Act on What You Hear

During the next few weeks, we will be using the Epistle of James to
investigate our modern world.  James is a unique letter in the New
Testament.  The best scholarship now attributes the writing to James the
Just, who was Jesus' brother and one of the leaders in the first Jerusalem
church.  The letter was not written to one church, but to the general
population of Christ-followers.  James provides two distinct world-views.
One world view is called "friends of God," where the Word of God is heard
and acted upon.  The other worldview is called "friends of the world," where
human greed and corruption drive humanity into avarice, anger, violence and
abuse.  James says the choice between these two worldviews is very clear,
and we must ask ourselves which worldview we follow?

Will you pray with me?  "Dear God, every good gift comes from you, and your
desirable and beneficial gifts are extravagant and abundant for all of your
friends.  Help us to be abundant doers of your Word, and not just hearers.
Teach us to be your abundant, giving friends.  Amen."

Because in some ways the Book of James feels like folksy wisdom from a wise
grandfather, Bill has read our scripture from Eugene Peterson's
transliteration called The Message, which catches this folksiness.  From now
through the end of September, we will be tracking through the Book of James
using this transliteration.  I encourage you to go home and read the five
short chapters of James on the internet using this translation.  It will be
well worth your time!

The first thing we notice in our verses today is that James is intent on
showing that there is an enormous eternal gap between the way God sees the
world, and the way our culture and society see the world.  The first
division is that "friends of God" perceive the world through God's abundance
and grace, and the "friends of the world" or human culture, sees the world
through culture's competition, scarcity, which leads to aggression,
fighting, greed and anger.

That is a profound and fundamental division, if you think about it.  How do
you see the world?  Through the Worldview of Abundance or the Worldview of
Scarcity?  Our modern worldviews are divided along these same lines-so this
is an important text for us today!  James says living with the worldview of
abundance means deceit is just not needed; there is enough for all; and
James further says in this worldview nothing is two-faced or fickle.  Then
James reminds us that abundance is the image in which God created us-the
image of God crowning humankind with abundance.  Next James says, "Post this
everywhere!   (1) Listen first, (2) speak second, and (3) do not rise to
anger."  How different our political season would be if people followed this
biblical principal.  We have it exactly up-side-down these days-- just as
James saw in ancient Jerusalem.  Our culture leads with anger, then spews
ugly words, and completely dispenses with listening.  No wonder our
political discourse feels so wrong-headed-according to James it is!  God's
righteousness does not grow from human anger!

The next section of our passage is a lovely metaphor about God's abundant
salvation-garden.  Isn't that a wonderful way to think about God's grace at
this time of year?  "In simple humility, let our gardener, God, landscape
you with the Word, making a salvation-garden of your life."  As we take in
the simple luscious abundance of our summer gardens, could there be any more
beautiful metaphor about God's grace and plentitude in our lives?  The
children this morning were bubbling and teaming with energy and life and
simple humble abundance.  Our bread and cup during our communion meal today
speak to us about the extraordinary and luscious gifts of God in our lives.
God's cup of love overflows into abundance here in our church, our work, and
our faith.

And then, James gives us a litmus test.  So are you with me? James says.
Here is how to tell.  If you just sit here and listen to this Gospel of
Plentitude, but don't live it, then you are not with God, James says.
But-but, if you live abundantly by giving of your God-given abundance- that
is, if you do unto others as God has done unto you, that is, if you
abundantly forgive one another as God has forgiven you, that is, if you love
one another as God has loved you, then, then you will know you are a friend
of God.   Are you seeing the pattern here?  God models abundance to us
through grace gifts of love and daily salvation and peace.  We are a friend
of God if we, in turn, live this abundance into the world around us in gifts
of love, daily saving one another in compassion, and living together in
peace.  God models gracious giving to us.  We respond with--- gracious
giving to the world.  We are God's hands and feet and heart in this world.
The world looks at us and sees the abundance of God's love shining through
us.  We have become the Word into the world for others.

And then James closes this extraordinary chapter by redefining religion.
Did you catch it?  Talk-ing a good game is not being religious, James says!
That is hot air-only hot air he emphasizes.  But here is real religion.
Here is the real test.  Here is the big one, James says.  Do you pass this
test?

"The kind of religion that passes muster before God is this: Reach out to
the homeless and loveless in their plight and guard against corruption from
the godless world."  That is how you can tell a true "friend of God," James
says.  Acts of mercy, lived compassion, working actively for justice.
Living grace into the world to the homeless and loveless.  And guarding
against the cultural tendency to see everything in terms of godless scarcity
instead of God's abundance.

Reaching out to Columbus House with dinners.  Reaching out to Abraham's
Tent.  Monthly gifts to the food bank.  Benevolence support of many good
causes.  Standing for justice.  Feeding the poor.  Healthcare for the
destitute.  Simple necessities for every poor widow, young unwed mother and
homeless child.  That is how you can tell the friends of God.  These are the
ways we show we are friends of God here at Spring Glen Church.  Are you with
us?

So how did we measure up in America this last week according to James?  I
didn't hear a gosh-darn thing about the world-view of God's abundance on TV
last week.  All I heard was scarcity, greed, working for individual
success-absolutely nothing about sharing the abundance of God's salvation
garden with everyone.  Multiple independent fact-checkers found that one
speaker failed truthfulness in 82% of everything he said.  82% of his
speech, as our last verse says, was "corruption from the Godless world."
None of us raised our children to think any lies were OK, much less 82%
lies.  James here warns us: Don't let the national debate pull you into the
trap of being friends of the world.  Instead, focus on active living of your
faith as a friend of God.  Don't spout hot-air false religion and worldly
corruption. 

Only you can assess whether you are just a hearer of the word, talking a
good game of false religion, or whether you live your life acting on the
Word you have heard.  Our challenge as Christ-followers at Spring Glen
Church is to act out and live our faith together, living lives that show the
world we are not just hearers of the word.  Here, we are active generous
doers of the word, modeling God's gift of abundance into the world around
us. 

James invites each of us to become friends of God, to act in love, act in
compassion, act in grace and act in mercy, and not to be just hearers of the
word.  How do you measure up to James' challenge of true religion?  Amen. 

James 1:27-27 from The Message

17-18 Every desirable and beneficial gift comes out of heaven. The gifts are
rivers of light cascading down from the Father of Light. There is nothing
deceitful in God, nothing two-faced, nothing fickle. He brought us to life
using the true Word, showing us off as the crown of all his creatures.

Act on What You Hear

 19-21Post this at all the intersections, dear friends: Lead with your ears,
follow up with your tongue, and let anger straggle along in the rear. God's
righteousness doesn't grow from human anger. So throw all spoiled virtue and
cancerous evil in the garbage. In simple humility, let our gardener, God,
landscape you with the Word, making a salvation-garden of your life.

 22-24Don't fool yourself into thinking that you are a listener when you are
anything but, letting the Word go in one ear and out the other. Act on what
you hear! Those who hear and don't act are like those who glance in the
mirror, walk away, and two minutes later have no idea who they are, what
they look like.

 25But whoever catches a glimpse of the revealed counsel of God-the free
life!-even out of the corner of his eye, and sticks with it, is no
distracted scatterbrain but a man or woman of action. That person will find
delight and affirmation in the action.

 26-27Anyone who sets himself up as "religious" by talking a good game is
self-deceived. This kind of religion is hot air and only hot air. Real
religion, the kind that passes muster before God the Father, is this: Reach
out to the homeless and loveless in their plight, and guard against
corruption from the godless world.