"Wisdom from Above" (James 3:13-18)

Isn’t Ambition Good?

Several weeks ago, over the Fourth of July weekend, my sister-in-law suggested that my family watch Hamilton as a way of celebrating our national history. If you haven’t seen Hamilton yourself, you have probably heard about it. When it originally burst onto Broadway, garnering widespread acclaim, it reignited interest in the story of our nation’s founding. Through its focus on a lesser-known historical figure, Alexander Hamilton, it gave a surprisingly engaging account of our country’s ambitious beginning. It gained particular renown for its appeal to youth of color, as its author Lin-Manuel Miranda casted many of the founding figures as people of color (thus foregrounding the immigrant character of our forebears) and wrote most of the numbers in a sort of plainspoken rap.

I won’t embarrass myself trying to rap, but I would like to share with you in spoken word a portion of the show’s opener, which introduces Alexander Hamilton as an ambitious upstart, a go-getter, a young man who won’t take no for an answer. Here’s how the show begins:

How does a bastard, orphan, son of a whore and a
Scotsman, dropped in the middle of a forgotten
Spot in the Caribbean by providence, impoverished, in squalor
Grow up to be a hero and a scholar?

The ten-dollar Founding Father without a father
Got a lot farther by working a lot harder
By being a lot smarter, by being a self-starter
By fourteen, they placed him in charge of a trading charter

And every day while slaves were being slaughtered and carted
Away across the waves, he struggled and kept his guard up
Inside, he was longing for something to be a part of
The brother was ready to beg, steal, borrow, or barter….[1]

Hearing these words rhythmically and enthusiastically delivered, it’s hard not to feel a sense of pride and optimism for the young Alexander Hamilton, and indeed for our young nation. The hungry and scrappy character that would propel Alexander Hamilton to great heights is the same character that much of our world aspires to today. In a word, we could call it ambition. (In fact, that may be the perfect word for it. Ambition comes from the Latin word ambitio, which just means “going around.” The word originated from when politicians would “go around” to seek votes, to build their following, to proclaim their superiority over against other candidates.

In our world, ambition is widely considered a good thing. Ambition is the drive to achieve, to get ahead, to win, to inch your way forward to the top. We think of ambition as what has propelled so many advances in medicine, technology, engineering, and science. Ambition has given us the telephone, the airplane, insulin, the heart transplant, the internet, tiny phones with the processing power of computers, and so much more.

“Striving to Be Better Than Others Makes Us Worse”

It may, therefore, be a surprise to hear how James takes ambition to task, twice. First as a trait that is opposite to God’s wisdom (Ja 3:14). Then as a trait that breeds chaos and destruction (Ja 3:16). James clearly does not think highly of ambition.

Miroslav Volf, a professor of theology at Yale University, has a pithy diagnosis for the disease of ambition. “Striving to be better than others,” he warns, “makes us worse.” It’s a tale as old as time itself. Consider Adam and Eve in the garden. The serpent tempts them to eat the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil by telling them, “You will be like gods” (Gen 3:5). But in fact the pursuit of superior knowledge leads to the humans’ downfall. Striving for superiority in fact entails shame and division, hiding the truth and blaming others. The harmony of God’s good creation is broken by the dissonance of ambition.

Miroslav Volf shares how each school year, several thousand new students arrive on Yale’s campus. All of them are excellent students. They have gained admission by being top of their class. You might think their arrival would be cause for celebration and camaraderie. “We made it! All those years of hard work have paid off. Finally, we’re here!” But instead, he says, many of the students become anxious and depressed. Now they are just a small fish in a big pond. He concludes that their ambition contains in its heart a deep insecurity. A doubt or distrust that they are good enough, that they will be loved and cared for just as they are. They are always comparing themselves with others, always implicitly in competition with their surroundings. The striving of ambition is ultimately an insatiable desire to be better. There’s no rest in comparison and competition. Only endless striving.

It is for this reason that I find the story of Alexander Hamilton so fascinating. The musical celebrates him as a hero (albeit a tragic hero). He rose from obscurity to fame, from the rubble to political power. He is held aloft as an example of the American dream, as an example of the greatness that can be achieved by (as the song puts it) “working a lot harder” and “being a lot smarter.” And yet the tragedy of his story—and of his ambition—cannot be denied. First there is the humiliating affair that he engages in when he chooses to stay behind in Philadelphia to pursue his work during the summer instead of traveling with the rest of his family to the countryside. Then there is the brutal fact that both he and his son Philip died as the result of choosing to engage in duels to uphold their honor (despite the fact that duels were illegal). The rewards of Alexander Hamilton’s ambition were indeed high—but were they worth the cost? I wonder what Eliza, his wife, would say.

British philosopher John Gray suggests that whenever ambition results in what we might consider progress, it nearly always follows this same tragic arc. All of the progress that we might celebrate—in technology, in medicine, in engineering, and so on—all of that, he argues, “is an illusion.”[2] “The core of the idea of progress,” he claims, “is the illusion that knowledge enhances human freedom. The reality is that it merely increases human power.”[3] The unfortunate tendency that we tend to gloss over is that much of human progress is accompanied by tragic misuse of the new knowledge and new power. Consider how at the turn of the twentieth century, western civilization was optimistic about the prospects of our scientific advances, predicting that they would usher in a golden age of peace and prosperity. Instead, we got two world wars and several genocides, all of which implemented our new knowledge and power in the worst of ways.

Knowledge Is Not Wisdom

In Genesis, when the serpent promises Eve that eating the forbidden fruit will make the humans like gods, giving them a superior knowledge to what they have, the storyteller reports a curious, minute difference in what Eve perceives. He says that Eve sees that “the tree was to be desired to make one wise” (Gen 3:6). The serpent promises knowledge, but she anticipates wisdom. In other words, she confuses knowledge with wisdom. It is the same mistake made by the optimists at the turn of the twentieth century, and indeed by anyone who lives by selfish ambition.

Wisdom is not knowledge. If you think about it, this is pretty obvious. A teenager might know what it takes to drive a car—first you turn the key to start the ignition, then you take the car out of park and into reverse, and so on. But knowing what it takes to drive a car is very different from knowing how to drive a car. Anyone getting in the passenger seat with a teenager who’s never actually driven better be prepared for an adventure!

Knowledge is about a what; wisdom is about a how. Knowledge is about information; wisdom is about an orientation. When humans learned what nuclear energy was, that was knowledge. When humans decided to use it to make a bomb, well…a Christ-follower might argue that was a tragic, devastating lack of wisdom.

Worldly Wisdom and God’s Wisdom

According to James, “earthly” wisdom is about an orientation that is selfish and ambitious. “Earthly” wisdom is the orientation that we see in Hamilton: a mindset of competition and comparison, a ceaseless striving to be “better.” James is clear that the results of this wisdom are conflict and chaos and destruction.

But God’s wisdom, James says, has a very different orientation. The “wisdom from above” is, paradoxically, about living serenely below; this wisdom is “peaceable, gentle, willing to yield, full of mercy and good fruits, without a trace of partiality or hypocrisy” (Ja 3:17). We need only think of how Jesus repeatedly teaches his disciples that greatness is not lording it over others, but being last of all and servant of all. Jesus is not teaching the disciples some new knowledge; he’s reorienting their hearts, away from ambition and toward gentle acceptance and cooperation. It’s telling that not long after he teaches this lesson for the first time, James and John come to him in private and demand positions of power in his kingdom (Mark 9:33-37; 10:35-45). This new orientation, this new “how,” is not easy to learn for us who have long been schooled in ambition.

“Imagine…”

Alexander Hamilton’s widow, Eliza, lived over fifty more years after her husband was gunned down. Remarkably, just a few years after losing him, she founded the first orphanage in New York. What gave her the strength—I wonder—not only to keep living, but to live so abundantly? By all accounts, she was a woman of deep and abiding faith. I would like to imagine—although I must stress, I’m not a historian, and I don’t know this for a fact—I would like to imagine that her faith grounded her in a way her husband’s ambition could never do. I would like to imagine that she stood secure in God’s love, knowing herself to be cherished and cared for, just as she was. For this reason, all the scandal that befell her—from her husband’s infidelity to her son’s death in a duel and her husband’s as well—all this scandal could not move the needle on the orientation of her heart. With God’s wisdom, she continually employed her gifts and efforts toward mercy and peace.

Priest and spiritual leader Henri Nouwen writes, “So much of our energy, time, and money goes into maintaining distance from one another. Many if not most of the resources of the world are used to defend ourselves against each other, to maintain or increase our power, and to safeguard our own privileged position.” Here, I think, it’s pretty clear he’s writing about the spirit of ambition and competition that prevails in our world. But he proceeds to imagine more people living like Eliza. “Imagine all that effort being put in the service of peace and reconciliation! Would there be any poverty? Would there be crimes and wars? Just imagine that there was no longer fear among people, no longer any rivalry, hostility, bitterness, or revenge. Just imagine all the people on this planet holding hands and forming one large circle of love. We say, ‘I can't imagine.’ But God says,  ‘That's what I imagine, a whole world not only created…in my image [but also living in it].’”[4]

Prayer

Dear Christ 

Of gentle and humble heart,
You lived secure in God’s love,
Not striving but trusting
…
Inspire us by your faith
And your example
To live not by ambition—
Not by the need to be more, or have more, or do more—
But by a desire for your kingdom of mercy and peace,
Where all might live secure in God’s love.
Amen.

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[1] “Alexander Hamilton,” Hamilton by Lin-Manuel Miranda, https://genius.com/Leslie-odom-jr-anthony-ramos-daveed-diggs-okieriete-onaodowan-lin-manuel-miranda-phillipa-soo-christopher-jackson-and-original-broadway-cast-of-hamilton-alexander-hamilton-lyrics, , accessed July 27, 2026.

[2] John Gray, “An Illusion with a Future,” Daedalus (Summer 2004): 11.

[3] John Gray, “An Illusion with a Future,” Daedalus (Summer 2004): 15.

[4] Following the Call: Living the Sermon on the Mount Together (ed. Charles E. Moore; Walden: Plough, 2021), 104.

Our Mother Tongue (Ja 3:1-12)

“…You’re Right”

When I lived abroad in Sheffield, England, I had a housemate named Benny from Germany, who was at the university for his Masters in Chemistry. Benny had blond hair, a bright smile, and overall a cheerful disposition. I remember one day in particular hearing him bound down the steps and waltz into the living room with a fishing pole. I raised an eyebrow. “Are you going fishing?” I asked. “I hope so!” he replied spryly. I must have looked at him inquisitively because he hastened to explain. “I’m gonna ride my bike to the local pub and ask the locals where’s a good fishing spot. I’m sure someone there can help point me in a good direction.” I smiled. Benny had this easy-going, trusting disposition that I admired. Whenever he was tackling a project or a task that would have made me anxious, he would say things like, “Someone will help me…” or “A door will open…” Reflecting on Benny, I have to imagine that he had heard these phrases somewhat frequently at some point in his life, and he had naturally adopted them as his own way of seeing the world.

I have another friend, whom I’ll call Jack, who strikes me as the opposite of Benny. Jack used to spend a lot of time on the road for his work, and he listened to a lot of podcasts and talk radio. When we would get together for lunch, he would sometimes become very animated as he discussed certain current events. His zeal surprised me, particularly as some of the things he was talking about seemed very removed from his own life. I’ve concluded that what was happening is he was reciting some of the talking points that he’d heard on the road. Jack is my friend, and nothing will change that, but I began to notice feeling drained after spending time with him. His talk was increasingly negative, filled with name-calling and criticism. It felt sort of like verbal warfare on various subsections of society.

Henry Ford is credited with the proverb: “Whether you think you can, or think you can’t…you’re right.” This adage taps into the ancient wisdom that words shape reality. Indeed, I would contend that the Bible is supremely aware of this dynamic. Consider how creation begins not with God flexing his muscles, but with God’s speech. Or consider how the gospel of John puts it: “In the beginning was the Word...”

In the case of my two friends, their habits of speech influenced the way they saw the world around them: whether other people were helpers or opponents, whether something could be done or couldn’t be done, whether the world was good or bad. We tend to think of speech as an outward movement, as an expression (or going out) of what is already inside of us. But what I see in these two friends invites me to consider that perhaps speech is also an inward movement, a consumption of something that is outside us. (It’s worth remembering that the words we speak are not in our possession. They were here long before we arrived on the scene. They have meanings we did not give them.) Perhaps the words we speak are like the food we eat. They go inside us, nurturing us (or not), shaping the way we grow.

Disproportionate Influence

In today’s scripture, James uses three different analogies to describe the power of the tongue (that is, the power of speech). His first two analogies suggest positive possibilities for the tongue. First, James observes that the small bit that a rider puts in the horse’s mouth gives them the capability to guide the horse’s entire body. If you think about how strong a horse is (it’s no coincidence that today’s automobile engines are still discussed in terms of “horsepower”), it is incredible to consider that something just a few inches wide could harness that power. Next, James marvels at how a very small rudder can help to guide a ship, even through strong winds that would otherwise push the ship far off course. Together, these analogies—a horse bit and a ship’s rudder—appreciate that a small object can helpfully guide a much bigger object. Already, then, James has primed us to appreciate the disproportionate influence that a tongue has over our body and soul.

But James’ third and final analogy takes a dark turn. “The tongue is a fire,” James pronounces gravely. “How great a forest is set ablaze but such a small fire!”  That which is capable of much good—of steering a ship through the storm, of guiding a horse on it course—is equally capable of much harm. It quickly becomes clear that, for James, this third analogy is the most accurate. More often than not, the tongue corrupts and wreaks havoc. His description culminates in calling the tongue “a restless evil, full of deadly poison” (Ja 3:8).

It is worth remembering that in these analogies the tongue is compared to a small part that either helps or harms the larger body of which it is a part. So, in this last analogy, when James compares the tongue to a fire, the forest is not the larger community in which the words are spoken. The forest is the person of which the tongue is a part. What this means is that James is not making the rather common claim that our words can hurt other people (although I can only imagine James would acknowledge this to be true). He is, rather, making the claim that the primary victim of our wayward speech is us ourselves. We are poisoning our own hearts and minds with such speech.

In One Breath, Blessing, and in the Next, a Curse

To make matters worse, James suggests that the tongue has a mind of its own. We can tame every creature on earth, he says, except for this wild animal in our mouths, this untamable, savage beast (Ja 3:7-8). For in one breath, he says, “we bless the Lord and Father,” and in the very next breath, “we curse people, made in the likeness of God” (Ja 3:9). This is the heart of the problem for James. What the tongue hurts most of all is our own faith in God. When our words belittle or curse or shame another person, we are effectively telling God to get lost. We are saying we don’t believe in God’s goodness.

Jesus says something similar when he warns that anyone who insults another person will be “liable to the council,” and that anyone who calls another person a “fool” will be “liable to the hell of fire” (Matt 5:22). When our words obscure the image of God in other people, we leave the kingdom of God ourselves and skirt the edges of a great, destructive fire. For what it’s worth, I don’t personally think of this fire as the punishment of a vindictive God. I think it is simply as a consequence. When our words warp our vision of the world so that we can no longer see God, then we will become increasingly alienated from God. Call it hell or despair or a great fire or whatever else you’d like, it’s one and the same…a self-imposed separation from God.

Who Will Rescue Us?

I have to confess, James’ extremely negative view of speech leaves me feeling rather pessimistic. “No one can tame the tongue,” James insists (Ja 3:8). I find myself asking exasperatedly, along with Paul, “Who will rescue me from this body of death?” (Rom 7:24).

Paul’s answer to his own question—“Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord” (Rom 7:25)—is perhaps a good starting point for making sense of the quandary in which James has put us. That we are not able to tame the tongue on our own—that we are not able to speak well and to make the proper use of the gift of speech on our own—does not mean that we are incapable of speaking well and rightly. It just means that we need help.

My Old Testament seminary professor, Dr. Biddle, wrote a book on the Old Testament concept of sin. His analysis yielded a very different picture from the typical juridical view of sin—the idea that sin is a personal act of wrongdoing for which a person is culpable. Instead his research found that much of the Old Testament views sin as what we might call a systemic phenomenon, almost like a pandemic, like the outbreak of an infectious disease. When a person sins, the sin is not limited to a single decision that they make. Rather, it is part of a larger chain of reaction, of cause and effect. (To see sin this way, we only have to think of how trauma and tragic behavior often repeats itself, as though it is a disease passed one from one generation to the next.)

This perspective of sin helps me to understand James’ extremely pessimistic view of speech. Put simply, our speech is diseased. Habits of name-calling, belittling, demeaning, shaming, and so on, are endemic to every language. But that doesn’t mean that the tongue itself (which God created) is wicked, or that speech itself is evil.

At the beginning of his letter, James repeatedly refers to our salvation in terms of God’s Word. “God gave us birth,” James says, “by the Word of truth, so that we would become a kind of first fruits of his creatures” (Ja 1:18). A few verses later, he exhorts his fellow Christ-followers: “Therefore…welcome with meekness the implanted Word that has the power to save your souls” (Ja 1:21). His point is clear. God’s Word can do for us what we cannot do for ourselves. It is no coincidence that he also issues the instruction, “Be quick to listen, slow to speak” (Ja 1:19). If the speech of this world is diseased, then we need to be steeped in the Word of God before we speak. We need to be in the company of the One who spoke forgiveness to his enemies, who blessed those who cursed him, who prayed for those who would persecute him. The Word of God speaks a different language than our world. As followers of Christ, we are learning that language.

Despite James’ gloomy view of the tongue in today’s scripture, I find an extraordinary ray of hope in remembering that his first two analogies—the bit in the powerful horse’s mouth, and the rudder that guides a ship through the storm—these two analogies point at the salvific power of the tongue. When we are tossed by life’s waves, battered by the storm, the tongue has the power to guide us safely through the tempest. But as James makes clear, it is not so much our tongue, diseased as it is, that guides us through the storm. It is, rather, our mother tongue: the Word of God, our Lord’s way of speaking, the language of blessing, prayer, forgiveness, and grace. It has brought us safe thus far, and it will ultimately lead us home.

Prayer

Lord Jesus Christ,
Who came proclaiming good news,
Speaking a different language
Than the world
…
You are the vine,
We are the branches;
Help us to abide in you
And to learn from you
Our mother tongue,
God’s language of love.
Amen.

What Is the Good of Faith? (Ja 2:14-26)

The Courageous Faith of André Trocmé and His Church

In 1934, a French Protestant pastor, André Trocmé, moved with his wife and four young children to Le Chambon-sur-Lignon, a little village in southern France. Little did he know that in less than a decade, he would become a leader in the perilous effort to hide and protect Jewish refugees from Nazi Germany. When the Nazis took control of the land in 1940 and began to seek out and deport Jewish people to labor camps, Trocmé continued to preach to his congregation of Christ’s imperative to care for the stranger and the oppressed. His family and several others in the church would come to lodge a number of Jewish refugees, whose children they quietly integrated into the village school.

In one remarkable story, the French National Secretary for Youth, Georges Lamirand, visited the town, hoping to drum up support for France’s version of the Hitler Youth (a sort of Boy Scouts that indoctrinated young people in the Nazi ideology). A dozen of the older students in the village approached Lamirand with a letter that they had prepared. I’ll share just a portion:

Dear Minister Lamirand,

We have learned about the scenes of horror that took place three weeks ago in Paris. French police, on the orders of the occupying powers, arrested all the city’s Jewish families in their homes….  Fathers were snatched from their families and deported to Germany, children brusquely taken from their mothers, who met the same fate as their husbands….

We want you to know that there are several Jews among us. But we don’t distinguish between Jews and non-Jews. That would be contrary to the teachings of the Gospels. If our comrades, whose only fault is their birth into a different religion, receive a deportation order or are required to list their religion in a census, we will encourage them to disobey these orders, and we will do our best to hide them.

Not long after this encounter, Pastor Trocmé received an angry visit from another official even higher up the government food chain. “Pastor,” the official spat, “this was supposed to be a day of national harmony. You are sowing division! … In a few days, my staff will come and identify the Jews living in Chambon.” To which Pastor Trocmé responded: “We don’t know what a Jew is. We only know men.”[1]

In the end, the lives of over three thousand Jewish men, women, and children would be saved as a result of Trocmé’s church and support from the surrounding village.

“Can Faith without Works Save Anyone”

“What good is,” James asks in today’s scripture, “if you say you have faith but do not have works? … Can that kind of faith save anyone?” (Ja 2:15). It is a stunning question—for me at least. What I learned in church about faith was simple. Faith saved me. If I had faith in Christ, then I would be saved.

But James shatters this notion by suggesting that faith is about a salvation greater than our own. He gives the example of a poor, hungry person. If we say to them, “Have a good day” or “Take care,” but do nothing to supply their needs, “what is the good of that?” (Ja 2:16). If faith does not take on flesh in this world, if it is not incarnated in the same way that God’s love was incarnated in Christ, then what difference does it make?

For James, faith is meant to make a difference—not in some heavenly ledger, but here on earth. The courageous witness of André Trocmé and his little church is an extreme example to prove the point. Faith is about much more than a personal salvation for the afterlife. Faith saves lives in the here-and-now.

Salvation for This World

Dietrich Bonhoeffer, another pastor who lived during the reign of the Nazis—a German pastor who resisted the regime and ultimately paid for it with his life—wrote from prison a series of letters to a dear friend. In these letters, he reflected quite a bit on the Bible in light of his experience. One of his most astute observations was that in the Old Testament, salvation is entirely something that happens in this life, in this world. He said salvation in the Old Testament is “thisworldly.” Just look at the Psalms, where David’s desperate prayers for salvation and his subsequent prayers of gratitude all concern events in his own life, whether they be his escape from King Saul or his struggles against political opponents.

Bonhoeffer then looked toward the New Testament and wondered whether Christianity had misplaced its emphasis on an afterlife, on an otherworldly salvation. He reflected on the ministry and teaching of Jesus and concluded that Jesus’ good news was not primarily about an afterlife but about God’s salvation in this life. Consider, for instance, Jesus’ own prayer: “Thy kingdom come, thy will be done, on earth as it [already] is in heaven.” The good news of God’s kingdom, he concluded, is about God’s salvation come to earth.

I think James would have agreed.

Faith Revealed by Works

In the latter half of today’s scripture, James provides two biblical examples to prove his point that faith is revealed by not by its words, but by its works. First James mentions Abraham, whose faith that God wants to bless all the world through him leads him to leave behind his family and all that he knows and to go live in a strange land.[2] Next James mentions Rahab, the Canaanite prostitute in Jericho whose faith in the God of Israel leads her to risk her life hiding two Israelite spies. In both cases, the characters’ faith becomes visible the moment it translates into saving action.

I don’t think it’s a coincidence that James mentions these two characters. Both of them share a common feature: their faith saves. Their faith leads them to do things that will bless and save others. Remember James’ rhetorical questions from earlier: “What good is [a faith without works]?” and “What is the good of that [kind of faith]?” In other words, faith is meant to translate into goodness. Into action that heals and saves and redeems.

I think also of the story of the paralytic man whose friends carried him all the way to Jesus and then, when they could not find a way into the house, they took him up onto the roof and lowered him down into the room. Mark reports, “When Jesus saw their faith, he said to the paralytic, ‘Son, your sins are forgiven” (Mk 2:15). What a rich phrase—“when Jesus saw their faith.” How exactly did Jesus see their faith? By the extraordinary lengths to which they were willing to go. How did he see their heart? By what their hands were willing to do. Because they believed that their friend’s health was worth it, and because they believed that Jesus might be able to help, they went to the trouble of carrying him to Jesus, and they didn’t shy away from making a scene to ensure Jesus would see him.

And, to return to an earlier point…notice whom their faith saved. It wasn’t themselves (at least not in an immediate sense). It was their friend, who received forgiveness and healing.

Taking a Faith Audit

James’ musing on faith—how it is revealed not by its words but by its works—inspires me to reflect on my faith in a fresh way. I think and talk a lot about faith. But as James would be quick to point out, thinking and talking are theoretical. Thinking and talking, by themselves, do not save anyone.

In the end, a person’s faith is hidden. Secret. Known only by God. What a person says or thinks about their own faith, is little more than a Facebook or an Instagram profile, a carefully curated presentation to themselves and others. They are seen as they desire to be seen; and as Jesus might have said, they have their own reward.

I’m inspired to think that if I wanted to conduct a faith audit, James would have me ask not “What’s in my heart?” but rather “What are my habits?” James would have me look at my bank statement to see where I spend my money. James would have me look at day planner, to see how I spend my time. James would have me look at my browser history, to see what my real interests are. James would have me look at how I drive in traffic, how I shop in a crowded store, how I treat little children and the elderly and the person with an intellectually disability. James would have me look at my hopes for the future, at what I’m planning for the next ten, fifteen, twenty years. And only after I’m done looking at all of this evidence, James might ask me, “So…what’s actually in your heart?” The point of a faith audit for James would not be measurement. It would not be to quantify my faith (e.g., “how much good have I done?”) and determine whether I pass or fail. The point would be to become a bit more honest with myself. Where do I really put my faith? Do I truly trust that God’s love is saving the world? Do I live accordingly? Or do I trust in smaller things? Do I trust instead in little distractions, whether they be a coveted purchase or a desirable experience or just a bag of chips that I can’t set down? Do I trust that these little distractions will numb enough of the pain and anxiety of living in a broken world so that I can just get by?

Because for James, a healthy faith in Christ is about so much more than “just getting by.” It is about so much more than personal salvation. It is about God’s kingdom come on earth. It’s about God’s love saving us and others. And a faith like this can’t help but get off its feet and take action.

And lest the examples of people like Abraham and André Trocmé intimidate us into thinking we must do huge things, I want to conclude by sharing a short report. A week ago, I visited with June Brooks in the hospital. She mentioned having recently received five or six cards from friends here at church. I was flummoxed at such a coincidence until I remembered that two Sundays ago Kathy Flickinger had shared with me a request for prayers for June, which I then passed onto you. A number of you later sat down and wrote a note and sent it to June. Faith given flesh. Faith bearing fruit. June didn’t sugarcoat her experience or how she was feeling in the hospital, but she told me that those cards gave her a strength she wouldn’t have had on her own.

Faith saves. In big ways and in small ways. And that, to answer James’ question, is the good of faith.

Prayer

Dear Christ,
Who is faithful in word
And gracious in deed,
Inspire us by your example
And by other stories in which
Faith has touched and saved lives
…
So that we might not despair
And strive for distraction and personal security
But might instead do little things
With great love,
Trusting in God’s grace
To bring everything to completion.
Amen.

 

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[1] Plough Quarterly 45 (Autumn 2025): 91-92

[2] James also mentions Abraham’s willingness to sacrifice Isaac as evidence of his faith. I have qualms about the traditional interpretation that celebrates Abraham’s willingness to sacrifice his son, but that’s for another time. 

“Mercy Triumphs over Judgment” (Ja 2:1-13)

Not a Problem but a Person

When I was growing up and my mom taught kindergarten and first grade, she would occasionally come home with stories from school. There was Bobby, who pushed a pencil up his nose and got an eraser lodged in one of his nostrils. There were Joe and Alex, who went missing one day during school, only to be discovered in the boys’ bathroom, standing in the toilets and laughing as they pushed the flushers with their feet. But usually, the stories had to do with students whom teachers might be tempted to identify as “problem students.”

I asked my mom recently about how she handled these students. She said that early on she had learned from other teachers that the best way, actually, was to avoid engaging the student in a battle of wills. There was no “winning” at the end of such a battle, even if for a moment the student did what you wanted. Instead, the best thing to do was to give the student a special task or responsibility. With one such student named Danny, my mom would regularly write a short note for a teacher somewhere else on the hallway and then ask Danny to please deliver it for her. The benefits of this little strategy were twofold. First, he would be temporarily removed from the classroom and whatever situation had triggered him. Second, and perhaps even more importantly, Danny would feel singled out in a good way; he would feel special and important. Because he was being treated not as a problem but as a person, not with bitterness and antagonism, but with respect and dignity.

“Do You…Really Believe?”

1   My brothers and sisters, do you with your acts of favoritism really believe in our glorious Lord Jesus Christ?  2 For if a person with gold rings and in fine clothes comes into your assembly, and if a poor person in dirty clothes also comes in, 3 and if you take notice of the one wearing the fine clothes and say, “Have a seat here, please,” while to the one who is poor you say, “Stand there,” or, “Sit at my feet,”  4 have you not made distinctions among yourselves, and become judges with evil thoughts?

At the beginning of today’s scripture, James seems to express a value with which our culture is very acquainted. Namely, the equality of all human persons. Just over a week ago, our nation celebrated the 250^th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence, which near its beginning asserts: “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal.”

But upon closer inspection, James is calling for more than the adoption of an egalitarian mindset. To begin, notice the severity of his accusation: “My brothers and sisters, do you with your acts of favoritism really believe in our glorious Lord Jesus Christ?” (Ja 2:1). James effectively charges his audience with atheism, equating their preferential treatment of the rich with a rejection of Jesus’ teaching and way.

Remember that when Jesus begins his ministry, what makes him “go viral,” so to speak, is the table. At the table, religious leaders see him eating with tax collectors and sinners, getting friendly with the outlaws and outcasts (cf. Mark 2:16; Luke 5:30). Think about some of the specific standout “table moments.” There’s Jesus at the Pharisee’s house, where a woman identified by Luke as a “sinner”—which is probably code for “prostitute”—bathes Jesus with her tears and receives his forgiveness and peace (Luke 7:36-50). There’s Jesus inviting himself over to the home of the crooked and despised tax collector Zacchaeus, who subsequently is inspired to give away nearly all he has (Luke 19:1-10). There’s Jesus reminding his disciples that in the kingdom greatness means not lording it over others but serving others (Luke 22:24-27). The common thread among these table moments is not that Jesus treats everyone equally, but that he gives preferential attention and care to the very people who are disgraced and overlooked by society.

When James asks his fellow Christ-followers if they really believe in Jesus, he’s pointing out that there’s a difference between believing in Jesus and believing in Jesus’ ideas. Believing in Jesus can just mean, “Sure, I believe he’s God’s son and died for my sins and has the keys to heaven.” Anyone can believe in Jesus. As James will point out later, even the demons believe in Jesus (cf. Ja 2:19). But to really believe in Jesus is to believe in Jesus’ ideas. To really believe in Jesus is to say, “I believe that the ideas he taught”—things like turn the other cheek and don’t return evil for evil (Matt 5:39), like bless those who curse for you (Luke 6:28), like give to everyone who begs from you (Luke 6:30), like give pride of place to the poor, the crippled, the blind, and the lame (Luke 14:13)—“these ideas aren’t just some impossible ideals that will be realized on the other side of heaven, but are actually viable ideas that with God’s grace we can practice now.”

For James, to really believe in Jesus, to believe not just in Jesus as a password for heaven but in his ideas as a way of living here on earth, would mean receiving the “poor person” or the person in “dirty clothes” as Jesus did, as though they were a beloved child of God. James proceeds to expound on this idea, giving special emphasis to the virtues of the people on the margins….

“Heirs of the Kingdom”

5 Listen, my beloved brothers and sisters. Has not God chosen the poor in the world to be rich in faith and to be heirs of the kingdom that he has promised to those who love him? 6 But you have dishonored the poor. Is it not the rich who oppress you? Is it not they who drag you into court? 7 Is it not they who blaspheme the excellent name that was invoked over you?

Here James echoes one of Jesus’ most revolutionary—and uncomfortable—teachings, namely “Blessed are you who are poor, for yours is the kingdom of God” (Luke 6:20). Whatever else it means, this short, simple assertion equates material poverty with the capacity for spiritual abundance. To have little in the way of possessions is to have hands open to receive God’s gifts.

I don’t think it’s a coincidence that James goes on to talk about the rich in opposite terms, as those who oppress, as those who exercise control in the courts. He implies that to hold onto things is to have closed fists, to insist on getting one’s way, to be incapable of receiving God’s gifts.

It’s true, we could hear James to be drawing up a simple dichotomy: the poor are good, and the rich are bad. But I think that would be missing his point. He’s encouraging his fellow Christ-followers to see the world as Jesus saw the world, through a spiritual lens that is finely attuned to the dangers of possessions, power, and prestige. He’s pointing out that the people whom they are apparently overlooking or dismissing, the “poor” folks wearing “dirty clothes” (Ja 2:2), are in fact guides to the kingdom of God, while the people for whom they are rolling out the red carpet are especially susceptible to the insidious spiritual diseases of pride and greed. The point is not to label people as good or bad, but to become aware of the spiritual dimension of life. Better to have little and trust in God daily, than to have much and to treat God as a divine butler who does as one bids.

Mercy versus Judgment

8   You do well if you really fulfill the royal law according to the scripture, “You shall love your neighbor as yourself.” 9 But if you show partiality, you commit sin and are convicted by the law as transgressors. 10 For whoever keeps the whole law but fails in one point has become accountable for all of it. 11 For the one who said, “You shall not commit adultery,” also said, “You shall not murder.” Now if you do not commit adultery but if you murder, you have become a transgressor of the law. 12 So speak and so act as those who are to be judged by the law of liberty. 13 For judgment will be without mercy to anyone who has shown no mercy; mercy triumphs over judgment.

In these final words, as James warns against favoritism toward the rich and neglect of the poor, it becomes clear that he is espousing more than simple egalitarianism. He is saying more than just treat everyone the same. It’s easy to miss, but here James is giving voice to one of the gospel’s most scandalous propositions: God is not fair; God is merciful.

Notice how he does not call for equal treatment of rich and poor. Rather he begins with what he calls “the royal law,” an ancient verse from Leviticus that Jesus lifted up as a central commandment: “You shall love your neighbor as yourself” (Lev 19:18). By calling this the “royal law,” James indicates that this law of love is foundational to the kingdom of God. Lest there be any confusion about what “love” means or looks like—because, sadly, people throughout history have called all sorts of violent and coercive acts “love” on the basis of their outcomes—lest there be any confusion, James clarifies that love entails mercy. Indeed, he asserts that any behavior without mercy falls short of the royal law of love and will result in hurtful consequences. “Judgment will be without mercy to anyone who has shown no mercy” (Ja 2:13). If that strikes you as a contradiction—how could a God of mercy issue judgment without mercy?—then I applaud your thinking. Jesus makes very clear that our God is merciful to all, dispensing his care alike to the righteous and unrighteous (Matt 5:45; Luke 6:36). God is like the father to the prodigal son, treating us not according to our deeds, but according to his love (Luke 15:11-32). Judgment is not the reward or punishment doled out by a legalistic god, but rather the natural consequences of our action (or as Jesus liked to put it, the “fruit” of our deeds).

When Jesus says, “Judgement will be without mercy to anyone who has shown no mercy,” he indicates that we choose which world we live in. There is a line in the Psalms addressed to God—“with the pure you show yourself pure; and with the crooked you show yourself perverse” (Ps 18:26)—which gets at this truth. We live in a world that reflects our own attitude. If we judge others, that judgment is a two-edged sword and will tear us down. If we are merciful to others, that mercy will draw us ourselves into God’s embrace. “Blessed are the merciful,” Jesus said, “for they will receive mercy” (Matt 5:7).

I think back to the hard-earned wisdom of elementary school teachers that my mom learned. If she saw her difficult students as problems, then she would have her hands full of problems. But if she saw them as children of God, as people in God’s image with gifts to share (however difficult it might be to see those gifts!)—if she treated them with dignity and entrusted them with responsibility, then she would have a classroom filled with children who were learning and growing. Those children would feel better, and so would she.

James’ final line, “Mercy triumphs over judgment,” is a defiant—and scandalous—proclamation of the gospel. It is the insistence, not only that mercy is a better way to live than judgment, but also that mercy will emerge victorious from the wreckage of judgment. Judgment does not restore; it can help to manage and control, but it does not heal. If the churches to whom James writes continue to judge the poor among them and only associate with the rich, then perhaps those churches will grow rich and big and famous. But they will also be forfeiting God’s kingdom and consigning themselves to the bitterness and conflict and empty striving of the world. They will be depriving themselves and others of the scandalous ingredient that makes God, God. Mercy. It is what heals us and others. It is what connects us with others. It is what leads us into God’s embrace.

Prayer

Compassionate Christ,
Who ate with tax collectors and sinners,
Who gave pride of place to the last and the least:
Inspire us by your scandalous mercy,
Which is not fair
…
So that we might love others and ourselves
And know the goodness of your kingdom.
Amen.

"Doers of the Word" (James 1:19-27)

God’s Message

Suppose that God wanted to tell each and every human in the world, “I love you.” And so at the start of the day, God made a beautiful sunrise, the dark deep indigo of the night sky blossoming slowly into violet and pink and orange. “I love you.” The birdsong in the trees. “I love you.” Little flowers popping up—even in the unlikeliest of places, such as sidewalk cracks and clogged gutters. “I love you.” In the middle of the afternoon, lengthening shadows offering a cool, shady refuge from work. “I love you.” The gentle murmur of a creek with clear, cold water. “I love you.” At the end of the day, a stunning sunset, followed by a velvety black sky spotted with the sparkling twinkle of stars. “I love you.”

Who would hear God’s message?

Would it be heard by the business-people glued to their laptops, talking forcefully into their phones? Would it be heard by the lawmakers gathered in meeting rooms? Would it be heard by the couple embroiled in conflict?

Would it be heard by the little children? The boys and girls without any agenda but to explore, to discover?

“Welcome with Meekness the Implanted Word”

In today’s scripture, James picks up on the idea that the church are a people who have recognized themselves to be beloved children of God. Just as on the banks of the Jordan River, Jesus heard God say, “You are my beloved son, with whom I am well pleased” (Luke 3:22), so followers of Christ have been given “birth by the [same] word of truth”  (Ja 1:18). Christ has helped us to hear God’s message, “I love you.”

James wants, however, to ensure that we keep hearing this message, that it doesn’t get lost amid the noise. So he offers a few instructions:

19   You must understand this, my beloved: let everyone be quick to listen, slow to speak, slow to anger; 20 for your anger does not produce God’s righteousness. 21 Therefore rid yourselves of all sordidness and rank growth of wickedness, and welcome with meekness the implanted word that has the power to save your souls.

Benedict of Nursia, who lived in the sixth century and helped to develop the monastic rule by which monks and nuns would seek to grow in their faith, writes, “Every day, we begin again,” hinting at the idea that people of faith are always beginners, never experts. In a similar way, beloved Zen master Shunryu Suzuki advises his followers: “Always…keep the beginner’s mind. … In the beginner’s mind there are many possibilities; in the expert’s mind there are few.”[1]

In our scripture today, James offers similar counsel, urging his fellow followers of Christ to listen more than they speak, which is not unlike advising them to adopt the posture of a beginner rather than an expert, the posture of someone who is learning rather than someone who knows it all. His instruction to be “slow to speak, slow to anger,” even suggests a certain connection between anger and speech. Frequent speech may betray a spirit of anger. I think I could attest to this. Anger generates many grievances and self-justifications, a never-ending commentary on how something or someone else is wrong and there’s little I can do about it. Anger is the fantasy of control through words. (In this way, frequent speech may betray a spirit hell-bent on control.)

I think back to those folks in our opening thought experiment who missed out on God’s message, “I love you,” because they were otherwise engaged in angry speech, or in the fantasy of control. The folks who hear God’s message, on the other hand, are the beginners, the curious, the explorers, the little children with no agenda. “Welcome with meekness,” James writes, “the implanted word that has the power to save your souls” (Ja 1:21). It’s a way of saying Listen. Open yourself. Make yourself available.

Sometimes small groups and reading circles have strict guidelines in place to limit speaking to one person at a time. (They may even use an object, like a round stone, which must be held in order to speak.) I’ve discovered in settings such as these a certain holiness. When only one person can speak at a time, their sharing becomes sacred and everyone else is invited into a posture of deep listening. They become receptive to wisdom that isn’t available otherwise. It is similar in the quiet space of prayer and meditation, where we might suddenly receive an inspired idea that would have never come if we’d been speaking.

“Not Hearers Who Forget but Doers Who Act”

22   But be doers of the word, and not merely hearers who deceive themselves. 23 For if any are hearers of the word and not doers, they are like those who look at themselves in a mirror; 24 for they look at themselves and, on going away, immediately forget what they were like. 25 But those who look into the perfect law, the law of liberty, and persevere, being not hearers who forget but doers who act—they will be blessed in their doing.

I do not think it is a coincidence that James chooses as a metaphor for hearing God’s word, the idea of looking into a mirror. If we return for a moment to the banks of the Jordan, we see that what Jesus heard from God was essentially a word declaring who he was. “You are my beloved son, with whom I am well pleased” (Luke 3:22). And James says we are given birth by this same word (Ja 1:18). So then, to hear God’s word is indeed like looking into a mirror. We see our truest selves. We see that we are beloved children of God. To have seen ourselves this way and then to go live as though it’s us against the world, as though we must secure our little sliver for ourselves, or as though we’re competitors and must take as much as we can, is indeed like looking into a mirror and then forgetting who we are.

What strikes me about James’ advice, however, is that he doesn’t simply prescribe remembrance as the antidote to forgetting. He doesn’t say, “Keep reading scripture, keeping reminding yourselves of who you are.” What he says, instead, is to be “doers of the word” (Ja 1:22). The best way to remember who we are is to live like who God has told us we are. Conventional wisdom and common sense tell us that we think our way into a new way of living, but the truth seems to be the opposite, actually. We live our way into a new way of thinking. The more we live like beloved children of God, the more we will leave behind our old ideas—that we and others are competitors, that we and others are fighters and scrappers for whatever we can get—and instead we will come to inhabit the truth that we are beloved children of God.

I experienced this truth—about living my way into a new way of thinking—when I began the practice of relocating bugs and critters from inside my home to the natural world outside. For example, when I encounter big hairy spider that naturally fills me with a feeling of repulsion, but then I carefully put a cup over top of it and slide a sheet of paper underneath it and take it outside, I find myself looking upon it with almost tender eyes as I set it down on the ground. To be sure, my repulsion of spiders has not been cured, but it is being changed, simply by the act of showing care for them.

In a similar way, I have a friend who shares the story about a person who really got on her nerves. She decided that she would begin to pray for this person every day. Slowly but surely, she discovered that she was beginning to see this same person with compassion. They even became friends. Her action—her regular prayer—changed the way she thought about herself and about this other person.

“To Care for the Needful”

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

James wraps up today’s scripture with a summary statement, again advising against speech and instead advocating for action. He insists that the measure of faith is not what a person says but what they do. “Orphans and widows” may seem rather specific, but in the Jewish tradition from which James is writing, it is shorthand for needful people. Again and again, in the Old Testament, God implores that Israelites care for the stranger, the orphan, and the widow. These are people who have no natural networks of support.

If you watch advertisements, you’ll likely notice that the underlying promise of many products is that they will make you “feel good.” People who want to feel better about themselves are enticed to think that if they have this or that product, this or that experience, then they will finally feel good. But James is revealing a counterintuitive truth. Feeling good doesn’t come from what we have or from the power we exercise or from our reputation in front of others. (In fact, we have plenty of evidence that people who have these things, desperately want even more. Chasing possessions, power, and prestige is apparently like drinking salt water for your thirst.) Feeling good comes, rather, from doing good. When we live as beloved children of God, showing others the mercy and compassion our Father has for us, then we begin to feel different about ourselves. We remember who we really are.

This World Cup, I’ve read and heard a number of stories that I would describe as “feel-good” stories. There were the people in Lawrence, Kansas, who decided to show hospitality to the visiting fans from Algeria by putting up Algerian flags in their shop windows and by learning how to say “Welcome” in Arabic. There was the city of Boston falling in love with the Scottish fans, known as the “Tartan Army,” which culminated in the mayor of Boston and the Glasgow City Council announcing a friendship between their cities; they are now formally recognized “twin cities.” Now, certainly, these are trivial examples and I can’t help but imagine that some of these experiences are motivated by things other than genuine care for other people (motivated by things like brand and profit). But I think the reason these stories touch our hearts and become known as “feel-good” stories is because, deep down, we sense the goodness of certain actions: acts of hospitality, acts of generosity, acts of curiosity and patience between cultures. These stories “feel good” because they are about people “doing good.”

And lest we draw the conclusion that all we need is to do our “good deed for the day” to be happy, that our faith is just a checkbox exercise, it’s helpful to remember that for James, at least, this doing is rooted first in hearing. It all begins with that simple message, “You are my beloved child, with whom I am well pleased.” This message inspires us to do the truth, to live as the beloved children of God that we are. Moreover, we do these good deeds not for some mercenary or ulterior motive of simply “feeling good.” Our motivation is much larger than just personal happiness or pleasure. Our motivation is that God’s Word won’t be limited to empty and “worthless” talk (cf. Ja 1:26), but rather might take on real flesh in our world. Our motivation is that God’s kingdom might take root. When we align ourselves with God’s word and act accordingly—when we do the truth of who we are—then yes, we will certainly feel good, knowing ourselves to be beloved and cared-for children of God, but more importantly we will begin to see that not just us but this whole world is good. We will see God’s kingdom, growing from a seed planted in our heart.

Prayer

Christ, our friend and savior,
You stopped at nothing
To share with us the good news
That you had heard,
The good news that we are beloved children of God.
…
May your good news inspire us
To do good and care for others,
As children who act in like manner to their heavenly father.
Amen.

 

---

[1] Ernest Kurtz and Katherine Ketcham, The Spirituality of Imperfection: Storytelling and the Search for Meaning (New York: Bantam, 1992), 142.

"Birth by the Word" (James 1:1-18)

An Undivided Mind

My nephew’s favorite soccer player is Mohamed Salah. For the last decade, Mo Salah has played for Liverpool, breaking one goalscoring record after another. The fans adore him and call him “the Egyptian king.” (In one of their songs, they sing tongue-in-cheek: “…if he scores another few, I’ll become a Muslim too.”) This year at the World Cup, Salah continues to make history. This past week, he scored a goal that helped his country Egypt win its first World Cup match ever.

Sports psychology tells us that to be an elite player you have to let go of disappointment quickly. Salah shows this mentality. Every time his shot misses the target, his face will break into a rueful smile, as though to say, “I didn’t score? That’s a surprise. Oh well, next time….” Any disappointment he might feel quickly slides away like water off a duck’s back. By the time his next opportunity comes, he is again single-minded in his focus and in his confidence.

In his award-winning book The Inner Game of Tennis, author Timothy Gallwey writes about what it feels like to be “in the zone.” To be “in the zone” is to have an undivided mind, to be fully in the moment. Most of the time, in sports and more generally in life, our minds are a little bit divided. We might be in the checkout line at the grocery, but part of us is replaying the snippet of argument we had earlier that day, or part of us is in the future, planning what we’ll cook for dinner that evening. For a goalscorer like Mo Salah, having a divided mind can be disastrous. If an opportunity comes his way, but he is still thinking about the last chance that he missed, he is likely to miss the present chance as well.

“The Doubter, Being Double-Minded”

1   James, a servant of God and of the Lord Jesus Christ,

To the twelve tribes in the Dispersion:

(Here James uses the metaphor of exile. He suggests to his audience that, just as the tribes of Israel were scattered and lived in foreign lands after Babylon conquered Judah, so too they as followers of Christ live in a world that is not their home. With this metaphor, James is introducing the idea that Christ-followers can expect a difference, sometimes even a conflict, between the way they live and the way that society around them lives, between the way of Christ and the way of the world.)

Greetings.

2   My brothers and sisters, whenever you face trials of any kind, consider it nothing but joy, 3 because you know that the testing of your faith produces endurance; 4 and let endurance have its full effect, so that you may be mature and complete, lacking in nothing.

(Several of the desert fathers and mothers in 4^th century Egypt, such as Abba Antony and Amma Theodora, taught that without trials, we cannot be saved.[1] It’s the same sort of counterintuitive wisdom that we read here in James, namely that those life circumstances that prove too much for us to handle, may be the very life circumstances by which we are saved, because they teach us to rely not on ourselves but on God and one another. They teach us that we are not as much in control of things as we’d like, but also that we’re surrounded by care, if only we would avail ourselves of it.)

5   If any of you is lacking in wisdom, ask God, who gives to all generously and ungrudgingly, and it will be given you. 6 But ask in faith, never doubting, for the one who doubts is like a wave of the sea, driven and tossed by the wind; 7 [8] for the doubter, being double-minded and unstable in every way, must not expect to receive anything from the Lord.

Growing up, I thought of doubt primarily as a lack of faith. Doubt was the problem of not having enough belief. But I think that’s a hypothetical definition of doubt, a definition derived from a sealed laboratory. I think James derives his definition from real life experience, and I think he gets closer to the truth. Notice what James calls the “doubter”: someone who is “double-minded.” Perhaps what’s going on in doubt has less to do with a deficit of faith, and more to do with a surplus of worry—or even just a surplus of thinking. I’m reminded of Jesus’ parable of the seeds, where what gets in the way of the seeds’ growth are “the cares of this world…and the desire for other things” (Mark 4:19). These preoccupations, Jesus says, “choke the word” (Mark 4:19). I imagine James might say they make a person double-minded. It is not so much that the person doubts God, pure and simple, but that they put their trust in other things—money, power, status. (And as Jesus would say, try as you might, you can’t serve two masters.)

“In the Midst of a Busy Life”

9   Let the believer who is lowly boast in being raised up, 10 and the rich in being brought low, because the rich will disappear like a flower in the field. 11 For the sun rises with its scorching heat and withers the field; its flower falls, and its beauty perishes. It is the same way with the rich; in the midst of a busy life, they will wither away.

Recent studies have shown that the United States, which ranks second in the world in average wealth per person,[2] also has rates of depression that are twice as high as the global average.[3] These statistics seem to contradict each other. We would assume that people who are “well off” would in fact be “well”—healthy, happy, hopeful. But it almost seems to be the opposite. As one famous American rapper succinctly put it, “More money, more problems.”

James, in this brief aside on the danger of riches, hints at the reason for this inverse relationship between wealth and contentment. “In the midst of a busy life,” he says, “they [the rich] will wither away” (Ja 1:11). It is not uncommon to read in the Old Testament wisdom literature, such as Proverbs and Ecclesiastes, how riches and also beauty and power are all fleeting experiences, always over before we’d like. But James is not just saying that riches won’t last. He’s saying that the people who have riches will themselves wither away in the very midst of their riches. Why? Because they live “a busy life” (Ja 1:11). What he means, I think, is that riches can make us “double-minded,” never fully present to enjoy God’s gifts in the here and now, because we’re too busy managing our riches or aspiring after more.

“When That Desire Has Conceived”

12   Blessed is anyone who endures temptation. Such a one has stood the test and will receive the crown of life that the Lord has promised to those who love him. 13 No one, when tempted, should say, “I am being tempted by God”; for God cannot be tempted by evil and he himself tempts no one. 14 But one is tempted by one’s own desire, being lured and enticed by it; 15 then, when that desire has conceived, it gives birth to sin, and that sin, when it is fully grown, gives birth to death. 16 Do not be deceived, my beloved.

The desert fathers and mothers of 4^th-century Egypt teach that the spiritual life consists of how we respond to the many thoughts that crowd our mind. They are quick to point out that we are not our thoughts. Having a bad thought does not mean we are a bad person. It just means we’re human, and we live in a world saturated with all kinds of thoughts. One way to think of it, is to acknowledge that Language is a “higher power.” When we are born, Language is already here—words, thoughts, floating all around us, shaping us, forming us, from the very beginning.

James uses the metaphor of birth to suggest a pathway from thought to sin. When we consent to an enticing but destructive thought—what James calls a “temptation” and then later a “desire”—then this thought conceives and eventually gives birth to sin, which eventually gives birth to death (Ja 1:14-16).

I’m reminded of Jesus in the desert, confronted by Satan, who tempts him with power, possessions, and prestige. I wonder if it might not be helpful to look again at this scenario and consider the possibility that these are all three “desires” of Jesus. In other words, when Satan presents these thoughts, they actually take up residence in Jesus’ heart and a part of him desires them. A part of him is tempted. To think of Jesus in this way may help us to acknowledge that thoughts and desires do not make us bad or sinful. What matters is simply how we respond to them. (This is what Mister Rogers was referring to in the song I shared last week: “I can stop when I want to / Can stop when I wish / I can stop, stop, stop any time.” In other words, I don’t have to consent to this thought, this desire.)

When a student approached one of those 4^th-century desert fathers and complained, “Many distracting thoughts come into my mind, and I am in danger because of them,” the abba instructed him to take his jacket off and to use it to catch the wind. The student frowned and said, “This I cannot do.” The abba nodded and said, “If you cannot catch the wind, neither can you prevent distracting thoughts from coming into your head. Your job is to say No to them.”[4]

All of which begs the question: How do we say no?

God’s Beloved Children

17   Every generous act of giving, with every perfect gift, is from above, coming down from the Father of lights, with whom there is no variation or shadow due to change.  18 In fulfillment of his own purpose he gave us birth by the word of truth, so that we would become a kind of first fruits of his creatures.

To answer the question, “How do we say ‘no’ to the distracting thoughts that lead us wayward?” we might do well to ask, “What did Jesus do?” That is, “How did Jesus say ‘no’ when he was in the wilderness?” James hints at the answer in the verse we just read, but I’ll flesh it out. If you’ll remember, right before Jesus went into the wilderness, he heard a word from God: “You are my beloved son; with you I am well pleased” (Luke 3:22). This word of love grounded him in the wilderness. It was his anchor amid the waves of temptation. Remember how Satan challenges Jesus’ identity, repeatedly beginning his temptation with, “If you are the son of God…” (Luke 4:3, 9). In the same way, our own distracting desires for power, possessions, or prestige, are really the temptation to secure our identity. “If only this,” or “if only that,” we think, “I will be safe and happy.” But Jesus is grounded in God’s love, in his identity as God’s beloved child. He knows who he is. He knows God loves him. Satan’s temptations—the desires that momentarily barrage his heart—slide off of him like water off a duck’s back, because he’s listening to a different word.

Listen to how James puts it: “[God] gave us birth by the word of truth” (Ja 1:18). The word of truth that grounded Jesus, that gave birth to his awareness that he was indeed God’s beloved child, is the same word that can ground us. When the truth of God’s love is our anchor, our center of gravity, then all the other words, thoughts, and desires fall away. It is like Mo Salah or any other sports player when they are in the zone; their mind is undivided, single-minded in its confidence and focus. When God’s love is the word that we listen to, we are in the zone, free from the worries and distractions that threaten to put us off our “game.”

James goes on to suggest that we who are born by this word of truth, this word of God’s love, become something new and different, like the first-fruits of a harvest, or the firstborn of a new race. He’s getting at the radical difference between our old life, where we chase after desires that won’t satisfy, and our new life, where we rest secure in God’s love.

I’m reminded of a story that Greg Boyle, who works in gang rehabilitation, tells about one of the former gang members. They’d gone to a Catholic boys high school, and the former gang member, Joel, was sharing his own story of recovery with the students:

“[A]s I’m scrubbing the sink, Marvin Gaye is singing on the radio, ‘Let’s Get It On.’ You know the song.” Joel began to sing. “ ‘Let’s… get it on.’ ” The gym exploded in hollering and raucous laughter. Without a shred of inhibition, he repeated his singing of the line and added a kind of cholo-shuffle dance. “ ‘Let’s get it on.’ ” The packed room could not be contained. Then Joel began to speak other lines from the song and the boys grew quiet. “ ‘Don’t ya know what I’m dreamin’ of? Don’t ya know how sweet and wonderful life can be?’ ” He paused and communicated with certainty that the story was downshifting to a slower, deeper velocity. “I realized… it was God… dropping me a hint.” [Joel, you see, had grown up listening to a very different voice. Not to the word of truth, but to words that told him he was a burden, that he was bad, that he deserved to live behind bars. Shame and resentment had given birth to death in his life.] Tears fell down his cheeks [as he continued the song]. This was not lost on his audience and they were completely still. “ ‘Ain’t goin’ ta worry… won’t push ya, baby. If you believe in love,’ ” Joel continued, “ ‘then… let’s get it on.’ ” His crying now was just this side of derailing his entire speech. The gym was absolutely hushed. “So… I said yes… I surrendered to the love… to God… Yes… let’s… get it on.” He stopped there. Echoing applause punctuated his story’s end.[5]

Prayer

Lord Jesus Christ,
Who lived in a world just like ours,
Noisy with many words and thoughts and desires
That give birth to sin and death
…
Help us to hear the word of truth that you heard,
To be born by it
And rooted in it. Amen.

 

---

[1] John Chryssavgis, In the Heart of the Desert: The Spirituality of the Desert Fathers and Mothers (rev. ed.; Bloomington: World Wisdom, 2008), 37.

[2] https://worldpopulationreview.com/country-rankings/average-net-worth-by-country, accessed June 22, 2026.

[3] https://fherehab.com/depression/statistics, accessed June 22, 2026.

[4] The Wisdom of the Desert: Sayings from the Desert Fathers of the Fourth Century (Trans. Thomas Merton; A New Directions Books), 83.

[5] Gregory Boyle, The Whole Language: The Power of Extravagant Tenderness (New York: Avid Reader, ???), 20-21. 

"The Wisdom of God" (1 Cor 1:18-31)

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The World Cup is in full swing now…and I’m pretty certain this is as close to heaven as I’ll get this side of death.

But reading this Sunday’s scripture has given me a different pair of eyes through which to watch these matches. Recently in a United States match, one of the opponents cynically chopped down a US player with a swing of his leg. The referee called a foul but didn’t issue any further punishment, such as a yellow card. The US players were incensed. A few minutes later, Tyler Adams, who is one of the leaders of the US team, a short, scrappy defensive midfielder, committed a robust challenge against the previous offender. Let’s just say he made sure his tackle left a mark. He received a yellow card but seemed nonplused. In an interview after the game, Adams was asked if his challenge was an act of retribution. He responded: “If I see one of my guys get kicked, I’m going right after them.”

I’ll put my cards on the table. When I saw Tyler Adams rush into that full-blooded tackle, I felt a surge of satisfaction—right in line with the sentiments he expressed after the match. Against a tough opponent, you need to show you’re no pushover. If they hit you, you hit them right back.

It’s the wisdom of our world. Maybe a bit unsavory, but I think most of us feel that rush of satisfaction when we see the little guy stand up for himself. I remember growing up and watching countless sitcom television shows that included among their catalogue an episode where a youth is getting bullied at school and receives the tough wisdom of the streets (usually from his father) that if he wants the bullying to stop he has to hit back. Finally he does. Regardless of whether he’s victorious or he comes home pummeled to a pulp, his deed is considered a victory, and the show ends on a happy note. Finally, he stood up for himself.

“Christ Crucified” Is Not Common Sense

The same time that I was watching these sitcoms, I was learning at church about Jesus. I was taught that the crowning moment of his life was the cross…where he did not fight back. I scratched my head. What was going on here? The cross didn’t make sense by the world’s logic. “Christ crucified” is not common sense.

And yet much of what I learned at church passed right over this fundamental contradiction, with barely a nod. I remember there were various courses and books at church that presented Jesus as the epitome of worldly wisdom in all walks of life. There was a course about how Jesus was a consummate business leader, and how CEOs should model their practice after him. (I scratched my head, wondering how forgiving all of your debtors was going to grow your business; cf. Matt 6:12; 18:22.) There was a book that explored how Jesus lived by democratic principles and how therefore the fight for democracy around the world was crucial for the kingdom of God. (I scratched my head, wondering why Jesus repeatedly disarmed his own followers if the fight was so crucial; cf. Luke 9:54-55; Matt 26:52.) There was a course about how Jesus was a champion for family values. (I scratched my head, wondering about the numerous sayings in which he spoke of the necessity of leaving one’s family or hating one’s parents or families being divided by the gospel; cf. Mark 10:28-30; Luke 14:26; Matt 10:34-36.)

I don’t doubt that much of this literature had good intentions. It was showing the supremacy of Jesus, after all. That’s what the world needed to see, right?

Perhaps…but as we see in today’s scripture, what the world sees first in Christ is likely not supremacy, but strangeness. Difference. Contradiction. Or as Paul puts it, “foolishness” and “weakness….”

18    For the message about the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God. 19 For it is written,

                “I will destroy the wisdom of the wise,

                                and the discernment of the discerning I will thwart”—this is a quote from Isaiah 29:14.

20 Where is the one who is wise? Where is the scribe? Where is the debater of this age? Has not God made foolish the wisdom of the world? 21 For since, in the wisdom of God, the world did not know God through wisdom, God decided, through the foolishness of our proclamation, to save those who believe. 22 For Jews demand signs and Greeks desire wisdom, 23 but we proclaim Christ crucified, a stumbling block to Jews and foolishness to Gentiles, 24 but to those who are the called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God. 25 For God’s foolishness is wiser than human wisdom, and God’s weakness is stronger than human strength.

As a person intimately familiar with the Jewish scriptures, Paul knows that God’s wisdom is not common sense. There is a rich tradition in the Jewish scriptures (the Old Testament) that maintains the strangeness and mystery of God’s wisdom. We see this in the quotation of Isaiah 29:14. We see this in the book of Ecclesiastes, which is one long quest for wisdom that is never fully satisfied. I’ve included on today’s scripture handout a portion of Job 28, which describes wisdom as a mystery hidden beyond the limits of the world. Wisdom cannot be found in wealth and power. It cannot be found at the ends of the earth; even death can only say, “We’ve heard a rumor of it with our ears” (Job 28:22). The point is not to despair but rather to accept that God’s wisdom is not something that can be grasped. The moment we humans have knowledge of something, is the moment we try to leverage that knowledge for our own gain. (All those books and studies on the supremacy of Jesus were, in my opinion, an attempt to domesticate Jesus for the sake of advancing our own projects.)

It strikes me as significant that Paul refers repeatedly to the cross and identifies Jesus as “Christ crucified.” Why does Paul not refer instead to the empty tomb and “Christ resurrected”? Why not choose a nickname or a handle that points to God’s power and victory? I think the answer is simple. Paul wants to ensure there is no confusion: the gospel is ultimately not about power and victory, but about love. And the ultimate symbol of God’s love is the cross, where instead of fighting back, Christ utters forgiveness; where instead of seeking retribution, Christ reconciles. There’s no way around it. From the outside, from the world’s vantage point of common sense, love looks weak and foolish.

God’s Choice

26   Consider your own call, brothers and sisters: not many of you were wise by human standards, not many were powerful, not many were of noble birth. 27 But God chose what is foolish in the world to shame the wise; God chose what is weak in the world to shame the strong; 28 God chose what is low and despised in the world, things that are not, to reduce to nothing things that are, 29 so that no one might boast in the presence of God. 30 He is the source of your life in Christ Jesus, who became for us wisdom from God, and righteousness and sanctification and redemption, 31 in order that, as it is written, “Let the one who boasts, boast in the Lord.”

Last week, we read in the gospel of Matthew how Jesus invites those who are “weary” and “carrying heavy burdens” (Matt 11:28)—quite likely those whom the world considers “wise” and “intelligent” (cf. Matt 11:25)—to take his yoke upon them and to learn from him who is “gentle and humble in heart” (Matt 11:29). I emphasized the point that this is the only direct identification of the character of God’s heart: “gentle and humble.” Not “proud” and “strong,” not “confident” and “self-assured.” “Gentle and humble.” Even as I made that point, however, I sensed a rebuttal. “Gentle and humble” could be easily confused, couldn’t it, with being a doormat or a pushover? (I suppose that’s why some people mocked the early followers of Christ. They followed a crucified God…which is to say, a doormat God, a pushover God.)

I’m reminded of how the folk singer Pete Seeger once remarked how some people confused Mister Rogers with being a “namby-pamby” pacifist. Maybe what he taught was suitable for little children, but come on, man—grow up. In the real world, it’s eat or be eaten.

When Mister Rogers stood before Congress to advocate for funding for his children’s program, he shared with them one of the songs that he’d written for his program. His sincere conviction was that most children’s television shows taught violence as the solution for one’s problems. From his faith—which he rarely revealed in public (the point for him was not posturing or winning adherents to an institution, the point was the message itself)—from his faith, Mister Rogers drew the conclusion that there was a radical alternative. It was the way of Christ. Listen to the words of the song that he read before Congress:

What do you do with the mad that you feel When you feel so mad you could bite? When the whole wide world seems oh, so wrong... And nothing you do seems very right?   What do you do? Do you punch a bag? Do you pound some clay or some dough? Do you round up friends for a game of tag? Or see how fast you go?   It's great to be able to stop When you've planned a thing that's wrong, And be able to do something else instead And think this song:

I can stop when I want to Can stop when I wish I can stop, stop, stop any time. And what a good feeling to feel like this And know that the feeling is really mine. Know that there's something deep inside That helps us become what we can. For a girl can be someday a woman And a boy can be someday a man.

Paul’s encouragement to the Corinthians who follow the “weak” and “foolish”-looking Christ is not the promise that one day things will change and they will rise above their stations and be presidents or CEOs or celebrities. Rather it is the assurance that God’s most precious work is being done in the shadows where they live, in the unseen corners of the world, in the overlooked crevasses of obscurity. Repeatedly he declares, “God chose…,” “God chose…,” “God chose….” And who has God chosen? The “foolish,” the “weak,” the “low” and “despised.”

When history gets told, most of the focus rests on emperors and kings and presidents, on wars and battles and espionage and high-stakes diplomacy. But according to Paul, God’s history is happening mostly in the shadows, with the obscure and anonymous. I think immediately of little children learning from Mister Rogers, their hearts and minds quietly shaped into alignment with Christ. I think of hospitals and recovery communities and reading circles, where care takes precedence over control. I think of little churches and crowded living rooms, where the strange Wisdom of God—the Wisdom of love and peace and reconciliation—is taught.

Paul doesn’t spend much time trying to refute the negative name-calling that Christ-followers might receive. Doormats? Pushovers? Paul just shakes his head, and says, “You are doing things God’s way. ‘He is the source of your life in Christ Jesus, who became for us wisdom from God’” (cf. 1 Cor 1:30). If you want to know what God’s wisdom looks like, look at Jesus.

As I was reminded while watching the World Cup, the wisdom of the world is to stand up for yourself (and your team), which really means to fight back. It is a wisdom we see across the realms of life, whether in business or relationships or politics. I wonder: does this mean that the way of Christ is not standing up for yourself? I don’t think so…. I think what we see in Christ crucified is Christ standing up—not just for himself, but for the kingdom of God, for a new creation, a new way of living together. It’s the same thing we see in Mister Rogers’ song, where “I can stop, stop, stop anytime” is a defiant refusal of the way of the world, a defiant insistence on living a different way. This quiet insistence from Christ and from his followers like Mister Rogers on forgiveness and reconciliation is standing up alright, but it’s a “standing for” something, rather than “standing against” someone. Their strength is not the strength of this world, but the strength of God. It is not force but steadfastness. Like a living stream of water, quietly shaping all that stands in its way.

Prayer

Dear Christ,
Your body bears
The scars of your love—
And we are your body
Here on earth.
…
Help us to learn
The wisdom of God,
That we might not seek our own greatness
But something even greater.
In your gentle and humble spirit, we pray: Amen.