Be doers not hearers
The epistle of James, part of which we have heard this morning (James
Many people quote proverbs as being excellent advice, however many proverbs can actually be contradictory. Amongst the most famous are :
‘Beware of Greeks bearing gifts’ which is contradicted by ‘Don’t look a gift horse in the mouth’
Or ‘many hands make light work’ but there is also the saying that ‘Too many cooks spoil the broth’
Or just one more, ‘There’s no fool like an old fool’ seemingly contradicted by ‘With age comes wisdom’.
All of these sayings in their right context may have some merit, but they can never really be used as definitive guides to life. But in the epistle of James he is writing down sayings which are important for life, and he does this largely by quoting Jesus. He doesn’t use Jesus’ name specifically, but the teaching he is offering is teaching that follows directly the principles of Jesus.
Though this letter has not always been popular within the Church, and was particularly disliked by Martin Luther, it is actually offering us a wonderful summary of the way to live the Christian life, and in the section we have heard this morning we get some pretty important and challenging guidelines, and I just want to think of a few of these this morning.
James writes, ‘Be quick to listen, slow to speak, slow to anger’. I don’t lose my temper very often, and sometimes when I do I can just about manage to bite my lip hard enough and say nothing for long enough but, on the times when I have, almost without exception, it has produced little benefit in the end. Often in listening and in looking for some area of common ground or sensible objection, long term amicable solutions can be found to a problem.
So James is offering good sensible advice, but he is doing more than that. He is urging his readers or listeners to show compassion. He is urging them to take time with people. He is widening the issue far beyond the quick argument stage into a lifestyle thing – listening and discussing, and even arguing in a civilised way are all part of showing compassion.
There is a time for anger – Jesus himself showed anger at the money changers in the Temple and so on, but that time is usually over the really big things in the world – people dying of starvation in a world which has plenty of food, people governed unjustly, people caught up in horrible wars – these are issues that should make us angry, not so we go about shouting, but so we are forced into action.
James goes on, ‘Be doers of the word, and not merely hearers who deceive themselves.’ In other words James is calling Christians to really practice what we preach. He is making it very clear that disciples of Jesus must look different and be different from the people around them. There are many, many good people who are not Christians, many of whom put us, as Christians, to shame, and James is reminding us that this shouldn’t be the case. As the Christian Church as the body of Christ working on earth today we must be at the forefront of concern and compassion for the world.
Being doers of the word and not just hearers means getting involved in the issues that concerned Jesus himself, and there are still plenty of them around today – the quest for wealth at the expense of the poor is still hurting people, there must still be a concern to give a voice to those without a voice, there is still a huge need for peace between nations and in people’s own hearts and lives and the list can continue.
But too often we are distracted – just in our Churches we are often distracted by thinking that the way we worship is better than the way someone else does, or by judging the behaviour of someone else when we should be more concerned for ourselves, or by talking unkindly about someone behind their back, or by refusing to speak to another member of the Church, and the list could go on and on, and these things are just in this Parish, though I suspect they are mirrored in many others – Well James is saying that if we are taking Jesus seriously then we must work to put these things right.
Within our own communities and further afield we are being called to make a difference. In the past Churches have sometimes been fortunate enough to make a difference simply by being there, and that remains an important role for us today, but it isn’t enough – just being there is not really being seen, and it is not following the command of Jesus to spread the gospel message… Being a presence is not enough – we must be an active presence – doers of the word and not just hearers.
And James takes this a stage further to hit home his point by saying that if we don’t try to listen, and try to hold back from saying stupid and badly thought out things, if we show anger all too easily, and if we do a lot of hearing the word without responding to it, then we are guilty of maintaining a religion that is worthless.
One of the very uncomfortable exercises that I try to do sometimes, but not often enough, is to think about the past week and ask myself what have I done to share the love of Jesus, and what have I done to tell others about that love. The answers are often particularly uncomfortable… the reality is that as a Church, as Christians we should be making a difference to the world on Jesus’ behalf every day, and too often we’re not.
And in today’s gospel (Mark 7:1-8,14,15,21-23) Jesus offers one explanation for this – the Jewish tradition involved a huge concern for how people ate. There were important rituals to be followed. One of them involved washing hands, not just to make sure they were clean on the sort of level we may do, but to make a point that the hands were undefiled, in other words that the hands were spiritually clean.
As some of Jesus’ disciples did not wash their hands in this way, Jesus was questioned by the Pharisees and the Scribes, and he took this opportunity to criticise the traditions, not because there was anything particularly wrong with the traditions but because the people had forgotten what they were being done for.
Tradition for some at that time had become more important than doing God’s work… And I wonder if that is sometimes true for us today as well. Tradition may well have its place in the Church, but it absolutely does not if it gets in the way of compassion, love, fellowship or evangelism.
James writes that religion that is pure and undefiled before God is to care for orphans and widows and to keep ourselves unstained from the world. In other words he was echoing the message of Jesus to get out and do things, and do things for the right reasons – in other words as a grateful response to the love of Jesus for each one of us.
Jesus is surely concerned with our motives for doing things, not just what we do. We can be in the most lively Church in the world and still have nothing on the inside, or we can be in the most traditional Cathedral in the world and still worship and honour Jesus – it is what is inside us that is important, and what is inside will often be what we reflect to people outside the Church. We can look as good as anyone on the outside, but God looks at our insides…
Someone once wrote, ‘If the heart is God’s ground, nothing else is required; but if the heart is not God’s ground then nothing else will suffice.’… AMEN
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