Reflection for North Balwyn Uniting Church
22^nd of September 2024

James 3:1-12

Today we are hearing the fourth of the five readings the lectionary gives us from the Letter of James. Last week we heard about the dangers of our tongues, the dreadful things they can say if we let them loose. As James wrote: ‘The tongue is like a spark … our tongues get out of control. They are restless and evil and always spreading deadly poison.’ He warned his readers that if we let our tongues run away with us, which I for one am prone to do, ‘from the same mouth come[s] blessing and cursing’. James condemned this, asking: ‘Can a fig tree, my brothers and sisters, yield olives, or a grapevine figs?’ If we curse people with the same mouth with which we bless God, we are as unnatural as a fig tree that grows olives.

Now we come to today’s reading, which follows directly from James’ warnings about our misuse of God’s good gift of language. Why is it that we allow our tongues to run away with us? Why is it that we allow our words to light forest fires? It is, James says, because we have chosen the wrong sort of wisdom. There is wisdom that comes from above, godly wisdom, and wisdom that is earthly, unspiritual and devilish, and we must choose the former. But how can we tell the difference? Which wisdom ought we to follow?

James has an answer for this, and it is the same answer that Jesus gave his disciples when warning them about false prophets: by their fruits you will know them. I have mentioned before that James seems to have been aware of the collection of Jesus’ sayings that Matthew used in writing his version of the gospel, because so much of what James writes resonates with Jesus’ teaching in the Sermon on the Mount. This is another example of that. Matthew records Jesus saying:

You will know them by their fruits. Are grapes gathered from thorns, or figs from thistles? In the same way, every good tree bears good fruit, but the bad tree bears bad fruit. A good tree cannot bear bad fruit, nor can a bad tree bear good fruit. Every tree that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire. Thus you will know them by their fruits. (Matthew 7:16-20).

Similarly, James writes: ‘the wisdom from above is first pure, then peaceable, gentle, willing to yield, full of mercy and good fruits, without a trace of partiality or hypocrisy. And a harvest of righteousness is sown in peace for those who make peace’. It is no surprise that James’ description of the wisdom from above sounds so like Paul’s description of the fruit of the Spirit in his letter to the Galatians: ‘love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, generosity, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control’. (Galatians 5:22-23) Paul and James might have disagreed on some things, but they were united on what a Christian life looks like. It looks like Jesus’ life.

A good life is a life of wisdom that imitates the life of Christ. Why, then, do our lives so seldom look like that? In his letter to the Galatians, at the very moment that he is describing the fruit of the Spirit Paul warns them, ‘For what the flesh desires is opposed to the Spirit, and what the Spirit desires is opposed to the flesh; for these are opposed to each other, to prevent you from doing what you want.’ (Galatians 5:17) James says the same thing. All too often we have ‘bitter envy and selfish ambition’ in our hearts. We crave things that we cannot have, and so we become covetous, and engage in disputes and conflicts. I am sure that no one here has gone to the length of committing murder, which James says is another result of craving the wrong things. I suspect that none of the people to whom James was writing had committed murder, either. But I do not think any of us can say that our lives are completely free of conflict and dispute, even though we are not murderers.

James’ solution to these unmet cravings and desires of ‘the flesh’ that lead us into conflict and dispute is the same solution he has been offering all the way through his letter. Turn to God. It is only by turning to God and asking for the wisdom from above that we will be able to live pure, friendly, gentle, sensible, kind, helpful, genuine, and sincere lives that imitate Christ. James has no illusions about how difficult it is to live a Christian life, but he gives the solution to that difficulty at the very beginning of his letter: ‘If any of you is lacking in wisdom, ask God, who gives to all generously and ungrudgingly, and it will be given you’. (James 1:5)

I have a naturally hot temper, which flares up on me almost before I know what I am doing. I have spoken before about ‘good’ anger, the anger at injustice that inspires us to fight it. But most anger, including most of mine, is ‘bad’ anger; anger that is misdirected at the innocent or that leads to violence and abuse. James knows how a hot-tempered person like me should deal with the temptation to express my anger: ‘Resist the devil, and he will flee from you’. In this, James agrees with the most recent psychological studies that have found that expressing anger, ‘venting,’ actually just makes people more angry. At the beginning of this letter, James wrote, ‘let everyone be … slow to anger; for your anger does not produce God’s righteousness’. (James 1:19-20) Now James tells us that ‘the wisdom from above is … peaceable, gentle, willing to yield,’ and twenty-first-century psychologists would agree with him.

In the most famous, or infamous, passage in this letter James wrote that ‘faith by itself, if it has no works, is dead’. (James 2:17) That was in the context of caring for the poor, feeding the hungry, and clothing the naked. But it also applies to our other interactions with one another. Are we engaged in disputes and conflict? Our faith is dead. Do we have bitter envy and selfish ambition in our hearts? Our faith is dead. Are we living lives of peace, and making peace where conflict reigns? Then our faith is alive and well and bearing good fruit.

‘You will know them by their fruits.’ ‘Show by your good life that your works are done with gentleness born of wisdom.’ At the moment I am reading a lot, probably too much, about the Presidential campaign in the United States and about the support for Donald Trump coming from ethno-religious nationalists. These are the people who want the USA to be a land of white Christians, or at least a land in which white Christians have all the power. White Christian nationalism is a Christian heresy. The answer to it, suggests Pastor Jim Wallis, is to draw so-called ‘Christian’ nationalists back to Jesus. Wallis is the Executive Director of the Center on Faith and Justice at Georgetown University, the oldest Catholic and Jesuit university in the USA, and so someone who knows what he is talking about. But I am afraid that too many American Christian nationalists believe that the Jesus revealed in the gospels is undeserving of worship because he is ‘a gay hippie in a dress,’ as now-disgraced evangelical pastor Mark Driscoll described him. If called back to Jesus I am afraid they will instead turn to the blood-soaked warrior of the Book of Revelation. I will watch this year’s presidential election with some trepidation, hoping that American Christians who demonstrate the spiritual fruits of love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, generosity, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control will outvote those who want ethno-religious nationalism.

We can do nothing about the misuse of Christianity in the USA. But here in our small corner of the world, in our small church, we can seek to live lives drawing on the wisdom from above that is first pure, then peaceable, gentle, willing to yield, full of mercy and good fruits, without a trace of partiality or hypocrisy. If we submit ourselves to God, there is every chance that our lives will show the fruits of love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, generosity, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control. There is even the possibility that the wider world will recognise that we are doing the work of Jesus’ Father in heaven, and see Christianity for what it is meant to be: a religion that seeks to sow peace. We can only try. Let us draw near to God, knowing that God will draw near to us. Amen.