As we thought about what we wanted our message to be to the church in North America this summer, we selected James 1:22-25 as our starting point. The text seems to compare two things, two things which human beings might "look into." One, a mirror, appears in the context of a person who, after looking into a mirror, "immediately upon going away forgets what he looks like." James calls this the predicament of a person who "hears the word but does not do it." A second thing, what James calls "the perfect law, the law of liberty", has an opposite effect; rather than the mirror which accompanies forgetfulness, the perfect law, when looked into, leads to blessing.
Of course, on the one hand, it is not simply the "looking in" to the perfect law that guarantees blessing any more than simply "looking into" a mirror is a recipe for forgetfulness; the person who looks in must also "persevere"--then she will "be blessed in her doing." On the other hand, it does greatly matter what we as human beings are looking into. On closer examination, looking into a mirror is not as fruitful as looking into the perfect law of freedom, the story of scripture which gives shape and direction to our lives. For a mirror--if that is what we are regularly looking into--shows us only what we are on the outside, imperfections and all. Moreover, the mirror shows us only ourselves and our most immediate surroundings. But the perfect law, when looked into, is like a mirror which shows us beyond our own time and space; it puts us within a vast history, and in the presence of the God who has gone with our ancestors throughout time. And knowing that story, that law, that movement from slavery to freedom, through suffering to redemption, determines our own walking--our own doing--in the paths of blessing.
-Joe
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