1 God s Wisdom James 3: 13 4: 8a September 20, 2015 The Presbyterian Church of Dover DE In working on this text this week, I was put in mind of a family I know whose experience could have been a parable for James. Of course, James is not a storyteller. His writing has more in common with the wisdom literature of the bible than with the synoptic gospels. Nevertheless, I ll share the story. The parents in this story would be a little older than I am now, but this story takes place when their two sons were in their late teens. The father was a high-powered corporate lawyer in North Carolina, who made a lot of money, and was certainly on his way to being made a full partner in his prestigious law firm. A goal which he did eventually achieve, by the way. The mother was his supportive partner in his admirable ambition, belonging to the right clubs and groups, willing and able to entertain graciously at the drop of a hat. They were active in their Presbyterian church, serving in leadership roles. Their older son seemed to have soaked all this in, was a good athlete and excellent student. To their delight, he was accepted into an Ivy League university and had just started there. The younger son was the problem child. He was just not ambitious! He followed sports, but was happy to throw Frisbees with his friends and not interested in playing on any school teams. He had an interest in plants, but no particular burning desire to go to college. When his senior year in high school came, he told his parents he wanted to do some apprentice work with a local organic farming business. He wanted to learn how to feed people better food for less money. They were appalled and embarrassed. James is concerned here with the contrast between the wisdom from above, or God s wisdom, with the wisdom from below, or the world s wisdom.
2 We live in a world where ambition is expected and admired. If you don t have ambition, you may be labeled as some kind of slacker or deadbeat. In our world, climbing the ladder is a way of life. I do understand that some kinds of ambition can be good. For instance, the ambition to feed people better food for less money is a good one. The ambition to end our reliance on fossil fuels is a good one. But the problem with most of our ambitions is that they are about us, and when we are self-absorbed, we can usually justify questionable means to get to the ends we desire. In general, the language we use in relation to ambition is about acquiring; acquiring more money, acquiring more things, acquiring more influence and power, and finding our names moving up the organizational chart. Upward mobility, in short. Henri Nouwen was a Dutch born Catholic priest who became a university professor and spiritual writer. He was educated and ordained in the Netherlands but came to study in the US in the early 60s and remained in North America for the most part for the rest of his life. He was involved in the civil rights movement in the South, and by the early 70s, found himself on the faculty of Yale Divinity School. He later was also on the faculty of Harvard Divinity School. He struggled with the meaning of his own vocation and the question of where God was truly calling him. He tried to live a simple life, rooted in prayer and obedience to God, but he suffered doubts about his comfortable status as a professor and his enjoyment of the admiration of others. He became friends with Jean Vanier, founder of L Arche, an international federation of communities in 35 countries for people with developmental disabilities and those who assist them and live with them. Henri Nouwen became the pastor to the L Arche community in Toronto in 1986 and lived there for the last 10 years of his life. Years
3 earlier he had written about the concept of downward mobility. Nouwen wrote that the story of our salvation through Jesus Christ stands over and against the traditional notions of upward mobility. The Word of God, Jesus Christ, came down to us and lived among us as a servant. Some people wanted to make Jesus a worldly king, but he lived a life of powerlessness in the eyes of the world, choosing to serve others. I remember reading about Nouwen coming back to address a graduating class at Harvard Divinity School and making this downward mobility the focus of his address. I imagine there was a lot of seat squirming and polite applause at the end. James would have loved it! James would have celebrated that Henri Nouwen finally chose to live according to God s wisdom. James answers two key questions for us in today s passage, I think. First, how can we recognize God s wisdom, the wisdom from above? His answer is basically, by its fruits. People who exhibit God s wisdom are peaceable, gentle, willing to yield, full of mercy and good fruits, without a trace of partiality or hypocrisy. And this is lived out. This is not all in the head. It s in the behavior. We have all seen the cartoons where some wise guru is sitting on the top of a mountain, and the seeker climbs up at great personal exertion to ask, What is the meaning of life? with the expectation that this wise person will dispense a neat and concise answer. This is not that. This is the wisdom exhibited by Dorothy Day in the slums of New York City, by Mother Theresa in the slums of Calcutta, by Father Jorge Bergoglio in the slums of Buenos Aires. Now he is Pope Francis. This is the wisdom of feet on the ground, of feet being washed. It is the wisdom of unknown saints as well.
4 It has been my great honor to have such unknown saints in the churches I have served and that includes this congregation of course. But I ve been thinking of a nurse named Ellie who served the community of Morehead KY for many years and now lives in a retirement community in Virginia, where she continues to serve others. She helped start the Hospice chapter in Morehead, and after her retirement she continued to volunteer for them. I went with her one time to a home, far up in a hollow (or holler, as we say in KY), known only by the name of the creek that carved it out of the mountain. We were visiting an older couple where the woman was dying of cancer. Ellie came to check vitals and her official duties, but stayed to listen, to encourage, and to gently rub the feet of the woman, simply radiating comfort. We prayed and left. These are the fruits of the wisdom from above, the wisdom of God. We can recognize it by its fruits. We can recognize it in those who focus on God and serving God s people more than they focus on their positions or possessions. The other question James answers is this one: How can we get it? Draw near to God, and God will draw near to you. In other words, James tells us that we need to learn how to pray faithfully. James encourages us not to be friends with the world, but to be friends with God who is the creator of every good gift. James scolds us by saying that we pray for the wrong things. I would confess to that, wouldn t you? I confess to the temptation to pray for our house to sell sooner than later. What I should pray for is the wisdom of the good gifts of patience and trust. My friends, we should have confidence in the good gifts of God within ourselves, with faith that God s Spirit stands ready to grant our requests. Henri Nouwen often referred to the great hymn of praise to Christ in Philippians: Let this same mind be in you that was in Christ Jesus:
5 who, though he was in the form of God, did not regard equality with God as something to be exploited, 7 but emptied himself, taking the form of a slave, being born in human likeness. And being found in human form, 8 he humbled himself and became obedient to the point of death even death on a cross. (Phil. 2: 5-8) May we draw near to God, with an openness that allows us to empty ourselves of the wisdom from below the wisdom of this world so that we may be filled with the wisdom from above God s wisdom through the gifts of the Spirit already planted within us. May it be so. Amen. 2015 Mary Baber Reed Sources: Henri Nouwen, The Selfless Way of Christ: Downward Mobility and the Spiritual Life, Maryknoll NY: Orbis Books, 2007. James Boyce, Commentary on James 3: 13 4: 3, 7-8a, www.workingpreacher.org Alan Brehm, Gentle Strength, The Waking Dreamer, www.thewakingdreamer.blogspot.com