James and the tongue
St Francis of Assisi is well known throughout Christian tradition as a kind, compassionate and caring man, but there was also a slightly sterner side to him as well. One day, a woman once went to see him and asked what she had to do to be forgiven for her gossiping. St. Francis told her to take feathers and place one at the doorstep of everyone she had spoken ill of in the town.
She did so and returned to Francis who then told her to go and retrieve all the feathers. When she attempted to do so, of course they were all gone. By that time the feathers were scattered all around the town. Once again, she returned to St. Francis and told him about the feathers. He said to her, "You wish to repent and be forgiven of your sin. Good. But the damage of your words is done and cannot be taken back."
It’s a harsh lesson – forgiveness is certainly possible but some of the damage done by our actions can have lasting effects. And in the reading from the letter of James today (1:17-27) this is the message that he is trying to get across.
Be quick to listen, slow to speak, slow to anger – be doers of the word and not merely hearers… the letter of James, unlike most of the other New Testament letters doesn’t seem to have been written to a specific community but to a much wider group. It is a letter that has been strongly criticised by some great Church figures – even Martin Luther didn’t like it, but of all the books in the Bible I think this letter is one of the easiest to understand – it doesn’t spend much time with complicated language, it doesn’t ask us to interpret it’s meaning – it is blunt and it is clear.
However, something that is easy to understand doesn’t necessarily offer us something that is easy to do ! Some of you will have heard this little story about a man called Bill. Standing with his family in church, Bill recites the Lord’s Prayer. This is followed by some praise singing and then some announcements before the sermon, one of which is by an elder who is seeking to enlist some workers for an outreach project in the Bronx. Bill whispers to his wife, “Why do they interrupt the nice flow of our worship with such peripheral appeals?”
Offered as a point to think about we can see how stupid a comment it is – worship without action is meaningless – hearing without doing is pointless. And yet, it is very easy to fall into a similar trap – some people criticise Christians for getting involved in politics, some will keep away from pubs and clubs, seeing them as some sort of evil that is damaging society, some will spend time only with other Christians because they’re the people they understand and relate to, some Churches will spend so much time on complicated liturgy that people may not understand it, other Churches may be so bound up with praise and worship that they too lose touch with reality.
The letter of James speaks bluntly to us. If we call ourselves Christians, then every little thing that we do in our lives is a reflection on Jesus, or at least that is how many people will see it. Reputations can be made or broken in seconds, and when we do something as a Christian, it can be the reputation of Jesus himself, and of the Church, that is affected.
I want to give a few small examples of ways in which reputations can be made or broken :
The first is something I saw on tv about the Queen. She attends loads of formal dinners each year, and she always asks to see the menu first – on the menu she is quite fussy, and sometimes has to ask for something not to be served… This could be seen as a bit ‘prima donnaish’ but actually one of her staff explained that the reason she does that is that she meets loads of people every day, and will often only meet those people once – the image she creates in those few moments will be the image they’re left with and naturally she never wants anyone to say, ‘I met the Queen and her breath smells of garlic’ !
Another example was of Lennox Lewis and Frank Bruno when they were fighting for the heavyweight title in Cardiff some years back. Both were doing a session at a local school in the docks in Cardiff near where I worked – Both arrived in their limousines and did the session with the children and after the cameras had gone, immediately after the session, one of the boxers left, whilst the other stayed for ages signing autographs and chatting to the children and other people around – it is clear who left the best impression !
And then a final example of this goes back even more years ! Each year the Barbarians used to play Penarth on Good Friday – it was a great occasion and the Athletic Field in Penarth would be packed as the Barbarians began their Easter Tour. It was always a really friendly sociable sort of game, and offered the supporters the chance to get really close to some really top players.
However I remember at the end of one game, a legendary figure in Welsh Rugby who had played in the game left the field immediately at the end of the game, refusing to sign any autographs for any of the many children that were there. I don’t know his reasons for doing it – maybe he’d picked up a little injury, maybe he wasn’t feeling well, maybe there were personal issues, but what I remember and many others will I’m sure, was that this man refused to sign autographs.
Every day our lives are held up to scrutiny – by God certainly, but even more alarmingly by other people. God sees the things we do wrong, accepts our thoughts, and is ready to forgive at any time, but other people may not be so kind and so ready to forgive.
Being doers of the word of Jesus, not just hearers, means trying to follow his example in absolutely every aspect of our lives. That is what the book of James tells us and that is what I meant when I said the book is easy to understand but really hard to do!
The qualities of Jesus are well known to us, incredible abundant love, forgiveness, compassion, courage, humility and so on… It is easy to be religious, to practice the sort of religion that Jesus talks about in the gospel reading (Mark 7:1-8, 14-15,21-23), to be tied up in Church life so that it fills up huge amounts of time, but by itself that doesn’t make us a follower of Jesus…
This week I did a talk for some young rugby players, and one of the things on the syllabus for their talk was the importance of representing the badge of their club in every aspect of their lives, and remembering that everything they do on and off the pitch is a reflection of the club… As Christians we wear a far more important badge – the badge of Jesus… It may be a privilege to wear that rugby badge, but there is no greater privilege than to wear the badge of Jesus…
The call to do his work is a tough one, and it is one that we will fail at sometimes, but he invites us back, again and again, opening wide his arms of love and compassion, and offering us through the Holy Spirit, the strength to grow in trust and faith, and ultimately to become more like Jesus himself.
There is no greater gift than his love, and there is no greater response than to show it to others. AMEN
She did so and returned to Francis who then told her to go and retrieve all the feathers. When she attempted to do so, of course they were all gone. By that time the feathers were scattered all around the town. Once again, she returned to St. Francis and told him about the feathers. He said to her, "You wish to repent and be forgiven of your sin. Good. But the damage of your words is done and cannot be taken back."
It’s a harsh lesson – forgiveness is certainly possible but some of the damage done by our actions can have lasting effects. And in the reading from the letter of James today (1:17-27) this is the message that he is trying to get across.
Be quick to listen, slow to speak, slow to anger – be doers of the word and not merely hearers… the letter of James, unlike most of the other New Testament letters doesn’t seem to have been written to a specific community but to a much wider group. It is a letter that has been strongly criticised by some great Church figures – even Martin Luther didn’t like it, but of all the books in the Bible I think this letter is one of the easiest to understand – it doesn’t spend much time with complicated language, it doesn’t ask us to interpret it’s meaning – it is blunt and it is clear.
However, something that is easy to understand doesn’t necessarily offer us something that is easy to do ! Some of you will have heard this little story about a man called Bill. Standing with his family in church, Bill recites the Lord’s Prayer. This is followed by some praise singing and then some announcements before the sermon, one of which is by an elder who is seeking to enlist some workers for an outreach project in the Bronx. Bill whispers to his wife, “Why do they interrupt the nice flow of our worship with such peripheral appeals?”
Offered as a point to think about we can see how stupid a comment it is – worship without action is meaningless – hearing without doing is pointless. And yet, it is very easy to fall into a similar trap – some people criticise Christians for getting involved in politics, some will keep away from pubs and clubs, seeing them as some sort of evil that is damaging society, some will spend time only with other Christians because they’re the people they understand and relate to, some Churches will spend so much time on complicated liturgy that people may not understand it, other Churches may be so bound up with praise and worship that they too lose touch with reality.
The letter of James speaks bluntly to us. If we call ourselves Christians, then every little thing that we do in our lives is a reflection on Jesus, or at least that is how many people will see it. Reputations can be made or broken in seconds, and when we do something as a Christian, it can be the reputation of Jesus himself, and of the Church, that is affected.
I want to give a few small examples of ways in which reputations can be made or broken :
The first is something I saw on tv about the Queen. She attends loads of formal dinners each year, and she always asks to see the menu first – on the menu she is quite fussy, and sometimes has to ask for something not to be served… This could be seen as a bit ‘prima donnaish’ but actually one of her staff explained that the reason she does that is that she meets loads of people every day, and will often only meet those people once – the image she creates in those few moments will be the image they’re left with and naturally she never wants anyone to say, ‘I met the Queen and her breath smells of garlic’ !
Another example was of Lennox Lewis and Frank Bruno when they were fighting for the heavyweight title in Cardiff some years back. Both were doing a session at a local school in the docks in Cardiff near where I worked – Both arrived in their limousines and did the session with the children and after the cameras had gone, immediately after the session, one of the boxers left, whilst the other stayed for ages signing autographs and chatting to the children and other people around – it is clear who left the best impression !
And then a final example of this goes back even more years ! Each year the Barbarians used to play Penarth on Good Friday – it was a great occasion and the Athletic Field in Penarth would be packed as the Barbarians began their Easter Tour. It was always a really friendly sociable sort of game, and offered the supporters the chance to get really close to some really top players.
However I remember at the end of one game, a legendary figure in Welsh Rugby who had played in the game left the field immediately at the end of the game, refusing to sign any autographs for any of the many children that were there. I don’t know his reasons for doing it – maybe he’d picked up a little injury, maybe he wasn’t feeling well, maybe there were personal issues, but what I remember and many others will I’m sure, was that this man refused to sign autographs.
Every day our lives are held up to scrutiny – by God certainly, but even more alarmingly by other people. God sees the things we do wrong, accepts our thoughts, and is ready to forgive at any time, but other people may not be so kind and so ready to forgive.
Being doers of the word of Jesus, not just hearers, means trying to follow his example in absolutely every aspect of our lives. That is what the book of James tells us and that is what I meant when I said the book is easy to understand but really hard to do!
The qualities of Jesus are well known to us, incredible abundant love, forgiveness, compassion, courage, humility and so on… It is easy to be religious, to practice the sort of religion that Jesus talks about in the gospel reading (Mark 7:1-8, 14-15,21-23), to be tied up in Church life so that it fills up huge amounts of time, but by itself that doesn’t make us a follower of Jesus…
This week I did a talk for some young rugby players, and one of the things on the syllabus for their talk was the importance of representing the badge of their club in every aspect of their lives, and remembering that everything they do on and off the pitch is a reflection of the club… As Christians we wear a far more important badge – the badge of Jesus… It may be a privilege to wear that rugby badge, but there is no greater privilege than to wear the badge of Jesus…
The call to do his work is a tough one, and it is one that we will fail at sometimes, but he invites us back, again and again, opening wide his arms of love and compassion, and offering us through the Holy Spirit, the strength to grow in trust and faith, and ultimately to become more like Jesus himself.
There is no greater gift than his love, and there is no greater response than to show it to others. AMEN
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