Both Sides of the Coin

Text: James 1:17-27

Focus: Holiness

Function: To help people be balanced in their approach to holiness.

Form: Expository

Intro: We have all probably heard the phrase “Christianity is not a religion, it is a relationship with Jesus.”

I like the phrase because it demonstrates to me the personal nature of God's salvation in my life and the way the Holy Spirit works inside all of us to give us a conscience, help us follow that conscience and causes us to be humble, gracious, merciful, generous and self-sacrificing for the sake of others.

The Holy Spirit, according to the promise given by the prophet Ezekiel comes inside the heart of a person and turns that heart of stone, a hard heart, into a tender, caring heart.

I have used the phrase many times that I eschew religion because religion implies man-made institutions that really don't honor God.

They are creations of human imagination.

But, that really isn't what Scripture says.

Or, at least the word “religion” has changed its meaning.

It comes from the word Piety, or Pious.

When I think of Piety, or Pious behavior, I think of someone who is no fun at all.

But again, that is an unfair description.

Pious literally means “set apart for God.”

Holy. But then we hear the pejorative: Holy Roller.

It is a negative term and that isn't fair for someone who is our brother or sister in Christ.

It leads me to think this about the word religion: I want to take it back.

Even though I prefer “spiritual” to “religious,” I want to take back the word “religious.”

At least for the purpose of our discussion this morning.

There is great preaching from this passage.

I have heard a lot of preachers emphasize the words “be doers and not just hearers” of the Word.

Doers of the word.

I have had a lot of times when I have not measured up to whatever “doers of the Word” meant in the concept of this passage.

So, I am going to give you a break and speak about this passage from its own perspective. It is a very positive passage.

I find it funny that Martin Luther didn't think the book of James should be in the NT because he believed that it teaches a “works oriented” and then a “hell fire and brimstone” sort of salvation that fueled an institution that had become corrupt and had rejected the grace that Jesus gives.

That is not my experience of the book. I think I could break it down as this: “We love God by loving others and if we do not love others, then something is amiss. Our religion has taken us away from Jesus' mercy.

I find the book of James to have a lot of practical principles for us to live a faithful life as members of God's family.

We will get to a big principle later in our study of James over the next few weeks but today, let us take apart this passage.

Vs. 17: Every good and perfect present comes from heaven.

Hallelujah.

James starts out his whole admonition with the principle that God is generous and God loves to give. God loves to give. And God has given us many, many good things.

God gives and God loves to give.

And, James sort of -we will look at it- sort of tells us that God wants us to be generous with the generosity that God has given us.

He gave, we give back. We respond to God's giving by giving back. At a young age, I was told that this is the reason we give gifts at Christmas.

Everything starts with God's giving.

Then James takes up the question of human anger.

Anger is an emotion. God created it. It can be a very positive force. It helps us to move through problems that are depressing or frustrating us. One of my Counseling professors kept drilling into our heads this: “90% of non-medical depression is a result of unresolved anger.”

Anger part of God's gift. I get angry at injustice. I get angry at how Jesus teachings are oftentimes co-opted for personal or material gains and power over others. The prophets of God should resound God's displeasure at injustices wherever they may be.

BUT.

But look at the way we are to approach it, Verse 19: ¹⁹Remember this, my dear friends! Everyone must be quick to listen, but slow to speak and slow to become angry.

We have all heard the “two ears, one mouth” phrase as a possible explanation that we should listen twice as much as we speak.

Quick to listen. Slow to speak and slow to become angry.

Apparently, we have choice in this matter. I was asking a local businessman, because I wanted to listen without arguing or making any judgment, why his store had so many rebel flags for sale. I wanted to give the man a sincere voice. It was a decision for me to begin to love someone who to me is “the other” in my life.

I can't say I am satisfied with his answer, but I was satisfied with the sincerity with which he held his beliefs.

I think I formed a relationship with this man.

My idea was a decision to give up anger and try to establish a redemptive relationship. And without the arrogance of me having something to give to him, but for us to learn together.

I saw this sign somewhere this week. The difference between an argument and a discussion is that an argument is where we seek to make the other person learn our point of view. A discussion is where we sit down to learn together.

And the whole thing with anger culminates in the next verse, it is the spiritual principle behind the appropriate use of anger. And, it appears to me to be counter-evolutionary.

Verse 20: For human anger does not accomplish God's righteous purpose.

A couple of things. First, the word translated as “righteous,” Diakanos, is almost always translated in Greek literature as “justice.”

Almost every other language translation uses Justice as the default word except for the English translations.

It seems that we are having a hard time getting away from the Imperial perspective for which King James had the NT translated.

The “righteous” in many English translation refers to those who are saved to eternity.

But the word means those who act with justice.

The best way we might understand this is when we read about Joseph not willing to divorce Mary because he was a “just” man. He was a good guy.

Man's anger, by itself, does not accomplish God's justice.

God's justice is different than mankind's.

God's justice cares for both the oppressed and the oppressor. God loves both.

God loves both the just and the unjust.

I can't fathom that.

It took bravery for me to approach that shop owner. I didn't want to offend, but more importantly, I didn't want to make an enemy. The book of Proverbs speaks of scoffers who bellow and bluster and you can never have an intelligent conversation with them.

But I kept having this conviction in my heart that Jesus loves him just as much as Jesus loves me.

We are human and when we are hurt, we may want God to rain down justice on the one who hurt us.

But we forget that God's justice cares for both the abuser and the abused.

That is almost impossible for us to fathom, unless, of course, (pause) ...God is indeed love.

God is love.

But there is more to this verse. The verb tense in the Greek does not occur in the English. But it is the middle reflexive voice. Big words, but what it means is that by itself, man's anger to not do God's justice.

There is a definite emphasis about procedure when faced with injustices for us to remember, Our anger does not bring about God's justice.

This, to me, is a place of trust in God's justice.

James is calling on us to trust in God's perfect and loving justice for both the oppressed and the oppressor.

It takes trust that the God of all the earth will indeed do what is right in the end when judgment indeed comes.

And God's judgment will again be with respect to all of the people that God loves, and that is every one.

So, we get angry, but we do not sin. It should lead us to prayer and faith, not violence and revenge.

Think of the rhetoric that we are constantly bombarded with every single day. Think of the flash in the pan rise to fame of one TV celebrity who is running for President in 2016. He is popular because he reflects the angst and anger of a group of people who are beginning to see that the world is becoming browner and browner, 9 out of 10 babies born are not white, and white privilege is beginning to erode.

There is a lot of anger out there, but it does not bring about God's justice.

Yes, at times we need to let anger motivate us to do something. But! Remember that human wrath is not the answer, faith in God is.

And now, finally, James speaks of religion. And he speaks of it in the positive light.

True, or pure, religion is this: keeping oneself unstained by the world and taking care of widows and orphans in their distress.

Here is how I can have fellowship with my more conservative brothers and sisters.

There is a lot of talk in some Christian circles about moral purity and the way that morality appears to them to be waning in the face of Political Correctness.

I don't see it that way. What I see is justice and mercy being extended to more and more people.

Last week, as I was speaking with my twin brother about justice and my calling to set free the oppressed, I said this to him: “You remember that iconic picture of Jesus on the cross who answers the person's question to Jesus: `how much do you love me?' and Jesus stretches out His hands and dies?”

It is the image of Jesus on the cross.

I told him, that image of Jesus stretching out His hands to love others has taken me to sharing good news for the oppressed by preaching against racism, prejudice toward the undocumented, oppression of women, care for children who are being victimized, prisoners, the poor in Haiti and Tijuana, atheists, Roman Catholics, the poor, and now for brothers and sisters who are gay and lesbian.

And that picture in my mind of Jesus' stretching out His hands to give Himself and love others sacrificially just keeps getting bigger and bigger. I hope to see the day, and I will at the final judgment, where those arms of love and mercy extend to the world entire.

But to my brother, pure religion is keeping oneself unstained by the world and it is emphasized to him in his care for the unborn and his stand against what he believes is the moral decline in our culture.

Maybe I need a little bit more of his “purity” and maybe he probably needs more of my “caring for the widows and orphans.”

Pure religion is exactly what Jesus preached. Love God and love others.

And in that, I want to be religious.

I am going to love God by loving others, my twin brother is going to love God by keeping himself unstained by the world and God has called us both to God.

But, there are two sides to that coin called religion. Do social justice, and honor God by being pure and different from the world's excesses.