What God Says We Are--September 4, 2024

What God Says We Are--September 4, 2024

"But be doers of the word, and not merely hearers who deceive themselves. For if any are hearers of the word and not doers, they 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. But those who look into the perfect law, the law of liberty, and persevere, being not hearers who forget but doers who act—they will be blessed in their doing." [James 1:22-25]

There's a beautiful line of Nikos Kazantzakis that goes like this: "I said to the almond tree, 'Friend, speak to me of God,' and the almond tree blossomed."  And I think what I love in particular about that poetic insight is the notion that the almond tree only does exactly what almond trees are meant to: they blossom.  It doesn't have to start glowing, levitating six inches off the ground, or writing Shakespearean sonnets--it just does what an almond tree does from its most essential being.  In other words, an almond tree (and I would suspect, anything or anyone else in creation) doesn't need to do something extraordinary or beyond the nature of what it is made for in order to reflect God's glory and goodness.  It simply needs to be what it is meant to be.  Nobody complains that almond trees don't produce enough Broadway musicals or make enough money in the stock market; they aren't made for that.  But when you see an almond tree in full blossom, you do get a sense that it is effortlessly giving glory to God.

I am reminded, too, of the famous saying attributed to Saint Catherine of Siena: "Be who you are meant to be and you will set the whole world on fire." I think she's on to something there, and it's on the same wavelength as Kazantzakis and his almond tree.  And both of them, along with the almond blossoms, are saying the same thing as James in these verses that many of us heard this past Sunday.  We are called, James says, to be doers of the word and not merely hearers.  After all, James points out, if we just hear what God says to us but don't live it out, it's like we have forgotten who and what we are meant to be.  We become like almond trees afraid or unwilling to put forth flowers, even though it is precisely what we are meant for.  It's like we are stuck in a rut rather than walking in the way of life that is set before us.

I want to ask us to stay with this passage here for a minute and consider the inner workings of James' train of thought.  When he talks about being doers of the word, he doesn't have in mind some impossible commandments, but rather God's creative call to each of us, as at creation, to be what we are made to be.  When God says, "Let there be light" at the beginning of the Genesis story, the light doesn't have to strain or strive or sweat to come into existence, and it doesn't worry with constant fears of inadequacy about whether it is shining "well enough."  It just does what it cannot help doing--by being what God has called it to be.  The light never forgets what God has called it to be, and it never frets with fears of inadequacy. It is the freest thing in the world for light to shine--that is precisely its nature, after all.  In a similar way, James calls us simply to be what God has made us to be, rather than to forget over and over again.  When God says to us, "You are my beloved... you are salt and light for the world... you are signposts of the Kingdom..." the only question is whether or not we will take seriously what God says we already are and will live out of that identity.  It's like an almond tree blossoming precisely because that is what is in its nature to do.  It's not about trying to be something we're not, but about embodying fully what God says we already are.

In other words, we are called into a way of life, not to do a handful of assorted "religious deeds" or "pious actions." I think sometimes that's how we mishear James--we hear this talk about being "doers of the word" and think it means that we have so many merit badges or service projects we have to complete if we want to earn the rank of being "children of God."  But it's really the other way around: we are already new creations by God's say-so (James has already said that God has "given us a new birth" by God's own "word of truth" earlier in this chapter), and all James is calling us to do is to be what God says we already are--to live out of the identity God has already given.    God is not holding auditions for limited spots on the all-star team; God is calling us into being like light from the darkness at creation.  The only question is whether we will be what God says we already are.

For too long, an awful lot of us have been sold some version of Christianity that sounds like we are supposed to keep working at impossible tasks (like Sisyphus and his uphill boulder) in order to try to earn God's approval.  And when we accept that picture, we set ourselves up for endless disappointment and failure, and on top of that we'll never really understand what James has been saying.  He has never been daring us to work hard enough to impress God, but simply to take seriously God's "Let there be light" calling to each of us.  We are, each one of us, almond trees simply being called to blossom, which is what we were made to do in the first place.

What could it look like today for us to live out of the identity God has already given us? What if we didn't have to keep running back to the mirror to remember who we were, but could take it as a given and live like the people God has called us to be?  That's the invitation of this day, as we walk in the ways of Jesus.

Lord God, enable us to be today what you say we already are.