Preaching the wisdom of James
Preaching on wisdom literature is always a claiming, since it is the text virtually probable to atomic number 82 us into moralism or simplistic reading. The letter of James is perhaps the closest nosotros have to wisdom literature in the NT, and it shares these challenges.
This is the script of a sermon I preached a few years ago on James 5.xiii–twenty in the chapel of the theological higher in which I taught. Information technology was an interesting feel for several reasons. I had been instruction on the letter, and in the sermon tried to express some of the primal issues in James—the nature of its apparently absolute statements, its proximity to the instruction of Jesus, and its nature as wisdom literature. (Where do we find short, circular, full general guidance on the questions of the 24-hour interval in our culture?) Information technology was also an experiment for me with preaching in a manner quite dissimilar from my usual. Bask.
Beloved Jim, I have just moved house and area in order to starting time training for ministry at a college in Nottingham. The strange thing is that, though people told me it would be really tough, and though I am missing friends and colleagues, I am feeling very excited nearly it, and keep seeing ways that God is answering prayer. What should I do?
Beloved Cheerful
Well, you have a squeamish problem—if you tin phone call information technology a trouble! Interestingly, it does appear to be a trouble for some people—that others are having a expert time when they are not—a kind of personal politics of envy. Some believers observe it hard to take the idea that God might actually give them things they want. I take a friend called Paul, and people sometimes retrieve that he is a bit like this. Whenever he mentions 'desire', information technology always has negative connotations, and over the years some folk have decided that all he is interested in is field of study, and toughing information technology out. (It's not true, by the way—he is always going on about being filled with God's dearest, and never beingness separated from information technology, and then on. I never know why folk don't come across this side of him.)
I guess we need to remember the promise from Scripture: 'Trust in the Lord, and he will give yous the desires of your heart.' If that is a promise, and we believe it is true, isn't it funny how we are so surprised when information technology happens! It may be that the reason y'all are feeling cheerful is that this actually is what God has for you, and despite all the hassles of moving and the loss of friendships, you have a deep sense of being in the right place.
There is a saying that 'the worst matter that can happen to someone is not getting what they want—merely the second worst is that they exercise go what they desire.' Information technology is worth holding on to! You see, the trouble with having the desires of our heart is that at times nosotros desire the wrong things. So rejoice now, when you are enlightened of God giving you the desires of your middle. But proceed rejoicing when God reshapes your desires and gives you something you had no thought that y'all wanted!
So, what should you do at the moment? Here's an idea: sing a song! When you are feeling on peak of the world, in that location is nothing quite like expressing information technology, and there's zip quite like expressing information technology in song. And here's an fifty-fifty meliorate idea—borrow someone else's vocal. Y'all see, your cheerfulness may seem as though it is just a passing mood, but it is really a sign of God'southward faithfulness. Others have discovered the same before you, and they left their songs for you to sing to your own tune of joy in what God has done. The songs in Scripture, the psalms, are testimonies to reality, to how things actually are, non just how they ought to exist. And the joy of discipleship is as much a reality as the pain. I know others effectually you may non be able to sing the same song as you at the aforementioned time, simply think of yourself as a torch-bearer, testifying to God's faithfulness for those who are in the dark valley of pain and incertitude. Remember of yourself equally 1 singing songs in the night as others wait for their dawn to come.
Now, if yous really are going to sing those kinds of songs, songs of hope and faithfulness, and non just songs most your own happiness, so y'all are going to demand some help. These are the songs that we sing when nosotros ask God to make full us anew with his Spirit, because it is only the Spirit who can plough our joy into another'southward hope.
Dear Jim, I accept only moved house and surface area in order to start training for ministry at a higher in Nottingham. The strange matter is that, though people told me I would experience very excited about being where God wanted me, and would see prayer answered, I am finding information technology really tough, and I am missing friends and colleagues. What makes information technology worse is that there are people here who keep going on nearly how wonderful God is, and singing, and I am getting really sick of information technology. What should I practice?
Beloved Sickly
Oh dear, this is a problem. The trouble with living in customs is that other people are shut enough to you for long enough that you just have to move an inch for them to go correct up your nose!
One strategy would be to hold your nose (so they can't get up it), cake your ears (so you lot tin can't hear their irritating songs), hide your wick (and so they tin can't go on information technology) and generally go along yourself to yourself. This is a expert mode to reduce your own hurting by not being exposed to the joy of those effectually you. Nevertheless, information technology does non really help in the long term, and fortunately in that location is an culling strategy—to ask others to pray for yous.
Now I know that this is not as uncomplicated as information technology sounds. For i thing, nigh of usa are attached to a very detail agreement of who we are. We expect at ourselves as autonomous individuals, and at the community in which God has placed equally an add-on, an added bonus—or at times, as you are finding, as an added trouble! Perhaps we have something to learn hither from other cultures, where people are oftentimes much ameliorate at seeing themselves as persons-in-community.
Simply our way of thinking encourages us to think of our growth and maturity as an individual thing—what is God doing in me to make me more than mature or whole or consummate, rather than thinking about what God is doing amongst u.s.a. to make us a more complete community.
For another matter, we are inclined to think that growing upwardly is all about taking control. Not a day goes by without a newspaper article telling the states of some other area of illness or affliction which has been brought nether control by a new accelerate of medicine. We are encouraged to have control of our growth and learning. And we are even told that prayer has bully ability—information technology looks very much like a fashion of taking control of those areas of our life which are (slightly embarrassingly) rather out of control.
Merely prayer is not so much about exercising power, as about being vulnerable and admitting we need assistance. It is not prayer that brings healing, but God. Information technology is not prayer that saves usa, only God who raises united states up. To pray is to be in the same position equally the one who was crucified, who had to trust that God, and God lone, would save him. Information technology is a place of great vulnerability.
And if we are used to living as individuals, then being vulnerable to those in our community of faith is even harder. We merely get practiced at it past practising—we take to acquire how to trust one another.
And, from the other side of the fence, it means that we need to go communities that are gear up to pray—not in the sense of beingness ready to solve each other's issues with a glib spiritual idea, or the awarding of a special technique that nosotros learnt at some summer conference or other. Rather, offer to pray is most beingness ready to yearn, with others, for their completion and their wholeness in relation to God and in relation to others. If asking for prayer involves being vulnerable, so does offer to pray.
We oft wait at the heroes of the organized religion in Scripture, and think that their ministries were all about exercising power. But if we look more closely, we run across that the key to what they did was learning to be vulnerable and dependent on God in only the way we need to exist. In this respect, they are actually no different from us.
And then take heart, take a risk, and inquire others to pray for you lot. It will make all the difference to you and to them.
Beloved Jim, I have plant myself asking lots of question about life and organized religion recently. I really demand some time to piece of work through all the hard bug, so I find it quite annoying when people give me uncomplicated answers, such as 'Just pray about it'. What should I do?
Love Questioning
Well I promise I don't annoy you too much—I have been accused of making life look rather unproblematic through the advice that I give. All I am doing is trying to offer people some concise answers to life'south difficult questions. Actually, my brother Josh (who used to be in the same line of business organisation as me) also used to do this, and some people say he is the greatest teacher who ever lived—so I am non losing too much sleep about it! (Mind you, his way of speaking was rather controversial and it did get him into serious trouble in the end.)
I discover it interesting that sometimes the almost profound truths are expressed in the simplest of ways. Sometimes nosotros don't understand because we haven't thought things through. But just as often we don't understand considering we are unwilling to put what we hear into practice.
Then you're right to point out that we all need infinite to think—I would certainly never desire my comments used to stop people thinking hard. But I would too never want the idea of thinking hard to go an excuse for not doing what I advise! We need both, don't we? We need to think hard about what it means to pray—but we demand to learn to pray besides! Nosotros need to think hard virtually how we sing our song in a strange country—but nosotros demand to keep on singing likewise!
I guess in the end we need to be both i thing and the other—both thinking and doing. Isn't this the secret of living with integrity? Unlike usa, God does not think one affair and do some other—he does non think without interim, or human activity without thinking. Only by doing both tin can we truly reflect the nature of the God we worship.
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