A Strange Conquest (Revelation 2:1-7)

Letters Against Compromise

Today’s scripture contains the first of seven miniature letters that John of Patmos—the author of Revelation—is instructed to deliver. Each letter relays a message that John claims to have received from Jesus and is addressed to a specific church in the Roman province of Asia, or what we would call Turkey today. In each letter, Jesus encourages the church, sometimes also providing warnings or reprimands and always ending with a formulaic promise that uses these or similar words: “To the one who conquers, will be given [abundant life].” (2:7, 11, 17, 28; 3:5, 12, 21).

While each letter addresses concerns specific to the church being addressed, there is a common thread tying all these concerns together. This common thread is a simple message: do not compromise. In other words, stay faithful to the way of Jesus Christ; do not water down your faith (because of social pressures or persecution) in order to fit in with the Roman culture and way of life.

The first letter, which we will read in just a moment, addresses the church in Ephesus, one of the largest cities in the Roman empire at the time. Ephesus had all the grandeur and luxuries that the Roman empire boasted: a grand amphitheatre for plays and gladiatorial games, a stadium for sports, a huge temple to the patron goddess Artemis, saunas, marketplaces, and more. Ephesus also had one of the strongest communities of early Christ-followers, who strove never to compromise to the Roman way of life. As we will hear in just one moment, Jesus praises them for not compromising…and yet he also reprimands them for the spirit in which they resist compromise. I think his message is especially instructive for committed followers of Christ today, and so I’ve handpicked it for today’s scripture. (I do encourage you to read the other letters as well in the rest of Revelation 2 and 3.)

Scripture

1 “To the angel of the church in Ephesus write: These are the words of him who holds the seven stars in his right hand, who walks among the seven golden lampstands:—Earlier in chapter one, John explains that the seven stars are the angels or messengers that correspond with the seven golden lampstands, which are the seven churches. So here John is envisioning Jesus walking in the midst of the seven churches, holding in his hand—in his care and guidance—the seven angels or messengers, that is, the spiritual leaders of these churches. 

2 “I know your works, your toil and your patient endurance. I know that you cannot tolerate evildoers; you have tested those who claim to be apostles but are not, and have found them to be false. 3 I also know that you are enduring patiently and bearing up for the sake of my name, and that you have not grown weary. 4 But I have this against you, that you have abandoned the love you had at first. 5 Remember then from what you have fallen; repent, and do the works you did at first. If not, I will come to you and remove your lampstand from its place, unless you repent. 6 Yet this is to your credit: you hate the works of the Nicolaitans, which I also hate. 7 Let anyone who has an ear listen to what the Spirit is saying to the churches. To everyone who conquers, I will give permission to eat from the tree of life that is in the paradise of God.

The Way of Rome

Rather than try to explain this passage, let me offer a story….

Nico could still remember the first time he went to the Grand Theater. He was thirteen, and an older teenage friend had invited him. He remembered the parade before the game, how trumpets and dancing accompanied the arrival of the palm branches and wreaths that would be conferred upon the victors. He remembered the presentation of statues—Mars, Zeus, Athena, and of course Artemis, the patron goddess of the city. He remembered how a detachment of soldiers, armed to the teeth, marched in stoic fashion around the theater. He remembered how there was a statue of the emperor himself, and how the wealthy sponsor of the games led the crowd in a stirring chant: “Caesar is Lord! Caesar is Lord!” 

He remembered feeling sick the first time he saw a limb dismembered from a fighter’s body. He looked away as the crowd roared its approval. They chanted, “Nika, nika!” “Win, win!” Soon, though, he was watching again. A defeated fighter was wearily grasping the thigh of his combatant, and the crowd was crying for his death. Everyone looked to the sponsor of the game, who was acting as referee. He tilted his head one way, then the other, and then finally gave the thumbs-up signal. The victorious combatant plunged his sword into the neck of the defeated fighter, killing him. Nico remembered how after that death blow, attendants entered the fighting grounds and delivered further blows to ensure that the loser was indeed dead. (The message was clear. Caesar, and anyone who acted in his name, held the power of life and death.) He remembered how the sponsor pronounced the victor a “conqueror” or niketes, and how the crowd chanted that title again and again: “Niketes, niketes!”

The first night after watching the gladiators fight, Nico could hardly sleep. With his eyes closed, his mind’s eye kept replaying the violent images of the day. Half a year later, when his friend invited him to another game, he said “Yes.” 

Soon he was learning the names of famous gladiators. What weapons they fought with. What signature moves defined them. Their rags-to-riches backstories that told how by sheer grit and willpower and strength they had risen to fame. He didn’t know at the time, but he was learning a way of life. The Roman way of life. To some it seemed callous or insensitive, but to him it seemed true. It made sense. Whoever’s strongest…gets to live. 

At the end of the day, it’s best to be on the side that’s gonna win. And so next time he attended the game, he chanted with the crowd: “Caesar is Lord. Caesar is Lord.”

The Way of Christ

But the games and the gladiators were a cold comfort to him when illness came upon his house and took both his parents. Suddenly he felt helpless. No amount of strength or grit could get him out of his grief.

Nico was a laundryperson—a smelly vocation that placed him near the bottom rung of the Roman social order. He didn’t have enough money or good heritage to earn him a place in one of the local associations or guilds. And so he didn’t really have any connections outside the laundry world. 

But shortly after his parents died, another laundry worker invited him to tag along to a local banquet. Now Nico had never been to a banquet, but this one was different. It was celebrating a man called Jesus, a man who had been crucified—and yet his followers claimed he lived. Nico went, and his world was turned upside down. Upon arriving at a modest dwelling, he was greeted with smiles and warm embraces from all sorts of people—slaves, merchants, Jews, Romans with noble family names. There in a circle, rich and poor alike sat and passed plates and bumped elbows and swapped stories. No special privileges were given to the rich or the powerful. It was surreal. A few times during the meal, someone would speak up and share a memory about this man Jesus, in whose name they would bless the meal and give thanks. Clearly this guy was the founder of the feast. Later candles were lit, and hands were washed, and songs were sung, and stories were told—personal stories about how Jesus had overcome difficulties that the people there at the banquet had faced.

The first night after that banquet, Nico closed his eyes in bed and felt…embraced. He didn’t know at the time, but he was about to learn a new, different way of life. The way of Christ. The way of love. To some it seemed weak or foolish, but to him it would come to be true. It would make sense. The embrace he felt…gave him more strength than any amount of muscle or steel did.

At the end of the day, it’s best to know you are not alone. And so, finally, one day, he confessed, “Jesus is Lord,” and was baptized in water from death to life and given a white ceremonial robe to wear.

Resisting the Nicolaitians—and Becoming Righteous

Do you know what the name Nico means? It comes from the Greek word nikao, which means “to conquer” or “overcome.” (Our brand name today, Nike, comes from the Greek word for “conquest” or “victory.”) 

As a teenager, Nico learned that victory meant power and strength. As a new follower of Christ, Nico learned that victory meant a vulnerable love that endures all things, even death. But that is not the end of Nico’s story….

In his early life as a follower of Christ, Nico learned from other Christ-followers that certain behaviors and attitudes really were incompatible with the way of Christ. So he began to withdraw from activities that had characterized his old life. He stopped attending the gladiatorial games, where he had participated in the worship of the Roman emperor and the Roman military and had slowly become desensitized to violence. He stopped making trips to the local sauna, where he had learned to see bodies as trophies that could be acquired and traded by the strong and mighty. He stopped shopping at a lot of the local markets, where he would have been required to offer incense and a pledge of allegiance to the Roman emperor. Anything that involved the worship of the Roman emperor or Roman gods challenged the way of Christ, usually by asserting that the real authority in the world was a mighty arm, whether that arm belonged to Zeus or to a human surrogate like the emperor. To put it bluntly: the way of Rome was force, whereas the way of Christ was love. Nico was learning the way of love, and so he withdrew from the Roman way of life.

Of course, there were social consequences. He endured raised eyebrows and whispered rumors. He endured the occasional taunt and even the odd threat. But these consequences were a drop in the sea next to the embrace that he felt, to the knowledge that Christ was alive and with him.

And yet…over time, Nico thought less about the embrace that had welcomed him into Christ, and more about how righteous he had become by withdrawing himself from the polluted world of Rome. This became especially apparent when a traveling band of so-called apostles traveled through Ephesus, teaching that followers of Christ could still participate in Roman festivals and events that celebrated the emperor. These traveling apostles, who were known as the Nicolaitians, preached that Jesus Christ’s salvation had to do with a person’s interior life—that is, it concerned their soul, rather than the way they lived. Therefore, they could still enjoy the Roman way of life—a way that glorified violence and lust and wealth—as long as they didn’t worship these things in their heart, as long as Jesus was enthroned in their heart.

Nico and other Christ-followers in Ephesus strongly resisted the Nicolaitians, preaching instead that Christ had called his disciples to “follow him,” to live the way he lived, even to take up the cross. They pushed back strongly against the Nicolaitians, reminding people that they could not serve two masters—in this case, Christ and Rome.

What Changes Us in the First Place?

If you’ll recall from today’s scripture, the problem with Nico and the other Ephesians is not that they are compromising to the way of Rome—on the contrary, they are steadfastly guarding against any compromise. Jesus even commends them for this. The problem is that in resisting what they are against, they have forgotten what they are for. Listen again to Jesus’ words: “But I have this against you, that you have abandoned the love you had at first. Remember then from what you have fallen; repent, and do the works you did at first. If not, I will come to you and remove your lampstand”—that is, the church in Ephesus—“from its place, unless you repent” (Rom 2:4-5).

Remember what changes Nico’s life in the first place? What, I would wager, changed all of our lives, too, in the first place? It wasn’t a vehement argument. It wasn’t a heated debate. It wasn’t some guy saying, “Come on, prove me wrong, and you’ll see I’m right.” It was love. For Nico, it was this almost mystical sense of embrace that overwhelmed his emptiness, that brought warmth to a world that had gone ice-cold. 

Notice what Jesus is saying in this message. He is not reprimanding the Ephesians for withdrawing from the Roman way of life. He’s not criticizing their rather radical stance against cultural compromise. Rather, he’s rebuking the spirit in which they do it. Remember Paul’s words? “If I speak in the tongues…of angels…if I have prophetic powers, and understand all mysteries and knowledge…if I give away all my possessions…but do not have love, I gain nothing” (1 Cor 13:1-3). From the perspective of Christ, being right can actually be wrong, if love is not the first and final word. 

In the last half-century, Christians in our nation have waged what has been called a “culture war,” fighting against a perceived threat to the Christian religion. Many battle lines have been drawn. Prayer in school. The ten commandments in public spaces. Abortion and reproductive rights. The sincerity of many of those who are fighting is not something that I would question. What could be questioned, however, is the spirit in which their fight is fought. Christians fighting in the culture wars have effectively taken up the weapons of the world, seeking to use the coercive powers of the state to get their way, when Jesus calls us away from the weapons of the world, away from the use of coercive force. Christians fighting in the culture wars have taken up bullhorns and ad-space to tell others how they’re wrong, when Jesus calls us to love others and show them by our example—by our faithful witness—the goodness of God’s way.

What It Means to Conquer

At the end of each letter in Revelation, Jesus promises abundant life to those who “conquer.” It might not be a coincidence that the first letter goes out to Ephesus, where gladiatorial games were huge, where conquering was a Roman virtue celebrated by everyone. It seems as though Jesus is inviting his followers to consider again what it means to conquer. In the gospel of John, Jesus proclaims that he has conquered the world (John 16:33)...right before he is crucified. Right before he demonstrates the depths of his love for the world.

Prayer

Lord Jesus Christ,

Who has conquered the world,

Who has conquered death—

Help us to remember your victory

In our own lives,

How your love changes everything

…

Align us evermore with your spirit,

Gentle, humble, filled with love,

Which works not out of resentment and grievance

But with grace and forgiveness

And a deep love that conquers.

Amen.

"Patient Endurance" (Rev 1:1-11)

Get Ready?

1 The revelation of Jesus Christ, which God gave him to show his servants what must soon take place; he made it known by sending his angel to his servant John, 2 who testified to the word of God and to the testimony of Jesus Christ, even to all that he saw.

3 Blessed is the one who reads aloud the words of the prophecy, and blessed are those who hear and who keep what is written in it; for the time is near.

In 2012, a TV show called Doomsday Preppers premiered on the National Geographic channel. Each episode featured an individual who believed that the end of the world as we know it could be near. Some of these “doomsday preppers,” as they’re called, worried about the prospect of a global nuclear war or widespread natural disasters caused by climate change. Others feared that society would collapse as the result of the power grid failing. But one common thread that ran through many of these fears was a religious belief that our world’s problems and predicaments mirror the end-time judgments described in the book of Revelation. When these preppers read words like we just heard—“what must soon take place” and “the time is near” (Rev 1:1, 3)—they see signposts pointing toward a catastrophic end right around the corner. Their response is largely the same. It’s time to get ready. For them, “getting ready” means stockpiling resources, food, and weapons, and then bunkering down. When things fall apart, they’ll be prepared to weather the storm—sort of like Noah on the arc—while others around them flounder.

Now I’m not a prepper. (I’m guessing none of us would truly qualify.) But I’m very familiar with the beliefs that underlie the movement. I remember that one of the first albums I bought with my own money—DC Talk’s Jesus Freak—featured a cover of Larry Norman’s song, “I Wish We’d All Been Ready,” a song about a popularly imagined event called “the rapture,” an end-time phenomenon when Christians would be supernaturally vacuumed up to heaven. Around the same time in my life, I read the first book in the Left Behind series, which imagined how things would unfold at the end of time (which happens to be around the mid-1990s!). It drew a lot of inspiration specifically from the book of Revelation, and it sought to depict how some of Revelation’s more fantastic images—its dragon, its two beasts, its famines and wars—how all of this corresponded with our own emerging geopolitical situation. Its message mirrored the thinking that motivates doomsday preppers, namely “Get ready!” It’s no surprise that many churches and pastors and small groups devoured this material. Fear is a powerful motivator. We all want to make sure we’ll be safe when disaster strikes—and what’s a bigger disaster than the end of everything?

Not about the End of Things…

But what I would like to suggest today and over the next eight weeks as we read through Revelation goes against the grain of all of this. What I would like to suggest is this. Revelation is not about the end of things. It is about the essence of things. Revelation is not about the end of things, it’s about the essence of things. The very first word in the book points in this direction. The word apokalypsis—which gets translated “revelation”—means something like “unveiling.” An apokalypsis reveals the reality behind appearances. An apokalypsis helps us to see what’s really going on despite appearances to the contrary. And according to the author of Revelation—a man named John, whom church tradition considers to be John the evangelist but whom most historians suggest was a different John—according to John, what’s really going on is that Jesus Christ is in the midst of our chaotic world, alongside us in all the pressures and persecutions and seductions that we face. 

Now, specifically, John was writing to an audience that was situated in the 1st century world of the Roman empire, a world where Roman power promised everything a person could want: prestige, prosperity, peace. But to enjoy these promises, a person had to pledge allegiance (sometimes literally) to the Roman empire. A person had to say “yes” to the Roman way of life, a way of life that included dominating the weak, extracting money from the poor, and excluding (if not executing) everyone who could not serve the purposes of the empire. If you wanted peace, then sign on to Rome, who made war like no other empire on earth. If you wanted prosperity, then sign on to Rome, who indulged in abundance accumulated on the backs of slaves and the less fortunate. If you wanted prestige, then sign on to Rome, who celebrated ideals of nobility and beauty at the expense of all who fell short of those ideals.

It’s important to remember this historical context, for it serves as a helpful reminder that John did not sit down to encourage people by pointing them to events that would happen two thousand years later. He sat down to encourage people by helping them to understand events that were happening right then and there. He wasn’t writing in a code that could only be deciphered millenia later. He was writing in symbols and images that helped people to interpret what was going on in the present moment. 

And when he wrote, “The time is near,” he was not saying, “Get ready for the end.” He was saying, rather, “Get ready to follow Jesus, to live the way he lived.” For the Greek word here is kairos, which sometimes gets translated “appointed time.” I would suggest translating it as “decisive time” or “moment of opportunity.” Kairos is not the time of a clock; it’s not tick-tock time. It’s the time when memories are made and futures are decided. It’s a clutch moment that is pregnant with possibility. And according to John, it’s here, now. Will his audience hold true to their faith in the way of Christ—or compromise to the way of Rome?

“Faithful Witness”

4 John to the seven churches that are in Asia:

Grace to you and peace from him who is and who was and who is to come, and from the seven spirits who are before his throne, 5 and from Jesus Christ, the faithful witness, the firstborn of the dead, and the ruler of the kings of the earth.

To him who loves us and freed us from our sins by his blood, 6 and made us to be a kingdom, priests serving his God and Father, to him be glory and dominion forever and ever. Amen.

7 Look! He is coming with the clouds;

    every eye will see him,

even those who pierced him;

    and on his account all the tribes of the earth will wail.

So it is to be. Amen.

8 “I am the Alpha and the Omega,” says the Lord God, who is and who was and who is to come, the Almighty.

In his greeting, John twice refers to the eternity of God, but in a way that contradicts our linear expectations. Did you catch it? He doesn’t move from past to present to future; he doesn’t refer to the God who was and is and is to come. Rather, he gives priority to the present tense. Twice he calls God the God “who is and who was and who is to come” (Rev 1:4, 8). It’s a small but significant reordering of time that emphasizes God’s presence, as though to remind folks that God is not just some spiritual or pious abstraction but is present here, now (closer to us than our own breath, as some mystics have put it). Despite any evidence to the contrary, John insists God is happening in every little thing.

This assurance of God’s presence is amplified by the rest of John’s greeting, which is trinitarian in formula, attribute grace and peace not only to God but also to “the seven spirits” before God’s throne (a symbol of the Holy Spirit) and to Jesus Christ (Rev 1:4-5). After this trinitarian blessing, John spends the most time talking about Jesus, which is perhaps no surprise as Jesus Christ is the content of his “apocalypse,” his revelation. His depiction of Jesus here foreshadows what’s to come in his vision. Strikingly he alludes four different times to Jesus’ crucifixion: first, calling Jesus “the faithful witness,” in which the Greek word for “witness” is martyr, thus reminding us that Jesus died for what he believe in; second, calling Jesus the “firstborn of the dead,” again reminding us that Jesus died; third, claiming that Jesus’ “blood” cleanses us of our sins, reminding us of Jesus’ blood on the cross; and fourth, insisting that “those who pierced him” will see him and mourn him (Rev 1:5-7). Why this repeated emphasis on Jesus’ death, especially when John’s final claim is that Jesus is actually “the ruler of the kings of the earth” (Rev 1:5)? 

For John, Jesus’ death is the key to understanding his life. It’s essentially the logic that if you want to know what a person is living for (what matters most to them), then find what they’d be willing to die for. A martyr’s death is the seal of their life, showing us what they lived for (what mattered most to them). So, what was Jesus living for? John calls Jesus “him who loved us” (Rev 1:5). So, Jesus lived out of his love for us–all of us. We might say, quite literally, that Jesus loves us all to death. And he shows us what real love looks like (and indeed what the God who is love looks like) under the most intense sort of pressure and persecution. Love will never spill blood to get its way. It would rather its own blood be spilled, as it holds out eternal hope that others might one day see and choose the goodness of love.

But the real surprise, the real twist—and the real encouragement—is John’s insistence that despite any evidence to the contrary the crucified Jesus is in fact “the ruler of the kings of the earth” (Rev 1:5). Which is to say, Jesus reigns; his love is not and will not be defeated but will endure forever.

Not Escape, but Endurance

9 I, John, your brother who share with you in Jesus the persecution and the kingdom and the patient endurance, was on the island called Patmos because of the word of God and the testimony of Jesus. 10 I was in the spirit on the Lord’s day, and I heard behind me a loud voice like a trumpet 11 saying, “Write in a book what you see and send it to the seven churches, to Ephesus, to Smyrna, to Pergamum, to Thyatira, to Sardis, to Philadelphia, and to Laodicea.”

Doomsday preppers and people who read Revelation as a prediction about the end of the world focus their attention on the worst possible scenarios and do all they can to avoid the pain and suffering heading their way. Their plan is, in a word, escape. Whether by bunkering down amid stockpiled resources or getting raptured up into heaven. It’s an individualistic perspective: me-against-the-world, my-personal-soul-acquitted-by-God.

And it’s the opposite of what we read in Revelation. According to John, the mission is not escape but endurance. John’s encouragement is not about the fate of his audience’s individual souls but about how they’re not alone, how their experience is shared with Christ himself. In one stunning statement, John asserts that the kingdom of God is already among them, just not in a way we’re accustomed to hearing. “I, John, your brother…share with you in Jesus the persecution and the kingdom and the patient endurance” (Rev 1:9). Put otherwise, the kingdom of God is here—in persecution and patient endurance. It’s here when we suffer as Jesus suffered, when we endure patiently in love as Jesus endured patiently in love. For John, salvation is not about solitary souls. It’s about the kingdom of God, a world and a way of living infinitely better than the world and way of Rome—or any other empire.

Not Winning, but Witnessing

Over the course of John’s letter, which we’ll be reading the next eight weeks, it will become clearer and clearer that the kingdom of God is not the promise that Christians will win in the end, but the assurance that witnessing to God’s love is worthwhile and indeed its own reward. The kingdom is not about winning, but witnessing. When we align ourselves with the reality of love behind all things, we are blessed. We live well. John’s words about patiently enduring the persecutions or pressures of our world are not advocating white-knuckling—gritting your teeth and getting through it—but rather trusting in and witnessing to the reality of God’s love, especially when all the world around us seems devoid of God’s love. The light shines brighter when the surroundings get darker. We see this in the cross, where God’s love for us shines the brightest.

Toward the end of the Roman Empire’s reign over the world, when the structure of the empire was beginning to crumble and chaos grew amid its cities—and you just can imagine the fears and reactions of the common person, who much like us today might have fretted at the rising price of food and the threat of war at the border—in the midst of all this, the emperor Julian, who really did not like Christians, resentfully observed: “These godless Galileans are supporting not only their own poor but ours as well!” In other words, amid the collapse of the empire, Christ-followers were not battening down the hatches and withdrawing; they were helping each other, even non-Christians. They were not winning in any worldly sense, and yet they were already living in God’s kingdom in a way—with a witness—that was so unmistakable that the emperor begrudgingly admired them.

I think too of the early Disciples leader David Lipscomb. In 1873, when a cholera epidemic overtook Nashville, Tennessee, many residents fearfully fled the city. A little bit like doomsday preppers, they sought to escape the terror of their world. But David Lipscomb stayed. By all accounts, his steady ministry to the sick and the dying imparted serenity upon those who remained. It might be hard to believe, but he likened ministry in those trying times to a great blessing. He insisted that, despite what one may think, “Those who did quietly and calmly do their duty although in the midst of pestilence, want, suffering and death, found these the happiest days of their life.”’

I hear the echo of John’s Revelation in this wild claim. David Lipscomb is not reveling in a promise about the way things will end, in the idea that one day in the future he and other Christians will inherit the kingdom. He is, rather, rejoicing in the way things really are in Christ, in the kingdom of God that is already here where we patiently endure the world with the faith that God’s love is the essence of reality. It’s worth dying for, yes—but even more importantly, it’s worth living for too.

Prayer

Patient Christ,

Who is the faithful witness
To who God is, was, and will be:

Grant us hearts 

That do not fear the end

But have faith in your way,

And hands 

That bear witness

To the Love behind all things.

Amen.

 

"The Coming of the Lord" (Ja 5:7-20)

Sometimes an Eskimo Isn’t Just an Eskimo 

Two men are sitting in a bar in an isolated town up in Alaska. As the night grows old and their table becomes littered with empty bottles, they begin arguing over the existence of God. One man is an atheist, the other a believer in God. The atheist raises his voice and exclaims, “Look here! It’s not like I don’t have evidence, like I’m just spouting my opinion. My beliefs come from my firsthand experience. Just last month I got caught up in that terrible blizzard. Whiteout conditions—I couldn’t see a damned thing. I was lost, it was 50 below, and I was going to die. So I fell on my knees, and I cried out, ‘God, if you’re really there…I’m lost, and I’m going to die if you don’t help. Please, God, save me!’”

The believer just stared at the atheist dumbfounded. Finally he said, “Well, you must believe! I mean, after all, you’re talking to me. You’re alive and well!”

The atheist frowned and shook his head. “No, man. God didn’t do a thing for me. All it was, was these two Eskimos who happened to be passing through where I was. They showed me the way back to camp.”

I don’t think this story needs much explaining in this company. Sometimes, an Eskimo isn’t just an Eskimo…. God’s grace takes all shapes and sizes. It could be as plain as a bit of bread or a cup of juice. It could be a person who’s got all sorts of troubles and struggles of their own, and yet they speak the precise Word you need to hear, or give you the hug from God that you so needed to receive. It could be a couple of Eskimos.

Revisiting the Second Coming

Today’s scripture concludes our journey through the encyclical letter of James. In this final passage, James offers his audience of Christ-followers encouragement to be patient amid the pressures and persecutions of their world. The first verse in the passages encapsulates the essence of his encouragement: “Be patient, therefore, beloved, until the coming of the Lord” (Ja 5:7). Shortly after this exhortation, he grounds his encouragement in a promise: “The coming of the Lord is near” (Ja 5:8).

This kind of language typically triggers a certain theological idea—almost as surely as a doctor’s reflex hammer on your knee will cause your leg to kick out. When we read James’ words about “the coming of the Lord,” we are reflexively inclined to think of a day in the far-off future, a day that is commonly referred to as “the second coming.” There’s a common refrain recited among many of our brothers and sisters in other denominations when they gather at the table: “Christ has died. Christ has risen. Christ will come again.” It’s a succinct statement of faith, and its common interpretation situates us in an interim or in-between phase, somewhere between Christ’s resurrection and Christ’s second coming. We are still waiting for Christ to come again—“‘in a cloud’ with power and great glory” (Luke 21:27; cf. Dan 7:13).

But today’s scripture and other related scriptures accommodate more than this one traditional interpretation. When James says, “The coming of the Lord is near,” he is using the same expression that Jesus used when he began his ministry, saying, “The kingdom of God is near” (e.g., Mark 1:15). Some translations render this expression as, “The kingdom of God is at hand” and “The coming of the Lord is at hand.” There is a very good grammatical reason for translation. In the Greek, the expression “is near” is made in a particular grammatical tense—called the perfect tense—which indicates a completed action with continuous results. In other words, the kingdom of God has arrived (completed action) and is arriving (continuous action). Or, the coming of the Lord has happened (completed action) even as it is happening (continuous action).

I don’t want us to get bogged down in grammar, so if that crash course in Greek made a complete wreck of things in your mind, just drop it and pay attention to what James says next: “See, the Judge is standing at the doors” (Ja 5:9). In other words, God is practically here. As close as a person knocking on the door. We might recall that John in Revelation uses a similar image for God: “See, I stand at the door and knock” (Rev 3:20). The point is, James may be referring less to a single day in the future when Christ will come in a spectacular way, closing the final chapter on history, and more to an everyday in which Christ is always at the door, always just around the corner. Put another way, James may be referring not to “the second coming” of Christ, but to the “always coming” of Christ.

When Jesus himself talks about the day of the Lord, a time of great crisis and yet also great possibility (that is often interpreted as “the second coming”), he insists, “This generation will not pass away until all things have taken place,” and “It will come upon all who live on the face of the whole earth” (Luke 21:32, 35). Some smug historians and scholars have read these words and reasoned that Jesus must have goofed on his timing, because no one who has lived on the face of the earth (from Jesus’ time to our own time) has experienced this final apocalyptic event. But we can only draw that conclusion when we hear Jesus’ words in a very literal way. Alternatively, we could hear Jesus to be saying that the day of the Lord—this climactic, decisive moment in which a person endures great difficulty and yet is faced with the prospect of the Lord’s arrival—has and will come on us all, perhaps more than once!

Personally, I see in most “second coming” theology—in theology that makes a big deal about Jesus coming back once and for all—a faith that has lost its nerve, a faith that is anemic and despairing…a faith that is not really faith. If we’re all really just waiting for God to intervene in one climactic, catastrophic way that will somehow correct all our wrongs and make everything better…then what does that say about our faith in Christ and the way that he taught and lived? Do we actually believe that loving our enemies, and not fighting evil with evil, and not judging others, and not storing up material treasures but living simply and generously—do we actually believe that the way of Christ is worthwhile and leads to life? Do we actually believe that the kingdom is among us, and we can enjoy its goodness now, as Christ preached and practiced? Or do we believe that the way of Christ is secondary, a sort of consolation until the real thing happens, just some stuff that would be ideal but is ultimately impractical and ineffective, and what we really need is God to stop piddling about and get his sword out to make things right?

Where We Find Christ

Another way of posing this question would be to ask: Do we believe God can be present in our midst in the shape of two Eskimos? In the shape of a needy person asking for help? In the shape of a loaf of bread and cup a that bear the memory and hope of our Lord and savior?

In the second half of today’s scripture, James commends the practice of prayer. He basically says, “Whatever the problem is, whatever the question is…the answer is prayer.” Is someone suffering? Pray to God. Is someone joyful? Praise God. Is someone sick? Gather round and pray. Is there brokenness from sin? Be honest with one another and pray.

For James, prayer is how we acknowledge and enter into the presence of God. As he insisted earlier, the Lord has come near—he’s at the door, he’s just around the corner. Prayer is how we open the door to God’s presence. Prayer is how we turn the corner to God’s presence. I can almost hear a refrain after each of the scenarios that James outlines: “Are any among you suffering? They should pray. The Lord is near. Are any cheerful? They should sing songs of praise. The Lord is near” (Ja 5:13). In all things pray, because the Lord is near.

Theologian and church leader Tripp Fuller regularly quips that there are three places Jesus promised us we would encounter him. The table, small groups, and the needful. “This is my body”—the table; “wherever two or three are gathered…”—small groups; and “inasmuch as you did so to the least of these…”—the needful. I think James is offering a similar promise in today’s scripture. His encouragement to be patient and to pray is not simply to say, “Just wait…one day God will make everything right.” It is, rather, to say, “Keep living in the way he taught us to live, for in so doing he will always be just around the corner, just behind the door.”

He could be in a pair of Eskimos. A needy friend. A humble table shared among the faithful. The irony is that if we’re looking for the second coming—some grand, dramatic moment from on high—we may miss the fact that our Lord has already come. That his kingdom is, indeed, as he says, not coming with things that can be observed, so that folks say, ‘Look, here is it!’ or ‘There it is!’, but is in fact already among us (cf. Luke 17:20-21).

Prayer

Stranger Christ,
Who often shows up
In ways we never expected—
In a manger,
On a cross,
In a cry for help
…
Grant us faith
In your little way of love,
In the little deeds by which
We enter into your presence
And into your kingdom.
Amen.

"Treasure" (James 5:1-6)

The Legend of King Midas

Perhaps you’ll have heard this story before.

Once upon a time, long ago, a certain king loved his wealth. The sight of gold would make his heart flutter, and he desired to acquire as much gold as he could. The only thing that rivaled his captivation with gold was the love he had for his daughter. Yet the more he loved his daughter, the more he desired gold—for what better gift to give her when his time was done? So he set about to become as rich as he could become.

One day a stranger passed through his kingdom, a young, handsome fellow. When he saw the king, he declared his admiration, “You are a wealthy man, king! You must be happy.”

The king shrugged and said, “It is but a drop in the sea, if you consider how much more could be made with more time. Imagine if I lived a thousand years more!”

The stranger squinted at the king and wondered aloud, “Then you are not satisfied? What would satisfy you, if not all that you already have?” He waited a moment and then added, “Please, king. Tell me your wish.”

The king suddenly had an inkling that this was no ordinary stranger, that whatever he said next could indeed become a reality. His heart raced with desire, as he deliberated how to become even richer. “I wish,” the king said, “I wish that everything I touched would be changed to gold.”

The stranger kept silent and eyed the king soberly, before asking, “You are sure this will satisfy you?”

“How could it not?” the king replied.

Well, you know it goes from here. At first, the king is in a wonderland. He walks out into his garden, eager to test his newfound power. Every flower he touches turns to gold. He cannot believe his fortune.

Later that evening, his daughter enters his room, her face in tears. She holds in her hand one of the flowers. “Daddy,” she says, “they’re all metal now.” Her tearful face pierces the king’s heart, and he rushes to console her. But the moment they embrace, she goes still. And cold. And hard. And the king takes a step in back horror, faced with the golden statue of his daughter.

Frantic with fear, the king sent all his servants out to look for the young stranger who had visited him earlier. For three days they looked and found no one matching his description. On the third day, however, the king saw the young man himself wandering his garden.

“You seem upset, king. Has your wish not been granted?”

The king fell on his knees before him, shaking his head, “It has been granted…and I’m unhappier than ever. I see now what really matters.” The stranger winced and nodded. Then the king pleaded with him, “Please, is there any way to lift this curse?”

The stranger then gave him instructions: go down to the river at the bottom of his garden. Immerse himself completely and bathe himself in it. And then fill a pitcher full with its water and sprinkle anything gold he wished to return to its original state. “If you do this with a sincere and earnest heart, king…it may be possible that your life is restored.”

The king rushed to do as the stranger had instructed. After bathing, he filled a pitcher and hurried to his daughter. With trepidation, he sprinkled the top of her head—and lo and behold, she looked up at him, sneezing and sputtering and laughing, “You’ve just spilled water on me, father—how foolish!” She did not know that she’d previously been a golden statue. The king hugged her, longer than usual, relishing that he could feel her heart beating and hear the inhale and exhale of her breathing.

It is said that from that day on the king abhorred the sight of gold—except in the hair of his daughter.[1]

A Cautionary Tale

Our scripture this morning begins in rather jarring fashion. I don’t know about you, but that opening line—“Come now, you rich people”—already has me squirming a little bit in my seat. (Imagine how you might feel if I started one of my own sermons in that way!) To be sure, I wouldn’t call or consider myself “rich.” But I know enough about the world around me to know that anyone who’s living in relative comfort in the United States is, in a global sense, quite rich.

I don’t want to tame today’s scripture, to water it down, to let us off the hook too quickly or easily, but…but it is important to know that the rich people whom James seems to be addressing in today’s scripture, were not actually the recipients of his words. To put that a different way: the early community of Christ-followers that would have received James’ letter would have been made up largely by people considered poor in the Roman empire. If you’ll remember, when Jesus begins proclaiming the good news about the kingdom of God, he indicates that this is especially good news to the poor (Luke 4:18), and he regularly commends the poor as being recipients of God’s blessing. To put it simply, the early Christian movement was, on the whole, a poor people’s movement.

So what is James doing, addressing a group of people who aren’t actually in his audience? Clearly his goal is not to convert the rich. Nor does he seem to be advocating a program of reform, encouraging his poor audience to seek some revolutionary redistribution of wealth. No, what James is doing is encouraging his poor audience to maintain the treasure they have received in Christ, rather than to exchange it for the treasure of the world.

In apocalyptic fashion—not unlike what we might see in the book of Revelation—James paints a picture of what’s really going on with wealth. He peels back the curtain of the appearance, of the alluring images of the comfort and convenience of wealth, to show what’s happening in reality, what’s happening in the soul. He depicts riches that rot and decay, fine clothing that burns at the flesh, accumulated money that screams to God on behalf of the poor from whom it has been unjustly withheld. And the scene ends in a vague murder, the very anonymity of which allows it to fit to so many different scenarios: the laborer who dies because of unsafe working conditions, the laborer who dies in jail because they cannot pay off their debt, the laborer whose child dies because of a lack of food and nutrition…and so on.

In effect, James is telling a cautionary tale not unlike the story of King Midas. The tale of King Midas entered folklore, getting told and retold in popular settings. In other words, it was not addressed to kings who were greedy. It was addressed to the common person, warning them against the kind of greed that consumed their kings. In a similar way, James addresses his words not to rich folks, but to poor Christ-following communities that might be tempted to seek the status and privilege of wealth. He is warning the early Christ-followers against the lure of wealth, alerting them to its disintegrating, destructive quality. On the one hand, it does not do what it promises to do. The images of rot and decomposition point to its fleeting nature. King Midas, we might remember, is unsatisfied long before he realizes he is cursed. Indeed, he is the richest man in the kingdom when he meets the stranger, and yet it is his unsatisfaction that leads him to make his wish. On the other hand, wealth also disintegrates relationships. When profit is prioritized over people, the fabric of relationship begins to unravel. James paints a picture where the wealthy see only their profits, and not the people who suffer as a result of their greed. Their monetary gain is a grave spiritual and relational loss. We see a similar loss of relationship in the tale of King Midas. His greed for gold turns his daughter into a lifeless golden statue.

Listening for the Good News

The good news for King Midas is that when his daughter turns to gold, his heart is horrified. His horror is good news, because it turns him away from a pursuit that was not making him happy anyway and turns him instead toward the true source of life, which is to say love. I love the way Nathaniel Hawthorne ends his version of the tale, having King Midas proclaim about his granddaughters’ blonde hair: “Ever since that morning [when my wish was granted], I have hated the very sight of all other gold, save this!”[2]

The good news is perhaps a bit more difficult to detect in our scripture today, where James never really lets up from his tirade against wealth. But I think the good news is there. We just have to listen closely.

I hear it in a single word: treasure. “You have laid up treasure for the last days,” James cries out to the wealthy (Ja 5:3). Now, I think the immediate sentiment is akin to “You reap what you sow.” That is, if you make wealth your treasure, then when you find yourself alone and without a friend, the wealth that you’ve laid up will be little comfort—but that’s all you’ll have.

By itself, that’s not really good news. But I wouldn’t be surprised if when James uses the word “treasure,” he’s actually remembering one of Jesus’ teaching, one of the times Jesus used the word “treasure.” “Sell your possessions, and give alms,” Jesus tells his disciples. “Make purses for yourselves that do not wear out, an unfailing treasure in heaven, where no thief comes near and no moth destroys. For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also” (Luke 12:33-34).

The good news according to Jesus is that there is an “unfailing treasure” (Luke 12:33). Which is to say, a treasure that will enrich our lives rather than destroy them. The surprise is that this treasure is found in other people, and especially in the least, the last, and the left out (the very people neglected and oppressed in the pursuit of wealth—as we see in James’ picture of the world). Repeatedly in the gospels, Jesus encourages us to let go of things so that we might receive the company of others, especially the needful (cf. Luke 12:32-33; 14:12-14). That’s the surprising twist to the gospel of Jesus Christ. In the story of King Midas, Midas learns at the end of the story that the real treasure is his daughter. The gospel affirms that, yes, love is the treasure, but it invites us to love not only kith and kin, but also the needful. For in so doing, we suddenly receive a kingdom of care, a community where people are precious, much more precious than things, a world where we are never alone but always in good company (cf. Mark 10:28-30).

The real treasure, according to Christ, is being able to look into another pair of eyes and see God. Such a person will always be rich.

Prayer

Dear Christ,

Whose riches are found not in comforts or conveniences,

But in communion with others,

Inspire us to see other people

As you saw them

…

Not as more or less than us,

Nor as potential sources of wealth (or impediments to wealth),

But as precious brothers and sisters

In God’s family.

Amen.

---

[1] Loosely adapted from Nathaniel Hawthorne, “The Golden Touch,” in A Wonder-Book for Girls and Boys (Boston: Tickner, Field, and Reeds, 1852).

[2] Nathaniel Hawthorne, “The Golden Touch,” in A Wonder-Book for Girls and Boys (Boston: Tickner, Field, and Reeds, 1852).

"Thy Will Be Done" (James 4:11-17)

“…and the Creek Don’t Rise”

I was at a family reunion in Kentucky—probably 8 or 9 years old—and someone was sharing about their plans for the rest of the summer. When they finished sharing, they paused, and then added: “Good Lord willing and the creek don’t rise.” At the time, I didn’t understand the meaning of this phrase. My mom, who grew up in the hills of eastern Kentucky, later explained to me that the phrase had probably originated from a time when the early settlers had nothing other than the most basic dirt paths to take them from one place to another. Too much rain would flood the creeks in the “hollers,” and the flooded creeks would wash out the paths. “Good Lord willing and the creek don’t rise” was a way of acknowledging that while we may have expectations and plans for the future, we are not in control of the future. Maybe the creek will rise and wipe out the path we’d plotted. Or maybe our will for the future simply doesn’t match up with the good Lord’s will.

Speaking Evil Is Not God’s Will

In last week’s scripture, James addressed his audience in some harsh language. “Adulterers!” he cried, accusing his listeners of becoming too cozy with the selfish, greedy ways of the world. “You sinners” and “you double-minded,” he followed up, before urging his audience to repent with tears and mourning.

But in this week’s scripture, James suddenly softens his tone, calling his audience “brothers and sisters.” Listen to how he begins: “Do not speak evil against one another, brothers and sisters” (Ja 4:11). I think of how a parent might address a child who had wandered off and gotten lost. First they would express their fear and their anger in unfiltered terms, “How could you!” “What were you possibly thinking?” But then their tone softens as they sink into gratitude and a sort of sober seriousness. I hear something similar in James’ tone. Previously he’d been admonishing his audience for allowing themselves to be dragged into conflict with one another by way of their selfish and greedy ambition. But as he cools down from his initial outburst, we hear now from him a sober plea: “Do not speak evil against one another, brothers and sisters” (Ja 4:11).

It is a simple, if difficult, instruction. “Do not speak evil against one another.” I don’t know about you, but a part of me immediately reacts and wants to say, “But what if it’s justified?” But James gives no exceptions, no conditions, no “ifs,” ands,” or “buts.” Instead he doubles down and insists that this instruction is part of God’s law, and to transgress it willfully is to put oneself above God. Whoever speaks evil against others, he says, effectively “speaks evil against…[God’s] law” (Ja 4:11). Which part of God’s law James has in mind is not certain. He could be referring to the ancient laws in Leviticus that prohibit “go[ing] around as a slanderer” and instead command us to “love [our] neighbor” (Lev 19:16, 18). Or he could be referring to Jesus’ own words in the Sermon on the Mount: “Do not judge, so that you may not be judged” and “love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you so that you may be children of your father in heaven” (Matt 5:44; 7:1). In either case, it is clear for James that it is not God’s will for us to speak evil against others. To do so would be to write off what God has not written off, to judge and condemn the very same people whom Jesus Christ came to save.

Never in Control, Always Responsible

On the surface, it seems like James switches subjects rather suddenly, as he moves (in verse 13) from speaking evil against others to speaking boastfully or arrogantly about our plans for the future. But the underlying principle remains the same: not taking God’s place, not putting our will above God’s will.

In one sense, James’ instruction not to speak boastfully of the future is the flipside to Jesus’ instruction not to worry about tomorrow. Jesus was speaking those words to anxious hearts, to hearts that asked, “What if?”; James is speaking to greedy hearts, to hearts that boasted, “Just imagine…!” (cf. Ja 4:13). But both Jesus and James are saying the same thing: “Don’t think about tomorrow.” Either about what you might not have tomorrow, or about what you might gain tomorrow.

The problem with thinking about tomorrow is that it puts us into a mindset of control, which invariably leaves us at odds with God and reality. Talk to any wedding planner or event coordinator worth their salt, and one of the first things they’ll tell you is that things never go exactly according to plan. Whether it’s unexpected rain, a child tearing through the venue on a sugar high, a late arrival, a lost item, and so on—something is sure to go wrong.

Jesus and James both invite us out of a mindset of control and into a mindset or orientation of responsibility. “Seek ye first the kingdom of God” Jesus urges (Matt 6:33), which is a way of saying, “Live in the way of God whatever your circumstances.” James expresses a similar idea, albeit in a more critical tone: “Anyone, then, who knows the right thing to do and fails to do it, commits sin” (Ja 4:17). It is another way of saying, “Live well in the moment—do the next right thing.”

If I had to put into a nutshell the wisdom that James is expressing, which is actually a wisdom that echoes Jesus’ wisdom, it would go something like this: “I am never in control, but I am always responsible.”

And as Jesus assures us, when we live responsibly, we can trust that all our needs will be provided (cf. Matt 6:33).

“God, I Guess”

“Good Lord willing and the creek don’t rise” is perhaps a useful phrase for folks, a helpful reminder that they aren’t in control. But what I hear in today’s scripture is more than a reminder that we are not in control. James is not offering the simple message, “There is a God, and you’re not him”—however true and helpful that message may be. James is not imagining a puppeteer God, pulling the strings, calling the shots. James is, rather, pleading for his audience to live like God. For James, aligning ourselves with God’s will is not about making sure our wooden arms or wooden legs pop up when God pulls the string. It’s not about a detailed, linear, point-by-point plan that we have to follow or else. Aligning ourselves with God’s will is about living the way that God lives—“so that [we] may be children of [our] father in heaven,” as Jesus says (Matt 5:44).

When the Jesuit priest Greg Boyle began his gang rehabilitation ministry with former gang members in Los Angeles, he began to get a lot of local press. One day, a producer from 60 Minutes read about the ministry, about how Father Greg Boyle strove to give any former gang member (many of whom would have already spent time in prison) a second chance at life in the shape of not only a job but also a community of belonging. I’ll let Greg tell the rest of the story in his own words:

Mike Wallace, also seeing the piece, wanted to do a report. I was assured that I’d be getting “Good Mike.” These were the days when the running joke was “you know you’re going to have a bad day when Mike Wallace and a 60 Minutes film crew show up at your office.

Wallace arrived at the poorest parish in Los Angeles in the stretchest of limousines, stepped out of the car, wearing a flak jacket, covered with pockets, prepared, I suppose, for a journey into the jungle.

For all his initial insensitivity, toward the end of the visit, in a moment unrecorded, Wallace did say to me, “Can I admit something? I came here expecting monsters. But that’s not what I found.”

Later, in a recorded moment, we are sitting in a classroom filled with gang members…. Wallace points at me and says, “You won’t turn these guys in to the police.” Which seems quite silly to me at the time. I say something lame like, “I didn’t take my vows to the LAPD.” But then Wallace turns to a homie and grills him on this, saying over and over, “He won’t turn you in, will he?” And then he asks the homie, “Why is that? Why do you think he won’t turn you over to the police?” The kid just stares at Mike Wallace, shrugs, nonplussed, and says, “God…I guess.”

For Father Greg Boyle, aligning our will with God’s will and living the way that God lives, means, at the very least, not writing off the people whom God has not written off. It means “not speak[ing] evil against them” but instead showing them the same love, patience, and grace, that Jesus shows the shamed outcasts of his own day. (As Paul might put it, aligning our will with God’s will means coming to share the mindset or attitude of Christ.) Father Greg’s ministry has grown exponentially since the day of Mike Wallace’s visit, but as he will tell you, it’s not down to his business acumen or financial expertise. It’s not down to the control of anyone, really. It’s simply down to living responsibly in the way of God, seeking God’s kingdom. Clearly the gospel is meeting the hunger of a large, needful population there in Los Angeles. But, according to Greg, it wouldn’t make a difference if the ministry was just as small as when it had started. They would keep doing the same thing regardless… trusting that God’s will is a good place—the best place—to be.

Prayer

Compassionate Christ,
Your embrace of tax collectors and sinners
Scandalized the world
That spoke evil of tax collectors and sinners—
Grant us your faith
In the good will of God,
That we might live
Not seeking control
But to live responsibly
In the merciful and compassionate ways
Of our father in heaven:
Amen.

Letting Go (James 4:1-10)

Tragic Choices

I’ve heard that among some communities in Central America, where monkeys run wild and will occasionally pinch food or other possessions, people have developed a clever device to trap them. They build a small container and put a banana or some other tasty treat inside. Then they carve an opening in the container that is just large enough for the monkey’s paw to reach through. When the monkey reaches in and grabs the food, however, he is met with a rude awakening. The opening, which was just large enough for his paw to reach through, is too small for his closed fist. And here’s the kicker: the monkey won’t let go of his plunder. He could free himself, but he won’t. The monkey’s selfish desire tragically keeps him trapped.

I’ve heard of a similar situation that strikes a bit closer to home, pertaining not to monkeys but to humanity. It is a piece of ancient Buddhist folklore. The legend holds that people who are very greedy in this life may be reincarnated—may be reborn in the next life—as a sort of mythical creature known as a “hungry ghost.” A hungry ghost is essentially what it sounds like: a person with an insatiable appetite, cursed with a hunger that they will never be able to satisfy. In one of the stories of this tradition, the hungry ghosts are gathered around a long rectangular table, with a feast in front of them. All that remains is to eat. But when the dinner commences, they run into an immediate problem. The utensils at the table are too long. No matter how they contort their bodies, they cannot get the utensils to their mouths. The tragedy in this case—and perhaps you’ve already figured this out—is that if they stopped thinking about their own hunger for just one moment, they might realize that they could feed each other; their utensils, which are too long to feed themselves, are just the right length to feed the person sitting across from them. But as with the monkey, their selfish desire prevents them from the good that is right in front of them.

A Different “War”:

Redrawing the Battle Lines

In today’s scripture, James begins by asking where conflict and violence come from? His answer is a rhetorical masterpiece. “Do they not come from your cravings that are at war within you?” (Ja 4:1). In other words, James is redrawing the battle lines from out there somewhere, to in here—in the heart. For anyone who follows Christ, the real “war” is not against “flesh and blood” (as Paul would say), but against “cravings” in the heart. James proceeds to specify that the battle in the heart has to do with selfish desire. With wanting something we do not have.

In one sense, it is the same tragedy we see with those pesky monkeys and those hungry ghosts. Selfish desire prevents us from enjoying the goodness that is right in front of us. And what makes it tragic is that we don’t see this. When we find ourselves in a situation of willful conflict, the default viewpoint is not, “Oh, there I go again—wanting something I don’t have.” We don’t typically stop and chide ourselves when we’re in a fight, “Remember, the war is really within!” No, we draw battle lines, we identify enemies outside of us. In the heat of the moment, it’s all about getting our way.

But when James uses the word “enemy,” he is not referring to anything “flesh and blood”—he’s not referring to those oppressive Romans over there, or his audience’s Jewish brothers and sisters who deny Christ, or anyone else. Just as he first relocates “war” from without to within, from the battlefield to the heart, so he also redefines the terminology of “friend” and “enemy.” For James, the enemy is not a group of people but a way of living. When James talks about the “world” and whether we see the world as “friend” or “enemy,” he’s not referring to our planet and the people on it (which are undoubtedly “very good,” as God Godself saw at the conclusion of creation). By “world,” James is referring to a way of living, a mindset, an orientation. For James, the “world” is shorthand for our tragic habits of selfish desire. The “world” is code for the willfulness that keeps us tragically trapped like those monkeys who won’t let go, the willfulness that keeps us heartbreakingly hungry like those ghosts who can’t see others as their companions. To be a friend of the world is to live by these woeful habits that keep us locked in struggle with ourselves and one another, not realizing that the real enemy is not other people but the very attitude or mindset within that says we don’t have enough and everything would be better if we could just have that one more thing that we very well may have to fight for.

Fighting Back…

If we are in the same tragic predicament as the monkey and the hungry ghost, then we are faced with the same challenge: namely, to let go of getting our way and instead gratefully receive that which is already within our reach. James says as much. A “friend of God,” James suggests, is a person who lives humbly, trusting in God’s grace to supply their need (cf. Ja 4:6). The irony of letting go is that while it feels like losing (the monkey must let go of the food in his hand, the hungry ghost must give up on eating the food on his own plate), the result is actually winning (the monkey is liberated from the trap, the hungry ghost gets not only food but a friend across the table who cares for them).

Intriguingly, as James invites his audience to let go, he continues to use military language. Just to recap, so far he’s talked about “war,” saying it’s within, not without, and the “enemy,” indicating it’s not “flesh and blood” but a way of living. Now he talks about fighting. “Resist the devil” (Ja 4:7), he says. The Greek word for “resist,” anthistemi, is a military term that means “to stand against” the attacks of the enemy. Practically speaking, resist means to “fight back against.” Jesus uses the same word in the Sermon on the Mount when he says, “Do not resist [do not ‘fight back against’] an evildoer,” but instead turn the other cheek (Matt 5:39). If we take Jesus’ instructions together with James, then a clear picture emerges. Our fight is not against other people. Our fight is against what is within, which is to say, a way of living that gains ground inside of us, that gains ground not by bombs and battles, but by thoughts and cravings for what we do not have. Call it evil, call it the devil, call it whatever you want—it’s what separates us from others, from our own selves, and ultimately from God.

…With Tears?

If we do not fight against the devil with fists and firearms, if the real evil is not other people but in our thinking, then how do we fight back against it? James has some surprising advice: “Lament and mourn and weep. Let your laughter be turned into mourning and your joy into dejection” (Ja 4:9). It is clear James is not here to win a popularity contest….

In our culture, tears are often seen as a sign of weakness, something to be embarrassed about. If we cry in front of another person, we might hide our face and apologize, “I’m so sorry….” If someone wants to offer some hard counsel to a friend drowning in self-pity, they might say, “Well, don’t cry about it…do something!”

But according to James, tears are how we fight back against the devil, against the evil that is not out there but in here.

What do tears communicate? In one sense, it is impossible to say. Tears are beyond language; they express something beyond words. Sometimes they overtake us and we don’t even know why. Which sounds sort of like Paul’s description of the Holy Spirit interceding for us with groans too deep for words (cf. Rom 8:26-27). But if I had to say, I would suggest that tears most often accompany a profound feeling of loss. It could be a real loss, like the death of a loved one. Or it could be a more superficial loss, like the evaporation of a potential business opportunity. I imagine that if that trapped monkey were to by some strength other than his own let go of the food and walk free, there would still be something akin to tears wetting the cheeks of his soul.

Perhaps the tears that James commends, accompany a sense of loss, as we relinquish the need to be right, to be in control, to win. Such tears are not selfish or immature; they are honest, and they help us to see more clearly the reality that we will never live well as long as we seek only our own gain. (As one folk singer puts it, “It’s a hard hand to hold that is looking for control.”[1]) These tears of loss are the prelude to victory, to letting go and walking away. For letting go and walking away is how the war within us is won. How the devil is defeated. It’s one of those gospel paradoxes: die to live; lose to win; weakness is strength. We see it most clearly on the cross, where Jesus lets go of any need to be right, to be in control, to look good, to win. If Jesus had called down some angels and put up a fight…he would have lost to the devil. No matter how victorious he may have appeared, the devil’s spirit of division and contention would have thrived.

One church leader in the tenth century, Simeon of Byzantine, insisted that tears are the “second baptism,” the real baptism; they signify our spiritual surrender and our readiness for the reality of God. Letting go of the need to be right, to be in control, to win, may indeed be a tearful experience and feel like losing in the heat of the moment…but the good news of Christ (which James proclaims in a rather minor key, at times!) is that this loss is in fact a great gain. Or to put it more precisely, a great grace. For when we let go, we discover a much greater reality: God loves us and graciously provides for our need.

Prayer

Today I’d like to close by sharing a prayer written Mary Mrozowski, a native New Yorker and housewife who became a world-renowned spiritual leader. She came to understand her life’s quest as one of letting go and consenting to be in God’s presence.

One of her prayers, which became particularly well-known, is called “The Welcoming Prayer.” It is a little unorthodox, in that it makes no demands or requests of God, but rather makes commitments on behalf of the self. It is written in the first person, and I will read it this way, inviting you to pray it inwardly for yourself:

Welcome, welcome, welcome.

I welcome everything that comes to me in this moment
because I know it is for my healing.

I welcome all thoughts, feelings, emotions,
persons, situations, and conditions.

I let go of my desire for security.
I let go of my desire for approval.
I let go of my desire for control.
I let go of my desire to change
any situation, condition,
person, or myself.

I open to the love and presence of God
and the healing action and grace within.

In Jesus Christ, our Lord and Savior: Amen.

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[1] Willy Mason, “Hard Hand to Hold,” Where the Humans Eat, Virgin Records, 2004.