First Reading: Jeremiah 11:18-20
18The Lord made it known to me and I knew; then you showed me their deeds. 19But I was like a gentle lamb led to the slaughter. I did not know it was against me they devised schemes, saying, “Let us destroy the tree with its fruit, let us cut him off from the land of the living, that his name be remembered no more.” 20But, O Lord of hosts, who judges righteously, who tests the heart and the mind, let me see your vengeance upon them, for to you have I committed my cause.
Psalm 54
1Save me, O God, by your Name; in your might, defend my cause. 2Hear my prayer, O God; give ear to the words of my mouth. 3For the arrogant have risen up against me, and the ruthless have sought my life, those who have no regard for God. 4Behold, God is my helper; it is the Lord who sustains my life. 5Render evil to those who spy on me; in your faithfulness, destroy them. 6I will offer you a freewill sacrifice and praise your name, O Lord, for it is good. 7For you have rescued me from every trouble, and my eye has seen the ruin of my foes.
Second Reading: James 3:13-4:10
313Who is wise and understanding among you? By his good conduct let him show his works in the meekness of wisdom. 14But if you have bitter jealousy and selfish ambition in your hearts, do not boast and be false to the truth. 15This is not the wisdom that comes down from above, but is earthly, unspiritual, demonic. 16For where jealousy and selfish ambition exist, there will be disorder and every vile practice. 17But the wisdom from above is first pure, then peaceable, gentle, open to reason, full of mercy and good fruits, impartial and sincere. 18And a harvest of righteousness is sown in peace by those who make peace. 41What causes quarrels and what causes fights among you? Is it not this, that your passions are at war within you? 2You desire and do not have, so you murder. You covet and cannot obtain, so you fight and quarrel. You do not have, because you do not ask. 3You ask and do not receive, because you ask wrongly, to spend it on your passions. 4You adulterous people! Do you not know that friendship with the world is enmity with God? Therefore whoever wishes to be a friend of the world makes himself an enemy of God. 5Or do you suppose it is to no purpose that the Scripture says, “He yearns jealously over the spirit that he has made to dwell in us”? 6But he gives more grace. Therefore it says, “God opposes the proud but gives grace to the humble.” 7Submit yourselves therefore to God. Resist the devil, and he will flee from you. 8Draw near to God, and he will draw near to you. Cleanse your hands, you sinners, and purify your hearts, you double-minded. 9Be wretched and mourn and weep. Let your laughter be turned to mourning and your joy to gloom. 10Humble yourselves before the Lord, and he will exalt you.
Gospel: Mark 9:30-37
30{Jesus and his disciples} went on from there and passed through Galilee. And he did not want anyone to know, 31for he was teaching his disciples, saying to them, “The Son of Man is going to be delivered into the hands of men, and they will kill him. And when he is killed, after three days he will rise.” 32But they did not understand the saying, and were afraid to ask him. 33And they came to Capernaum. And when he was in the house he asked them, “What were you discussing on the way?” 34But they kept silent, for on the way they had argued with one another about who was the greatest. 35And he sat down and called the twelve. And he said to them, “If anyone would be first, he must be last of all and servant of all.” 36And he took a child and put him in the midst of them, and taking him in his arms, he said to them, 37“Whoever receives one such child in my name receives me, and whoever receives me, receives not me but him who sent me.”
Heavenly Wisdom
Diane shared a post from the Facebook page Weird and Amazing Everything on Monday that I think does a good job of helping us to understand what St. James is trying to tell us in our Epistle reading for today. The opening statement was this, “[This is] possibly the most important thing you’ll read this Year…The following is the philosophy of Charles Schulz, the creator of the ‘Peanuts’ comic strip.
The following questions are rhetorical, so keep the answers to yourself. Please listen carefully and simply ponder them, you’ll get the point as we go along. 1. Name the five wealthiest people in the world. 2. Name the last five Heisman trophy winners. 3. Name the last five winners of the Miss America pageant. 4. Name ten people who have won the Nobel or Pulitzer Prize. 5. Name the last half dozen Academy Award winners for best actor and actress. And 6., Name the last decade’s worth of World Series winners. How did you do? These questions remind me of why I’m not a Jeopardy contestant!
The point is, very few of us remember the headliners of yesterday. The people you were asked to name are not second-rate achievers. They are the best in their fields. But the applause dies. Awards tarnish … Achievements are forgotten. Accolades and certificates are buried with their owners. Here’s another quiz. See how you do on this one: 1. List a few teachers who aided your journey through school. 2. Name three friends who have helped you through a difficult time. 3. Name five people who have taught you something worthwhile. 4. Think of a few people who have made you feel appreciated and special. 5. Think of five people you enjoy spending time with.
I’m betting the last series of questions were much easier to answer. The lesson: The people who make a difference in your life are not the ones with the most credentials, the most money … or the most awards. They’re simply the ones who cared the most; they gave freely of their time and of their gifts. Here’s another story I’d like you to consider.
The audience was awed when the world-famous violinist announced before the concert that he would be playing a Stradivarius, one of the world’s most expensive violins. His composition was played brilliantly. The master violinist played the piece without a mistake. The audience was thrilled. Then the musician took the instrument and smashed it on the floor. The strings and wood flew across the stage. The audience was shocked and assumed that the violinist had gone mad … that is until he explained that the violin he had just destroyed was a cheap imitation. He then picked up the Stradivarius, and began to play again, and amazingly, most of the audience couldn’t tell the difference. The quality of the instrument was secondary to the skill of the musician.
St. James has been driving home the point that our works as a Christian are of vital importance: that works have nothing to do with salvation, rather, they are our joyful response to God’s grace. And what goes hand in hand with our work in God’s kingdom is love. Jesus boiled all the Commandments down to two, love God, love your neighbor. Love of God and love of neighbor is at the heart of the message St. James is sending to his audience. And St. Paul agreed.
In what might be the most recognizable passage on the importance of love, St. Paul wrote, “If I speak in the tongues of men or of angels, but do not have love, I am only a resounding gong or a clanging cymbal. If I have the gift of prophecy and can fathom all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have a faith that can move mountains, but do not have love, I am nothing. If I give all I possess to the poor and give over my body to hardship that I may boast, but do not have love, I gain nothing. Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It does not dishonor others, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres. Love never fails” (1 Cor. 13:1-8a).
Jumping down to verse 13, St. Paul concludes, “And now these three remain: faith, hope and love. But the greatest of these is love.” Love is at the heart of God, and as St. John reminds us, “God is love” (1 John 4:16). Love was at the heart of God’s gift when He sent Jesus to redeem us, and love is at the heart of the work that we do for God’s kingdom. And the work that we do for God’s glory many times is in the form of a kind deed. And the beauty of a kind deed is that it doesn’t rely solely on the physical, financial, or social well-being of the individual who performs it.
And like the master violinist, our Lord and Master can take ordinary instruments, like you and me, and produce beautiful music with our lives. And what’s more, good deeds done in humility come from heavenly wisdom. Here’s a question for you, how can you tell if someone is living the life of faithful discipleship? One way is to look at the people who surround them. Are those people smiling, happy, and content? Are their lives richer because of that friendship?
What about you and me? After your friends have spent an evening with you, do they come away feeling better about themselves? Have their spirits been lifted, their thoughts elevated? In a time when contentious politics and hypocrisy dominate our newsfeeds, are our conversations filled with tension, or respectful debate. We need to ask ourselves, has our conversation been uplifting and improved the quality of someone else’s life? We must get back to the point where we can agree to disagree and still be friends.
Hand in hand with respecting each other is the question, what or who influences your life? Who or what do we surround ourselves with? Who or what is playing on the strings of our hearts? More importantly, with what wisdom are we filling our minds? The quality of our lives depends upon the source of our wisdom. If we’re looking solely to the wisdom of this world for guidance, we’re in trouble. Satan is alive and well, and his goal is to divide us, to turn us against each other in any way he can, and to destroy not only our relationships, but the church as well.
We must be influenced and led by the wisdom that comes down from heaven, or the message that is earthly, unspiritual, and of the devil will dominate our lives. We live in anxious times, and this is exactly what the devil is wanting, he wants to steal God’s peace from us. It’s a fact, you and I become what we focus our minds on, what we expose ourselves to. Hours of exposure to trash-talking commentaries, or degrading images on television will diminish your soul and arouse hostility or selfish ambition. Studies show that violent entertainment not only leads to violent acts, but also encourages depression. Yes, we need to stay informed, but if we spent the majority of our time filling our minds with more positive, more wholesome and godly things, this would engender a more sensible, peace-loving, considerate demeanor.
Studies have shown that repeated exposure to horror films, for example, lowers the immune system. Maybe that’s why medical studies have shown that people who worship regularly and have spiritual values recover more quickly from illness and live longer. To what and to whom do we expose our life? Lives placed in the hands of our Lord and Master, even the most indigent, the least attractive, the most inept among us, can produce a symphony of peace, kindness, and a harvest of righteousness. Our work in God’s kingdom isn’t so much dependent on us as it is on Jesus. Who or what influences our lives and actions?
Doesn’t the world teach us that wealth will bring us happiness? We resent it when a fellow worker earns more than we do. We study the stock market, we watch our bank account, we shop and mindlessly accumulate more and more, cluttering our minds and our closets. What do our words and actions teach our children? Do we teach them to save their money, but neglect to teach them about the salvation of their souls? Do we look at Hollywood idols and come away with the wrong lesson? Do we look at the glitz and glamor and fail to see the emptiness of the deceitful promises forwarded by satan?
Take a look behind the doors of the huge mansions and you’ll find souls more desperate than you or I will ever be. Many of them are men and women who are lost in addictions, filled with anxiety, deluded by bigotry, filled with envy and selfish ambition, and searching for meaning. When we do happen to hear those few who express gratitude to God we’re impressed and faintly surprised. Yet, the beauty of that testimony is nothing more than what you and I are capable of expounding.
Think about it: when we witness one of the social influencers committing a kind deed, we’re touched. But if we look behind the curtain, too often these acts of kindness were orchestrated to make them look good to the public. Once they leave the event, they can hardly remember the event or the charity that they helped. But you and I, when working in the service of our Lord, do the work of God’s kingdom for a completely different reason; we accomplish God’s work in genuine concern, humility, love, and for the glory of God. And what’s more, we do this so that we can share God’s love and grace with our neighbors. Margaret Sangster, a social worker, told about a young boy in an urban ghetto who had been struck by a car and had not received proper medical care.
The young boy’s legs were twisted and nonfunctional. Even though it wasn’t her responsibility, she took the boy to an orthopedic doctor who performed surgery on his legs. Two years later, the boy walked into Sangster’s office without crutches. Margaret Sangster said to herself, “If I accomplish nothing else in my life, I have made a real difference with at least this one!” She paused in telling this story, and then went on. “This was all several years ago. Where do you think that boy is today?”
Her listeners suggested that he might be a schoolteacher, a physician, or a social worker. With tears of emotion, Margaret Sangster responded, “No, he’s in prison, convicted of committing one of the foulest crimes a human can commit. Sure, I was instrumental in him walking again, but there was no one there to teach him where or with whom to walk.”
This is what happens when we teach our children that pride is more important than humility, that competition trumps compassion; that charisma produces more influence than character. Long gone is the teaching of character and virtue from our public-school classrooms. The Ten Commandments have been removed, morning prayer has been deleted, and the public educator’s hands are tied by policies. However, and this is very important, the responsibility for teaching godly morals and qualities, like compassion and character, is not the responsibly of our public educators, that responsibility sits squarely in the home and in our churches. Our children need to hear about the values of honesty, humility, sincerity, kindness, peacemaking, and forgiveness around the dinner table and in Sunday school. They need to see it in action in their parents, grandparents, aunts, uncles, and church members first.
Let’s face it, they’re not going to hear it on television or read about them on their computer screens. St. James speaks of the wisdom that is earthly, unspiritual, of the devil. This is the wisdom that is spoken around us daily: that who we are depends on what we have; that happiness consists in having more; that our human worth is defined by our net worth, and that you’ll feel better about yourself as soon as you feel better about your financial bottom line.
There’s nothing new about this way of living. It has been the nature of humankind since the Garden of Eden. As faithful followers of Jesus Christ, we must see through the delusions forwarded by the world. We must teach our children to recognize the falseness of this path. The wisdom from above runs counter to what the world would have us believe. James tells us in chapter 3 verses 17-18, “But the wisdom from above is first pure, then peaceable, gentle, open to reason, full of mercy and good fruits, impartial and sincere. And a harvest of righteousness is sown in peace by those who make peace.”
Thousands of years ago, Jeremiah shouted the warning, “How can you say, ‘We are wise’ … From the least to the greatest, all are greedy for gain … Are they ashamed of their loathsome conduct? No, they have no shame at all; they do not even know how to blush. So they will fall among the fallen; they will be brought down when they’re punished, says the Lord” (Jeremiah 8a, 10b-12). The wisdom of the world is the path to pride, envy, greed, and selfish ambition. We must fight daily to prevent ourselves from falling for the clever copywriters of consumerism, whose evangelism is advertising, whose church is the internet and the mall, and whose values are appearance and affluence.
Listen to the voices of heavenly wisdom that whisper to us: Do not give your soul to that which does not satisfy your heart. For the desire for possessions is dangerous, knowing no satiation. It drives the soul, and it controls to the heights of evil (Isaiah 55:2). Do an inventory of your values. What is of ultimate importance to you? Are we looking at the Good book, or something much shorter, our bank book. Jesus said, “Where your treasure is, there your heart will be also” (Matthew 6:21).
To whom or what do we serve? Chances are you’ll find it in the things we cherish. “Who is wise and understanding among you?” That depends upon where you’re looking for your inspiration. Who is providing the message that guides us? What composer is playing on the strings of your heart, the timbrel of your soul? Look for friendships among people who value compassion more than possessions. Listen to music that fills you with peace and composure. Let your speech be filled with gratitude to God for what you have, not with complaints for what you lack. Living a life of thanksgiving is accomplished when you and I put ourselves into the hands of the Master, who can take the most ordinary of us and produce beauty and elegance and grace. The question of, “Who is wise and understanding among you?” can be answered in the who and what influences us. Amen.