March 13, 2010

James 1

I think I read these two verses like five times (partially because my brain was distracted by everything that was even slightly shiny today), and it's beautiful.

"Every generous act of giving, with every perfect gift, is from above, coming down from the Father of lights, with whom there is no variation or shadow due to change. In fulfillment of his own purpose he gave us birth by the word of truth, so that we would become a kind of first fruits of his creatures." James 1:17-18.

Every generous gift comes from God. We cannot do good, we cannot grant love, without it coming from God and bringing us closer to Him. Everything beautiful comes from God. Everything good and kind we do and have done to us is God reaching down.

That's lovely.

And what follows is the main thrust of the Faith PLUS works argument, which is beautifully appropriate as a set-up for it. "But be doers of the word, and not merely hearers who deceive themselves. For if any are hearers of the word and not doers, they are like those who look at themselves in a mirror, for they look at themselves and, on going away, immediately forget what they were like."

Do we do that? When we leave church, when I put aside the Bible, we just completely forget that we are Christians and that our job is to do the good works that are God reaching down to Earth to touch His people. How many times, growing up, did my sister and I have a vicious fight on the way home from Mass? Just yesterday I forgot to fast from meat. It's so easy to do.

But that's not what true believers should be doing. We should live our whole lives with one goal, to quote my father this time, "The purpose of life on earth is to make ourselves worthy of eternal life in heaven." Doing good works, finding a way to make the lives of others better.

Random acts of kindness, taking care of friends and family, service in our community. It's a pretty basic message, but it's said really beautifully here. Do we do it because we feel guilty if we don't? Or because we think it wins us brownie points?

We should do it because we see Christ in the people around us, and because we love Him, we should do all we can to make Him happy. We should do it because when we do, we feel God reaching down from heaven through us. We should do it because we are, in that moment, the conduit of God's love. We should do it because being close to Him, being one with Him, should be our all, our end goal of every day and every second, and the best way to do that is to reach out to touch our fellow man with love.

We should do it because we love the feel of God acting through us, of being His servant and His vessel. Because we love the smile we share with Him and the love we feel of His.

Anything else is just trying to shut up Jiminy Cricket. We should be trying to speak with God.