James 3:13--4:3, 7-8a
Who is wise and understanding among you? Show by your good life that your works are done with gentleness born of wisdom. But if you have bitter envy and selfish ambition in your hearts, do not be boastful and false to the truth. Such wisdom does not come down from above, but is earthly, unspiritual, devilish. For where there is envy and selfish ambition, there will also be disorder and wickedness of every kind. But the wisdom from above is first pure, then peaceable, gentle, willing to yield, full of mercy and good fruits, without a trace of partiality or hypocrisy. And a harvest of righteousness is sown in peace for those who make peace.
Those conflicts and disputes among you, where do they come from? Do they not come from your cravings that are at war within you? You want something and do not have it; so you commit murder. And you covet something and cannot obtain it; so you engage in disputes and conflicts. You do not have, because you do not ask. You ask and do not receive, because you ask wrongly, in order to spend what you get on your pleasures. Submit yourselves therefore to God. Resist the devil, and he will flee from you. Draw near to God, and he will draw near to you.
Mark 9:30-37
[Jesus and the disciples went on] and passed through Galilee. He did not want anyone to know it;for he was teaching his disciples, saying to them, “The Son of Man is to be betrayed into human hands, and they will kill him, and three days after being killed, he will rise again.” But they did not understand what he was saying and were afraid to ask him.
Then they came to Capernaum; and when he was in the house he asked them, “What were you arguing about on the way?” But they were silent, for on the way they had argued with one another who was the greatest. He sat down, called the twelve, and said to them, “Whoever wants to be first must be last of all and servant of all.” Then he took a little child and put it among them; and taking it in his arms, he said to them, “Whoever welcomes one such child in my name welcomes me, and whoever welcomes me welcomes not me but the one who sent me.”
----
But it is when these arguments represent the clash between self-interest and self-sacrifice, when these arguments become, ultimately, about who holds the power for power’s sake, then we are no better than the disciples on the road and the disgruntled folks to whom James is writing his letter.
Because that’s not what the kingdom of God is all about. It’s not about who is the greatest. It’s not about being a jerk most of the week as long as you’re on good behavior when you have an audience.
Jesus interrupts the disciples’ arguing by pulling a child into their midst. He doesn’t do this to be cute. Children in that time were the epitome of powerlessness. No rights, no standing. Totally vulnerable.
Whoever wants to be first must be last. With a heart as vulnerable to the world as the child Jesus holds in his arms.
And the antidote to our desire to argue over greatness is to instead welcome one another as fellow children, united by our needs and our weaknesses.
Not once a week, not only when Jesus or our grandparents are watching us, but all the time. Because creation is still groaning, all the time. The world needs mercy, all the time. “Thy kingdom come” is a daily prayer.
By faith, we receive from God the transformation of our hearts, that daily we might welcome one another and remain open to the needs of the world. By faith, James tells us, we receive the wisdom from above that first is “pure, then peaceable, gentle, willing to yield, full of mercy and good fruits, without a trace of partiality or hypocrisy.” And the promise is this: that “a harvest of righteousness is sown in peace for those who make peace.”
We will be sent from worship today with that charge, “Go in peace.”
Whatever arguments you brought into this place, whatever cynicism about the world, whatever fears and frustrations: leave them now behind.
Go in peace. Welcome all. Tend the vulnerable. Follow Jesus. Live love, every day.
As Mary Oliver says, in her poem “Wild Geese,”
You do not have to be good.
You do not have to walk on your knees
for a hundred miles through the desert repenting.
You only have to let the soft animal of your body
love what it loves.
You do not need to worry about being great. You simply need to remember that you are beloved of God, and so are your neighbors, and so are your enemies, and so is all of this fragile creation.
May we live, each day, with softness and love, and by doing so, may we walk with peace the way of Christ’s leading.
Amen.
Who is wise and understanding among you? Show by your good life that your works are done with gentleness born of wisdom. But if you have bitter envy and selfish ambition in your hearts, do not be boastful and false to the truth. Such wisdom does not come down from above, but is earthly, unspiritual, devilish. For where there is envy and selfish ambition, there will also be disorder and wickedness of every kind. But the wisdom from above is first pure, then peaceable, gentle, willing to yield, full of mercy and good fruits, without a trace of partiality or hypocrisy. And a harvest of righteousness is sown in peace for those who make peace.
Those conflicts and disputes among you, where do they come from? Do they not come from your cravings that are at war within you? You want something and do not have it; so you commit murder. And you covet something and cannot obtain it; so you engage in disputes and conflicts. You do not have, because you do not ask. You ask and do not receive, because you ask wrongly, in order to spend what you get on your pleasures. Submit yourselves therefore to God. Resist the devil, and he will flee from you. Draw near to God, and he will draw near to you.
Mark 9:30-37
[Jesus and the disciples went on] and passed through Galilee. He did not want anyone to know it;for he was teaching his disciples, saying to them, “The Son of Man is to be betrayed into human hands, and they will kill him, and three days after being killed, he will rise again.” But they did not understand what he was saying and were afraid to ask him.
Then they came to Capernaum; and when he was in the house he asked them, “What were you arguing about on the way?” But they were silent, for on the way they had argued with one another who was the greatest. He sat down, called the twelve, and said to them, “Whoever wants to be first must be last of all and servant of all.” Then he took a little child and put it among them; and taking it in his arms, he said to them, “Whoever welcomes one such child in my name welcomes me, and whoever welcomes me welcomes not me but the one who sent me.”
----
Growing up, my Dad was the choir director at our church. It was a big church, with three services each Sunday morning. Most weeks, the choir sang at two of those services--the later two--but on Easter Sunday, the choir always sang at all three.
Which meant, for my sisters and me, that Easter Sunday always involved getting up extra early, getting dressed up extra fancy in our Easter dresses, doing a quick hunt for Easter baskets (eggs would have to wait until after church!), and then piling into the car for the fifteen-minute drive to church, all of this happening early enough so that my dad could be ready to start choir warm-ups at 7:30 a.m. for 8:00 a.m. worship.
Needless to say, Easter mornings were hectic. And when things get hectic, tensions rise. Anxious parents trying to motivate us to get our shoes on, last-minute panicked hunts for choir folders gone missing, debates about whether we were allowed to bring our Easter baskets to church with us, or whether we could have candy for breakfast.
Inevitably, there was arguing. Arguing as we got ourselves out the door, arguing in the car on the way to church (the way that only the best sisters can do!), and sometimes, if the morning was tense enough, the admonition from my mother, saying “everybody at church things you are so good and polite and well-behaved - if only they could see you right now!”
Harsh, right?
But she wasn’t wrong. We knew how to straighten our Easter hats when we walked in the church doors, how be polite to our pastors, and how to sit (mostly) still in the front row by the choir loft, even if we had argued literally the whole way there.
It’s a pretty good analogy for our human nature. There are the times when we know God is watching us, and we make sure that we really look and act our best...and then once we think we’re out of sight, we start arguing along the way all over again.
Jesus asks the disciples, “what were you arguing about on the way,” and there are at least a few valid reasons for him to be annoyed.
First, Jesus early on has proclaimed, “the kingdom of God has come near,” and he has been living that kingdom into existence. He has been healing bodies and spirits, calling disciples, feeding the hungry, calming storms, teaching forgiveness, raising the dead: that his own disciples would be grumbling and picking fights with each other shows that they aren’t yet fully tracking with all the good work and good news that Jesus is trying to lead them into.
Second, Jesus has just spent time leveling with his disciples, telling them plainly about the devastating way that his story is going to end. Jesus knows that the work of the kingdom that he’s been doing is work that will not find favor among the religious elites and politicians of the day. He is talking to them about sacrifice, about carrying the burden of good news, about committing oneself to God’s way even if it means having your very life taken from you. This isn’t the time for backseat arguments about who crossed the invisible line down the center of the seat cushion.
Third, Peter has just taken the leap of faith to recognize and name Jesus as the Messiah, and Peter and James and John have just come down from the mountaintop where they saw Jesus revealed in dazzling brightness as the fully glory of God, present on earth. It seems a strange time, then, for the disciples, to be fussing over which one of them is the greatest, and to do it in earshot of Jesus.
And finally, perhaps the most embarrassing part of it all, is that the disciples, who have been commissioned, equipped, and sent to heal and cast out demons, have just, and I mean just, left the scene of a failed exorcism. Jesus has to swoop in and do what the disciples could not, and when they ask Jesus why they couldn’t cast out the demon, he tells them it’s because they didn’t think to pray. Like, the disciples have just been not-so-great, and now they’re going to argue on the road about who is the greatest?
But, I mean, this is what we do all the time.
We argue along the way. We compare ourselves to others. We find excuses for our missteps. We forget to pray. We shy away from sacrifice. We focus on worldly markers of success. We separate our lives into “church life” and “real life,” as if the kingdom of God were only something that happened for an hour each weekend.
James today, perhaps just as exasperated as Jesus, asks, “Those conflicts and disputes among you, where do they come from? Do they not come from your cravings that are at war within you?”
At the root of our arguments and strivings is this inner conflict, always, between our bent toward self-centeredness and God’s Spirit, which is always working to draw us out and into lives of self-giving.
Think about all the things that we are arguing about along the road these days:
Which meant, for my sisters and me, that Easter Sunday always involved getting up extra early, getting dressed up extra fancy in our Easter dresses, doing a quick hunt for Easter baskets (eggs would have to wait until after church!), and then piling into the car for the fifteen-minute drive to church, all of this happening early enough so that my dad could be ready to start choir warm-ups at 7:30 a.m. for 8:00 a.m. worship.
Needless to say, Easter mornings were hectic. And when things get hectic, tensions rise. Anxious parents trying to motivate us to get our shoes on, last-minute panicked hunts for choir folders gone missing, debates about whether we were allowed to bring our Easter baskets to church with us, or whether we could have candy for breakfast.
Inevitably, there was arguing. Arguing as we got ourselves out the door, arguing in the car on the way to church (the way that only the best sisters can do!), and sometimes, if the morning was tense enough, the admonition from my mother, saying “everybody at church things you are so good and polite and well-behaved - if only they could see you right now!”
Harsh, right?
But she wasn’t wrong. We knew how to straighten our Easter hats when we walked in the church doors, how be polite to our pastors, and how to sit (mostly) still in the front row by the choir loft, even if we had argued literally the whole way there.
It’s a pretty good analogy for our human nature. There are the times when we know God is watching us, and we make sure that we really look and act our best...and then once we think we’re out of sight, we start arguing along the way all over again.
Jesus asks the disciples, “what were you arguing about on the way,” and there are at least a few valid reasons for him to be annoyed.
First, Jesus early on has proclaimed, “the kingdom of God has come near,” and he has been living that kingdom into existence. He has been healing bodies and spirits, calling disciples, feeding the hungry, calming storms, teaching forgiveness, raising the dead: that his own disciples would be grumbling and picking fights with each other shows that they aren’t yet fully tracking with all the good work and good news that Jesus is trying to lead them into.
Second, Jesus has just spent time leveling with his disciples, telling them plainly about the devastating way that his story is going to end. Jesus knows that the work of the kingdom that he’s been doing is work that will not find favor among the religious elites and politicians of the day. He is talking to them about sacrifice, about carrying the burden of good news, about committing oneself to God’s way even if it means having your very life taken from you. This isn’t the time for backseat arguments about who crossed the invisible line down the center of the seat cushion.
Third, Peter has just taken the leap of faith to recognize and name Jesus as the Messiah, and Peter and James and John have just come down from the mountaintop where they saw Jesus revealed in dazzling brightness as the fully glory of God, present on earth. It seems a strange time, then, for the disciples, to be fussing over which one of them is the greatest, and to do it in earshot of Jesus.
And finally, perhaps the most embarrassing part of it all, is that the disciples, who have been commissioned, equipped, and sent to heal and cast out demons, have just, and I mean just, left the scene of a failed exorcism. Jesus has to swoop in and do what the disciples could not, and when they ask Jesus why they couldn’t cast out the demon, he tells them it’s because they didn’t think to pray. Like, the disciples have just been not-so-great, and now they’re going to argue on the road about who is the greatest?
But, I mean, this is what we do all the time.
We argue along the way. We compare ourselves to others. We find excuses for our missteps. We forget to pray. We shy away from sacrifice. We focus on worldly markers of success. We separate our lives into “church life” and “real life,” as if the kingdom of God were only something that happened for an hour each weekend.
James today, perhaps just as exasperated as Jesus, asks, “Those conflicts and disputes among you, where do they come from? Do they not come from your cravings that are at war within you?”
At the root of our arguments and strivings is this inner conflict, always, between our bent toward self-centeredness and God’s Spirit, which is always working to draw us out and into lives of self-giving.
Think about all the things that we are arguing about along the road these days:
- masks and vaccines during this relentless pandemic
- the rights, the testimonies, and the very lives of our siblings of color
- whose political party is more terrible and worthy of disdain or destruction
- who we are allowed to love and what shape a family is supposed to take
- climate science
- science, period.
It’s not that deep discussion, honest debate, and ongoing moral striving won’t sometimes lead to moments of conflict - iron sharpening iron and all that.
But it is when these arguments represent the clash between self-interest and self-sacrifice, when these arguments become, ultimately, about who holds the power for power’s sake, then we are no better than the disciples on the road and the disgruntled folks to whom James is writing his letter.
Because that’s not what the kingdom of God is all about. It’s not about who is the greatest. It’s not about being a jerk most of the week as long as you’re on good behavior when you have an audience.
Jesus interrupts the disciples’ arguing by pulling a child into their midst. He doesn’t do this to be cute. Children in that time were the epitome of powerlessness. No rights, no standing. Totally vulnerable.
Whoever wants to be first must be last. With a heart as vulnerable to the world as the child Jesus holds in his arms.
And the antidote to our desire to argue over greatness is to instead welcome one another as fellow children, united by our needs and our weaknesses.
Not once a week, not only when Jesus or our grandparents are watching us, but all the time. Because creation is still groaning, all the time. The world needs mercy, all the time. “Thy kingdom come” is a daily prayer.
By faith, we receive from God the transformation of our hearts, that daily we might welcome one another and remain open to the needs of the world. By faith, James tells us, we receive the wisdom from above that first is “pure, then peaceable, gentle, willing to yield, full of mercy and good fruits, without a trace of partiality or hypocrisy.” And the promise is this: that “a harvest of righteousness is sown in peace for those who make peace.”
We will be sent from worship today with that charge, “Go in peace.”
Whatever arguments you brought into this place, whatever cynicism about the world, whatever fears and frustrations: leave them now behind.
Go in peace. Welcome all. Tend the vulnerable. Follow Jesus. Live love, every day.
As Mary Oliver says, in her poem “Wild Geese,”
You do not have to be good.
You do not have to walk on your knees
for a hundred miles through the desert repenting.
You only have to let the soft animal of your body
love what it loves.
You do not need to worry about being great. You simply need to remember that you are beloved of God, and so are your neighbors, and so are your enemies, and so is all of this fragile creation.
May we live, each day, with softness and love, and by doing so, may we walk with peace the way of Christ’s leading.
Amen.