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20.09.09_James 3, 13–4:8
| 23.09.2009, 08:44 | |
| Rev. Tatiana Cantarella Psalm 53; Isaiah 32:1–8; Mark 9:30–37; James 3:13–4:8 EARTHLY WISDOM OR WISDOM FROM ABOVE? At the end of the “Wizard of Oz” Dorothy and her friends are expecting the wizard to grant their wish and enter the throne room. The Wizard, great and awesome spoke to them in a loud voice…Toto, however, was actively sniffing and air and took off running into the other end of the room. Before they knew it he disappeared behind a green screen and matched the wall and in at once a tiny man ran out from their screaming: get the dog! It will bite me! Friends were looking with astonishment at a man who was at tall as Dorothy, had a big head and a wrinkled face. He had a loudhailer in his and that he was using to defend himself from Toto who was trying to bite his leg. Toto pulls back the curtain revealing that the magnificent wizard is nothing more than a man who has everyone fooled. James' exposition on wisdom pulls back the curtain on the world's wisdom and exposes it as for what it really is, wisdom de jour based upon a consensus of people who convince everyone else that they are right. James calls such wisdom earthly, unspiritual, and of the devil. We are used to believe that wisdom is an intellectual matter, that a wise person is the one who achieved some practical maturity, understanding and is especially insightful, who can skillfully use their judgment in life and eloquently share their deep thoughts. Or we think of “everyday wisdom” as an ability to go through life’s curves and collecting most of its benefits while avoiding most of its troubles. James, however, tells us today that true wisdom is not something intellectual, not whether one can think and speak well, neither it is about ability to take all one wants from life. True wisdom as James shows is the life rightly lived before God: “If any of you are wise, let them prove it with every good deed and wise meekness”, it is directly related to how one lives in a community of faith – truly wise life leads to peace and unity, while earthly wisdom leads to envy, quarrels and disorder. James reminds us today: not all wisdom is true wisdom, not everything we call wisdom is such in the eyes of God’s Kingdom. Being truly wise is in separable from one’s bringing peace into community and maintaining that peace. I think we’ll all agree that wisdom is something good but if we tried to dig deeper we would get in a great argument of what constitutes wisdom and wise life. Scripture today helps us to find an answer to this question but not all of us will like the answer. For God’s Word exposes our accepted values for what they are and give us a totally different understanding of true wisdom and true greatness. In the Gospel of Mark Jesus shows today that the core of true wisdom is the cross and it means self-giving, self-sacrificial obedience to God for the good of others. In Mark, Jesus predicts three times that the way to salvation of the world lies through suffering; that He will be crucified and will be raised again. And three times disciples react out of misunderstanding. It all doesn’t fit in with their understanding of wisdom. After the first prediction Peter scolds Jesus: “Lord, this should never happen to You!” And Jesus denounces his misunderstanding: “You think of the things of man, not of the things of God” (8:33). After the third prediction, James and John ask for a position closer to His glory. The rest of the disciples are indignant but not about the essence of the request but because they are afraid that brothers got ahead of them and gained advantage. Today’s words of Jesus come after His second prediction of the cross when disciples begin to argue among themselves about who of them is following Jesus better (9:34). Jesus responds in two ways. First, he gives a teaching: “who wants to be first, become last of all and servant of all” (9:35). And ten, he illustrates it with action: “And taking a small child he placed him in their midst and hugged him saying: whoever welcomes one of these children of Mice, welcomes me; and who welcomes Me, does not welcome Me, but the One who sent me” (9:37). And on the next page almost we will see that disciples are prohibiting people to bring children to Jesus for a blessing. Jesus is once again is indignant: “let children come to Me and do not hinder them for of such is the Kingdom of God. Truly I say to you, who will not receive the Kingdom of God like a child will not enter it. And having hugged them, He laid His hands on them to bless them (10:14–16). We are often touched by these stories and approve of Jesus but don’t always hear his challenge to us in these examples. What is He saying to us? To welcome a child means to welcome, reach out to the one whom society may deem “cute” but at the same time “unimportant”. A child is an image of a person that plays practically no role, has no greatness, status or pretensions, has nothing to give but by his/her inexperience can even do some harm or damage. But Jesus is not just talking about welcoming children; he is talking about welcoming each person in the same way – without first regarding their outward signs of their importance, status or source of gain. One Christian professor said that when he read Jesus’ words he started and experiment. “Whenever I'm repulsed by a homeless bum who loiters near our home, or nurse a grudge against a friend who spurned me, or envy someone more successful than I am, I try to picture that person as a little baby or child, for such they once were. I then find it far easier to welcome or receive them as a precious human being, rather than as someone who can help or harm me or as someone I might ignore, fear or flatter. The simple act of welcoming another person in that way, Jesus says, is to welcome him, and in turn to welcome God the Father who sent him.” Jesus placed a child among the disciples, embraced him and said, “see this child? Who welcomes one of such children in My name, will welcome Me; and who welcomes Me, does not welcome me but the one who sent Me” (9:37). Disciples want to know who follows Jesus better and Jesus says: “in this child, in this person with no status or efficiency factor” – I am and true faithfulness to Me is serving him”. We want to be closer to God? We need to draw closer to the ones we’ve been staying away from. True greatness is to see people in the way God sees them, without regarding their greatness or smallness, their importance or insignificance, their status or lack of there of, seeing in them simple human beings, children of God”. And when Jesus says that we should become like children it means viewing ourselves and others in the same way. You know, kids don’t care for any status; they are able to see simply people. They are not interested in ranks – a child can approach royalty and start speaking to them like to ordinary people. And a child is not embarrassed by a homeless bum. A child knows no ranks and status. I saw another prove of that the other day at Sberbank. There were quite a few people there and I was waiting in line. As I was standing there I sensed a rather nasty smell and heard a loud male voice that was talking to everyone. I turned around a saw a guy who wasn’t not quite homeless, had some dealings with the bank but was a bit drunk and spoke so loudly that made most people uncomfortable, although he didn’t really do anything wrong. I was thinking how easily we are repulsed by such people and at that moment a young boy came up to him and offered him candy. The man at first (loudly) declined it but a boy was insistent and the guy took this candy (and loudly for everyone to hear) began to thank the boy and holding a conversation with him. And I thought – that’s what Jesus was talking about, saying that only if we become like children, we’ll be able to welcome others like Him – with no regard to status, their casual oddness or them being no like us. Just seeing a human being created and loved by God. You see, Jesus turned all our accepted values upside down, showing that he who belongs to His kingdom looks at the world and at people not like everyone else does. You see, Jesus didn’t judge his disciples’ desire to attain some greatness, but they didn’t understand that without understanding the cross you cannot understand that true greatness means being last and servant of all. But Christians too often view greatness like the world does and even in church, power, riches, usefulness and measuring up to our own ideal of what is right become characteristic of those we consider more important and worthy of our attention. But the wisdom of the cross is the same wisdom that welcomes a child in the name of Christ, the same wisdom that welcomes others in simplicity of a child, not looking at status or faults but just seeing another human being. Christ crucified and humbled and raised from the dead must become our standard that we use to measure any wisdom. But when we keep building our relationships on “earthly wisdom”, we reap only conflict, arguments with others and rob ourselves of a chance to find reconciliation. James, juxtaposing true and false wisdom says that true wisdom shows itself in peace making actions, in readiness to compromise. Belligerence and contentiousness evince a worldly determination to win, rather than a faithful determination to build up harmony, gentleness and mercy. Biblical values of patience and gentleness are not obvious and not valued in contemporary culture. Politicians with keen attention to their constituents’ sympathies – outdo one another in adopting bellicose poses toward enemies. This can be expected of politicians but it is sad that even in the church we are so set not towards peacemaking but to attain victory over adversaries and to prove our own rightness at any cost. Yet, “wisdom from above” refuses to go to “war” with others because it is “first pure and peaceful, modest, obedient, full of mercy, impartial and genuine”. This greatness is in humility of Christ. And humility means not piety playing games of pretending or being self-deprecating. Humility is about being genuine and not finding you have to need to establish your sense of worth by making others smaller than yourself – because this is pride that also leads to conflicts, division, fractiousness, war – at all levels. Our often violent compulsion to attain victory over adversaries very quickly entangles us in lies, brutality, self-exculpating rationalization and the boastful sense that God is on our side, against those I am against. But James calls such attitude “friendship with the world” and thus animosity with God. Because in our refusal to welcome others, whoever they are, comes out our godless, earthly tendency to rank unimportant things as equal to things of God and our own judgments with those of God. But when we stop doing that and begin to believe that our worth does not depend on building up our merits in competition with others, but in being genuinely ourselves, then we will be free to relate openly and generously towards others. When we do that, when we submit to God’s greatness and wisdom and resist the devil with his earthly wisdom that spurs us to fight with others and to argue, then we realize that we are not far from God (4:8а), because that’s God’s very nature: self-giving, choosing not to take up the whole space, giving room for others to be. It is our refusal to stoop to the violence that characterizes our oppressors, that aligns us with God’s own power; and our willingness to endure hardship rather than shed blood or pass judgment aligns us with “prophets who spoke in the name of the Lord”. True wisdom, wisdom that is right – is this child simplicity which looks through status, imperfections, and oddities and sees a human being that can be and need be related to. True wisdom welcomes others as God’s children, without first considering their faults, mistakes, status or the absence of such. And embracing them, it realizes that it’s embracing God himself. True wisdom values peace above its own desires and guards God’s truth and justice even at great personal expense. This is God’s wisdom, this is true greatness. You want to follow Jesus more faithfully? Begin with a simple thing, draw near to God by drawing near to those from whom you kept aloof so far and realize that God will be much closer to you than even . This is a paradox of God’s wisdom, the wisdom that is from above. | |
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