Once upon a time there was a Squire who longed to be a Knight. He wanted to serve his King and be the most honorable and noble Knight who ever lived. When the day of his Knighting came, he was so overcome by dedication that he made a special oath. He vowed loyalty and devotion to the King and the King only. He would bow his knees and lift his arms in homage to no person other than his King. This Knight was given the assignment of guarding a city way out on the frontier of the Kingdom. Every day he stood at attention by the gate of the city in full armor.
Years passed. One day as he was standing at attention guarding his post a peasant woman passed by with goods for the market. Her cart turned over spilling potatoes and carrots and onions everywhere. The woman hurried to get them all back in her cart. But the Knight wouldn’t help the poor woman. After all, he had sworn an oath of loyalty to the King. So he just stood at attention lest he break his vow by bending his knees to help pick up the woman’s goods.
Time passed and one day a man with one leg was passing by and his crutch broke. “Good Knight, sir, won’t you reach down and help me up?” begged the man. But the Knight would not stoop or lift a hand to help. After all, he had made a vow to the King.
Years and decades passed, and the Knight was getting old. One day his own grandson came by and said, “Grandpa pick me up and take me to the fair.” But the Knight would not stoop down lest he break his vow to the King
Finally after many, many, years the King came to visit and inspect the city and the Knight. As the King approached, the Knight stood stiffly at attention. The King inspected him as he stood there, but then he noticed that something was wrong. Tears streamed from the Knight’s eyes. “Why, you are one of the noblest Knights I have ever seen,” said the King. “Why do you cry?”
The Knight answered, “Your majesty, I took a vow that I would bow and lift my arms in homage to no person but you. However, as you can see, I am unable to keep my vow. All these years have done their work and the joints of my armor have rusted. No matter how hard I try, I cannot bow to you.”
Then, with the loving voice of a parent the King replied, “Perhaps if you had knelt to help all those who passed by, and lifted your arms to embrace all those who came to you, you would have been able to keep your vow to pay homage to me today.”
Now I guess we might say that the moral of the story is that you can’t bow to a King unless you bend to the people. Or, in a Christian context, you cannot serve God until you learn to serve humanity.
And that is exactly the problem James was facing in his little corner of the early Christian church. The people had great devotion to God, but it never seemed to translate into helping others and making the world a better place. They loved God. But something was missing in their treatment of others.
We have already learned, for instance, that some of these Christians evidently believed it was okay to accumulate personal wealth and use it primarily to provide for their own needs while others around them went without. You’ll remember that James tells such people to learn to become generous givers. Wealth is not a sign of your faith in God. Generosity is.
And these good Christian folks James is speaking to seem to think it’s okay for Christians to carry on a one-sided conversation with the world. It’s as though they think that telling people what’s wrong with them, or telling them they ought to straighten out their lives is what it means to be a witness to God. But James says talking isn’t a sign of faith. Listening to others is.
And on and on James goes. To people who think true religion means going to church, saying their prayers, believing right doctrine, and being morally upright people, James says that true religion is actually to visit widows and orphans and taking care of people who are vulnerable to life’s difficulties. To those who think it’s okay to admire and rub elbows with “the right kind of people”, James says to not make distinctions between people, but rather learn how to become friends with “the wrong kind of people” too. And last week, as you may recall, James addressed those of us who think it’s entirely okay to shoot off our mouths at anybody about anything, James provides a new commandment: watch your tongue! Now that takes faith!
In a very real sense, the church to which James is speaking is not only his church, but our church, too. Not just Christians back then, but Christians today. Not just them, but us. And in today’s lesson, James is going to take us deeper into the school of practical Christian living by helping us understand why we need to make these changes.
When I was twelve years old, something of great spiritual significance occurred in my life. My parents made me go to a religious crusade. In fact, all of my friends’ parents made them go too! I think it was a parental conspiracy born out of the belief that only salvation would save our parents from their children. So off to the crusade we went.
It was Youth Night, and the evangelist held us spellbound. He told us, in graphical fashion, about how God knew everything we’d ever done. Gary T. poked me in the side, and Dennis A. got a kind of nervous look on his face. After all, they were fellow officers with me in the top-secret Hoola-Boola Club . The Hoola-Boola Club consisted of a bunch of us who would go off into the woods, take off all our clothes, and run around stark naked for hours. And I understood Gary’s concern. He was afraid his brother Bob might catch us – let alone God! Then the evangelist preached that, if you break one part of the law, you’ve broken it all. All at once, I remembered how friends and I had stolen some penny candy from the bins at Woolworth’s 5 and 10-cent Store. To listen to the evangelist tell it, according to God, stealing even a few cents worth of candy was the equivalent of committing murder, or, even, adultery. And, speaking of adultery, there I was, sitting there in this crusade, checking out this really gorgeous 10 or 11 year old redhead in the next row at the exact same moment the evangelist said something about how just the act of thinking lustful thoughts is the same as actually committing adultery. The three of us looked painfully at each other, and slouched down in our seats. Surely, we were headed straight to hell.
And the evangelist described hell. In no uncertain terms. From his description we could almost feel the heat of the flames.
Then he gave the invitation. You never saw three kids run so fast to the altar to be saved! In the counseling session afterwards, we were told that, now that we were Christians, we had certain benefits. First, we were forgiven – even for being in the Hoola-Boola Club. Second, we were re-born people with God in our lives now, and we could get God to do stuff for us – if we believed and did not doubt. And, maybe best of all, we could now know for certain that we would go to heaven when we die – something that gave some comfort to three twelve year old kids who were never all that far from being killed by our parents for some awful misdeed. This was as good as a life insurance policy! And so we went off into the night to join our much-relieved parents and to begin our newfound lives as Christians.
And it was great! This salvation thing really felt good! And prayer came in very handy – especially when I had a test at school and hadn’t studied, or if I happened to slip up and do something bad and prayed to God that my parents wouldn’t find out! And it was kind of reassuring to know that I was headed to heaven while most of the people I knew weren’t – and it was kind of cool to share that news with them once in awhile!
But over time, this exciting faith faded. When things like my Little League batting average didn’t respond to prayer, when the good feelings I once had gave way to other pleasurable experiences, and when it began to seem like it would be quite a while before I would need to make use of Christianity’s death benefit provisions, my faith waned and became a back-burner issue. Except when I needed it for some crisis. Then, I’d dust off my faith and try to use it to ward off life’s difficulties. But to be honest with you, it didn’t seem to work all that well.
Interestingly enough, I’ve met a lot of people over the years who’ve experienced this same kind of Christian faith – that burns hot and bright for a while, but soon cools down to the point that it’s powerless in our lives. And we are some of the people James speaks to in his letter about practical, down-to-earth Christianity.
In today’s lesson, he addresses a concern to those of us whose faith doesn’t seem to work that well.
Here’s how he puts it, “You ask and do not receive,” he writes, “because you ask wrongly…”
And then James really puts it out there. “You ask and do not receive, because you ask wrongly… in order to spend what you get on your pleasures.”
Now the language here is tricky, but here is what James is trying to say. For many of us, faith is all about me! When Christians think about what it means to be saved, isn’t it amazing how often we interpret salvation in terms of ourselves. We focus on the fact that God loves ME, that MY sins are forgiven, that I’VE been born again, and that I’LL go to heaven when I die. And not only that, but I can ask for anything I WANT, and God will do it, so long as I have faith.
For many of us, the Christian faith is all about ME!
James calls this a wisdom from below – that is a human-created faith, and not true Christian faith. True faith, he teaches, is a wisdom from above. And do you know the difference between the two? The wisdom from below is all about ME. The wisdom from above is all about GOD, and his love for the WORLD – not just ME!
And, you see, this is what James has been getting at these past few weeks. We need to be generous givers because the blessings we’ve received are NOT all about ME – they are also intended to help God reach into others’ lives! And remember how James said we should learn to become good listeners? And take care of widows and orphans? And not be partial to some, but to make friends with all? And how we need to watch our tongues?
All these things are invitations to leave behind the faith that’s all about me, and come to a faith that’s all about God trying to save everyone.
But it’s hard. It’s really hard. Because this it’s all about ME faith has permeated the religious landscape. You can see it daily in the life of the church.
We were hosting a sister church from New York on a particular Sunday a few years ago. Their minister and choir came and led our worship service in the Spring each year, and we responded in kind every Fall. This Sunday, it was their turn, and it was the strangest worship service I’ve ever experienced. First of all, our guests picked all these hymns our folks didn’t know. And you could see they were upset – trying to keep up with peppy tunes that weren’t written like our favorite 19th-century northern European marches! And you know how it is. Why people in churches are often troubled over the type of hymn, or the number of verses, or if the organ is played too loud – or too soft – because, after all, this stuff is not about God or our relationships with others, it’s all about ME. Besides that, the service was about fifteen minutes late getting started. One of their choir members spotted a Dunkin’ Donuts down the street, and was late getting back. And people were angry. Checking their watches. Had things to do, places to go, people to see. After all, this worship stuff is okay so long as it doesn’t get in the way of my real life. You see, it’s all about me.
Well, we finally got started and everything went okay until the preacher got up to preach. My colleague R. and I couldn’t believe it. Instead of staying put in the pulpit where a minister should be, he stepped out of the pulpit and paced back and forth as he preached right there in front of the people in the first pews. R. and I didn’t like this one bit! He was showing us up! Now people would want us to do the same thing! So I sat there with R. and stewed because, after all, it’s all about me!
Now the message was pretty good, although the preacher was originally from Haiti and was hard to understand. You could tell people were upset by that, and we knew that we’d get letters and phone calls during the week from folks who felt like we should only ask people who speak good English to grace our pulpit. After all, what is preaching for? It’s all about US!
He was speaking from Luke 15 about the Prodigal son. He noted the father’s description that his son was dead and is now alive. And he extrapolated that into a brilliant message about how you can be dead and not even know it. Ralph and I didn’t like that either. It’s one thing to step out of the pulpit, but it’s quite another to be a better preacher than your host! We were ticked. And you know why!
But we weren’t the only ones being agitated by this guy.
A young woman – a sweet person battling mental illness who lived in a nearby group home – was sitting in the very front pew. She was mesmerized by the preacher as he paced back and forth in front of her, repeating the mantra, “You can be dead and not even know it!”
And then, all of a sudden, the girl erupted.
Springing from her seat, she screamed “I don’t want to die! I don’t want to go to hell! I have sinned! The devil is after me!”
There was stunned silence as the young woman carried on, beating her hands against the modesty rail. The congregation was in a state of shock. R. and I looked at each other. Then we smiled. “Let’s see how he gets himself out of this one!” said R.
But the poor preacher didn’t have a clue as to what to do. So he just stood there as the girl’s outburst continued. And the people just sat there, mad as hell that somebody wasn’t doing something to shut her up and get her out of there. And there sat R. and I. Happy as larks. You see…it’s all about US!
From the back of the church, a figure moved forward. Don, the head usher, came slowly down the aisle. We all breathed a sigh of relief. At last, this embarrassing episode was going to end. Don slipped into the pew, stepped past the others sitting near the girl, and then – when he got to her – Don stopped. She was still talking out loud about the devil’s designs on her life. Don just stood there, and politely listened. Then, after a few moments, the girl stopped. And, in a truly amazing-grace moment, Don extended his arms to her. And she collapsed against him, pouring into his shoulder a river of tears that spoke volumes about her lifelong suffering and mental anguish. And then, after she had sobbed herself out, Don helped her sit down in the pew. And he sat down beside her. And, with his arm still around her, Don stroked her hair, and whispered over and over again, “It’s okay, honey. It’s okay.”
Every once in awhile, you witness a person whose faith is powerfully real – faith that exists not for themselves, but for others. The way these faithful ones bow to the King – so to speak – is by bending to the needs of humanity. And in the example of Don that day, we saw the letter of James lived out in real life, through a man who gave generously of himself to this young woman. He listened to her. He took care of her in her weakness. He didn’t measure her as less than everyone else. He was especially careful to watch his tongue.
Don had a faith that worked!
So what about you? What kind of faith do you want to have?
Maybe it’s time to leave behind that religion that’s all about ME.
Maybe it’s time to go on to higher and better things.
James looks us all squarely in the eye. “Come on!” he invites us.
“It’s not all about ME! It’s all about an incredibly loving God who calls us to love one another!”
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