Fifteenth Sunday after Pentecost
“Deceiving Ourselves”
Rev. Brent Gundlah
First Reading (James 1:17-29/NRSVUE)
Gospel Reading (Mark 7:1-8, 14-15, 21-23/NRSVUE)
Do you hear that? If you listen really carefully you can hear Martin Luther speaking words of disapproval from the great beyond.
I’m kidding, of course (well, kind of). You see, Luther — you know, the guy who started that whole Protestant Reformation thing — didn’t care much for the Letter of James, which is the source of our first reading for today and the next few weeks. Since this letter isn’t often read in church these days, here’s a little context for it.
James is a fairly popular name in the New Testament: there’s James the Son of Zebedee, James the Son of Alpheus, James the Son of Mary (not Jesus’s mother Mary, another Mary), James the father of Judas, and James the brother of Jesus. And this makes it’s kind of tough to pin down exactly which, if any, of these Jameses wrote this letter, but the Christian tradition has tended to attribute it to James, the brother of Jesus. While he was not actually a follower of Jesus during Jesus’s lifetime, he eventually became one and then rose to a leadership position in the early Jerusalem church.
It’s also difficult to say exactly when this letter was written, though it was certainly sometime in the second half of the first century. Biblical scholar Marcus Borg, who I know is a real fan favorite here at HUCC, places its composition at about 80 CE.
Martin Luther was so down on James’s letter that he moved it (along with the Letter to the Hebrews, the Letter of Jude and Revelation) to the end of the Bible in order to keep these four books separate from what he considered to be “the true and certain chief books of the New Testament.” Later in life, Luther did softened this stance a bit (you know, you grow). May all this serve as a reminder of the fact that humans had a hand (and a pretty large one at that) in creating the various versions of the Bible that have been considered “official” throughout history.
Truth be told, though, Luther wasn’t the only one who had misgivings about James’s letter. While it was widely read throughout the early church according to historians back then, it didn’t make it into the canon (the church’s official list of biblical books) until sometime around the fifth century (about five hundred years after Jesus walked the earth) because there were disagreements as to whether it really belonged there (as there were with several other books that eventually made the final cut). But once James’s letter found its way in, its place in the canon remained largely undisputed until Luther decided to make a stink about it a thousand years later.
In the Preface to his 1522 edition of the New Testament, Luther called the Letter of James as an “epistle of straw,” which, trust me, wasn’t a compliment. And one of the reasons for Luther’s disdain was the fact that the ancient church fathers (yeah, they were all men) couldn’t agree that James’s letter was worthy of being in the Bible. But Luther’s quarrel with it was not simply inherited from his predecessors.
The biggest issue that Luther had with James stems from its declarations that “a person is justified [deemed by God to be righteous] by works and not by faith alone,” and that “a faith without works is dead.”
Luther believed the rest of the Bible (especially, Paul’s letters) made quite clear that we are saved by faith, and faith alone. And there’s something kinda compelling about God’s grace (which, for Paul, is what leads us to faith) being given to us rather than being earned by us. And this idea was especially compelling to Luther because it also set him apart from the Catholic Church against which he was rebelling — one that placed a lot of weight on good works. Luther thought this idea was so compelling, in fact, that he added the word “alone” to his translation Romans 3:28 so it read, “man is justified without the help of the works of the law, alone through faith,” even though none of the Greek manuscripts of Paul’s letter actually say that. Go figure.
Just to be clear, though, James isn’t actually saying that good works lead to our salvation; he’s saying that our good works are the result of our salvation. In other words, a faithful person, as a recipient of God’s freely-given grace, understands and shows gratitude for that gift by heeding God’s call to love God and neighbor by doing good works. Truth be told, Luther himself said similar things — as did both Peter and Paul.
When Luther threw down by calling James’s letter an “epistle of straw,” he went on to say that, “compared to [the letters of Paul]… it has nothing of the nature of the Gospel about it,” which also wasn’t a compliment. Luther didn’t like the fact that James’s letter was light on Jesus and, in some sense, he was right: The name “Jesus Christ” appears only twice in the entire book.
But, in another sense, Luther was wrong, because the Gospel is really woven all throughout this letter. Consider the things that James says in our passage for today: Every gift we have is from God; be quick to listen, slow to speak, slow to anger; welcome God’s Word with meekness (that is to say, humility); be doers of that Word and not merely hearers. Sure, James doesn’t actually mention Jesus by name here, but that all sounds pretty Jesus-y to me.
“Be doers of that word and not merely hearers who deceive themselves,” says James. Said slightly differently, “May your actions be consistent with what you say believe.” Said slightly differently still, “Don’t be a hypocrite.”
In the last couple of verses from our reading James goes on to say this: “If any think they are religious and do not bridle their tongues but deceive their hearts, their religion is worthless. Religion that is pure and undefiled before God the Father is this: to care for orphans and widows in their distress and to keep oneself unstained by the world.”
Care for widows in their distress and keep oneself unstained by the world. Funnily enough, this is exactly what Jesus criticizes the Pharisees and scribes for not doing in today’s second reading from Mark’s Gospel.
If you look at this reading in your bulletin, you’ll see that the verse citations look sort of like an international phone number, and that’s because the Lectionary skips Verses Nine through Thirteen and Sixteen through Twenty of Mark, Chapter Seven, which is kind of a bummer. Jesus refers to the Pharisees and Scribes as “hypocrites” in Verse Six (which we read) and then, in Verses Nine through Thirteen (which we skipped), he gives them an example of their hypocrisy. Because our reading for today doesn’t include Jesus’ case study, I’ll share it with you now:
“You have a fine way of rejecting the commandment of God in order to keep your tradition! For Moses said, ‘Honor your father and your mother’; and, ‘Whoever speaks evil of father or mother must surely die.’ But you say that if anyone tells father or mother, ‘Whatever support you might have had from me is Corban’ (that is, an offering to God ) — then you no longer permit doing anything for a father or mother, thus making void the word of God through your tradition that you have handed on. And you do many things like this.”
Jesus is saying that the religious leaders’ practice of dedicating an offering to God was the product of a corrupt rule they created as a way getting around the Fifth Commandment. His accusation is that their rule’s true intent was not to honor God (as they said it was) but rather to hoard wealth. You see, if one’s treasure were declared to be an offering to God, then it didn’t need to be used for anything else — including taking care of and honoring one’s elders as God had decreed; it could simply be kept for oneself in God’s name.
The Pharisees and scribes had invoked God to formulate a rule whose sole purpose was to avoid abiding by the actual law that God had given. Jesus, suffice it to say, thought this was hypocritical and sinful. And when James tells his readers to “be doers of the word, and not merely hearers who deceive themselves,” he’s pretty much saying the exact same thing. So, with all due deference to Martin Luther, it’s tough to see how James’s letter can be said to have “nothing of the nature of the Gospel about it.”
But this isn’t (and shouldn’t be) about taking sides in an argument between first century and sixteenth century theologians; it is (and should be) about considering what God is saying to us in our place and time through these ancient words of Jesus and Mark and James. And, unfortunately, while times may have changed, there’s still a whole lot of hypocrisy in the world.
Think about the people who complain so vociferously about “Merry Christmas” not being printed on their Starbucks cup, because “Jesus Is the Reason for the Season,” who then step over the person asking for change on the sidewalk right outside the door, because they’re more concerned about spilling their triple latte than they are about the human being in need that’s sitting right there in front of them.
Think about the people who drive around with bumper stickers on their cars declaring, “I Love God and My Guns” who’d be hard pressed to find words in here [point to Bible] equating those two things in any way, shape or form — and I don’t mean just because guns didn’t exist when the Bible came to be.
Think about the people who profess to love their neighbor just as Jesus himself called us to do — unless, of course, that neighbor doesn’t, in their eyes, look right or talk right or love right or vote right.
I mean, I guess we could continue to argue about whether it’s God’s grace or our good works that causes us to be God’s beloved children. Or maybe, just maybe, we could just accept that we are and respond accordingly — saying what we believe and acting as though we actually believe it. And I doubt that either James or Martin Luther, despite their differences, would have a problem with that.