Today we come to the end of our journey through the letter of James. It’s been an inspiring and provocative encounter for me, and, I hope, for you. James is a letter about practical, down-to-earth Christianity. A Christianity in which the Gospel of Jesus moves from word to action. And we’ve just barely scratched its surface. But I hope you’ve discovered some new ways to live out your faith in the day-to-day world.
Now, we come to the final paragraphs of James’ letter. Every Sunday, Christians in every corner of the earth gather in worship. We may not look alike. There may be differences in what we emphasize theologically. Our songs may not be recognizable to each other. We may preach in unfamiliar languages. Our worship setting may be indoors, outdoors, in great cathedrals, or even behind prison walls. Our worship services may be widely divergent with some of us carefully following complex ritual, some expressing only silence, some focused on Bible teaching, some letting the service flow freely, as the Spirit moves, with speaking in tongues and other manifestations of the gifts of the Holy Spirit. God’s family is a colorful tapestry of almost unimaginable diversity!
But today, for all the differences we have, we come together to worship God, a true expression of our common faith in this beautiful Lord of ours who is the source of all the things that make us different, and the source of everything that makes us one.
And here, in the fifth chapter of James, we are given a snapshot of what God hopes this great big family will be and do in the world. Here in James is a glimpse of God’s vision for the Church.
I grew up at Adams Square Congregational Church in Worcester, Massachusetts. In all our advertising, we included a slogan which we felt described our congregation. Adams Square Congregational Church – The Church Where Strangers Become Friends.
I like that, don’t you?
Later, in seminary, I worked in a large Methodist Church in Danvers, Massachusetts. During that period, the people were working through a vision statement for the church, and the final version included this descriptive title, Holy Trinity United Methodist Church – A Fellowship of Concern. Has a nice ring to it, doesn’t it?
The first church I served on my own also had a slogan. I’m afraid it wasn’t as theologically deep as the others, but it did describe this tiny congregation where the people had to put on ham and bean suppers once a month to pay the bills. And those church suppers were really something – baked ham, three varieties of home baked beans, cole slaw, Elsie Morris’ famous German potato salad. Homemade pie for dessert. Mmmm-mmmmmmmm! They’d been practicing these church suppers for about two hundred years and had gotten pretty good at it!
So I am proud to report that I have been associated with the Church Where Strangers Become Friends, with the church living as A Fellowship of Concern, and with the little First Congregational of North Attleboro – Where A Supper is More Than A Meal, It’s a Tradition!
I love that!
All churches have labels of one kind or another. Snappy slogans that describe us. Denominational titles. Theological descriptions – reformed, orthodox, Bible-believing, missionary, primitive, liberal, Pentecostal. And many more.
But while we are highly-skilled at using words to describe ourselves, we encounter James’ earlier warning about being people of words only.
You know, to some people who have experienced it, the adjective reformed translates out into the theology underlying the maltreatment of native Americans and others not among the elect.. Orthodox is interpreted by some as meaning irrelevant to today’s world, unwilling to adjust to the changing needs of modern people. Liberal, to some, means devoid of faith – a religion with lots of ethic, but precious little personal relationship with God. Fundamentalism to many means faith without using the brain God gave you, faith built upon a foundation of fear, faith that places higher value on believing in Fundamentalism than following Jesus.
We who are Christians need to acknowledge that James is right. All the fancy words we use are not enough to offset our failure to live and act as Christians and Christian churches. Someone once said, “I don’t have a problem with Jesus. It’s his followers I can’t stand!”
So today James once again invites us not to just talk the talk, but to walk the walk.
In these few verses, James presents four images of what God desires our church to look like.
The first picture is of a person in need crying out to God.
I find myself often reflecting upon the moment in my life when I experienced what can only be described as a dark night of the soul. I was a sophomore in college, and my life seemed to make no sense at all. On the surface, I seemed okay, but down underneath, I was lost and in terrible pain. Maybe you’ve experienced a similar time in your life.
I had no idea, during that disturbing time, that new hope, new life, and even a calling to the ministry were just around the corner. But what it would take to find them was a turning to God. The moment finally arrived. I guess I became that suffering person described in James letter who prays to God for healing. And, in turning to God, God opened a whole new world to me.
Now the real miracle of this experience for me is not only the wonderful and joyful life that has unfolded since that time, but rather the way I got to the experience in the first place. It was, I daresay, through the incessant efforts of my mother who never missed an opportunity to encourage her children to turn to God for help. And though we children laughed at the idea in our early years – and what we saw as our mother’s religious fanaticism – each of us – my sister, my brother and I – in our own time and way – found ourselves in moments of great personal need when our confusion was interrupted by the memory of her advice. And we ourselves turned to God for help.
And God was there!
The church of today needs to be a community that invites people to turn to God for help. And if you are here today suffering some terrible pain, unsure about the direction in which to go, out of gas and needing strength beyond yourself, let me be your mother today.
Turn to God for help!
The first image is a picture of a community in which people turn to God for help. The second is of a community that rejoices out loud because they’ve experienced the touch of God in their life.
Are any cheerful? They should rejoice!
Some of the best times in my life are when people come by and tell me about how God has been good to them. Sometimes, they share stories about great miracles. But mostly, they tell me about little daily experiences of God’s grace. Visiting a friend at a hospital, and somehow finding just the right words to say. Telling God about feeling lonely, and discovering a friend knocking at the door. Looking for some deeper purpose, and finding it buying food for the Good Samaritan Center, or hammering nails with Habitat For Humanity. Many of us have experienced God’s wonderful goodness in our lives. And in a world that is filled with so much despair and darkness, God wants us to be a community of people who tell our stories to others who will draw strength and encouragement from them.
People who practice the art of turning to God.
People who tell about God’s goodness.
Then the third picture.
It is of the community embodying the presence of Jesus to those who hurt in some way. A Roman Catholic nun by the name of Regina Griffin talks about her battle with breast cancer. Almost immediately after the start of chemotherapy, Sister Regina’s hair began to fall out in great clumps. She experienced almost unbearable nausea. Her whole life came to consist of one treatment followed by terrible side effects followed by more treatments. She says she began to experience true panic. Yet, during that time, her brother Greg came to stay with her, taking care of the household needs. Her friend Ann, and other members of the community involved themselves in caring for her daily needs, driving her to treatments, talking and listening as good friends, praying with her, making her laugh.
Sister Regina writes, “I was too weak to do anything else but to sink into the arms of God made tangible through theirs.”
We are called the body of Christ – and for good reason. We become the actual hands of Christ, ears of Christ, presence of Christ for others.
That’s God’s dream for the church.
And finally, a picture of those who are away from God. What in the world are we to do about them? Why we are to love them back to the Love!
As I listen to the church today, I become very concerned. We seem so often to treat those who have wandered away from God as though they are hopeless sinners, and not potential saints. We see them for their many flaws (not that we should talk), and not as children with whom God is so much in love that he sent his only son, and organized a whole worldwide body to demonstrate that love.
But James invites us to a different approach. Not to convince people how bad they are, but to convince them about how loved they are!
And to gently lead them back to the love of God which waits like the father waiting for his son to come home.
That’s the job of the church.
And so James leaves us with a lot to mull over. As we join our sisters and brothers around the world in worship, let us commit ourselves to becoming a church here in this community where people are encouraged to turn to God, where we share with others our stories about how good God has been to us, where we become the healing hands of Christ involved in the lives of others, and where people are always invited and drawn to come closer to and taste the amazing love of God.
If we can do that, we will no longer be hearers only, but doers of the Word.
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