“Humble yourselves before the Lord”

Meditation on James 4

Aug. 25, 2013

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     Those conflicts and disputes among you, where do they come from? Do they not come from your cravings that are at war within you? You want something and do not have it; so you commit murder. And you covet something and cannot obtain it; so you engage in disputes and conflicts. You do not have, because you do not ask. You ask and do not receive, because you ask wrongly, in order to spend what you get on your pleasures. 

      Adulterers! Do you not know that friendship with the world is enmity with God? Therefore whoever wishes to be a friend of the world becomes an enemy of God. Or do you suppose that it is for nothing that the scripture says, ‘God yearns jealously for the spirit that he has made to dwell in us’? 

But he gives all the more grace; therefore it says,
‘God opposes the proud, but gives grace to the humble.’
        Submit yourselves therefore to God. Resist the devil, and he will flee from you. Draw near to God, and he will draw near to you. Cleanse your hands, you sinners, and purify your hearts, you double-minded. Lament and mourn and weep. Let your laughter be turned into mourning and your joy into dejection. Humble yourselves before the Lord, and he will exalt you.

      Do not speak evil against one another, brothers and sisters. Whoever speaks evil against another or judges another, speaks evil against the law and judges the law; but if you judge the law, you are not a doer of the law but a judge. There is one lawgiver and judge who is able to save and to destroy. So who, then, are you to judge your neighbor? 

      Come now, you who say, ‘Today or tomorrow we will go to such and such a town and spend a year there, doing business and making money.’ Yet you do not even know what tomorrow will bring. What is your life? For you are a mist that appears for a little while and then vanishes. Instead you ought to say, ‘If the Lord wishes, we will live and do this or that.’ As it is, you boast in your arrogance; all such boasting is evil. Anyone, then, who knows the right thing to do and fails to do it, commits sin. (James 4)

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      A couple of weeks ago, I shared how my family came to adopt Melvyn, a stray cat who showed up one afternoon and decided that we would be his new family.  He decided this before he realized that we had two dogs living in the house with us, too.

      People have been asking, “How’s that cat getting along with the dogs?” 

      My answer has been, “Well, they are getting used to each other.”

      At first, Mabel the Pomeranian went nuts when she saw the cat in the house!  She started shivering and barking her high-pitched barks until we thought we’d go deaf.  We thought she was going to have a heart attack. And because we couldn’t tell if she was angry or just excited, we worried for poor Melvyn, who doesn’t have any front claws.

         About all he can do when threatened is hiss and run away. 

         Nothing would calm Mabel down.  Holding her didn’t help. Putting her in her crate on a doggy time out didn’t help.  She barked all the louder as she imagined that we were petting Melvyn and giving him lots of attention.    

        She is the jealous type. She wants us all to herself.  She doesn’t share her people or her things. She doesn’t even like it when we pet Molly, the sheltie, who was living with us five years before we brought Mabel home as a puppy. Molly wasn’t pleased to see Melvyn the cat, either, but she doesn’t seem to mind him now, after an initial sniffing down.  He can stay, as long as Molly doesn’t have to share her food bowl or give up her sleeping spot next to my bed and under my desk.    

       Nothing terrible has happened, thank God.  Mabel is calmer than she was the first couple of days. Melvyn doesn’t hiss and run away quite so much, though he spends most of his days upstairs, while the dogs stay on the first floor.

       And when I tried to protect Melvyn from Mabel in the beginning, Jim pointed out that keeping them separated would not allow them to get used to each other. They needed to be together to work out their conflicts—one way or another.  And both would have to have a change of heart, let go of their jealousy and mistrust, and decide to live in peace. 

       Both conflict and peace begin in the heart.

    

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     In our reading today, James starts his discussion of conflict and disputes in the Church with a question.  “Where do they come from?” he asks. And then he answers his question with another question. “Do they not come from your cravings that are at war within you?”

    James is urging his brothers and sisters in the Lord to look inside themselves. The problem is not other people. It’s you, he says. And the "you" he is talking about are everybody in the church.

     “You want something and do not have it,” he says. “So you commit murder. And you covet something and cannot obtain it; so you engage in disputes and conflicts. You do not have, because you do not ask. You ask and do not receive, because you ask wrongly, in order to spend what you get on your pleasures.”

      This ancient document, perhaps written by the younger brother of Jesus, the head of the Jerusalem Church, is more evidence that conflict in the Church has been around since the earliest years of the faith.  It seems that people have always fought with each other, well, like cats and dogs.

     Why is that?  The Church, though God’s Spirit dwells within and among us, is still sinful. God’s not finished with us, yet! There’s always something we want. Sometimes the desires are good and godly. Other times, our desires are purely for our own pleasure or preference. Now James, when he says the Church is asking wrongly, is not talking about prayers for healing, forgiveness and salvation.  Those aren’t selfish! The Lord wants us to seek Him for these things that have eternal value. When we or our loved ones are hurting or frightened and in need of His help, he wants us to pray!    

         James is talking about worldly desires that grow to become demands—what we have to have or we will be angry with God and humanity, desires that cause fierce disputes and lead people to commit murder in their hearts. The desires become idols, something loved more than the Lord God of Israel. That’s what James means when he calls the Church, “Adulterers!”

     “Do you not know,” he asks, “that friendship with the world is enmity with God? Therefore whoever wishes to be a friend of the world becomes an enemy of God.”

   

***

   What, then, will bring peace to the embattled Church of the first century—and for churches in conflict today? James provides a list of do’s and don’ts, beginning with examining our own hearts because both conflict and peace begin in the heart.

      He urges us to submit ourselves wholly to the Lord. God gives grace to the humble!  He opposes the proud, and exalts the humble. He warns against boasting, evil talk, and judging others, as there is only one judge—and He is the Lord. And he warns against those who know right from wrong, but fail to do what is right.  “Resist the devil,” James says.  “And he will flee!”

      The epistle teaches us that the Church cannot live in peace until each of us finds peace with God in Jesus Christ. It is a call to conversion! If something is going wrong with our relationships with one another, then we should ask ourselves, first of all, how is our relationship with the Lord?  Are we are angry or unhappy with God?   

       Do we believe in His love and forgiveness for us?

       Do we trust in Him who became God’s sacrifice for our sakes, our mediator, our peacemaker? 

        Do we struggle with desires that grow to be idols because we are afraid to relinquish control? Afraid to admit that we have never truly been in control because our lives belong to Him?

       Are we worried that God will not take care of all our needs?        

       Do we trust that the Lord’s desires for us are so much better than what we could possibly want for ourselves?

       Let us respond to God’s Word in obedience, drawing near to Him so He will draw near to us.

       Let us go together, as God’s beloved children, to humble ourselves before Him, submit ourselves wholly to Him, and seek His grace.

Let us pray.

   Lord, we seek you now together as the people of God, your children, whom you love. We love you, dear Heavenly Father, and we ask that you forgive us for our sins and cleanse and purify our hearts. We are sorry that we have too often pursued our own desires and preferences and allowed them to become idols in our lives.  Stir us to trust in your loving care for us and allow your Spirit to work in us and change us so that you may use us for your Kingdom purposes.  Move us to gratitude for your love and for all you have done for us in Jesus Christ. Make us your humble servants, and help us surrender ourselves, our wills, and our lives wholly to you.  In Christ’s name we pray.  Amen.