We belong to a Bible Study/fellowship group which meets on Tuesday nights. The majority of members on any given meeting come as expatriates working in Mthatha as missionaries or in NGOs, both in long and short-term stints. The people come from "mainline" churches, Anglican and Presbyterian primarily. We hold down--or is it hold up?--the Anabaptist wing of the Church. For the past two years or so, we have been using the readings from the lectionary to guide our conversations.
As we read James 1:17-27 recently, one of our members gave expression to my own thoughts in her puzzlement over James's analogy of a mirror in vv. 23-24. We never really attempted to answer her query that evening; the conversation quickly took another turn. But as I continued to read James through the week, culminating in a sermon the next Sunday, I decided that the mirror was analogous to the word of God (see previous post on James's teaching about the word).
James says that those who hear the word but do not do it "are like those who look at themselves in a mirror; for they look at themselves and, on going away, immediately forget what they were like" (v. 24).
My initial puzzlement was around the assumption that we should want to look at ourselves in the mirror and then try to remember what we looked like. It seemed narcissistic. Why would James be encouraging us to spend time in front of the mirror for the purpose of dwelling in the image of ourselves? Why should we be so keen to remember our appearance?
If, on the other hand, the mirror stands for the word of God, that which it reflects back at us is not strictly a picture of our appearance. It is rather like the "two-edged sword" which the writer of Hebrews used to describe the word (Heb. 4:12). It sends back to us a picture of ourselves in comparison to that which it describes: God's will for human life, revealed to us in its stories and commandments fulfilled in Jesus, the very Word made flesh (Jn. 1:14). The mirror is not one-to-one; it is one-to-two. The word reflects our image as we are--marred by sin and imperfection--and the image of God. In light of God's image, it shows us who we are, what we will be, and how we might get there.
If the mirror's reflection is not of our own but in the light of Jesus, then truly the appearance of ourselves is not a thing to be forgotten. We must not forget what we look like, for we look like Jesus. To forget is to remain in sin. To remember is to become like him.
-Joe
Friday, September 11, 2009
Wednesday, September 9, 2009
the word is the work
I've been enjoying reading through the book of James, coming up as it has in the lectionary over the past three weeks. I also had the privilege of preaching on James 1:17-27, thereby stepping into a well-established tradition on the African continent; through his research, Philip Jenkins, the respected scholar of global Christianity, has noted that the book of James has long been an orienting point for the worship and witness of African churches.
A few observations:
It is well-known that Martin Luther relegated James to a subordinate status in his translation of the Bible, dubbing it "the epistle of straw" for its insistence that "faith apart from works is dead" (2:17ff), a perceived challenge, of course, to his teaching that salvation is by "faith alone." In the ensuing years, the church came to accept uncritically Luther's original dichotomy, and came to line up on opposing sides, not only "faith" and "works" but also "word" and "deed". It is not hard to see what lined up with what: faith and word were one side, works and deeds the other.
James, of course, did make a distinction: "Be doers of the word," he told his people, "and not merely hearers" (1:22). However, that distinction, contra to how the church has arranged things, was not between word and deed, but between hearing and doing. In James, the force that unites hearing and doing is itself the word; a higher regard for the word in no other book can be found. Indeed, it is "the word of truth" which "gave us birth", the "implanted word that has the power to save your souls" (1:18, 21). In light of this, it is entirely obvious why James spilled so much ink on the subject of that from which the word emanates: the vehicle of speech, the tongue. He counsels his audience to "bridle their tongues" (1:26) because, as he later explains, "the tongue is placed among our members as a world of iniquity", an "untameable" source of "deadly poison" with which the human being "curses those who are made in the likeness of God" (3:6-9).
Yet, as James says, "this ought not to be so" (3:10). The corollary of the spoken word's great power for destruction is its great power for life. Indeed, we do not only "curse" with the tongue; "from the same mouth also comes blessing". James calls for a bridle, not a screw. He calls not for the cessation of words, but the channeling of right words. He calls for the words that build up the people of God, not the words that ridicule, deride, tear down the poor of the earth.
The word is the work. If we hear it, let us do it. That is "pure religion" (1:26-27).
-Joe
Philip Jenkins's comments can be found in The New Faces of Christianity: Believing the Bible in the Global South (Oxford: Oxford Univ. Press, 2006), pp. 60-62.
A few observations:
It is well-known that Martin Luther relegated James to a subordinate status in his translation of the Bible, dubbing it "the epistle of straw" for its insistence that "faith apart from works is dead" (2:17ff), a perceived challenge, of course, to his teaching that salvation is by "faith alone." In the ensuing years, the church came to accept uncritically Luther's original dichotomy, and came to line up on opposing sides, not only "faith" and "works" but also "word" and "deed". It is not hard to see what lined up with what: faith and word were one side, works and deeds the other.
James, of course, did make a distinction: "Be doers of the word," he told his people, "and not merely hearers" (1:22). However, that distinction, contra to how the church has arranged things, was not between word and deed, but between hearing and doing. In James, the force that unites hearing and doing is itself the word; a higher regard for the word in no other book can be found. Indeed, it is "the word of truth" which "gave us birth", the "implanted word that has the power to save your souls" (1:18, 21). In light of this, it is entirely obvious why James spilled so much ink on the subject of that from which the word emanates: the vehicle of speech, the tongue. He counsels his audience to "bridle their tongues" (1:26) because, as he later explains, "the tongue is placed among our members as a world of iniquity", an "untameable" source of "deadly poison" with which the human being "curses those who are made in the likeness of God" (3:6-9).
Yet, as James says, "this ought not to be so" (3:10). The corollary of the spoken word's great power for destruction is its great power for life. Indeed, we do not only "curse" with the tongue; "from the same mouth also comes blessing". James calls for a bridle, not a screw. He calls not for the cessation of words, but the channeling of right words. He calls for the words that build up the people of God, not the words that ridicule, deride, tear down the poor of the earth.
The word is the work. If we hear it, let us do it. That is "pure religion" (1:26-27).
-Joe
Philip Jenkins's comments can be found in The New Faces of Christianity: Believing the Bible in the Global South (Oxford: Oxford Univ. Press, 2006), pp. 60-62.
Thursday, September 3, 2009
the beginning of wisdom
Because I may be called upon to preach whenever we attend Harvest Time Ministries, a small Pentecostal congregation in Mandela Park in Mthatha, I keep myself immersed in scripture by following the Revised Common Lectionary. We also read these--four readings per week--every morning at breakfast before the boys go to school and we go to our office.
The readings from the lectionary may not be appropriate for some Sundays in Mandela Park; I need to keep myself free to speak a word from wherever in the Bible the Spirit might direct me. More commonly, however, the work of the Spirit is in making connections between my preparation in certain texts and the particular needs of a Sunday morning.
One such example comes from two weeks ago. The pastor had informed me in the week leading up to that Sunday that two special events were to occupy the service: a church blessing for a newly married couple and the welcoming of another young couple into positions of leadership in the ministry. I was assigned the marriage blessing; the pastor would do the welcome. However, when the newlyweds did not show, the pastor gave me the other assignment. I had to switch from something I was preparing in my heart from Ephesians 5 to--well, I didn't know what. But what came to me was what I had been reading that week from the lectionary: 1 Kings 3:3-14.
It so happens that 1 Kings 3:3-14 is a most appropriate text for exhorting new leaders; it describes something of a divine commissioning of Solomon to leadership of Israel. The commissioning comes in the form of a test set in a dream of Solomon.
God asks Solomon to ask God what God should give him. Solomon assumes a humble posture in response to the revelation of God, acknowledging God's "steadfast love" in the past, that is, to his father David, and his own inability for so great a task as "leading the people whom you have chosen, a great people, so numerous they cannot be numbered or counted" (v. 8).
Solomon's request pleases God. Solomon asks "only" for the wisdom to "discern between good and evil" in the cause of leading God's great people. Solomon's request for wisdom to do the good and shun the evil is significant in the text in light of that to which it is in opposition--"long life or riches" or "the life of your enemies." God does not want a leader for God's people who looks first to external things, to the things outside oneself, but internally, within his own heart. That is, as in words ascribed to Solomon's very father, David, the leader of Israel, God wants someone who asks God,
The readings from the lectionary may not be appropriate for some Sundays in Mandela Park; I need to keep myself free to speak a word from wherever in the Bible the Spirit might direct me. More commonly, however, the work of the Spirit is in making connections between my preparation in certain texts and the particular needs of a Sunday morning.
One such example comes from two weeks ago. The pastor had informed me in the week leading up to that Sunday that two special events were to occupy the service: a church blessing for a newly married couple and the welcoming of another young couple into positions of leadership in the ministry. I was assigned the marriage blessing; the pastor would do the welcome. However, when the newlyweds did not show, the pastor gave me the other assignment. I had to switch from something I was preparing in my heart from Ephesians 5 to--well, I didn't know what. But what came to me was what I had been reading that week from the lectionary: 1 Kings 3:3-14.
It so happens that 1 Kings 3:3-14 is a most appropriate text for exhorting new leaders; it describes something of a divine commissioning of Solomon to leadership of Israel. The commissioning comes in the form of a test set in a dream of Solomon.
God asks Solomon to ask God what God should give him. Solomon assumes a humble posture in response to the revelation of God, acknowledging God's "steadfast love" in the past, that is, to his father David, and his own inability for so great a task as "leading the people whom you have chosen, a great people, so numerous they cannot be numbered or counted" (v. 8).
Solomon's request pleases God. Solomon asks "only" for the wisdom to "discern between good and evil" in the cause of leading God's great people. Solomon's request for wisdom to do the good and shun the evil is significant in the text in light of that to which it is in opposition--"long life or riches" or "the life of your enemies." God does not want a leader for God's people who looks first to external things, to the things outside oneself, but internally, within his own heart. That is, as in words ascribed to Solomon's very father, David, the leader of Israel, God wants someone who asks God,
"search me and know my heart; test me and know my thoughts. See if there is any wicked way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting" (Ps. 139:23-24).
The enemy which God's appointed leader seeks to slay lurks not without but within. The enemies from outside are not the greatest danger to God's people; danger attacks from within.
The leader cannot buy "long life and riches"--prosperity--for the people. Neither can the leader protect the nation through the forcible removal of its enemies. Rather, the leader provides and protects by being who God has called the leader to be.
When confronted by the greatness of the God who "alone is good" (Mk. 10:18), the humble leader, like Solomon in the text, sees himself as he is: "a child", lacking in understanding ("I do not know how to go out or come in", v. 7), in need of the higher wisdom in order to do the good. In the piercing light of perfect love, complete knowledge (omniscience), and total capability (omnipotence), the humble leader rightly fears, for he now sees that perfect love and light cannot abide the bitterness and darkness within his own heart; "God is light, and in him there is no darkness at all" (1 Jn. 1:5). The leader either submits to the God who can cleanse her, thereby saving her life, or clings to her desire for wealth and the life of her enemies, thereby subjecting herself to the destructive cycle of greed and jealousy with those very enemies who seek her life. The leader has only two options: fear God or fear humans.
The latter is the way of mutual destruction. The former is "the beginning of wisdom", the way of peace for the people of God (Ps. 111:10).
-Joe
The leader cannot buy "long life and riches"--prosperity--for the people. Neither can the leader protect the nation through the forcible removal of its enemies. Rather, the leader provides and protects by being who God has called the leader to be.
When confronted by the greatness of the God who "alone is good" (Mk. 10:18), the humble leader, like Solomon in the text, sees himself as he is: "a child", lacking in understanding ("I do not know how to go out or come in", v. 7), in need of the higher wisdom in order to do the good. In the piercing light of perfect love, complete knowledge (omniscience), and total capability (omnipotence), the humble leader rightly fears, for he now sees that perfect love and light cannot abide the bitterness and darkness within his own heart; "God is light, and in him there is no darkness at all" (1 Jn. 1:5). The leader either submits to the God who can cleanse her, thereby saving her life, or clings to her desire for wealth and the life of her enemies, thereby subjecting herself to the destructive cycle of greed and jealousy with those very enemies who seek her life. The leader has only two options: fear God or fear humans.
The latter is the way of mutual destruction. The former is "the beginning of wisdom", the way of peace for the people of God (Ps. 111:10).
-Joe
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