A Necessary Lament--February 25, 2022

A Necessary Lament--February 25, 2022

"Cleanse your hands, you sinners, and purify your hearts, you double-minded.  Lament and mourn and weep. Let your laughter be turned into mourning and your joy into dejection.  Humble yourselves before the Lord, and he will exalt you." [James 4:8b-10]

On most days, we'd probably want to skip over verses like these and find something happier and peppier to talk about.  On most days, we'd look for a way to sweep this passage under the rug or fold them into whatever comes next in this book so we don't have to spend any time living with these words.

Today, somehow, it feels right--or at least necessary--to hear these words... and to make ourselves sit with them for a while, without moving on to something we would frame in a plaque and mount on the living room wall.  Today, as the news announces the unprovoked invasion of Ukraine by Russia, an event we have been watching build and brew like a storm on the horizon or a car accident in slow-motion, it feels like sorrow is the right place to be.  As we shudder to recall how similar these headlines feel to the history we learned once upon a time of conflicts that built and became "world wars," it feels like mourning is the only honest place to be.  And as we dare to put ourselves in the shoes of those whose homes are now unsafe, whose streets are being overrun with tanks, and whose families are now fleeing for danger, it feels like lament is exactly what we need to do.  Perhaps there is an unexpected--and also uncomfortable--grace in the timing for us that we have to deal with these words of woe from James on a morning like this.

Grace may seem too strong a word, or out of place, for talk of lament--but I believe lament is ultimately about telling the truth.  And truth is always good, even when it makes us squirm or sorrowful at the same time.  The truth will set us free, but to loosely paraphrase the line from Ted Lasso, it will upset you first.  Maybe both are two sides of the same coin.  And when terrible things are happening, whether under your own roof, in our community, across our country, or around the world, we need to be able to say so.  We need to be able to name terrible things as terrible things, to grieve what is awful about them, to own whatever roles we have in contributing to them, to turn from them and set things right where it is ours to do so, and to lament them.  We need to be able to be sorrowful for the things in life that warrant sorrow, rather than thinking being people of faith means faking a smile everywhere we go.  We need, as the old line goes, to have our hearts broken over the things that break the heart of God.  And it is grace then, to have someone shake us and stop us from fiddling while cities burn.

James doesn't specifically have a foreign war between Russia and Ukraine in mind when he calls on his readers to lament and weep, of course.  But he has been calling on us to wake up to the ways we--particularly we who claim to follow Jesus--so easily slide into the thinking the world calls "conventional wisdom" where might makes right, greed is celebrated as the means to success, and bullies can be praised as "geniuses" for preying on anyone they can find to pick on.  And while one hopes we can recognize those things when they are playing out in front of us in real time on the news with cruise missiles and tanks, James also calls us to take a look within ourselves at where the same impulses can get a foothold in us.  The "logic" that leads an autocrat to invade a neighboring country in the name of his own national interest is the same mindset we can so easily baptize for ourselves in slogans like "MY group/interests/country first!" or "It's a dog-eat-dog world out there, so we've got to get all we can for ourselves!" And James sees all of it as lamentable, so he speaks the truth we need to hear to allow us to lament.  We may not be invading another country at the moment, but the logic of empire and conquest is always tempting right here for us as well. And naming it as something to weep over hopefully means we will not fall for that temptation the next time it presents itself to us.

Today, my prayers are for the people of Ukraine displaced and threatened by foreign invaders who have invented a pretext for why their actions should be permissible.  My prayers are for those who are victims of others' greed, ambition, and the insecurity that drives people to think they need to look "tough."  And at the same time, James pushes me to lament all the ways I have fallen for the same logic before--thinking that might makes right, that my interests (or my group's interests) are superior to someone else's, or that it is permissible to take what I want because I can, regardless of who it steps on in the process.  Those things in me are lamentable, as well as the tragedy of a world on the brink of war.  James would also be the first to remind us that prayer is never the end of our calling--only the beginning.  To pray our laments over war, greed, and bloodshed also wakes us up to be ready to act--to welcome those who will be displaced as refugees, to call on aggressors who also name the name of Jesus to repent of their actions, and to repent ourselves of the ways we have fallen for "Me-and-My-Group-First" thinking, too.

So let us pray--honestly, sorrowfully, and reflectively--and then let us be ready for how God moves us in to act in light of our prayers.

Lord, have mercy.  On those who are in harm's way this day.  On us where we need the grace of truth-telling about ourselves.  On this whole world you love, despite our violence.

Navigating the Rapids--February 24, 2022

Navigating the Rapids--February 24, 2022

"Submit yourselves therefore to God. Resist the devil, and he will flee from you. Draw near to God, and he will draw near to you." [James 4:7-8a]

Look, here's the thing: there's a lot in this life we don't have control over... but we do have some choice, some agency, in this life.  And where we do, it matters what we choose.  It matters, where we move--more in tune with the way of Jesus or less... how we move in rhythm the cadences of Christ, or out of step with his peculiar goodness in a world full of mean. And so, yes, while we are all held in the sway of bigger influences than our own power, it's worth using whatever pull we have, even as meager as it may seem, to step more fully into alignment with the heart of God.

Acknowledging both sides of that is important.  Yes, there are things we don't have control over in our lives, and they exert a certain influence on us, no matter what. Some of those are just the accidents of history and the quirks of our own particular life stories.  We live in the twenty-first century, in the days of late-stage capitalism, citizens of the current superpower/empire of the day, and that affects our lives in ways we cannot avoid.  We are influenced by the internet and international relations.  We are affected by cultural behemoths like Amazon, McDonald's Walmart, and Apple.  We are touched by cancer diagnoses in our families and patterns of addiction in our social circles.  We know the well-worn pessimism of living in the Rust Belt where I live, and we have learned from experience that everyone's selling something and every seemingly great deal has got a catch.  We know and move through the world through the lens of our racial, cultural, gender, and socio-economic categories--these are things that exert a pull on our lives like the moon's gravity pulling on the oceans to make the tides.  All of those things, and surely a great many more, are constantly tugging on us, moving us in one direction or another, or several at once, and we didn't ask for them or sign up for them.  They're just there.

Beyond that, too, we can say that evil has its own gravitational pull--whether we think of it in terms of the devil, or the nudging of sin inside us, or the power of wicked systems and structures, the "powers and principalities" that the New Testament talks about, or all of the above.  We're susceptible to the power of each and all of them, seeking to move us away from the ways of God.

And on the flipside, Christians are convinced that God also draws us, with grace like gravity, pulling us into movements that echo God's own motion in the world.  In fact, we dare to believe that God's pull on us is not only the first but the most important power at work on us--it is God's powerful, prevenient goodness before we've done a thing that claims us in grace, that loved us into being, that laid down God's own life for us at the cross.  So it's not all bad news that there are powers bigger than our own that move and influence us.  Our only hope, honestly, in the end, is that the pull of God's grace is more powerful than even our own ornery, stubborn hardness of heart, and that at the last God's love will get through to us even in our most hell-bent opposition to God.

But, to come back around full circle, just because those forces--both social and spiritual--are at work beyond our power or control, it doesn't mean we can just give up and ride aimlessly wherever the current takes us.  We have the ability to influence our orbit, so to speak, so that we move away from the things that are bent on our destruction, and closer to the Love who is calling us home.  

Or maybe it's helpful to think of ourselves like a magnet with two poles--we have the ability, depending on how we are turned, to repel some things and to draw other things.  We can use the force of the magnetic field to cling to something, or we can use it to push something away.  And of course, also like a magnetic field, the strength of the pull or push increases the closer you get to another magnet.  In terms of our relationship with God, the closer we get, the stronger the pull to be drawn even closer into God's embrace.  To be sure, God's pull is already drawing us in, simply by God's own grace, but in addition, the closer we let ourselves move, the more fully we'll be swept up into connection with God, too.

We can't wish away the powers out there that are bigger than ourselves that exert influence over us and shape the direction of our lives like the course of a river.  But we can make choices about how we navigate the rapids.  And where we feel the pull of the world's meanness, or our own internal self-centeredness, or the voices we can only call "demonic," attempting to lead us into the rocks or over a cliff, we can use the paddles in our hands to steer away from those currents.  The people in our lives who reflect the way of Jesus are worth watching, listening to, and learning from.  The voices in the wider culture that do the opposite are ones to stop giving our attention to.  We might not be able to change everything about the circumstances we are in, but we can use whatever power we have to steer in a good direction, toward the channel that is leading us home.

The question that is worth asking on a day like today is simply this: what is worth using our strength on, however much or little it really is?  Where will we paddle the canoe we are in?  What will we move closer toward, and what will we seek to repel, while knowing we are always still held in the grip of grace, and that God's goodness holds us all the while?

Lord God, hold us close.  Hold us close.  Hold us close.

 

Grace All the More--February 23, 2022

Grace All the More--February 23, 2022

"Or do you suppose that it is for nothing that the scripture says, 'God yearns jealously for the spirit that he has made to dwell in us'? But he gives all the more grace; therefore it says, 'God opposes the proud, but gives grace to the humble'." [James 4:5-6]

God doesn't give up.  Not on you.  Not on anybody.  Ever.

Look, these verses from James are dense.  If they seem difficult to wade through in English, trust me, it's even trickier to make sense of in the Greek.  There are a handful of very different ways verse five can be translated, and they each would mean very different things--digging into them is probably a separate conversation for another time, and probably only for folks who are interested in the inside baseball of biblical translations.  So if that's your burning desire, send me a message and we can unpack the exegetical stumbling blocks of these verses.  But in the mean-time, for the rest of us, let's make sure we don't miss the forest in all these trees.  For all of our wayward stumbling after other loves and other allegiances, God doesn't give up on us, and instead gives grace all the more in the pursuit of bringing us back home.

In yesterday's passage, we saw how James used the image of us being "adulterers" in our dalliances with the world-system and its "What's-in-it-for-me?" mentality. That was actually putting it delicately (James is a bit more provocative in the Greek he uses--again, inside baseball), but the idea was that when we go chasing after the world's agenda of self-interest and deal-making, it's like we're cheating on God.  We're made for a good relationship of faithfulness and love with God, which also expresses itself in the ways we relate to our neighbor.  But when we break those relationships in the quest for "more," we break God's heart like a jilted spouse who has been left for a younger replacement or a causal fling.

If it surprises you that we could break God's heart like we're cheating on God, it's worth remembering that the Hebrew Scriptures often depicted the relationship between God and the people as a marriage--one in which the covenant people kept running off with literal idols, love-affairs with whatever powerful empire was on the scene, their wealth, their power, and their own weapons.  Over and over again, it was the people who kept breaking faith with God... and over and over it was God who kept seeking the people out again and saying, "I love you."  Over and over again, the people realized they had ruined a good relationship in their quest for something else, something "new," or something more glamorous.  And so it was, time and again, that the ancient people of Israel and Judah came to learn that God doesn't give up.

The followers of Jesus see that same amazing idea going even further in the cross--that it is in the cross of Jesus that God goes all the way to death for us.  In the crucified Christ, God literally gives it all to seek after us, with a fierce love and what Brennan Manning termed "the relentless tenderness" of Jesus.  So even when we blow it by chasing after other (lesser) loves that will never really love us back, there is the presence of God, right at our side, like a welcoming father welcoming home a lost son, like a spouse with open arms ready to start over, giving grace to begin again.  Like the repeated refrain from the song "Maps" by the Yeah Yeah Yeahs, God keeps calling out us, "Wait--they don't love you like I love you." And even after we've learned the hard way and gotten our hearts broken (and broken God's in the process by leaving), God "gives all the more grace," because God just doesn't give up on us.

What can you do when you've been met with a love like this?  What can any of us do but see ourselves, not in our worst moments of failure and unfaithfulness, but as beloved all the same, and to let ourselves be loved, be forgiven, be claimed once again?  What can we do but let such Love take hold of our hands and lead us away from the dead ends we kept wandering into?

Like another wistful anthem once put it, "True love will find you in the end--don't be sad (I know you will), don't give up until... true love finds you in the end."  Maybe we can just stop running today and look up to discover the unexpected reality of grace: God has been seeking after us all along.

And God doesn't give up.

O Lord, your love keeps seeking us.  Give us the courage and grace to take your hand.

Setting Our North Star--February 22, 2022

Setting Our North Star--February 22, 2022

"Adulterers!  Do you not know that friendship with the world is enmity with God? Therefore whoever wishes to be a friend of the world becomes an enemy of God." [James 4:4]

Okay, first things first--and this one definitely needs to be said first:  while it's never a good idea to make yourself an enemy of God, God always reserves the right still to love us when we do just that.  

Today's verse comes on strong in warning us not to put ourselves on opposite sides with God, and we'll see that's for good reason.  But all that said, we can't forget that at the heart of Jesus' teaching (and life) is the core conviction that God loves even those who have made themselves God's enemies.  That's what the cross and the Sermon on the Mount are all about.  So if we find ourselves worried we have slid into opposition toward God, remember that we can never be outside the grip of God's grace and goodness.  Even when our backs are turned to the divine, God reserves the right to keep seeking, finding, and gathering us home.  We can't forget that while we're focusing on the details of this verse and lose the forest in the trees.

Now with that said, we also need to hear James' stark reminder that God's "way" and the world's "way" of doing things become mutually exclusive at some point, and there are places where choosing one means saying "No" to the other.  Rather like the stories of Jesus' temptation by the devil in the wilderness, we find in our own lives that saying "Yes" to the way of God means saying "No" to an alternative path or way we might have gone, even if it looks enticing.  And if you have to pick in this life between being where Jesus is, or being anywhere else, it's always better to go where Jesus is--even if that means saying "No" to the old patterns, the old routines, and the old life we knew.

James has just been talking over the last several verses about the competing kinds of wisdom out there--the "world's" kind of wisdom on the one hand, versus God's kind of wisdom on the other.  And we've heard James underscore the contrast there between the world's Me-First, What's-in-it-for-me? kind of mentality and the way of God, which basically turns that inside out and seeks the good of others rather than being bent in on ourselves. There's really no way to pursue both approaches in life: either we'll be bent in on our own selfishness (Luther used to call this being "incurvatus in se"), or we'll be oriented outward toward God and neighbor.  But those two ways of living point in opposite directions, so choosing one is, by definition, to reject the other.  Of course, in the course of our lifetimes, we are constantly changing sides, switching teams, rerouting, and going back and forth that the path of our lives looks like a toddler's scribbly mess.  But James keeps calling us to leave behind the selfishness-is-success transactional thinking that the world usually celebrates, and instead to let our lives be oriented in line with God's kind of wisdom, which has Christ-like love as our North Star. That's the choice.  That's the contrast.  And it's an everyday decision, often every hour and every moment, how we will receive what the day is bringing us, and how we will answer back either with envy or empathy, selfishness or grace.

While we're being honest, James would push even further to see that there's not really a "neutral" position of taking no sides in life, either.  Like Bob Dylan sang, echoing Jesus himself, "You gotta serve someone."  Or as the Jesuit theologian Pedro Arrupe put it, "To be just, it is not enough to refrain from injustice.  One must go further and refuse to play its game, substituting love for self-interest as the driving force of society." To walk oriented in the way of God means to be committed to doing justice, to practicing mercy, to loving people with God's own self-giving love that smiles to see other people happy rather than needing to pull others down to prop itself up. And that is, of necessity, going to mean turning away from a whole other approach to life, rooted in looking out for your own interests first, grabbing what you can even if it's cheating others, and caring only for your own immediate well-being rather than the good of everybody.

That, we should be clear, is what James has in mind by "friendship with the world."  It's the alignment with that way of thinking.  It's when we live our lives accepting the Me-and-My-Group-First mentality that the world calls "conventional wisdom," rather than daring to walk out of step by following God's alternative path.  It's when we no longer question the talking heads who advise us to get more, want more, fear others more, and hoard more, but decide that we like what they tell us.  It's when we decide we'd rather not listen to Jesus' words announcing blessing on the poor, lifting the last above the first, calling us to serve rather than dominate, and laying down his own life for his enemies rather than killing them.  All of that is what James has in mind when he warns about "friendship with the world."  It's NOT that he wants us to sequester ourselves from the supposedly "sinful" folk, or that he's against dancing or bowling or tattoos, the way sometimes Respectable Religious people like to distance themselves from the ones they think are the "sinners."  James doesn't want to see us stop loving the people around us--rather that he doesn't want us to swallow the kind of thinking that the powers of the day take as gospel-truth.  

So we'll be committed to doing good, but not just to other Christians--to everyone, including folks who will never darken the door of a church building on Sunday morning.  We'll be committed to making sure everyone in our community gets enough to eat, regardless of whether they have ever cracked open a Bible, belong to a different faith altogether, or are convinced they'll never believe in any faith.  We'll seek to make sure there's a way for everyone around to have a roof over their heads and a safe place to raise their kids, and we'll be willing to contribute our resources to do it, regardless of whether they've ever prayed a prayer.  James doesn't want us to stop loving and doing good for the people around us in "the world," regardless of whether they share our faith; he just doesn't want us to fall for the conventional wisdom of "the world" that conflates selfishness with success.

With every day, including this one we are living right now, we are given choices about what will be our North Star and compass orientation--whether the way of life charted out by a God who journeyed with formerly enslaved wanderers and exiles, or the way of the tycoons, moguls, and deal-makers.  And when we have to pick between people or profits, personal convenience or practicing compassion, welcoming strangers or fearing them, we'll understand what James means--at some point it becomes clear that one approach to life rules out the other, and we cannot help but take one path and turn from the one not taken, like in Robert Frost's famous poem.

He was right, Frost--it really does make all the difference.  What paths will we walk today?

Lord God, guide us on your path, and direct us in your ways of loving the world around us without falling for the world's games.

Before the Mirror of Erised--February 21, 2022

Before the Mirror of Erised--February 21, 2022

"You do not have, because you do not ask. You ask and do not receive, because you ask wrongly, in order to spend what you get on your pleasures." [James 4:2b-3]

We're not used to asking the question, "But why do you want this?" over any of our wants in life, are we?  Maybe it's time we did.

There was a beautiful bit of storytelling in the first of the Harry Potter novels, where we are introduced to a plot device called "the Mirror of Erised."  When one looks into the mirror, one sees what one most deeply desires (right, so you probably noticed that "Erised" is just "desire" backwards, but this is a children's book, so it's allowed to be a little on-the-nose).  Anyway, the mirror ends up being a sort of test, or safeguard, to prevent nefarious wizards from stealing the legendary "sorcerer's stone"/"philosopher's stone" which it hides, exactly because of what it shows you.  

Here's how the set-up worked in the story. If you were wanting the stone as a means to a selfish end--say, to outlive your enemies, or to make a fortune in gold--the mirror would only show you that fantasy, not the stone itself, which was just a step along the way in your scheme.  But someone who only wanted to restore the stone to its rightful keeper and prevent it from being stolen by a certain Dark Wizard (who shall not be named) would see exactly where it was, and could hold it in their hands to retrieve it.  In other words, it wasn't enough to want the stone--it was about wanting to possess it for the right reason.

And like I say, that whole concept--of there being "good" and "bad" reasons for having something--is rather foreign to our ears.  We are so much more used to thinking we are entitled to want whatever we want, and there isn't really any more thought put into it. We live in a culture where "because I want it" is reason enough to pursue a thing, scheme to get it, or envy someone who does have it.  And we have a harder time hearing James suggest that sometimes we aren't given the things we are sure we want... because we want them for the wrong reasons, or with the wrong motivations, or with a selfish bent in our hearts.

James, in other words, was doing the Mirror of Erised trick before it was cool--in fact, millennia before it was first dreamed up for a children's novel. James forces us to ask, "What do we really want it for?" over everything we find ourselves desiring.  You'll recall that in the previous verses, James called us out for the attitude of endless wanting that leads us to justify taking from others. And here the train of thought picks up, as James says, "You who are so focused on getting some particular thing--instead of trying to take it from someone else, ask God for it!  And if the answer is "no," maybe that says something about why you want it, and maybe God knows it wouldn't be good for you to have.

In a culture like ours that offers to super-size our fast-food order, or will bombard us with endless ads for things we are "supposed" to want, it's hard hearing James tell us we aren't entitled to have something just because we want it.  But we need him to remind us--at least I know I do--that having more stuff for my own gratification isn't a worthy life goal, honestly.  If my reason for having something is just to have it, as a status symbol or for the sake of my own greed, then it's actually not healthy for me to be given it.

But on the other hand, if the reason for having something is that it allows us to use it in some way that helps others or to love someone else or to care for the world God made, well, then we are tapping into its full potential--and ours.  If I want a bigger house just so I can look down on my neighbors who have less, or so I can wallow in my own opulence, I doubt that's a goal God can get behind.  But if having a house with a spare room allows me to use it to welcome relatives from out of town, or the foreign-exchange student who needs a place to stay, or to welcome foster kids, or to offer safety to a newly settled refugee, well, that changes things.  If I want a more expensive car just to be a status symbol, that somehow rings hollow and empty; but if I need a safer car that costs more, or a car that's more expensive because it burns less fuel, maybe it's a good choice.  James isn't here to insist that he needs to approve every purchase you want to make or every goal you want to pursue in life, and neither am I.  But he does insist that we have to ask the question that rarely ever even dawns on us: "Why do I really want this... and is it actually good, for me and for others, if I have it?"

I have a hunch that asking that question over all of our lives will change us.  It will affect the things we buy on impulse with the click of a button from our favorite online retailers.  It will lead us to think about whether we want something because we actually need it, or whether it's because it's trendy at the moment.  It will lead us to appreciate what we have, rather than always wanting more, newer, bigger, shinier, or costlier models.  And it will probably lead us to take care of what we have--repairing and mending rather than pitching and buying new--more than we were used to.  And I have a hunch that all of those things will make us more content in our souls than we are in our endless fever of affluenza, constantly seeking more and more, while feeling less and less satisfied with what we have.

Today, if you're feeling magical about it, imagine you are starting the day standing before the Mirror of Erised--what will it show you that you really want, and is it a noble thing to want in the first place?  Or, to be a little less fanciful, what is worth wanting, and what things that we've been told to want just aren't important after all?  James offers us an unexpected freedom in leading us to ask a question like that.  What will it look like for us today to live in that freedom?

Lord God, help us to see ourselves and our wants with honesty and clarity--and shape our desires in the heat of your love.

Tired of the Hippos--February 18, 2022

Tired of the Hippos--February 18, 2022

"Those conflicts and disputes among you, where do they come from? Do they not come from your cravings that are at war within you? You want something and you do not have it; so you commit murder. And you covet something and cannot obtain it; so you engage in disputes and conflicts." [James 4:1-2a]

Games are always about more than just fun in the moment.  Games have a way of teaching skills, strategies, and critical thinking even when we don't realize it.  Don't tell my kids this (yet), but an awful lot of family game nights are actually learning in disguise.  Whether we realize it or not, the games we play teach us how to see the world in particular ways, and then they ingrain in us the skills necessary for "winning" in those realities.

The point of chess may appear just to be getting your opponent's king in a check-mate position, but chess also helps us develop the skills for strategy, for long-range thinking, and for learning to read the other player's thought processes from their moves. All those childhood games of chess with my grandfather or father at least held the potential for me to learn critical thinking.  Board games like Monopoly or a family favorite, Settlers of Catan, teach us how to manage resources, how investments can pay off over time, and how our choices interact with random events (like the roll of the dice) to lead to different outcomes from comparable starting points--even if they can become tedious as they wear on. And of course, the silly word games my daughter and I play waiting for the doors to open at her school aren't just about killing time.  They're my secret attempt to beef up her language skills and spelling, just like my parents and grandparents did for me once upon a time.

At an even deeper level, the games we play (or at least the ones we play most regularly) have a way of shaping how we see the world around us.  If you have played a lot of team sports, for example, you're more likely to approach problem-solving as a cooperative enterprise, where each person's area of expertise and excellence can contribute.  If you are used to games that take a long time to progress through--whether long-form storytelling quest video games or those marathon sessions of Risk or Dungeons and Dragons from once upon a time--you are more likely to be willing to spend a longer time with a problem or situation to bring resolution.  And conversely, if you only have the attention span for tic-tac-toe or Paper-Rock-Scissors, you're more likely only to look for short, fast, simple fixes.

And then... there's the fast-paced feeding frenzy of a game like Hungry, Hungry Hippos.

In case it's been a few years since you've played (or in case you've never had the opportunity), yes, this is the game where up to four players face off against each other pulling a lever on their own plastic hippopotamus to open and shut its jaws and grab white marble-sized plastic balls in their mouths.  It's basically a free-for-all of chomping and grabbing until all the marbles are captured, and then you just count them up to see who wins.  No strategy.  No turn-taking.  Definitely no language or math skills learned.  And no patience required, either.  Just a quick burst of plastic gluttony so you can find out who won.

Now, don't get me wrong. I don't mean to suggest it's sinful, bad, or wrong to play "Hungry, Hungry Hippos."  There was a time when that was just the right speed for my kids, and its simplicity works.  That said, I do kind of think we sometimes get stuck in a mindset that says that life in the real world works the same way.  In fact, I think we've built a system and a whole national culture on the twin premises that success in life is getting as much as you can for yourself, and that consequently, we can and should do whatever we have to in order to get more for ourselves.  When that's called "Hungry, Hungry Hippos" we dismiss it as a child's game.  When we teach our children graduating from school that it's the goal of life, we call it "the American Dream."  But what if that's all a losing game, no matter what we call it?  What hope is there for us who are tired of the hippos?

This, I believe, is exactly where James meets us today.  He points out how easy it is for us, in any time or culture, to slide into Hungry-Hungry-Hippos thinking, where the goal of life is for me to get as much as possible for myself, and therefore it is fair game to do whatever I have to in order to get it.  Now, whether there were literal murders happening within the congregation or church groups to whom James was writing or not, he is definitely aware of the power of avarice, once we give it a toehold, to let us justify terrible things in the name of getting what we want. 

And that's just it: once we tell ourselves that the goal of life is just to get "more," and that there are no other rules limiting how we get it, well, yeah, we're trapped in Hungry, Hungry Hippos mode.  There's no concern that after I get some, you should be able to have some--we tell ourselves, "That's not how the game works!"  There's no limitation to whether it makes sense for me to have more than I can possibly use while others go... well, hungry.  There's nothing prohibiting me from nudging, pushing, or elbowing the others out of my way, either.  James sees that as a disaster--not just waiting to happen, but already unfolding like a train-wreck in slow motion, right before our eyes.

James surely knew his biblical history as well, and knew plenty of stories where powerful people lived like they could simply take what was someone else's because they wanted it and they could.  From King David's exploitation of Bathsheba and murder of Uriah to King Ahab using royal pressure to acquire Naboth's land to the well-connected powerful classes during the days of prophets like Amos and Micah, James knew the stories of how people who claimed to live in God's ways still operated like they could endlessly take from others without consequence.  And James knew that kind of Hungry-Hungry-Hippos mentality destroys peace and justice.

Will we recognize it in ourselves?  Dare we take an honest look at the ways we get coaxed into the very same mindset?  Can we recognize the ways we've already been taught to see life as a game of endless consumption with no rules other than "whoever has the most in the end wins"?  And once we see how we've been playing that game and elbowing neighbors out of our way so we can acquire even more, will we be brave enough to break out of that mindset and try something new?   

Could we unlearn what decades of life in a Hungry-Hungry-Hippos kind of culture has taught us about always wanting "more," and envision James' alternative where success looks like everyone having enough, and all can live in contentment and peace?

I'm willing to take James up on this dare, because--as I imagine you may be, too--I'm tired of the hippos.  I'm ready to be done with that game-playing.  How about you?

Lord God, teach us new ways of living in this world with one another--your ways.  Help us to see our fulfillment in life shared with one another rather than hoarding.  And help us to know when to ignore the voices around us teaching us to be forever unsatisfied.

The Adventure of a Lifetime--February 17, 2022

The Adventure of a Lifetime--February 17, 2022

"But 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." [James 3:17-18]

There's an old cliche that says heroes are boring, but villains grab our attention... that virtue is dull, but vice is alluring.

Everyone says that fiction about heaven is dull because it must be plain and drab and homogenously pristine, but imagining hell makes you a best-seller. (Plenty of folks have also noted that people remember the Satan figure from Paradise Lost, who says, "Better to reign in hell than to serve in heaven," but its sequel, Paradise Regained doesn't get the same recognition, or that Dante's grotesque imagery of torture and punishment in his Inferno stick in the memory better than the perfections of the celestial city in the end of his Divine Comedy.)  Just a few decades ago, countless moviegoers waited for years and paid for an awful lot of movie tickets to witness the origin story of a classic villain like Darth Vader in the Star Wars prequels of the 2000s. Whether it was worth all that fuss or not, well, that's a conversation for another day, but shows like Breaking Bad or its spin-off Better Call Saul, or even Marvel's Loki series all make big bucks telling the stories of villains being, well, villains.  Rottenness is profitable show business, it would seem.

So here's my question: is it true?  Is wickedness more interesting, and righteousness just plain dull?  Is Billy Joel right when he sings, "I'd rather laugh with the sinners than cry with the saints--the sinners are much more fun" in his anthem, "Only the Good Die Young"?  Or maybe, is there really something even more compelling about goodness that just often goes overlooked?  I'm convinced that James believes so--and he is out to convince us as well.

James showed us in yesterday's verses how the way of life centered on only asking, "What's in it for me?" eventually comes up empty.  The kind of mindset rooted in what James called "selfish ambition"--the attitude where everything is a deal or a transaction--ends up eroding trust, destroying genuine love, and leaving us hollow inside, both as individuals or as entire societies.  And in all honesty, that story gets really tired really quick.  

More to the point, I think every day of our lives in this "Me-And-My-Group-First" kind of culture reminds us just how suffocating and stifling it is to be surrounded by voices that just keep shouting, "You can't tell me what to do!" while they baptize selfishness as "good business sense."  I think, despite sales at the box office, deep down we know that it's actually evil that is monotonous and tedious.  (Maybe the last ten years or so of superhero movies have shown it to you, too--there's only so many times you can watch a supervillain try to blow up the world before you decide you don't need to see the next sequel do it all over again.)  I think we are actually really tired of the kind of "worldly wisdom" that is only driven by greed and envy.  But maybe our problem is that we just don't know how to imagine anything different.

This, I think, is really what James is driving at in today's verses.  He offers a foothold for us to explore for ourselves what an alternative to the world's fake wisdom would actually look like.  He helps us stretch our faithful imaginations to picture a different way of life one that isn't obsessed with shallow self-interest. If yesterday's verses were a sketch of the predictable pattern of tragedy that unfolds when we base our lives on a What's-in-it-for-me mindset, today he offers us a glimpse of the opposite: a life lived in light of God's kind of wisdom.  James looks to the heart of God's own character, knowing that the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob is gracious and merciful, patient and truthful, just and generous, and he dares us to imagine our own lives shaped by that character, too.  

And honestly, that kind of life is a lot more compelling to me than the same old talking heads on TV trying to sell us on the Me-and-My-Interests-First mentality.  That gets old. But the possibilities that open up from a life of being peaceable with neighbors who are different but with whom we can still live and interact? They are endless.  The kind of authenticity from leading lives where we don't have to pretend or be hypocrites anymore?  That sounds freeing and refreshing!  The kind of life where we take turns helping each other reach the good things we are seeking--that sounds like a good way to spend our days, doesn't it?  I can't imagine that getting old, but rather that as familiar as it got, it would be endlessly new as we reached wider and wider to include more and more people in the embrace.  

The amazing thing to me in all this is that James doesn't hold all of this up as just some afterlife pipe-dream.  He doesn't suggest that lives marked by peace, gentleness, and mercy are reserved only for our days after death in heaven.  He sees this way of life as something we are invited into right now, because this is simply what it looks like to live our lives in line with the sort of wisdom that takes God as its starting point.  When we start with lives centered on the God whose very nature is self-giving, who is patient and gentle with us, who is generous even to strangers, sinners, stinkers, and enemies, then yeah, our actions and habits will take on those traits as well. 

And that kind of life doesn't sound boring at all to me--in all truthfulness, it sounds like the adventure of a lifetime.

Lord God, lead us in a path that follows your own kind of wisdom, out of the dead-end dull routines of selfishness we've been trapped in for so long.

The National Motto of Hell--February 16, 2022

The National Motto of Hell--February 16, 2022

"But if you have envy and selfish ambition in your hearts, do not be boastful and false to the truth.  Such wisdom does not come down from above, but is earthly, unspiritual, devilish.  For where there is envy and selfish ambition, there will also be disorder and wickedness of every kind." [James 3:14-16]

I'm pretty sure that the national anthem of hell is Frank Sinatra's "My Way." And if they have official mottos there in the realm of perdition, I have a sneaking suspicion that all the coinage of the realm is stamped with these twin creeds:  "What's in it for me?" and "You can't make me!"  In fact, I dare say the entire political and economic order of hell could be spun out of those--indeed, a whole philosophy of life.

I don't mean to be glib or crude here, just to say that the contrast is stark between the way of God's Reign and the "me-first" mentality of hell. And I dare say that difference is what James is driving at in this passage.  James is trying, as clearly and emphatically as he knows how, to show us that there are two different ways of approaching life, and each has its own sort of "wisdom" or way of attaining "the good life."  They have competing definitions of what "success" looks like, and they have opposing guidance for how to achieve it. (What frightens me, honestly, is how close the mindset of hell seems to what passes for conventional wisdom in our time and place now.)

The central question is this: am I oriented inward toward myself alone, or am I oriented outward for the good of others and of all (trusting, yes, that I will not be forgotten in the mix there)?  When everything is about me seeking my own interests, everything becomes a transaction. Everything becomes a scheme, a deal, a scam to get something from others.  And it reduces all my relationships to matters of what I can get from them--it turns people into commodities and objects, not as faces who are beloved and worthy of good things for themselves.  The key idea here from James is a word that the NRSV translates as "selfish ambition," and it's got the feel of "seeing everything in life as a transaction" or "only doing things when you'll get something in return for what you do."  It's the idea that you may do something that helps someone else, but really only as an investment for what they will do for you in return, whether now or later.  It's the idea that people are only important insofar as they can get you something, but other than that they are expendable.  And it is utterly graceless.

In other words, this kind of terrible "wisdom" is what it looks like when you insist on asking, "What's in it for me?" before ever doing a kindness for someone else.  It's the way of life that unfolds from petulantly demanding, "You can't make me!" when you are asked to be considerate of others.  And James sees all sorts of terrible outcomes for a life--or, God forbid, a whole national culture!--based on those two slogans.  Like he says, "where there is envy and selfish ambition, there will also be disorder and wickedness of every kind."  If every choice I make is rooted only in my own sheer self-interest, mercy is not possible.  Trust is not possible.  Decency and common good get thrown out the window.  And even what passes for "love" in that kind of society will really just be arrangements of using other people for what they do for you, not loving them regardless of their capacity to pay you back.  

This "earthly, unspiritual, devilish" way of seeing the world says, "Dump your spouse if they get sick or difficult to live with, or if a more attractive model comes along." It insists, "My comfort and convenience are most important to me, so I will not do small actions that could help or assist others who are more vulnerable than I am." And it assumes that the goal of life is to get as much for yourself as possible while giving as little of yourself away, and all the while, refusing to bow or bend to anyone else--you know, as the Chairman of the Board sang it, "I did it my way."

The thing about this whole way of living and seeing the world is that it becomes its own punishment.  This is what I mean by saying that "What's in it for me?" is like a national motto for hell--because a life seriously lived with that as your lens of reality becomes utterly hellish.  As much power, wealth, and celebrity status as you might attain with that as your slogan, it all rings hollow in the end, with relationships crumbling to dust, the terrible fate of never really being loved by others, and the paralyzing fear that you'll be forgotten and left behind when you don't have anything worth offering anyone else anymore.  It may sell books to promote everything in life as a matter of making "deals," but in the end, a transactional way of thinking and living is a terrible fate.

James is simply trying to warn us of what happens when we build our lives on that kind of thinking.  And once you start with, "What's in it for me?" as your philosophy of life (a la Lucy Van Pelt from the Charlie Brown musical), you are already headed down a dead-end road.  It becomes a complete system of thinking and acting. It will dictate who you vote for, how you run your business, how you treat your neighbors, and how you deal with the challenges that come your way, from aging to job change to price-inflation to a world-wide pandemic.   And it becomes harder and harder to pull out of that way of life the longer you accept it as the truth.

Tomorrow, James will show us the alternative he would offer--what God's kind of wisdom looks like as opposed to this pitiable, damnable "Me-and-My-Group-First" approach.  But for now, maybe it is enough for us to take an honest look at our own lives to see where we've been suckered into this way of thinking.  It may be uncomfortable to face where we've fallen for it, but because that damnable mindset of transactional "What's in it for me?" thinking can do so much damage where we let it fester, it's worth doing the hard work of pulling it out like a splinter in our souls before it works its way any deeper.

So let's look.  Let's take James' hand like we did when were children and mom or dad held the tweezers to our injured fingers or feet, and let's allow that splinter to be taken out.  And let's dare to turn to the alternative--the way of life rooted in God's own self-giving love.

Lord God, we confess that we have been suckered into terrible ways of living and told they were the best of the world's wisdom.  Help root it out, and pull us into a new way of living, growing in the good soil of your deep love.

Without Advertising It--February 15, 2022

Without Advertising It--February 15, 2022

"Who is wise and understanding among you? Show by your good life that your works are done with gentleness born of wisdom." [James 3:13]

It turns out that a substantial amount of my personal theology has been shaped by one-off jokes from classic episodes of The Simpsons, and I'm not embarrassed about that at all. Today's verse from James, in fact, comes into clearer focus for me because of an eleven second bit from the classic cartoon show.

Here's the short version.  There's a community yard sale in the Simpsons' neighborhood in Springfield, and Homer is trying to pawn a denim jacket that he had bedazzled in the 70s with rhinestones that were supposed to spell "DISCO STUD," but he ran out of space and didn't have room for the final "D." So we've got the sight gag of a jean jacket emblazoned with the lettering "DISCO STU," and then immediately two men walk by, one in normal looking clothes, and the other in a white leisure suit, a wide collar shirt, platform shoes, and loose gold necklaces.  "Hey, Stu, you should get this jacket--it's perfect for you!" says the one guy, which is met with the immediate deadpan reply from the man in the Saturday Night Fever get-up, "Disco Stu doesn't advertise."  

It was perfectly absurd as a one-off joke in a TV show, but that line has stayed with me ever since and reverberated.  If you're the real deal, you don't need to advertise with words--you will make it clear who you are in the ways you act, especially in the little things that are done when you don't realize anyone is watching.  Disco Stu doesn't need to advertise who he is, because it's obvious from his outfit to his dance moves to his puffed out hair to his attitudes just what sort of person he is, and just what matters to him.  And when it's already clear who you are, you don't need to go bragging to anyone else or shouting out the world what you want others to think about you.

In the same vein, Margaret Thatcher put it well in her famous dictum about having real power beyond braggadocio:  "Being powerful is like being a lady; if you have to tell people you are, you aren't."  Of course: if you have to tell everyone you have the social graces and elegance of being, in the British sense, a "lady," but it doesn't show up in how you actually act and conduct yourself around others, you are just pretending.  Real power doesn't have to tell people it's there--you just, as another 20th century leader once put it, "Speak softly and carry a big stick."  So whether you take it from a Roosevelt, a Thatcher, or from Disco Stu, the point is all the same.  The way to show people who you really are isn't actually a "show"--at least, not in the sense of performing something like a role.  The ways we reveal who we truly are emerge in the things we don't even realize we are doing--the impressions we give without "trying," because they are reflections of what is at our core identity.  If you're a disco enthusiast, we'll know it by your dancing (and possibly your use of mirror balls in home decorating).  If you're truly powerful, you won't need to tell a soul--we'll know from the way you carry yourself, the ways you back up your words with actions, and the ways you garner the respect of others when you walk into a room.  None of these things requires a hint of what Stu calls "advertising."

And honestly, James is saying the very same thing.  If you want to show people that you are wise, if you want to reveal that you possess understanding and insight, you don't need to tell people.  You don't need to be constantly dropping references to your academic degrees or the intellectual circles you run in.  You don't need to tell people how smart you are, brag about your IQ, or wear your hair like Albert Einstein to convince the watching world.  We'll see your wisdom simply by the ways you act, speak, and engage with the rest of us.  We'll notice the little details of who you are, when you don't even know we are paying attention.  We'll see who you are, deep down, without advertising.

James' phrase for it is simply our "good life" and actions that are done "with gentleness born of wisdom."  The Greek has the feel of describing the regular habits of behavior that we don't even realize we are doing.  They are not the heroic acts we hope will make the headlines, and they are not the kinds of things you stop and take photos of so you can post them later on your social media platforms.  James is talking about the things we don't even stop to notice have become ingrained in us.  It's the way people show you that they just "get it"--what life is all about.  When someone shows you their thoughtfulness by holding a door open for you without your asking... or when someone reveals they actually care about you by remembering what you said the last time you talked with them and following up on it... or when someone lets you glimpse their generosity because you caught the large tip they left the frazzled server when they didn't think anyone else would see it... they are showing us that they "get" what life is all about, and they're revealing a wisdom that just radiates out from them like light from the sun.  No rhinestone-messaged outerwear will be necessary--you'll just see who they are from the inside.

That's the vision for how you and I can live freely in the world, as well.  Instead of worrying how we will be perceived, fretting over our reputation, or stewing about what other people will think when they see what we've done, imagine just doing things that come from goodness--because they are good.  Imagine not having to document on Facebook the things that will get the most likes.  (Imagine not having to prove how "tough" you are by not picking fights on Facebook, too!)  Imagine not having to convince anyone you're kind, caring, truthful, reliable, responsible, intelligent, or honest, because they just see those things in the ways you act around people.  That sounds like the best possible kind of life, honestly--one free of pretending, and one free of being dependent on others' estimations of us.  And that is exactly what James is offering to us, free of charge.  That kind of life, a life of integrity, of authenticity, and of genuine freedom, is ours to step into, right here and right now.

What if you and I didn't have the slightest need any longer to impress someone else, but instead could spend our time and energy just doing what is worth doing in life because it's deep inside us at our core?  Well, here's good news: you already can. And you don't even need to advertise it.  We'll know.  We'll see when your head is turned the other way.

Lord God, let your goodness flow so freely from us at our core that we simply walk in your ways without trying to impress.  Let us be genuinely yours.

The Courage to Hear Critique--February 14, 2022

The Courage to Hear Critique--February 14, 2022

"With [the tongue] we bless the Lord and Father, and with it we curse those who are made in the likeness of God.  From the same mouth come blessing and cursing.  My brothers and sisters, this ought not to be so. Does a spring pour forth from the same opening both fresh and brackish water?  Can a fig tree, my brothers and sisters, yield olives, or a grapevine figs?  No more can salt water yield fresh." [James 3:9-12]

I've got to admit it--every time I hear some talking head bemoaning "cancel culture" like a boogeyman who will come and get you in the night, I think of James--and I think we would not want to have to have him listen to or read our words.  James holds an even higher standard for what comes out of our mouths than what gets branded (often with gross inaccuracy) "cancel culture."  James holds us to the bar of love--genuine love--both for God, and for all who are made in the image of God.

But like I say, every generation needs to invent monsters to use to deal with their own anxieties and insecurities. In the days of the Puritans colonizing New England coasts, it was the specter of witches that whipped up a frenzy. In the 1950s, there was the pervasive fear that Communists were around every corner and hiding in every tree.  In the early 2000s, everyone whose parents had come from particular countries around the world were at risk of being labeled "terrorists."  And in the age of social media, the irrational thing to be afraid of (and to feel grievances over) is the possibility of being "cancelled"--the fear that if you say something unpopular or out of fashion, that a mob of faceless critics will silence you and prevent you from being heard.  

And like those earlier waves of panic, once you've got an ominous threat out there, from witches in Salem to Soviets putting chemicals in your drinking water, it's easy to tell yourself that you're on the side of good by resisting and defying whatever the scary enemy is.  In our time, then, there are talking heads on screens out there insisting that one must rise up against "cancel culture" by being all the more mean-spirited, crude, bigoted, or belligerent.  We should dig your heels in, they say, refuse to consider that we ourselves might have something to learn from someone else's critique, and of course, we should take anybody else's criticism as active persecution or censorship, rather than simply their choice not to listen to what we have to say or to push back in reply to what they disagree with.  In other words, when someone else calls out a problem or critique in what we say publicly, it is always terribly tempting to lash back out at them for trying to "cancel" us than to ask whether they hear something in our words that needs to be addressed, reconsidered, and possibly repented of.  Rather than face the possibility that we could be wrong or be causing hurt to someone else (because we like to imagine ourselves to be perfect peaches), it is always easier to turn those we have hurt into the enemy, and to cast ourselves as noble victims being harassed by some impersonal nefarious thing we label "cancel culture."  Well, like I say, James will have none of our nonsense--he just comes out and says, "You who call yourselves Christians need to watch your own mouths, because there is a lot of garbage coming out of them, and it deserves to be capped up and closed like a poisoned well."

James himself--this writer of the New Testament, and not some imagined boogeyman or faceless cabal whose politics you don't like--is the one telling us to keep our mouths closed if we are speaking hatefully toward other people.  And I suspect as well that he would tell us that if someone else approaches us about our words and says that we have hurt them, we need to listen to them, not get defensive about our "rights" to be jerks.  As far as Christians are concerned, regardless of what the local law of the land will permit, we don't have the right to be jerks.  There is no "freedom to be hateful" for followers of Jesus, and we forfeit any protection of speech that treats someone else made in the image of God as "less-than."  Followers of Jesus should be the ones listening most closely when someone else points out how our words have been harmful or hateful to others; we shouldn't be running away like digital age Chicken Little, riling up everyone else about some insidious thing called "cancel culture." We should be the ones most willing to be corrected in light of love, not the least.

This is the really important--but also really difficult--thing about having a voice like James in the Bible.  He cuts through our defense mechanisms, and he deflates our pride.  Sometimes Respectable Religious Folk can get themselves up in arms that they need to look tough and strong and powerful, and we need to invent enemies so that we can tell ourselves we are being persecuted when we are actually just being reminded we aren't the only ones playing in the sandbox.  And once we do that--once we tell ourselves we are the victims rather than that we may be a part of the problem and in need of correction, growth, or change--it becomes terribly easy to tell ourselves we are right to be obnoxious, and that our "freedom" to be jerks to others must be defended.  It does not.  There is no such freedom for followers of Jesus.  If we are going to bless and praise the God who made us (and indeed, that is right and salutary, as the old line goes), then we are going to hold our speech about other people to the same standard of speaking life rather than death, goodness rather than evil, and to be open to hearing from others when they point out how we have failed at that.  

Being open to other people's critique with our words isn't un-Christian--it is in fact exactly what followers of Jesus do when we realize we aren't perfect and have our own blind-spots where we cannot see how the impact of our words on others.  Being open to hear others' when they tell us we have caused harm isn't "being cancelled"--it's being courage enough to get better at loving.  James brings us face to face with that, if we dare look him in the eye.

Today, rather than getting up in arms against some imaginary "them" out there who are looking to silence and censor, what if started the day open to the input of others, even if it sometimes makes us uncomfortable to gain new perspectives?  That does take bravery--and it is always easier to avoid being brave when we can just hide under a rock and tell someone else they are the problem.  But James is here as an older brother in the faith, and we are here with one another, to find the courage to listen... and the courage to grow.

Lord Jesus, give us the courage to listen, rather than to run away, when others help us to see the effects of our words.  Help us to see not only ourselves, but all people, as made in your image.

Jurassic Park Syndrome--February 11, 2022

Jurassic Park Syndrome--February 11, 2022

"How great a forest is set ablaze by a small fire! And the tongue is a fire. The tongue is placed among our members as a world of iniquity; it stains the whole body, sets on fire the cycle of nature, and is itself set on fire by hell. For every species of beast and bird, of reptile and sea creature, can be tamed and has been tamed by the human species, but no one can tame the tongue--a restless evil, full of deadly poison." [James 3:5b-8]

One of the insidious dangers of living in a society that prides itself on freedom of speech is that we can be so focused on demanding our rights to say things that we never spend adequate time reflecting on what is worth being heard.  And if we are only laser-focused on "My Right To Say Whatever I Want" and never ask, "What actually would be helpful to speak into this situation?" we run the risk of causing terrible harm to people around us and remaining completely oblivious to the damage.

Please, don't get me wrong.  I understand both the historical context and the value of our country's constitutionally enshrined heritage protecting the freedom of speech.  I understand the rationale behind a First Amendment that guarantees the freedom to say what one wishes to say, and the need to be able to protect speech that is unpopular, unorthodox, difficult to hear, or controversial.  And I understand the logic that absolutizes the freedom of speech such that the government cannot punish you for saying things even when they are demonstrably false, deeply hateful, or grossly vulgar.  Knowing even our own history as Christians who were regularly thrown in jail, tortured, or executed by the Empire for refusing to acknowledge Caesar as Lord with their words, I have an appreciation that we have created a system of government in which I can't be thrown in jail for voicing an opinion against the powers of the day.  And I also get that such freedom to speak for me also requires granting the same freedom from government censorship to others when they have things to say, regardless of whether I like them, agree with them, or can verify that their claims are false.  That's all part of how the system has to work.

But while I can understand and appreciate that we have rules in place to keep the army from showing up at my door to arrest or shoot me if I say something critical of the government, I do worry that sometimes we Americans (and American Christians in particular) think of our speech only in terms of shaking off limitations.  It is very easy to think that the freedom of speech means that NO ONE can EVER put limits on what I say, and I can NEVER face consequences that result from what I say.  (This, of course, is clearly wrong even from a basic legal standpoint, since the First Amendment only protects me from the government's ability to limit my speech, but it doesn't guarantee me the right to a platform on social media, or protect me from other people refusing to do business with me if I say terrible, hateful, or unpopular things; nor does the First Amendment require other people to listen, share, or publish what I say if they don't like it.) We can be so insistent that no one can ever put limits on what we say that we assume everything that CAN be said, OUGHT to be said.  And that just ain't so.

In a way, our problem is rather like the line of Jeff Goldblum's character in the original Jurassic Park movie:  "You were so preoccupied with whether you could, you never stopped to ask if you should."  In the movie, of course, the question is whether it was a good idea to clone dinosaurs from DNA extracted from mosquitoes fossilized in amber.  And when the dinosaurs break free from their enclosures and start eating people, the movie's answer seems to be pretty clearly, "No, this was not a good idea."

I don't think it's off the mark to hear James in the same vein here with today's verses.  He is deeply concerned about the ways our words can become like runaway velociraptors.  There is something amazing and wonderful about the human capacity to share ideas through written and spoken language, but it requires great care and thought to decide how to use that awesome capacity well.  Otherwise we are back to Jurassic Park Syndrome--we get so focused on insisting we CAN say whatever want that we never stop to ask what we SHOULD say.  And that's just the thing: while it is appropriate to have laws that keep the government from imprisoning people for what they say, that's not the same as assuming everything that could be said, should be said.  Some things are not mine to say (i.e., they are someone else's business); some things are not mine to say without having the facts (i.e., they are not matters of mere opinion or feeling). And some things are not worth saying... at all.

For disciples of Jesus (which is what Christians are supposed to be), the right question is not, "Don't I have the right to say whatever I want?" but rather, "What does the way of Jesus lead me to say in this circumstance, and how would Jesus have me say it?"  Other voices in the New Testament can help flesh out some that, too.  Saint Paul would tell us that it is important to be truthful as well as to speak with love.  He would also add that it is worth being winsome rather than crude, sincere rather than disingenuous, empathetic rather than judgmental, and humble rather than arrogant with our words.  Jesus (and James later on in this book) will tell us to mean what we say rather than to hedge our talk with weasel-words that allow us say things that are "technically" not lies, but come awfully close, or to make promises we cannot possibly keep.  James will also tell us in our next few verses not to speak evil of anybody made in the image of God (which is everyone).  And all of today's verses from James remind us of all that can (and often does) go wrong when we don't stick to those modes of speaking.  So easily, our words can become "full of deadly poison." And surely James has seen it happen before, as fragile hearts have been harmed by cruel or careless words.

This is why it boggles my mind to hear Respectable Religious Folk (and often Respectable Religious Leaders, at that!) being crude, cruel, and careless with the truth in their speech.  Whether it's the sad cliche of supporting public figures who are petty, spiteful, mendacious and mean by saying, "Well, they just tell it like it is, and they get the job done!" (when in actuality, neither of those are true), or it's the willingness of folks to spread messages that they either know to be false or cannot possibly have verified on their own, all too often we do just what James warns us against.  And when folks get called out for passing along disinformation or amplifying the voices of liars and demagogues, the go-to response in our culture is, "Hey, it's a free country--you're allowed to say whatever you want, however you want to say it."  And again, that's exactly the same trap of American culture and the Jurassic Park scientists all over again: we are so insistent that no one can tell us we "can't" that we never stop to ask whether we should speak in those ways.

James doesn't want us setting a rogue Tyrannosaurus on the world, causing hurt and harm to others while we prattle on about how we have the "right" to do and say whatever we want.  He's lived through too much pain before when people were cruel, crude and careless with the truth to let us off the hook. Today, maybe it is worth us trusting his experience (if we don't have any of our own to learn from) and to shape our speech in the likeness of Jesus' own truth-telling, compassion, humility, and care.

Today, let's approach every conversation--in person, online, and everywhere else--as though we are both talking to Jesus and speaking for Jesus.  And whatever doesn't make the cut through those two filters... maybe doesn't need to be said at all.

Lord Jesus, train our hearts and minds to speak in ways that reflect your character.

The Superpower Behind Our Lips--February 10, 2022

The Superpower Behind Our Lips--February 10, 2022

"For all of us make many mistakes. Anyone who makes no mistakes in speaking is perfect, able to keep the whole body in check with a bridle. If we put bits into the mouths of horses to make them obey us, we guide their whole bodies. Or look at ships: though they are so large that it takes strong winds to drive them, yet they are guided by a very small rudder wherever the will of the pilot directs. So also the tongue is a small member, yet it boasts of great exploits." [James 3:2-5a]

"We all make our share of mistakes."  Yeah, that's true, but even that is a polite way of putting the human condition.  James is a little more direct in his original Greek way of saying this, and it lands with a bigger impact to my ears.  James' original sense is closer to, "We are all stumbling and tripping all over ourselves all the time." 

And--wow.  Yeah.  That hits close to home... because it's true.  He's right.  

I don't just accidentally use the salad fork or leave my elbows on the table at dinner from time to time.  I don't merely forget my log-in password or leave the CAPS LOCK button on occasion.  I stumble all over myself, all the time, particularly with the words that come out of my mouth (and the ones that don't, but should).  I can be cruel or cold when compassion is really called for.  I can be sarcastic or passive-aggressive when sincerity would be the mature course of action.  I can lash out with a harsh word, even though I know it is only going to aggravate a situation, when it would be so much better to ease tensions by asking other people to help me understand their point of view. I can attack with sweeping generalizations like, "You always do such and such!" or "You never help with..." when what I really mean is something more nuanced, like, "When you don't help with this, it makes me feel pretty rotten," or "When you do that, it makes me feel really frustrated."  

I suspect that you have the same trouble, too, even if it shows itself in different ways.  We all trip all over ourselves with the ways we use words, and the ways we misuse them.  Not only in our interpersonal conversations day by day, but in the powder keg we know as social media, even more so.  We live in a time when a weaponized word can be lobbed at someone across great distances, without any regard for the humanity of the other person, all from the safety of our screens.  We are given the impression that we have to fight these battles online in the name of truth and honor and "stickin' it to the other guy," and then rather than listen to where someone is coming from we just brand them with the worst names we have in our arsenal.  We live in a culture filled with incessant messaging bombarding us all the time, but which somehow has less and less of substance to say.  Ours is a time when the right word can be used to whitewash monstrosities, to transform strangers into villains or selfishness into a virtue in our minds, or to cast an angry riot as legitimate discourse.  Words are powerful, because they shape the way we see the world into which we step every day. But all too often we treat our words as though they have no real consequences, when in truth we are children playing with dynamite.

James knows it.  Who knows what damage he has seen done in his congregation?  Who knows what heartbreaks he has lived through himself, or counseled others through, all because of destructive words?  James doesn't just single out one troublemaker in the congregation over everyone else--he sees that we all have this terrible power in our own tongues, one that is deceptive because it can seem so harmless or insignificant.  He knows that each of us is capable of wielding words carelessly, and that's why he brings this warning. Instead of only villainizing the people he doesn't like or doesn't agree with, as though only they were capable of weaponizing their mouths, he gives a warning all around.  Instead of giving himself permission to be mean or cruel in response to others "because they did it too!" he calls all parties, all around, to watch their tongues.  That's huge--it's James reminding us that just because someone else is being destructive (or disrespectful or rude or rotten) with their words, it does not give us permission to sink to their level.  To borrow those powerful words of Robert Hayden's that have gotten some recent play on late-night television lately, "we must not be frightened or cajoled into accepting evil as deliverance from evil. We must go on struggling to be human, though monsters of abstractions police and threaten us."

Today, the challenge in front of us is clear and necessary.  Each of us is called to recognize the power contained in our own mouths--the power of words--and to use it for good and not for evil.  Each of us has the capacity to use the amazing human capacity for speech in ways that build up, in ways that tell the truth, in ways that call out the best in us, and in ways that break the cycles of rottenness around us.  We also have the power to misuse words to send us down bad roads, to distort the way we see the world around us, to harm others, and to let ourselves off the hook.  James warns us not to use that superpower behind our lips in destructive ways, no matter what we see someone else doing.  That's at least one way we can do something positive to keep ourselves from stumbling all over each other and tripping up the people around us.  

And that's worth the effort.  

Good Lord, like the old psalmist said it, guard the door of our lips today, and let us use the power of speech to create, as you did at the beginning, calling light into existence out of oblivion.

The Grace of Accountability--February 9, 2022

The Grace of Accountability--February 9, 2022

"Not many of you should become teachers, my brothers and sisters, for you know that we who teach will be judged with greater strictness." [James 3:1]

I don't know whether to be comforted or terrified by these words.  Probably both at the same time is where I need to land.

The terrifying part is probably obvious.  I mean, here I am, local "religious professional" person, whose paid employment heavily involves teaching others and daring to make claims about who God is and what God is like, how we relate to God and one another, and what sort of life God is shaping us into.  In sermons and Bible studies, confirmation classes, Sunday School lessons, children's sermons, devotions, podcasts and videos, and a host of other ways, I and others who are pastors, teachers, and leaders dare to presume we have something worth saying--and worth hearing--about God and us.  That is downright audacious, if you think about it.

And I do.  James makes me think about it.  James reminds me that the stakes are high for any teacher, since teachers are given the task of helping learners to grow.  Whether it's learning to read or how to add, learning to think critically and communicate, learning a skill or a trade, or learning a faith tradition, good teaching makes a powerful impact--and bad teaching causes terrible problems.  The controversies that erupt into the news over some local school board wanting to ban this or that book, or whatever the latest paranoia is about some current in education, they all remind us that the stakes are high when it comes to teaching anything--at least if we think that learning matters.  What gets taught, and how it is taught... whose stories get told, and who gets to tell them... what things are acknowledged out loud, and what things are swept under rugs... what is presented as certain and solid, and what is held up alongside numerous alternatives--these are all important questions about how communities and societies teach everything from literature and history to science and civics.

It is all the more dangerous a thing to dare to be in a position to teach others about the Mystery we call "God."  Unlike a butterfly you can pin in a box or a frog you can cut open in high school biology class, the divine cannot be dissected and mounted for display.  Unlike a higher level of mathematics about which one can plausibly say, "But I'll never really use this," claims about God shape how we live, how we think, and how we act.  Unlike some minute and specific field of study like the textile economy of 17th century Bavaria or painters of the Spanish Renaissance, God as a "subject" is always impossibly bigger and wider than we can ever possibly master, and touches on every piece of our lives. So, yes, claiming to have the authority (and audacity) to teach someone else about God is one of those places where "fools rush in" and "angels fear to tread."  

It matters what we teach and believe about God, because the shape of our faith becomes the lens through which we see the rest of the world.  Even a cursory ready of history reveals how often terrible things are done in the name of the God (or god) we believe in, convinced that these terrible things are not deplorable, but fit with the nature of that god. And by contrast, sometimes people dare courageous and beautiful things because they are driven by the compelling beauty of God's grace that makes them brave enough to be grace-full as well. Quite simply, the stakes are precariously high when daring to teach about God and God's ways. 

So reading this verse fills me, a local Religious Professional who spends a chunk of his time attempting to have something worth saying about God, with a fair amount of fear and trembling. And yet, I can respect James' point--because the stakes are so high and so much terrible damage can be done to our souls by bad theology, or a faith co-opted by the empire, or the partnering of religion with prejudice, discrimination, and bigotry, we need teachers to be held to a higher standard.  Because of the power imbalance between a teacher and any student, we need teachers to be accountable not to abuse their positions.  I am grateful, as much as I am fearful, that the writers of the New Testament don't take that calling lightly.  And I am glad that James doesn't shrug off bad theology as mostly harmless (even if bad theology sells more books and is more useful to unscrupulous politicians).  

But maybe even more than that, I am comforted, too, to think that James cares about those who are most at risk from bad teaching and careless teachers.  It's a beautiful thing, once again, to see James show that the Christian faith is meant to be oriented around the needs of those who are most endangered, most on the margins, and most susceptible to harm, rather than giving the powerful free rein to do whatever they like (in the name of preserving their "freedom").  I am grateful that James would rather look out for those who can be harmed by bad theology than let the teachers of such bad theology off the hook... even if that makes me squirm as someone who teaches about God and would like to think I am right in what I have to say. Reading James keeps me on my toes.  Reading James holds me accountable.  Reading James makes me see that I do not have the right to be sloppy or arrogant in my own thinking, living, and teaching of the gospel--but also that I need to be humble enough to listen to others who will correct me, open my eyes to new realizations, and broaden my perspective.  If the price for that kind of honesty and integrity in those who dare to speak about the Mystery is that teachers and preachers need to be more self-critical and reflective before declaring "Thus sayeth the Lord" over their words, that seems a worthwhile trade.

It is always good news, honestly, to know that God is looking out for the people who are most vulnerable, even when it means that those with more power, position, or privilege are held to greater accountability than they were used to as a result.  

So even though this verse holds me accountable, I am grateful it is here... for all our sakes.

Lord God, help us to speak, think, and act in ways that align with who you are.  Let our lives be shaped in the likeness of your love.