James 4:1-12
This is the last sermon before a very important election. I must admit that it’s intimidating me, trying to find something helpful to say about this moment in time. Every day I’m hearing the same messages over and over about how this is a pivotal moment in our nation’s history. If we don’t get this one right, we might not get another chance. The future of the world depends on us. It feels really heavy. All the commentators are talking about being unable to sleep at night. I’m buying in to their anxiety and investing lots of energy into hoping millions of people see it my way.
Sometimes I listen to folks on the radio echoing all my fears about what comes next. If we don’t win, we’re doomed. The other guys will destroy life as we know it. Then I realize that the person being interviewed thinks I’m “the other guy.” They are just as afraid of me as I am of them. Chances are that when they vote, they’re going to cancel me out. Maybe we’re both right – we’re doomed either way. Or maybe we’re not.
James doesn’t have any election advice for us today because James couldn’t in his wildest imagination envision a world where people get to vote about their government or any policies. The amount of influence we have over our daily lives would never have seemed possible to people in the first century. But when we read today’s passage, we see folks with the same kinds of fears we have. They were having just as much trouble getting along as we are.
James says part of it is because they each want what the other guy has. I suspect that most of the people James was talking to were significantly poorer than we are. Many of them would have wondered about having enough to eat or wear. Some would have had enough, and maybe some to spare. James implies that none of them should worry, but just ask for what’s needed. Is that a suggestion that we’ll get anything we pray for if we do it right? I think not. I think it’s about trusting the community of God’s people to take care of one another. Rather than competing for what each one can get, they can work together. I hear lots of news about how people should vote on Tuesday for the candidates that are going to give them the most – the best handouts, the strongest economy, the biggest tax cuts. The question is “what’s in it for me?” I don’t hear many people asking “what’s best for us?” James, I think, would want us to ask how we can be sure everyone has enough – safe housing, food to eat, a chance at a good education and meaningful work What’s better for everyone, not just my bank account?
Then James tells us that not being envious is a way of being humble. Clean hands and pure hearts are more important. “Humble yourselves before God and God will lift you up.” There’s an old song about that running through my mind as I think about this verse. I remember singing it in worship and being glad that God was going to lift us up. How very American of us to focus on what we’re going to get as a reward for humility. I suspect James would tell us humility is a reward in itself.Humility lets us listen to each other and hear the dreams behind the words. Humility lets someone tell us what they think without formulating what’s wrong with their ideas. Humility lets us feel the pain in our neighbors that precedes their politics. Humility gives us the courage to talk back with respect, to share what’s important to us and why. Humility invites conversation.
James tells us that when we start out humble, we don’t find a need to judge our neighbor. Instead we live by the law and leave judging to law. James would have been referring to God’s law, which was explained in his time by many regulations about how to live together. Jesus was asked once to summarize that law and he said this: Love God; love your neighbor as yourself. That’s it. God is love and if you want to align your life with God, you love: yourself, your neighbor, God, everything that is.
Life gives us lots of choices about right and wrong, do this or that, but Jesus tells us we can make all those choices on one basis: love. What is the most loving thing to do? Elections give us lots of choices. Which policies will build us up? Which ones won’t? Which ones will help us love and respect our neighbor, give everyone dignity, encourage community? Marianne Williamson often rus for President on the platform of love. We need to treat everyone with love. I think she’d be a terrible president, but she’s right about love.
So are we to let everyone do whatever they want because we’re supposed to love them? That’s no way to run a community or a country. But we can stop people from doing harm and still love them. We can disagree with people’s politics and still love them. We can make choices and judgments about policy without rejecting people who disagree with us.
I don’t know what’s going to happen this week. I do know that the Christian response to whatever lies ahead is love. Not sappy, like everybody love. This love is going to be hard. There are going to be winners and losers. There are going to folks acting up and acting out. It’s going to be hard to tell what’s true and what’s not. It’s going to take a lot of working together to get through whatever lies ahead.
One of the most important commitments we can make to each other is to hold ourselves accountable for acting with love. Speak words with love. Respect all people with love. Stand up for what’s right with love. Vote with love. Walk into the future with love.
No gloating. No despair. We are in this together and the world needs us to love it and all our neighbors no matter what.