Carers

James 2:1-10    Common English Bible (CEB)

2 My brothers and sisters, when you show favoritism you deny the faithfulness of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has been resurrected in glory. 2 Imagine two people coming into your meeting. One has a gold ring and fine clothes, while the other is poor, dressed in filthy rags. 3 Then suppose that you were to take special notice of the one wearing fine clothes, saying, “Here’s an excellent place. Sit here.” But to the poor person you say, “Stand over there”; or, “Here, sit at my feet.” 4 Wouldn’t you have shown favoritism among yourselves and become evil-minded judges?

5 My dear brothers and sisters, listen! Hasn’t God chosen those who are poor by worldly standards to be rich in terms of faith? Hasn’t God chosen the poor as heirs of the kingdom he has promised to those who love him? 6 But you have dishonored the poor. Don’t the wealthy make life difficult for you? Aren’t they the ones who drag you into court? 7 Aren’t they the ones who insult the good name spoken over you at your baptism?

8 You do well when you really fulfill the royal law found in scripture, Love your neighbor as yourself.  9 But when you show favoritism, you are committing a sin, and by that same law you are exposed as a lawbreaker. 10 Anyone who tries to keep all of the Law but fails at one point is guilty of failing to keep all of it. 

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Have I mentioned that I really like James?   He spoke to individuals, rather than congregations.  He said, “this is how you should live, as a person and as a Christ follower,” whereas Paul spoke primarily to congregations, telling folks how to be church together.  In this passage James is asking the listener to pretend for a moment that they are the greeter.   If you make a big fuss over the person who drove up in a Mercedes and has all the stuff, and you put them in the very best seat, but you tell the homeless lady that she has to sit in the narthex where no one will be bothered by her odor, then according to James you have sinned.  You have shown favoritism based in socio-economic status, or class, which in his time was pretty much the main distinction between people.  There were nations, but you couldn’t necessarily tell someone’s nation by looking at them.  You could, however, determine class pretty easily - certain types and colors of clothing were restricted to the upper classes, for example.  Slaves wore particular items of clothing that free persons did not.   In the first century, and indeed for many centuries thereafter, race as a distinction between persons didn’t exist.  Your skin color really didn’t matter.  Class and gender, on the other hand, did.  So when James spoke of favoritism, he spoke in terms of wealthy versus poor.  However, as much fun as it always is to say bad things about rich people, I’m not going to do that today.  I’m not going to talk about the rich and the poor today.  

In the Christian Church (Disciples of Christ) we have a strong Anti-racism/Pro-reconciliation imperative.  All ordained ministers are required to take anti-racism training periodically - in this region where we live it’s every year.  Today and next week we take a collection that benefits our Reconciliation Ministries, which helps pay for our anti-racism trainers to be trained, and for literature to help us all learn how to love one another better.   And it’s kind of funny in a “how did God manage this?” kind of way, that I accidentally skipped this reading at the beginning of the month, where it appears in the lectionary, and had to fit it in here - today - on the day when we look closely at our Anti-Racism/Pro-Reconciliation emphasis, because how much better could this passage fit the day?  Yay, God!  

James said, My brothers and sisters, when you show favoritism you deny the faithfulness of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has been resurrected in glory.. . 8 You do well when you really fulfill the royal law found in scripture, Love your neighbor as yourself.  9 But when you show favoritism, you are committing a sin, and by that same law you are exposed as a lawbreaker. 

A well dressed African American woman walked into a high end boutique and asked to see a purse that was in a locked case.  The salesclerk told her it was much too expensive for her and wouldn’t take it out of the case, but did suggest she look at other, cheaper purses.  Even though she asked to see the purse several times, the sales clerk was quite insistent on steering her to much less expensive items.   Oprah Winfrey finally left the shop, without the purse.    The owner of the boutique later said it had nothing to do with Oprah’s race . . . .   

But this happens to Persons of Color all the time.  If Oprah had been with a well dressed White friend, I suspect the purse would have come out of the case with no hesitation.   Because somehow having a White person along makes that Person of Color “acceptable” for the moment.   I can tell you from my own experience, from 25 years of marriage to a Navajo, that there was a huge difference in how he was treated when he was alone and when I was with him.  We even sometimes would go into a place separately, so that I could watch and see what happened and learn what White privilege looks like.   In restaurants, small shops, big box stores, even government agencies like the DMV . . .  it didn’t matter what type of place we entered, there was always a difference in the way we were treated.   Store security would follow him around, but not me, and not us when we went into the place as a couple.  He was always asked for his ID when using a credit card.  I rarely was.  Clerks and such would often speak to me when he was the one with the issue, assuming he didn’t understand English.  And have I told you the church story?   When we visited a church in another city one Sunday everyone was happy to welcome us, asked us to stay for coffee, and invite us to come back.  When he went back by himself a few months later none of that happened.   They turned their backs on him.  It was like he was invisible.  

I get catalogs in the mail.  I imagine some of you do, too. This company sends them weekly, I think.  If you are a White person going through your catalog and you can find yourself, but you can’t find your friend from First Friendship Baptist Church or the Korean Church or the Haitian Church or the Truk Island, Samoan, Philipino, Native American or  Hispanic Church - that is privilege in action.  In this particular catalog there is one model who might maybe be Hispanic.

If you are White you may never have noticed, but it’s there. It’s insidious, because, if you are White you don’t notice it unless you are specifically looking for it.   I look for it.  But I only look for it because I spent 25 years married to a Person of Color.  And I still don’t always see it.  But I promise you, a Person of Color notices.   If you are White, you benefit from the fact that the color of your skin is considered the norm in this country.  If you go to buy flesh colored bandaids, no problem.  But until 2015, a person of color could not find bandaids to match her skin tone.   Even now, they’re not easy to find.  Bandaids are a small thing, but they are symptomatic of privilege.  Privilege does not mean your life is easy just because you are White.  But it does mean it could be a lot harder.  

Privilege isn’t something we can do much of anything about, besides simply recognizing it exists as a fact of life in this country.  Just because you don’t see it, doesn’t mean it isn’t real.   Racism, on the other hand, is something we can change.   

Racism is an evil that afflicts our nation and many others.   Racism is a choice we make to treat other people differently based on the color of their skin.  That clerk in the expensive purse store may have said she wasn’t judging Oprah on her race, but she was.  The store security officers who followed Ton’Ee around the store, but not me, were making a judgement about who was likely to be a thief based solely on skin color.  I benefited from White privilege.  Ton’Ee dealt with racism.  The people in that church - totally racist.  And that’s the one that hurts most of all.  Because - they’ll know we are Christians by our love??  

You do well when you really fulfill the royal law found in scripture, Love your neighbor as yourself.  9 But when you show favoritism, you are committing a sin, and by that same law you are exposed as a lawbreaker. 10 Anyone who tries to keep all of the Law but fails at one point is guilty of failing to keep all of it. 

When you show favoritism, you are committing a sin.  And what is racism but favoritism?   A particularly terrible, potentially deadly sort of favoritism.   Racism is a sin that strikes at the very heart of the love commandment - and the love commandment is what all the law depends on.  For remember, when Jesus was asked “which commandment in the law is the greatest?” 37 He said to him, “‘You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind.’ 38 This is the greatest and first commandment. 39 And a second is like it: ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’ 40 On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets.”  (Mt. 22:36-40)    Breaking this one commandment then, is as if we are breaking all the commandments.  

It is important to understand that not all White people are racist - but that all White people do benefit from privilege.  It is also important to understand that racism can be insidious.  We may not even realize that what we are seeing, hearing, even thinking or saying, is racist.  We can open our eyes to see racism where we maybe didn’t notice it before.  We can use our privilege to point out racism when we do see it.   And by our example we can teach others what it really means to love our neighbors - all of our neighbors, regardless of skin color, ethnicity or national origin.   

Maybe we, as individuals, can’t do much to change the systemic racism that is deeply rooted in our society, but we can, as individuals, change our own behaviors and beliefs.  We can come to understand that maybe things we have believed are true about other people based on their race or country of origin, aren’t.  And we can work at changing the beliefs of others.  And as each person is changed, as each person comes to love their neighbor as they love themselves, racism and all the other isms, can be eradicated.

My brothers and sisters, if we would live in God’s beloved community, in God’s kingdom on earth, then we must indeed, love one another as God loves us, as we love ourselves.  When we leave this place today, let us go out filled with the knowledge of God’s greatness, so that God’s love can overflow from our hearts in the hearts and souls of all we encounter, today and all days. 

Pray-ers

James 5:13-20 Common English Bible (CEB)

13 If any of you are suffering, they should pray. If any of you are happy, they should sing. 14 If any of you are sick, they should call for the elders of the church, and the elders should pray over them, anointing them with oil in the name of the Lord.  15 Prayer that comes from faith will heal the sick, for the Lord will restore them to health. And if they have sinned, they will be forgiven. 16 For this reason, confess your sins to each other and pray for each other so that you may be healed. The prayer of the righteous person is powerful in what it can achieve.

17 Elijah was a person just like us. When he earnestly prayed that it wouldn’t rain, no rain fell for three and a half years. 18 He prayed again, God sent rain, and the earth produced its fruit.

19 My brothers and sisters, if any of you wander from the truth and someone turns back the wanderer, 20 recognize that whoever brings a sinner back from the wrong path will save them from death and will bring about the forgiveness of many sins.

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Pray-ers.   People who pray.  That would include pretty much everyone here.   Even the littlest ones who were sitting up here a few minutes ago say their bedtime prayers and say prayers at mealtimes.   All of us pray.   We might pray a prayer that we memorized - like the Lord’s Prayer or the Serenity Prayer - or we might pray from the heart or we might have a book of prayers that we use.  Praying seems easy for some and more difficult for others.   But all of us pray.  All of us are pray-ers.  

I have to confess that this particular message was hard for me.  I wrote in fits and starts.  I couldn’t seem to get in the groove of writing about praying and being pray-ers.  And maybe that’s because prayer itself was so difficult for me to get a handle on.   I grew up in a tradition where all the prayers I ever heard were memorized or pre-written for a particular occasion and read out of a book.   I had no idea how to just talk to God, so when people in 12 Step groups started telling me that I needed to pray, I was pretty much lost.  Oh, I knew how to ask for help. I knew how to say, “God, get me out of this one and I swear I’ll never do it again!”  But I didn’t really have any idea how to talk to God, or if there was some way that was especially appropriate.   I was happy to learn the Serenity Prayer, and some other written down prayers that can be found in 12 Step literature, and I pretty much stuck with those prayers.  Because they covered everything I needed to cover, sort of.   Eventually I came to realize that it’s ok to talk to God as if God was simply another person, and my prayers became conversations.  I told God what was going on, and God listened.  And then I would try to get quiet enough to listen for God’s response.  Sometimes I can, and sometimes I can’t.  And sometimes the answer doesn’t come while I am quiet, but through something another person says, or a billboard on the highway, or even a song on the radio.   For a while, that was all I needed. Personal prayer - me and God in conversation.  And then I was called to the ministry.  And if I ever had any doubt that God has a sense of humor, that call was enough to prove it.   I was going to have to get up and talk in front of people, and maybe even worse than that, I was going to have to get up and pray in front of people!  

In my seminary class “Worship and Church Music” we got lots of books full of prayers to use, and we learned how to write prayers according to a formula that had been set probably over 1,000 years ago.   ACTS.  Adoration.  Confession.  Thanksgiving.  Supplication.  I had books full of prayers other people had written to use, and I had a pattern to follow for writing my own prayers.   Which was great, until I started working in a Disciples retirement community.  And the people in the hospital unit wanted me to pray with them, without a book.  Without time to write something.  It was time to panic.

Because, you see, I had exactly zero confidence in my ability to pray for and with other people.   In class and in study groups I always let someone else pray, because they were just so much better at it than I was.  And then, there I was, in the hospital unit, needing to pray out loud.  They were always happy I prayed, but I would go away feeling inadequate, until one day I was holding a woman’s hand, trying to think of words to pray, and looked outside to see the sun glittering on the snow, and a tree branch, and a bright red cardinal on the branch, and suddenly words came.  Not my words, but words the Holy Spirit gave me.  That’s the day I learned that I can do this.  I can pray out loud for other people.  Mind you, I still relied on written prayers most of the time.  I struggled to write new pastoral prayers every week for well over 10 years.  Slowly I gained confidence that if I just opened my heart the Spirit would come and give me the words I needed.  And sometimes it works, and sometimes, not so much.  Praying in this way is not one of my particular gifts or strengths, and I really admire people for whom it is.  We are blessed, because there are quite a few in this congregation who always seem to have the right words when it comes time to pray.  

But even if, like me, you aren’t especially gifted at praying out loud, all of us here are pray-ers.   James says, if you are suffering, pray.

And James said, if you are sick, let the elders pray over you and anoint you with oil.  Prayer that comes from faith will heal the sick.  A note of caution here, because some people read that to mean if you have faith you will be healed no matter what your disease, and that if you are not healed it is because you lack faith.   One of my seminary classmates came in one day, devastated because his pastor had been fired.  She had lupus, and when it wasn’t cured by prayer the elders of the church decided she lacked faith, and fired her.    James said, the prayer of a righteous person is powerful in what it can achieve, and this is true - Elijah’s prayers brought on a drought and ended that drought, but not everyone is an Elijah.  He was most certainly not an ordinary person.  He was one of the great prophets, who raised people from the dead, and fed many with just a little food.   

James said, “Prayer that comes from faith will heal the sick, for the Lord will restore them to health. And if they have sinned, they will be forgiven. 16 For this reason, confess your sins to each other and pray for each other so that you may be healed.”   Confession and prayer - healing the soul in order that the body might be healed.   This is the kind of healing Jesus did.  In Matthew, Chapter 9, “People brought to him a man who was paralyzed, lying on a cot. When Jesus saw their faith, he said to the man who was paralyzed, “Be encouraged, my child, your sins are forgiven.”  3 Some legal experts said among themselves, “This man is insulting God.”  4 But Jesus knew what they were thinking and said, “Why do you fill your minds with evil things? 5  Which is easier—to say, ‘Your sins are forgiven,’ or to say, ‘Get up and walk’? 6  But so you will know that the Human One has authority on the earth to forgive sins”—he said to the man who was paralyzed—“Get up, take your cot, and go home.” 7 The man got up and went home.”  

Confessing our sins to another person is not something we do easily.   It’s one thing for me to stand up here and confess on behalf of all of us, to say, as part of the pastoral prayer, “We confess, Lord, that we don’t always speak and act as you would have us do.  We don’t always love one another as you love us.  We beg your forgiveness for these sins, and ask your blessing that we may go out and do as you would have us do.”  It’s a whole different thing to say to another person, “These are my sins.”   Yet we know, for Jesus has told us very clearly, that our God will forgive our sins.  All we need to to is ask.  And when our souls are cleansed of sin, when our hearts are emptied of anger and jealousy, resentment and greed, then there healing.  Then there is room for God’s love to fill our hearts, and overflow onto others, bringing healing to them as well.  

When we join together in prayer, we can literally change the world.  When we, as faithful children of God, stand together to pray for the world’s healing, it will happen.    When we, as pray-ers, gather together in one mind, desiring nothing more than that God’s love pour out to heal every heart, then the world will change.  And we will know God’s kingdom on earth, even as it is in heaven.  

James says if you are happy, sing!  Martin Luther is reputed to have said that singing is praying twice.  So let us stand and pray and sing together, “Sweet Hour of Prayer.”

Peacemakers

James 3:13-18   Common English Bible   

13 Are any of you wise and understanding? Show that your actions are good with a humble lifestyle that comes from wisdom. 14 However, if you have bitter jealousy and selfish ambition in your heart, then stop bragging and living in ways that deny the truth. 15 This is not the wisdom that comes down from above. Instead, it is from the earth, natural and demonic.16 Wherever there is jealousy and selfish ambition, there is disorder and everything that is evil.17 What of the wisdom from above? First, it is pure, and then peaceful, gentle, obedient, filled with mercy and good actions, fair, and genuine. 18 Those who make peace sow the seeds of justice by their peaceful acts.

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On Wednesday a man shot and killed 5 others and himself in Bakersfield.  When I read the first article, it kind of looked like there was a personal issue involved, but the police weren’t for sure just yet.  Later,  I learned that Javier and Petra were about to finalize their divorce, just getting all the details about the children and such ironed out, when they went to the trucking company where Javier worked.  Javier shot a co-worker and he shot Petra, then he chased another guy at the trucking company and shot him, and then he went to someone else’s house, where he shot and killed a man and his daughter.  Then he hijacked a car, letting the woman driver and her child get out en route to a parking lot where he shot himself.  As it turns out, Javier thought his wife Petra was having an affair with one of his co-workers.  No idea what the other three people had to do with that, unless he suspected all three of those men of being with his wife,  but that’s the story so far as I know it.

I am sorry for the people who lost their lives, and for their families, and especially for the children of Javier and Petra.  I am sorry for Javier, whose heart was filled with jealousy and bitterness, which drove him to these terrible acts.  But the thing that struck me hardest in the whole story was a quote from the Kern County Sheriff.   “Six people lost their lives in a very short amount of time,” Sheriff Youngblood said. “This is the new normal.”  

This should not be any kind of normal!

James says, “if you have bitter jealousy and selfish ambition in your heart, . . . this is not the wisdom that comes down from above. Instead, it is from the earth, natural and demonic. 16 Wherever there is jealousy and selfish ambition, there is disorder and everything that is evil.”   Clearly, jealousy was at work in Javier’s heart. 

We know a lot about the jealousy and ambition and selfishness that causes people to treat one another badly.   We see it in places of employment, where co-workers stab each other in the back to get a raise or promotion.  We see it in families, especially around funerals, when siblings fight bitterly over who gets their mother’s dishes or jewelry or dad’s car.  We see it in corporations, where the highest ranking officers give themselves bonuses even as they lay off people who can barely afford to pay rent so that they themselves can make even more profit and reap even larger bonuses.   We see it in organizations that are founded  to work toward preventing some from achieving what the people in that organization already have.  And in case that last reference seems too obscure, I’m talking about organizations like the one my brother joined in college in the 1960s - SPONGE, the Society for the Prevention of Negroes Getting Everything.   We see it in individuals who, not knowing any other way to cope, deal with their jealousy and bitterness and anger by taking a gun and killing 6 people, or taking a car and running it into a crowd of protesters  . . .

I’m not saying a word about guns and who should have them, or what kind or any of that.  Because the point in this passage is not the weapon. The point is how is it that people go straight to violence?  How is it that we are not teaching them that guns or fists or knives or drone strikes or boots on the ground are not the preferred first response?  How is it that the followers of the Prince of Peace do not or maybe even cannot teach the kind of wisdom that brings peace?

What is that wisdom?  According to James, “it is pure, and then peaceful, gentle, obedient, filled with mercy and good actions, fair, and genuine.”   

You know, preachers get frustrated sometimes.  It seems as if we say the same things over and over, in as many different ways as we can think to say them, hoping that somebody is going to get it.  And not just preachers.  I sit in 12 Step meetings, hearing and saying the same things week after week, year after year, and still there are some who simply don’t get it, who continue to return to the streets, who keep going back to jail, who eventually die because they simply cannot believe it’s as simple as we say it is.  School teachers and counselors, social workers and mediators, all know this frustration.  But every so often, there is that encounter in the grocery store, where a person you remember as being a real problem comes up and says,  Thank you. You may not remember, but you said this thing that one time, and it changed my life.   

Jeff Gill is a friend and colleague, pastor of a Disciples congregation in Ohio, Boy Scout leader, and mediator for the court system working with juveniles.   This week a woman came up and said to him, “You probably don’t remember us, but 8 years ago you mediated for me and my daughter in middle school. She didn’t cooperate much, and ended up in detention the next week. But she never stopped thinking about what you said, we kept talking about what you suggested, and after four trips to detention, she got ahold of herself, graduated high school, and is in college doing great. I thought you’d like to know.””   And he was grateful to hear that.   Kinda wishing it had happened faster - I mean, she did go back to Detention four more times - but still, eventually she heard what he said.  

It is hard to hear the quiet words of wisdom over the loud clamor of the world.   It is hard to do the peaceful thing to achieve justice when the world insists that might makes right.  

I watched the movie Black Panther this week.  If you like action films, this is awesome!  Stan Lee’s in it!  Car chases, aerial combat, giant rhinoceroses!  Cool technology!  But the story was important.  I will not tell the story, because you might not have seen the movie.  But there were three options available to the nation of Wakanda.  They could continue to hide away, protecting themselves from the dangers of the outside world, while watching so much suffering in the world and knowing that they had the wherewithal to end it.  Or they could take their advanced technology, kill all the oppressors and re-make the world in their image - thus becoming the oppressor.  Or they could share their wealth, knowledge, and technology in order to improve the lives of the poor and oppressed everywhere, even though that would taking a huge risk, exposing themselves to a world filled with greedy, violent people who would seek to take it all away from them by any means possible.  Hard choices.

As Christians, we also have hard choices.  We can keep our faith to ourselves, watching the world suffer, when we have the answers to ease the pain and hunger we see all around us.  We can allow the world to continue to loudly proclaim that Might is Right, that violence is the answer, and that we must get everything we can from everyone we can, because there simply isn’t enough to go around.   Or we can risk ridicule and anger from others when we say what we know to be true - that in God’s kingdom there is always enough.  That there is always more to share, if we can turn away from greed.  That there is always a peaceful solution, when we renounce violence and seek to find God’s wisdom for a way forward.  That justice, real justice, is achievable through a desire for healing, not through anger and vengefulness.  That oppression can be ended when the hearts of the oppressors are turned from fear and greed to love and a giving spirit.  That God’s kingdom exists, here and now, when we choose to live in it.   Because it is our choices that will make the difference, between love and hate, peace and violence, justice and vengeance, the way of the world and the wisdom of God.   

When we turn to wisdom, we are the peacemakers.  For as James said, “Those who make peace sow the seeds of justice by their peaceful acts.”   We can be the peacemakers, if we seek God’s wisdom and do what God calls us to do in the world, rejecting the world’s loud clamor and embracing that which "is pure, and peaceful, gentle, obedient, filled with mercy and good actions, fair, and genuine.”   

My brothers and sisters, when we go from this place today, let us choose God’s wisdom as our guide. Let us make the choice to turn from violence and seek the better solution, to put away our anger and seek healing, to put aside the soul death that comes from sin and embrace the joy of obedience to God’s will.  Let us live in the love filled order of God’s kingdom, and not in the angry disorder of the world.   Let us carry the peace of Christ out into the world.

Speakers

Scripture James 3:1-12  (CEB)

3 My brothers and sisters, not many of you should become teachers, because we know that we teachers will be judged more strictly. 2 We all make mistakes often, but those who don’t make mistakes with their words have reached full maturity. Like a bridled horse, they can control themselves entirely. 3 When we bridle horses and put bits in their mouths to lead them wherever we want, we can control their whole bodies.

4 Consider ships: They are so large that strong winds are needed to drive them. But pilots direct their ships wherever they want with a little rudder. 5 In the same way, even though the tongue is a small part of the body, it boasts wildly.

Think about this: A small flame can set a whole forest on fire. 6 The tongue is a small flame of fire, a world of evil at work in us. It contaminates our entire lives. Because of it, the circle of life is set on fire. The tongue itself is set on fire by the flames of hell.

7 People can tame and already have tamed every kind of animal, bird, reptile, and fish. 8 No one can tame the tongue, though. It is a restless evil, full of deadly poison. 9 With it we both bless the Lord and Father and curse human beings made in God’s likeness. 10 Blessing and cursing come from the same mouth. My brothers and sisters, it just shouldn’t be this way!

11 Both fresh water and salt water don’t come from the same spring, do they? 12 My brothers and sisters, can a fig tree produce olives? Can a grapevine produce figs? Of course not, and fresh water doesn’t flow from a saltwater spring either.

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Those of you who are in the Lectionary Study on Sunday mornings may have noticed that I am not preaching from the assigned lectionary text for today.  My apologies.  When I selected the scriptures for this month I somehow managed to skip a week, which I didn’t notice until we were talking about the October 7th scripture selection a couple of weeks ago - which was identical to the one I had selected for September 30.  I realized later that I had skipped a week in September somehow, so rather than redo the entire month, the reading that would normally have been today will be on September 30.  The rest of you probably haven’t noticed, unless you study the lectionary readings at home on Sunday mornings?  Yes?  No?  No?  Ok.

Today’s reading from James is a cautionary tale, about the evil that comes out of our mouths.  The tongue - untamable. A small flame of fire, a world of evil at work within us . . . . set on fire by the flames of hell.. . a restless evil, full of deadly poison.   Reading this passage it becomes easier to understand why some monks and nuns take a vow of silence.  If you are trying to avoid sin, best not to use that which James says “contaminates our whole lives.”

“Blessing and cursing come from the same mouth.”  Now, when we modern folks think of cursing, we tend to think of those words that are not acceptable in polite society.  You know the ones.  The ones that lead folks to respond with comments like, “Do you kiss your mother with that mouth?”  And indeed, we should try to always use only those words that everyone around us finds acceptable and inoffensive, and not the expletives that we tend to associate with bad behavior.  But when James spoke of cursing, it wasn’t that sort of language that he was speaking of.  He was speaking of actual curses - one person wishing evil upon another.   Saying, “Damn you to hell” was not just bad language.  It was a big deal, because the people of the first century believed that words had that kind of power.  “May the fleas of a thousand camels infest you,” may be a joke to us, but it was serious business then.  The victim of such a curse would go out immediately to find someone to break the curse.  And whereas we might say, “Sticks and stones may break my bones, but words will never break me.”  (I will come back to that later), for the people James was speaking to, words had real power.  Blessings and curses were serious business.  Blessings and curses should not, indeed, come out of the same mouth.  

Jesus also spoke to the importance of words.  How can you speak good things while you are evil? What fills the heart comes out of the mouth.  (Matthew 12:34)    And certainly, what comes out of our mouths is a reflection of what we are thinking.   I attend a discussion group once a month where we talk about the issues we have in interpersonal relations and relationships.  At our meeting this week, the leader of our group said she was making a concerted effort to curb her tongue.  It had been brought to her attention that people often find her a bit abrasive and intimidating.  She does not suffer fools lightly, and tends to be a bit sarcastic, saying what she thinks without reflection or considering how it might be heard.  So, she said, she was focusing on taking a beat, on not reacting with her first thought, but responding after taking a moment to reflect.  She said she also needed to watch her face, because even if she managed to bite her tongue, her facial expressions tended to give her away.   And she said, “It’s hard!”  Throughout the evening we were entertained by watching her bite her tongue whenever a question or comment triggered a reaction, but she really did pretty well overall.    I confess, I have the same problem, and it really is hard to watch my tongue and facial expression sometimes.   

And I would just like to take a moment to point out that it isn’t just the spoken word that can be problematic - but also the written.  In James’ time not all that many people could write, so it wouldn’t have been a consideration for most.  Today, most can read and write, so we need to expand our understanding of “tongue” a bit.  Just as we might need to watch our tongue in spoken response, so too our reaction to a comment on social media need not be sent as soon as it’s typed, especially if we are reacting out of anger or hurt feelings.  Just as one, in writing a letter responding to something that upsets us, should hold on to that letter for 24 hours to consider our response, we should also do the same electronically.  Remember, that on social media there are no tones of voice or facial expressions to help us judge what the person meant  - and emojis do not do a good enough job reflecting one’s mood or intention, so don’t even go there.  

“Sticks and stones may break my bones, but words will never break me.”   The intention of this children’s rhyme was to persuade the victims of name calling to remain calm and non-reactive, not to retaliate in kind, but to be a good Christian child.  According to Wikipedia, it is reported to have first been published in The Christian Recorder of March 1862, a publication of the African Methodist Episcopal Church.  Today, although we do hope people will respond lovingly to evil words, we understand that words might break a person.  September is Suicide Prevention Month.   Suicide is the second leading cause of death for ages 10-24. (2016 CDC)  Although, according to the CDC, bullying has not been proven to have a direct link to suicide, statistics do show that any engagement in bullying - as either perpetrator or victim - does increase the chances of suicide-related behavior in teens and young adults.   Reporting incidents of bullying - verbal or physical - is important, not just so that the bully can be “punished” but so that both bully and victim can get the help they need.   Teaching our children and youth about right speaking is a huge responsibility, and that responsibility lies with the parents, the schools and the church - all of us working together.  

Right speaking.  It’s one of those love things - loving our neighbor includes watching our tongues, speaking blessing only and not curse.  And we can’t just teach it.  We have to do it.    We can’t do that whole “Do as I say, not as I do” thing.  The Number 1 reason people don’t come to church?   That’s it, in a nutshell.  Hypocrisy!  Christians say one thing and do another!  They preach love and then talk trash about each in the parking lot.  They preach love, then reject this group or that one.   We cannot afford to do this!  We cannot say one thing and do another.   We must practice what we preach.  We must do and say the same things.  Not just so that people will come to church.  Not just so that our children will live longer, mentally and emotionally healthier lives.  But because it is the right thing, the loving thing, the Christian thing to do.

Yes, we will make mistakes.  We will mis-speak.  We will be tired or hungry or have just had it up to there, and we will say something hurtful, and even maybe untrue.   James knew that, and so he said, “We all make mistakes often, but those who don’t make mistakes with their words have reached full maturity.”   This is why I am glad we talk about growing in our faith, and not being grown. 

One of my favorite expressions in 12 Step meetings has to do with growing in this way.   “We can’t think our way into right acting, but we can act our way into right thinking.”  I can spend all day long thinking I can control my tongue and only say nice, loving things to people, but I will continue to say the wrong things until I am diligently working at not saying them.  And eventually, having worked at it constantly for some period of time, by biting my tongue and avoiding the oh-so-obvious eye-roll, the reactions that are normal today will not be my first thought.  By working at not saying the sarcastic, possibly hurtful thing, eventually, I will start thinking differently, and that will not be my first response.  As I continue to practice right speaking, I will make fewer mistakes.  I will become more mature in living my faith.    

In last week’s passage we heard James say, “everyone should be quick to listen, slow to speak, and slow to grow angry.”  And this is what we must do if we would be the kind of speakers that attract others to our faith, the kind of speakers who show the world what it truly means to be a Christian - speakers who take the time to consider the right response, the loving response.  Speakers whose words reflect only and always the love of Christ.  Speakers who have clearly given their lives to God.  

Sisters and brothers, would you stand and join me in asking God to accept our lives, our words, and our will, singing hymn #609, “Take my life.”  

Doers

Scripture James 1:17-27      (CEB)

17 Every good gift, every perfect gift, comes from above. These gifts come down from the Father, the creator of the heavenly lights, in whose character there is no change at all. 18 He chose to give us birth by his true word, and here is the result: we are like the first crop from the harvest of everything he created.

19 Know this, my dear brothers and sisters: everyone should be quick to listen, slow to speak, and slow to grow angry. 20 This is because an angry person doesn’t produce God’s righteousness. 21 Therefore, with humility, set aside all moral filth and the growth of wickedness, and welcome the word planted deep inside you—the very word that is able to save you.

22 You must be doers of the word and not only hearers who mislead themselves. 23 Those who hear but don’t do the word are like those who look at their faces in a mirror. 24 They look at themselves, walk away, and immediately forget what they were like. 25 But there are those who study the perfect law, the law of freedom, and continue to do it. They don’t listen and then forget, but they put it into practice in their lives. They will be blessed in whatever they do.

26 If those who claim devotion to God don’t control what they say, they mislead themselves. Their devotion is worthless. 27 True devotion, the kind that is pure and faultless before God the Father, is this: to care for orphans and widows in their difficulties and to keep the world from contaminating us.

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Fred Craddock was an ordained minister in the Christian Church (Disciples of Christ), professor of Preaching and New Testament, pastor of Cherry Log Christian Church in Northern Georgia, and founder of the Craddock Center, a not for profit serving Appalachia.  He was a well known, story telling kind of preacher. And when I say he was a well known preacher, I mean that when you went to General Assembly, come Sunday morning the church that had the largest attendance was the one where Fred Craddock was preaching - standing room only, usually.  If he happened to be preaching at one of the Assembly worships, everybody showed up to hear him!  I studied his preaching in seminary.  I listened to his preaching in person when I could.  I read his sermons when I couldn’t hear them in person - I have books!  And I was especially blessed in 2004 to take a short class from him in Claremont titled, “After all these years, why am I still nervous?”  He was a short, round, mostly bald old guy by the time I first saw him, but when that man stood in the pulpit, he was a giant.  He is someone I strive to emulate.   So when I read in a commentary on today’s reading that Fred Craddock had said if he had it to do over, he would preach more about God, I started to re-think what I had planned to do with this particular passage from James.  

Not that I don’t preach about God.  Because I do.  But maybe, just maybe, God doesn’t always get top billing in the stories I tell.   And that could be a problem.  Because it’s all about God - all of the stories and all of the suggestions and all of  directions that we get from scripture - all of the struggles we have trying to figure out just what each passage means for us in our lives, in the world today - it’s all about God.    But maybe I don’t say that clearly enough.  

I read the Daily Devotional from the United Church of Christ every morning. In today’s devotion, Pastor John A. Nelson, Pastor of Church on the Hill, UCC, in Lenox, Massachusetts, seemed to be angry about James’ instruction to the Church to “be quick to listen, slow to speak, and slow to grow angry. 20 This is because an angry person doesn’t produce God’s righteousness.”   He told a story about going to the US Consulate in Guatemala to assist an indigenous pastor in applying for a visa to attend the National Council of Churches Assembly.  The consulate official was disrespectful toward the pastor, accusing him of being an Indian with a chip on his shoulder, even though the pastor stood quietly, submitted all the proper paperwork without complaint, and spoke respectfully throughout the entire process.  Pastor Nelson admitted to being enraged by the official’s attitude, while the Guatemalan pastor modeled James’ instructions. While  I can certainly agree with Pastor Nelson that sometimes righteous anger has a proper place, but I believe what James was telling his congregation was not “don’t ever get angry,” but rather, don’t fly off the handle before you fully understand what the other person is saying.  Listen to them, open your ears and your heart to their point of view before reacting with anger - or worse, rage - because that is not loving.  That is not acting in accordance with God’s righteousness.  

This month I will be preaching sort of a series that describes who Christians are - Doers, Talkers, Peacemakers, Pray-ers, and Carers.  I titled this message “Doers” because I am always especially drawn to that one portion of this reading that says, “You must be doers of the word and not only hearers who mislead themselves. Those who hear but don’t do the word are like those who look at their faces in a mirror.  They look at themselves, walk away, and immediately forget what they were like.  But there are those who study the perfect law, the law of freedom, and continue to do it. They don’t listen and then forget, but they put it into practice in their lives. They will be blessed in whatever they do.”    I chose this particular picture because it is about Fresno - it comes from the Chevron Doers ad that even someone like me, who doesn’t watch much television, has seen dozens of times - and because it is about doers we can relate to.   This guy doesn’t just talk about agriculture - he’s a farmer, a doer, out in the fields getting his hands dirty, doing the work that brings broccoli to my dinner table.  

There are a lot of doers in this congregation - individuals and groups who focus much of their energy on serving our community in one way or another.  Raising money for scholarships.  Feeding the hungry.  Caring for abandoned animals.  Reminding us of the folks who no one pays attention to - like the patients in the Selma Convalescent Hospital - so we can pay attention to them.  Joining with other volunteers to clean up the city.  Serving the church as elders and deacons.  Signing up to do Children’s Time, or to greet people at the door on Sunday mornings.  This congregation is filled with people who, as soon as they hear of a need, are off and running to take care of that need.  Does a college student need a ride to class?  We’re on it!   Does a shut in need meals?  Consider it done.  We do these things not because we are expected to as members of the church, but because these are ways we can re-pay God for all the love and blessings we receive.   We do these things out of gratitude because gratitude is more than just a feeling. Gratitude is an action word.    Gratitude is something we do, as thanks for what we have received from God.

Responding immediately to a need that has been expressed to us is one of the ways we are doers.  Millie was one of my seminary classmates.  I wish I had a picture to show you.  She was in her 70s, a native of Detroit.  a little tiny lady, way shorter than I am, she always wore her hair in long black ringlets, and although she was one of the oldest students, she had way more energy than any of the rest of us.  Whenever the Gospel Choir sang in chapel, as soon as we finished our song Millie would start jumping up and down shouting Praise Jesus! and many other words of praise.    So - you know how most of the time, when you ask someone to pray for you, they will say, of course, and then wander off to pray for you later on?  If they remember.   Not Millie.  She was not one of those who  would listen and then forget, but put it into practice in her life. The first time I asked her to pray for me, Millie grabbed me around the neck, dragged my head down next to hers, and start praying loud and proud in the middle of where ever we happened to be.  It was a bit of a shock, but it was just what I needed.  Millie taught me how God wants us to respond to a request for prayer.  Millie was a doer of the word, not a hearer only.  And there is no doubt in my mind that the reason Millie was one of the best loved members of our seminary community, was because she reflected God’s love on everyone. 

If we would be doers in every way, we will put God first in our lives.  We will seek God’s will in our decision making.  We will respond immediately when a neighbor needs our help, our prayers, our support.  We will reach out from this place to care for the widows and orphans in their difficulty - and not specifically widows and orphans, but their modern day counterparts - single mothers and fathers, who are hard put to care for the children in their care, whose income may not stretch to pay rent and buy food and school supplies and all of the other things that a family requires.  We will keep the world from contaminating us by following these directions we have received from James - avoid lashing out in anger, cleanse our hearts of wickedness, speak and act with humility, act immediately when we are presented with need, practice gratitude for all of God’s blessings, and love our neighbors, no matter who they may be, whether or not we agree with them.      

When we leave this place today, let us go out determined to live our lives in God, so that we may show everyone that Christians are doers of the word, not just people who talk about God.