James I

Wednesday, March 6, 2013

James 1

I chose the letter of James because I am not ready to delve into the letter of Paul, and I suppose it is high time I read the epistles properly.

I really like the first chapter of James, for all he seems to be trying to say everything at once before his audience loses attention.  But the end of the chapter has the best point:

22  Act on this word.  If all you do is listen to it, you are deceiving yourselves.  23  A man who listens to God's word but does not put it into practice is like a man who looks into a mirror at the face he was born with: 24 he looks at himself, and then goes off and forgets what he looked like.

There's something so...powerful about that metaphor.

The idea that listening to God's word but then not putting it into practice is forgetting who we are.  It's not just laziness or hypocrisy - or perhaps it's the very essence of hypocrisy.  What is hypocrisy but being completely unaware of who you really are?  Of how what you say and what you do are in conflict?  Of not understanding that you are hating yourself?  Forgetting your own face that you see in the mirror every day.

James makes the point that we should act on the word first by helping the widows and orphans and second by keeping ourselves unstained by the world.  And I can't help thinking how much modern religious hypocrisy comes from putting the "unstained" focus ahead of the charitable one.  Of worrying about keeping yourself clean at the expense of helping someone out of a messy situation.

But I think the real problem is the first one.  Of not being able to remember your own face.

Of forgetting we are a beloved child of God and His images in this world.  That is what we should see in the mirror - a child of God and His representative on earth.  That is what we forget if we look away too long.  If we only listen and do not do.