May 21, 2017
True North | Compassion
- James 1:17-27
- Rev. Dr. Jerry Deck
There were a couple of reasons why I decided to talk about this passage from James today. The first is because it talks about the importance of having compassion for the weak and vulnerable (something we’ll talk about in a few minutes), but also because it talks about much of what we’ve been discussing over the last few months. If we believe these certain things about who God is and who we are then how should that shape what we look like and how we act? Now when we talk about it from up here we tend to be gentle in how we discuss these things—like I said last week, we need to be patient when it comes to how quickly our lives change (and to be sure I do believe that God is patient with us). James though, as James is apt to do, likes to cut right to the chase…there’s no beating around the bush with him. So, James says, “If you say you are a follower of Jesus, but this doesn’t change say, the way you talk, then your religion is worthless!” So how do you really feel, James?!
And just in case there is even the slightest of chances that you missed what he was saying, James provides us with some imagery to help us out. Someone who hears the word, but doesn’t actually do anything about it, shouldn’t deceive themselves that hearing or knowing (in and of itself) is really enough. That is like someone who looks at themselves in the mirror and, once they leave the mirror immediately forget what they look like. What he’s saying is a bit like what happens with some frequency with our children when Megan or I tell one of the girls that they have stuff all over their face and to go look in the mirror and wash it off and a minute later they return and their face looks the exact same. And we know that they either never looked in the mirror or that they looked at it, but just decided to do nothing about what they saw. So James is saying what’s the point of having your image, your life, reflected in the light of Jesus if you aren’t going to do anything about it—if nothing is going to change?
This practice of hearing the gospel, and even saying that we believe it, and yet not actually doing anything about it or having it change the way we act is, of course, one of the greatest criticisms that the church endures from outsiders. This hypocrisy is something that is frequently brought up in why people are reticent to follow Jesus or especially to be a part of a church community. Someone has pointed out that at least it’s a bit of a relief to know that this hypocrisy has been a struggle since the birth of the church. In other words when you hear people say that the church is full of hypocrites perhaps, rather than trying to defend ourselves, we should just say, “Yep, always has been and always will be.”
Now typically when we think of hypocrites our assumption is that these people (and sometimes “these people” are us!) are just bad people or lazy or don’t really believe and I suppose that is true at times. But in thinking about this mirror image I also wonder whether or not sometimes the reason why what we say we believe and what we actually do don’t align isn’t willful negligence, but is simply because we forget who God says we are and we forget at times what we believe. And perhaps we forget because we don’t realize that we have to practice this faith in order for faith to really take complete hold of our lives. In fact in the next chapter in James he will talk about how Abraham’s faith was brought to completion by his works. As Luke Timothy Johnson puts it, “Faith, in order to be perfected, must be enacted.” “Faith, in order to be perfected, must be enacted.” Now please hear me I don’t believe this means that we do these sorts of things like being slow to speak and quick to listen, and patience and self-control and grace, in order to receive God’s love, but I do think that if we want to fully and robustly understand God and what it means to follow Jesus that it is in practicing that we more fully understand this faith that we claim.
One of the few reasons why I use a mirror is in order to tie a tie. I can remember when my mother was beginning to teach me I would watch her do it and hear what she was saying and then I would say, “Ok, Ok, I’ve got” somewhat impatiently (I hadn’t listened to last week’s sermon yet!). I’d stare intently at the mirror and after a few minutes would end up with either a tie that looked exactly like it did when it started (with no knot) or one with about 12 knots. Then I’d finally get the knot down but the tie would go down to my knees or the bottom part would easily outdistance the top. And so my mom would go over it again and I’d practice and practice and practice until I finally got it again. But even after that, if I went awhile without doing it, I completely forget how to tie it and my mom would have to show me again. To say it once more, if I went awhile without doing it, or practicing it, I would completely forget. The less I did it, the more I forgot.
I think that starts to get to the point that James is making, though I think he is taking it one step further. Which is that when we practice patience or speaking well or being gentle not only do we get better at those things and are less likely to forget them, but also that the more we do it the less likely we are to forget the one who called us to those things. This is something that I believe more each day which is that our understanding of our faith and who Jesus is, our understanding of scripture will deepen only as we practice the virtues that God calls us to. Remember you only genuinely know what it means to love your neighbor when you actually do it. You only really understand patience when you practice it. And the more you do that, the more ingrained it gets in your and the less likely you are to forget how to do them and the reason behind why are you doing them. Because otherwise, well, we are like a person who looks in the mirror and immediately forgets what he looks like. Which is why this talk about the lives we are called to live is not an extra to our faith, but is critical to our faith.
It is with that in mind that I would suggest that one of the greatest ways for us to understand scripture, our faith and God more clearly is when we engage in acts of compassion. As James points out, a faith that is pure and undefiled before God is one that cares for the orphans and the widows in their distress. In other words, for faith to be perfected, to be enacted, means that we have to take care of those who are weak and vulnerable. Not surprisingly, of course, this compassion that we are called to have is rooted in God himself. Psalms 146 says that God watches over the stranger and upholds the orphan and the widow. 2nd Kings talks about God’s graciousness and compassion on his people. Nehemiah speaks to God’s compassion on the Israelites. 2nd Corinthians says, “Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of compassion and the God of all comfort…” And of course the life of Jesus is full of example after example of compassion. Whether it’s his caring for the sick or comforting the poor or feeding the hungry or his reaching out expressly to the vulnerable in that time and place (the children and women) or his willingness to suffer on the cross on our behalf, Jesus reveals again and again the compassion of our Creator.
That word “suffering” is important because that’s literally what the word compassion means, to be a co-sufferer. And to be sure that co-suffering, that compassion, can reveal itself in a variety of ways. Sometimes it simply means sitting and embracing the widow who has lost a spouse, the child who has lost a parent, the parent who has lost a child. Sometimes it means offering bread to the hungry or water to the thirsty. It may mean building a home for the homeless or bandaging the wounds of the hurting. It may mean giving money to those who can equip and help care for the weak, the vulnerable, the poor. And as we suffer alongside of them, whatever that looks like, we offer them hope, we remind them that they have not been forgotten and we are shaped more like the compassionate one who created, loved and suffered for us.
Three Sundays ago now was the 1st Sunday we were in Spain and I was asked to preach at their service in the evening. I decided to use a scripture passage from Genesis 40 which is the part of Joseph’s life that covers his imprisonment and interpretation of the cupbearer and baker’s dreams. Joseph had lived a difficult life to this point—almost killed by his brothers, sold into slavery, unjustly accused and now in prison. And after telling the imprisoned cupbearer that he will soon be released and restored to his position in Pharaoh’s court, Joseph looks at the cupbearer and says or perhaps begs, “Please remember me. I have been unjustly imprisoned. Please remember me.” Joseph, who had been so strong, was giving us a glimpse into his soul and into his vulnerability. That a part of him, perhaps a large part of him, was wondering whether or not he had been forgotten, not just by his family, but by his God. Looking around at his plot-vulnerable, without power, a foreigner in a foreign world. Had God forgotten him?
I preached that sermon here last summer and even then I felt the importance of saying those words to you all. That God had not forgotten you. I know how important it is for us to remember that. But I’m not sure I have felt just how important it was until that Sunday in Spain. Because when I preached that sermon I was looking into the eyes of men and women from Egypt, from Iraq and from Syria. And honestly, when I said to them that they had not been forgotten, if it had been culturally appropriate I would have grabbed a hold of each one of them and embraced them when I said it. For those who had experienced the savagery, the loss of war and death and who now found themselves as strangers in a strange land, to know that they were not forgotten by God.
But also, as I said to them, that a part of our being there was to let them know that they had not been forgotten by us either. That this church in some random state in the middle of a country that means who knows what to them, to know that there was a faith community who commissioned a small group of their own people to go and tell them that they were not alone, who regularly gives money to remind them that they were not alone, who supported the long-term pastors to tell them that they were not alone. That they had not been forgotten.
This is the call for those of us who believe in Jesus Christ and who know that that belief means that we are called to live differently, because otherwise, well, our beliefs are meaningless. To think beyond ourselves. To care for the orphan, the widow, the victim of war, the homeless, the vulnerable. To come alongside of them. To fail to do this is to have a faith that is without worth. It is to be a hearer and not a doer. It is to not fully understand the God whom we serve, the scriptures that we read, the Jesus that we follow. But it is easy to look at the mirror, to look closely at Jesus and then forget. Amidst our own busyness and our own struggles and weaknesses, it is easy to forget our call to compassion, to suffer alongside of others. That’s why a part of our call as a congregation is to have structures in place which ensure that in spite of those things that we never forget this critical part of what it means to be church. Whether it’s sending money or people across the states or the globe in order to care for others and remind them that they have not been forgotten or partnering with Shepherd Community on the east side or Str8 up on the northwest side or opening our food pantry doors to the hungry or, as we will do starting next Sunday, our church to homeless families. We cannot and we will not forget the call to compassion, the call to reflect God, the call to care for the vulnerable.
Soren Kierkegaard was a 19th century Danish Christian and a serious philosopher. Which is why it’s strange that he tells a parable about a groups of ducks. But he does and in many ways I think his silly parable that is a tip of the hat to our James passage. Once upon a time, Kierkegaard said, there was a land inhabited only by ducks. Every Sunday morning, the ducks got up, washed their faces, put on their Sunday clothes, and waddled off to church. They waddled through the door of their duck church, proceeded down the aisle, and took their familiar places in the pews. The duck minister entered the pulpit and opened the duck Bible to the place where it talked about God’s greatest gift to ducks—wings. “With wings we can fly. With wings we can soar like eagles. With wings we can escape the confines of pens and cages. With wings we can become free. With wings we can become all God meant us to be. So give thanks to God for your wings. And fly!” All the ducks loudly quacked, “Amen.” And then all of the ducks waddled home.
Brothers and Sisters, let us not waddle home. Let us run after Jesus and care for this world like God cares for us. Maybe that means we literally run on November 4th or maybe it means we support someone who is. Maybe it means you are staying overnight with our homeless guests next week. Maybe it means you go across the globe in order to remind someone that they are loved by God and have not been forgotten or maybe it means you go across the street to give a meal to someone who has lost a loved one. I don’t know what it is, but I do know that I and praying that you do not leave this place and waddle back home, having forgotten the face of God, the one who created you, who has compassion for you and who asks you to share that compassion with others. That all may know and experience the love, grace and care of the Almighty. May it be so. Amen.