A Particular Way of Life--September 3, 2024

A Particular Way of Life--September 3, 2024

"If any think they are religious, and do not bridle their tongues but deceive their hearts, their religion is worthless. Religion that is pure and undefiled before God, the Father, is this: to care for orphans and widows in their distress, and to keep oneself unstained by the world." [James 1:26-27]

You know, it's funny. You won't find anybody in the New Testament sporting a fish bumper sticker or a gold cross necklace as their way of advertising their faith--but you will hear them being careful not to let hateful or crude words come out of their mouths.  You won't find Christians setting up billboards spouting ominous warnings of hellfire to scare up new converts, but you will find them honestly evaluating themselves and working on their own struggles with sin.  You won't find the first generation of the church complaining about having to help the needy or complaining that they are lazy, but you will find them prioritizing the needs of the most vulnerable as the best expression of their devotion to God.

All of this is to say, the New Testament era church, as exemplified here by these verses from James that many of us heard this past Sunday, was not nearly so occupied with the kinds of things many folks associate with "religion" today... and they were much more committed to a particular way of life.  Reading these words and taking them to heart is going to mean something of an overhaul of our faith, because we are so saturated in a culture where religion is about public performance of piety, rather than the often-unseen practices that make up the fabric of our daily lives.

James here identifies three broad areas as examples of what this could look like: our way of speaking, our care for those on the margins, and our distinctiveness from what is rotten in the world around us.  And it's startling to me just how often folks who name the name of Jesus today seem almost intentionally to miss James' point. For starters, I'm often appalled how often I read the most vile, crude, and flat-out false comments on social media (usually aimed at people with whom they disagree) coming from users who have "Christian" in their profile descriptions.  We live in a time when an awful lot of supposed "leaders" in Christian communities have modeled by their own language or their support for others who are crude in their language that it doesn't matter how we speak or conduct ourselves in the wider world.  Even worse still, it seems a great many people think that by being rude and hateful in their speaking toward others, they are somehow aiding the cause of Christ by making themselves look "strong" or like "winners."  James, however, an early leader in the New Testament-era church, says the opposite: he says if you can't control your tongue, your "religion is worthless."  Not only does the real and living God not need our help "defending" or "fighting" for our faith, but we actually empty our faith of any worth by being crude and careless in our speech.  In the age of the would-be "Christian" internet troll, that's pretty countercultural.  And that's what James has in mind.

You also hear from James here that the Christian way of life is meant to be directed at caring especially for those who are without other support in wider society.  James uses the familiar phrase from the Torah about "caring for orphans and widows in their distress" as a sort of shorthand for our calling to be focused on those most on the margins, who do not have other safety nets to provide for them.  And again, it's startling to me how often folks who are proud to call themselves "Christian" in public spaces are predisposed against helping hungry kids or single parents trying to provide for their families.  James, of course, is hardly the only voice making this point in the Bible--he's echoing a longstanding tradition in the Scriptures that calls us to center our care on "the widow, the orphan, and the foreigner," precisely because these groups typified the ones in society who didn't have anyone else looking out for them.  But you wouldn't know it from how often folks sitting dutifully in pews on Sunday mornings are complaining by Monday about how they don't want to have any of their money used to feed somebody else, or how those who are hungry must be lazy.  When we act like that we show yet again that we have missed the point--it says to the world that we are trying to project the impression we care about God when our actions and priorities reveal that we don't. 

James also says, finally, in these verses that authentic "religion" is going to make us stand out from the world.  In other words, our whole way of life will reflect a different set of priorities, rather than being just as crude, self-centered, or arrogant as the loud voices around us. And once again, we seem to get that backwards.  All too often, I see fellow Christians point to the greed and consumerism on proud display all around us, and the way it is so often lauded as "success," and they conclude, "See?  This is ok--this must be what I am supposed to seek after, too!"  Rather than questioning the constant drive for "more" and "bigger" that we see modeled for us, rather than saying "That's not how we do things!" when we hear public figures tell lies or speak crudely, all too often we take those instances as permission for us to be dishonest or mean-spirited, rather than refusing to sink to their level.  James keeps telling us that we are called to a way of life--one that is inseparable from the way and example of Jesus.

So the right question for us is never, "Can I get away with this in the current state of public discourse?" or "Did some other public figure, demagogue, or pundit do this, and thereby make it OK for me to do the same?" but rather, "Does this fit with the way and character of Jesus?"  That applies for what we say, who we care about, and what we value.  In other words, it's not just a Sunday morning show or a religiously-themed set of fashion accessories--it's a way of life.

That's what we have been called into.  That's what it is to follow Jesus.

Lord Jesus, keep us on your way, in every dimension of ourselves--our words, our priorities, and our influences.