases, we’re seeking our own advantage instead of everybody’s advantage – and this is why we cannot move beyond conflicts. Again, the problem is not so much that there are conflicts, in the sense of difference of opinions, the problem is that James’ community is caught in never ending conflicts because everybody thinks about themselves first!
So how do we move beyond that? Well, once again, James invites us to self awareness. We first have to get rid of our illusion of wisdom, false wisdom, and accept that we often ask or act out of self interest. Aware of that, we already have gained in humility, which enables us to approach God and ask to be filled with true wisdom. In this, we see again how, even without quoting it, that James is close to the fundamental call of the Gospel, that is to repent and to ask God to change our hearts. There is in James a deep trust that God will answer those who come to God. He says: “Draw near to God and God will draw near to you”. Yet there is a condition: We need to come to God with pure intentions – with a “pure heart” in James’ own words. Approaching God with a pure heart does not mean we have to wait to be perfect or much better people to ask God for anything! It just means that we are to be aware of who we are and be willing to change.
And this is, once again, the difference between true and false religion. James asks: What are our intentions when we draw near to God? Is it to seek our own advantage, or is it out of a desire to change? James says that the problem is that, in prayer: “We ask wrongly, in order to spend what [we] get on pleasures”. So it means that we also have to examine our prayer life. Practicing true religion is not about praying a lot, or showing a lot of piety. It is about approaching God with selfless intentions. It does not mean that we shouldn’t pray for ourselves! We can and should certainly pray for protection and guidance and even help in our daily needs, because that’s what Jesus taught us to do in the Lord’s Prayer! But we should not expect God to serve our selfish interests, especially if they conflict with the needs of others. We need to approach prayer with the desire to serve God rather than thinking that God will serve us – this would be worse than false religion, it would be the perversion of religion. We need to ask God to do God’s will, because that’s what Jesus taught us to do as well (in the Lord’s Prayer too!).
To conclude, I think it is important to notice that for James, wisdom is not a private, intellectual thing, rather, it is a matter of practice and wisdom is to be practiced in community, by seeking to move beyond conflicts towards what’s the best interest of all and beyond that, what is God’s will. Wisdom is built in our relationships with others and as we seek a deeper relationship with God. We grow, little by little with one another in our daily circumstances and by being open to God. This is, at least, to James, what a true Christian community should look like.