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August 2003 (click here to return to "August 2003 Sermons" page)

22nd Sunday in Ordinary Time (August 31, 2003)

“Pure Religion” Dr. Van Kemper

Text: James 1:17-27

SERMON

For the past seven weeks, we have worked our way through the Letter of Paul to the Ephesians. If you have been here, you have heard that this Letter was aimed not just at the church at Ephesus, but was intended to circulate throughout a much wider area in Asia Minor. In effect, Ephesians was a “circular” designed to speak to a variety of house churches about spiritual blessings, the gifts of the Spirit, the old life and the new life, and – as Julie shared with you last Sunday – the importance of standing strong in the Lord in order to stand up to the evils in the world. Remember how Julie concluded her sermon: “Because if and when God is for us, and if we are strong in the Lord, none can prevail against us.”

Now, the Lectionary cycle takes us from Ephesians to the Letter of James, “a servant of God and of the Lord Jesus Christ.” Whereas Ephesians was aimed at a regional audience in Asia Minor, the Letter of James was directed “to the twelve tribes in the Dispersion” (James 1:1).

This Letter is first among the “general” or “catholic” epistles located at the end of the New Testament, after the Letter to the Hebrews and before the Revelation to John. I’m sure that you know the list: James; First and Second Peter; First, Second, and Third John; and finally Jude.

Among these letters, the Letter of James has always been controversial. In fact, during the Reformation, Martin Luther declared that the Letter of James “lacked authority” and did not even belong in the Holy Scriptures! What most incensed Luther was James’s declaration that “. . . just as the body without the spirit is dead, so faith without works is also dead” (2:26). As you will recall, Luther’s commitment to “faith” as the core of Christianity stood in opposition to the Western Church’s emphasis on works – especially its practice of encouraging people to purchase indulgences – as a measure of our worth in God’s eyes.

Ever since, the Letter of James has been criticized as “inadequate” or even “wrong-headed” in contrast to the theology of “grace” elaborated by the apostle Paul in Romans. But interpretations change with the times and circumstances. So, today, many commentators are reconsidering James’s arguments in the light of the excessive materialism and self-centered lives of so many Americans.

In re-evaluating the Letter of James, we need to appreciate what kind of document it was, what were its intentions, and who was its audience.

Although the five chapters – totaling 108 verses – bear the title of the “Letter of James,” there is little to suggest that the document really was a “letter” in the strict sense of the term. Although there is the briefest of salutations in the first verse, little else suggests that the “Letter of James” was directed to specific persons or even to a specific church community. While the author, usually thought to be James of Jerusalem, known as the “Brother of the Lord,” often addresses his readers as “my brothers [and sisters] or even as “my beloved brothers [and sisters], no individual appears as a direct object of James’s message.

It is a general discourse, filled with moral exhortations typical of the rhetorical literature of the first century. The Letter of James is stuffed full of imperatives – a total of 59 imperative verbs appear in its 108 verses.

Let us turn now to the text for this morning, James 1:17-27. As always, I invite you to follow along in a pew Bible (p. 218) as we examine the text.

The lectionary passage begins on a positive note: “Every generous act of giving, with every perfect gift, is from above . . .” (1:17). So, James’s readers were reminded in clear terms that even their own generosity begins with God. Think about what I always say to introduce our morning offering: “And now we have the opportunity to return to God that which is God’s.” I believe that the author of the Letter of James would say “Amen” to this understanding of what we have and what we give to the ministries of the church.

James then goes on to offer some specific guidance to his readers: “. . . be quick to listen, slow to speak, slow to anger; for your anger does not produce God’s righteousness” (1:19-20). This still sounds like good advice for how to get along with others in our community. But did you hear the reason behind James’s exhortation? We should endeavor to bring “God’s righteousness” into our dealings with other people – and anger is not the way to demonstrate God’s righteousness!

Then, in verse 22, James offers another imperative, perhaps one of his most famous: “be doers of the word, and not merely hearers who deceive themselves.” At this point, James shifts the image from “hearers who deceive themselves” to “those who look at themselves in a mirror” (1:23). This shift from hearing to seeing is hard for us to appreciate, but it made good sense to his first-century audience. They were well accustomed to thinking about mirrors as devices that reflected a person’s “true” being. Many ancient Greek and Roman philosophers were convinced that our true humanity was never visible from the outside, but only in our innermost selves. In a similar fashion, James proclaims that pursuit of our true selves can succeed only by encountering “the perfect law, the law of liberty.”

But what is this “perfect law?” What is this “law of liberty?” Whereas the apostle Paul surely would have placed Jesus Christ squarely into this picture, James does not offer such a straightforward Christological proclamation. Instead, James declares that those who persevere in following the law of liberty “will be blessed in their doing” (1:25).

Did you catch that: if we persevere, we will be blessed in the doing. Not in the planning, not in the preparations, and not even in reflecting on what we have done already – only in the doing.

Perhaps, to put a more contemporary spin on the phrase, we can think about it as a kind of “runner’s high.” Imagine that we were to prepare for running a marathon race. We might require months, or even years, of training before we could contemplate such a race. We would have to persevere through all manner of difficulties, from sore feet and blisters through sunburns and sore muscles. Finally, if we persevered, the day of the marathon would arrive, and all of our planning and preparations would be put to the test of “doing.”

And just as the manufacturer of a certain brand of running shoes likes to remind us, finally we would “Just Do It!” And in the doing, in the running of the race, the joy and the blessing would be ours.

Now, we come to the final and perhaps most important point of the Letter of James. In verse 27, James provides what was called in ancient times an “epitome,” a summary of his argument as it will be presented throughout the rest of the Letter. And the point is this:

Pure and undefiled religion, as seen by God’s eyes, requires us to care for orphans and widows in their distress and to keep ourselves unstained by the world.

Can you hear what James was demanding of the first-century Christian community? And what he is demanding of us, who read and hear these worlds some two thousand years later?

First, James makes clear that the measure of religion is what God sees in that religion. In this sense, religion is not a human-directed enterprise, it is properly understood as God-directed – in both meanings of the term. Our religion has been established by God and is oriented toward God. Religion is not for our personal pleasure or our social satisfaction; its purpose is to worship the one God who created us, who saved us from our sins, and who sustains us in life.

Second, James makes clear that religion must not be self-centered or inner-directed; it is properly understood as being communitarian, as being concerned with the plight of others. In ancient times, the phrase “orphans and widows in their distress” was used to symbolize human suffering. Today, we might think of the man standing on the street corners with a cardboard sign, “Vietnam Vet Will Work for Food. God Bless.” Or, we might think of the folks waiting on the sidewalks outside The Stewpot downtown, where they wait to get a good meal and perhaps some medical attention. Or, to travel far beyond our own city, we might think of the “orphans and widows in their distress” in places like Afghanistan, Iraq, Peru, and the list goes on . . . .

Finally, James proclaims that religion must be “unstained by the world” (1:27). Here, for me, is the most challenging and most paradoxical element of James’s argument. How are we to be involved in the world – that is, to be doers of the word and not hearers only – and somehow manage to remain “unstained by the world”? As we might say today, “How are we – as the church of Jesus Christ – to engage the world but remain consistent to our faith and our beliefs?”

Perhaps, one example will help us sort this out. Just after President George W. Bush was inaugurated in the year 2000, he issued an Executive Order establishing the White House Office on Faith-Based and Community Initiatives.

The purpose of this new Office seemed laudable enough – to bring faith-based and other community organizations into the public arena where they could work to improve people’s lives in cooperation with federal government agencies (e.g., HUD) concerned with issues such as homelessness, community development, and so forth. More than three years later, the President’s initiative continues to flounder in partisan politics and has failed to achieve the kind of combined effort between governmental and non-profit agencies that he had imagined.

What happened, at least in part, is that many religious organizations were not willing to “compromise” their “standards” in order to apply for and receive federal funds for their programs. They were afraid to get involved in new collaborative enterprises because they insisted on staying “unstained by the world.” And there is little doubt that working directly with government agencies can be a big challenge. The paperwork and auditing burdens alone might be enough to bury a small faith-based organization! Nevertheless, many faith-based community organizations do work cooperatively with federal agencies to accomplish wonderful ministries in Dallas and throughout the nation.

In a couple of weeks, a major gathering – the “Sixth Annual Faith Based Community Empowerment Conference” – will take place here in Dallas to deal with these issues. The theme of this year’s Conference is “Service Through Partnership.” The organizers will bring together a diversity of faith-based community organizations as well as a cross-section of government agencies, including: US Department of Housing & Urban Development; The U.S. Department of Labor; The U.S. Department of Health & Human Services; The Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation; and even The Internal Revenue Service (after all, we need to know about the dos and don’ts of being a non-profit 501(c)3 tax-exempt organization).

In preparing to attend this Conference, Julie and I already have been discussing what we here at Trinity – and by extension, our related ministries such as the Oasis Housing Corporation – can learn about doing community work in cooperation with federal agencies.

I have been wondering what the author of the Letter of James would say about this Conference?, Just imagine that he were there to attend the keynote speeches and the workshops. I especially would like to overhear the conversation between that first-century James and Dallas’s own twenty-first century James – I refer, of course, to the Rev. Larry James, former Executive Director of the Greater Dallas Community of Churches and current Director of Central Dallas Ministries, one of this city’s most honored faith-based agencies.

I imagine that they would have a most interesting dialogue about the challenges of “caring for orphans and widows in their distress,” while remaining “unstained by the world.” But let us be very clear about the tenor of their hypothetical conversation.

I believe that both Jameses – the author of the Letter and the director of the Central Dallas Ministries – would agree that being “unstained by the world,” does NOT require us, as Christians, to separate ourselves completely from the world. Being a caring Christian does not require us to live a cloistered existence or remain within the “ivory tower,” 99 and 44/100 per cent pure. Far from it!

As Christians and as Presbyterians, we are committed to the proposition that we can engage the world without being any more “stained” than we already are. After all, we have as a model in the efforts of the Reformer John Calvin, who tried to establish a theologically-relevant city-state in the canton of Geneva in the sixteenth century. Calvin’s efforts and those of the Central Dallas Ministries demonstrate that, in “doing” community ministry, we go beyond ourselves and our private concerns, we go beyond the blemishes and flaws that all of us already bear as ordinary human beings.

In going beyond our individual needs, in working together to care for the orphans and widows in their distress, we have the opportunity to achieve a wonderful state of being – the great joy of giving ourselves completely to tasks of great importance in our communities. This kind of “ volunteer’s high” is like the “runner’s high,” but even more satisfying.

In sum, the Letter of James epitomizes these issues by defining the Christian life in the light of “pure religion” (1:27). This particular phrase occurs only here in the entire New Testament. The Greek word used in James for “pure” provides the root of our modern word “cathartic.” So, the effect of caring for the orphans and widows in their distress is to go through a cathartic, purifying, transforming experience.

As we go out into the world to celebrate this Labor Day weekend, know that we do give others the gifts that God has given to us. And know that, in the doing, we make a difference in our community and in God’s world. And, finally, when we look at ourselves in the mirror tomorrow morning – on Labor Day – know what it means to practice “pure religion.” Amen.