WHAT did James know that will help us?
Who
do you love? Simple question isn’t it? Oh, what’s that you say,
“It isn’t simple at all?” Glad you caught that, because many
people in a world where the daily life is crammed to the rafters with
perishable items; things which at the ultimate end of it all, won’t
matter at all, perishables, speed past that question never realizing
that love isn’t just an emotional response, it is indeed, something
much, much deeper. Love
can be best thought of, it seems to me on reflecting back over the
years, as what a friend and best selling author, Dr. Stephen R.
Covey, made me see in three distinct meetings. He said very simply
one day, “Dana do you remember what someone bought you, or do you
remember the gifts you give?” Caught me up short a bit, because it
is, truthfully a little of both, but a little more of the latter; and
I’d bet, truth be told, you tend to remember things you’ve given
to others, more than things they’ve given to you. Dr. Covey
believed and taught that love is a verb, it is what you do for
others, and particularly, what sometimes you forcefully won’t allow
yourself to not do, or do, for them, that enlivens the verb love in
your life. Who do you love, might be more insightfully phrased as,
who will you do things for, that you wouldn’t do for anyone else?
This brief time together will be about James, a New Testament writer,
a man; someone that scholars have to agree upon, nearly to the
scholar on biblical writings historical authorship, was a man who
knew Jesus Christ as a half brother. Imagine the enormous weight of
that for just a moment, James is one of the people that in history,
shouldn’t be ignored; he is, to borrow our
modern hype word ,
awesome!
Not
in any way being critical, or cynical, or any other negative meaning
to this statement except to use it as a measuring tool, thousands of
years have gone by since the New Testament recorder named James put
together his ideas as the leader, most likely, of the first church at
Jerusalem. What of the things that you have proffered out into the
world, two
thousand years from now, will be remembered and talked about, and
argued about, and discussed, and made use of? Let’s put the idea
of James being heavy into that historical perspective. Sure, it was
a unique time, back in the day that James put this gospel entry
together, people were murdered by the state for sharing such. Open
aggression against Christian’s was becoming a pile on event for an
Empire, Rome, both in decline and desperation, trying to remain the
world dominant empire, they turned their hatred of failures in ethics
and morality against the Christian’s who had suddenly become aware
of, the truth!
To
keep this in perspective imagine the power of a simple idea, for you,
not your neighbor, not your friend, not even a close family member,
but you, to find out in your life what love is? You probably
believe, unless you’re simply evil incarnate, that you live a life
of love? That you love others, and that they in turn, love you.
Would that be a fairly accurate way of describing you? Not talking
perfection, because every person faced with it, immediately admits
that they lack in some area of love. They admit it, even the
extremely vain and insensitive, have to face the mirror of reality
eventually, and admit, they fall a bit short of perfect when it comes
to loving others. So let’s keep the simple idea just that, would
focusing on the truth of how deeply and devotedly you love others be
something that could help your life improve?
Just
about every reader would answer a “Yes,” to that, feeling a tiny
bit awkward were they to answer that they had it together when it
came to loving others. James in writing about love, which is what
we’re going to begin trying to see in his writings; we’re not
going to impose some outside set of beliefs on James truth, instead
we’re going to let what he says resonate with us, and in that
endeavor, here’s a simple fact; the writing he did was about love,
and by reading it as closely to the matter of the time in which he
wrote it, and then bringing that into the matter today; my hope is
that you’ll feel the love, see the love, learn what that love meant
and possibly see ways to improve your own life when it comes to
loving.
Let’s
begin this brief time together about James then, with his words –
James Chapter one- verse 1: “James,
a servant of God and of the Lord Jesus Christ, To the twelve tribes
scattered among the nations: Greetings. “ (NIV)
When
the school system allowed me to teach my students upon first getting
into a text for human behavior, business law or introduction to
computing, it didn’t matter what subject we were studying together,
when there was a writing to read, my saying is simple: “Know who
wrote it, know when, know where, know what it means (not so easy to
determine at times, as we shall find out) and if possible why.”
Said it every time, my students reading this will remember, professor
Richardson was a real stickler about this, and the why of that is
simple, they’d next hear, “Because history ignored a book called
“Mein Kampf,” that had
they known these facts, Adolf might have been stopped.” Usually
that got them a little bit more awake. But for anybody reading
anything that is going to have any lasting value, my goodness, it is
important to understand them! And they are composed of not just
their name, in this instance, he says, in his opening, James; which
we wouldn’t do- you don’t title a letter to a friend, in our
country typically, we wait until we’ve written it first, then we
sign it- but in the times, so this is the when of it, they wrote the
authors name up front so folks would know who it was. But the beauty
of James doesn’t stop there, right away he brings love into it, and
that you might not see that isn’t mystical at all, nobody tells you
that you have to leave a place where you are at, because of what you
believe; at least not at present for most Americans. So you will
like this next paragraph, we’re gonna nail down why this gospel is
all about nothing but, centrally focused on, and meaning it, love.
We
don’t want to get too heavy into this upfront or we’ll never get
any distance into the central issues of this writing, but herein
James says, as we would say, “A mouthful:” “To
the twelve tribes scattered among the nations:” We
don’t get this because nothing in our lives, nearly world wide,
resembles this- unless perhaps it would be people being told they
have to leave their homes and go elsewhere, because they aren’t the
right flavor of religion? Is that happening today? Yes it is, but
usually, not in America, so when an American reads about the Jewish
nation of Israel, being jostled out of their Roman homes and
relocated, we believe we can see the root of it. Let me suggest that
you consider the day you’re reading this, that at the moment when
your parent comes home or the mom or pop who rules the roost gets in
they say, “Well it was horrible in court today, we have to be out
by tomorrow.” You’re shocked, where will you go, how will you
get there, and even stranger, what should you bring, so you ask...and
they say, “Get everything you can carry in a bag, in the morning we
go!”
James
is an incredible deep writing about love because not just in his
heritage as the author and half brother of Jesus; but in the people
he was writing this to, Christians. We don’t see it too clearly
because it’s very subtle, but James is writing to Christians about
faith in his half brother Jesus, and yet, he also titles out that
this is to the twelve tribes dispersed; at the outset James is going
to be controversial, because he doesn’t separate the gentiles who
will read this who believe in his brother (look we know, yes, half
brother, but let’s go with brother, because, the half brother is a
theological technicality and if you’ve ever had a toy stolen by a
half brother, you didn’t think of them at that moment as a half
brother, did you?) from those who Jesus never denies in His ministry
belong to God, Israel, the Jewish nation.
This
is a good place to halt this page, because it’s already getting a
bit deep, all honest, all in those few short sentences, if we’re to
get the truth as it was written then, to the people it was written
to, and in the language it was written in, by this amazing man; a man
who has just signed his death warrant, by the way, because when this
letter is read by Rome, he will have no way of denying that it is he,
James; pastor of the church at Jerusalem, who penned it- for it, he
will die. How many things that you are going to say, write and stand
by, are you willing to die for? Such is the nature of the love of
Christ, of faith, even if you’re told that because of that faith,
you can’t even keep your family together, oh yes, Rome very much
knew you could split mom and dad and kids up, send them to different
village locations, and forever try to kill their family, their
belief, and their faith. 
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