The more I've read James, the more certain words leap out of the text. Take for example, “deception.” How many times in the first chapter alone does James warn us against being deceived? A blind spot is something everyone else knows and observes about us, but maybe it’s unknown to us.
For instance, when I first started dating Lara, I began to develop a tiny bald spot. I couldn't see it, but Lara and Paula could. Paula was Lara's beautician. Together, behind my back, they conspired about how they might save my hair. I always thought it was weird when I’d get a haircut, Paula would rub some chemical on the back of head, and then she'd keep grinding on the same spot. Finally I asked, “What are you doing?” And she got all pastoral and serious and held up a mirror, “I don't know how to say this to you but you're losing your hair. I'm trying to oxygenate your suffocating hair follicles, they’re crying out for help.” But I was like, “Have you met my father, have you seen photos of my ancestors?”
If you're married, if you have children, they have a funny way of giving you the unvarnished truth—maybe they just blurt it out! The mirror on the wall; it doesn't lie either. In James 1:23, James likens the Word of God to a mirror. God's word never lies to us. Hebrews 4:12-13, For the word of God is living and effective and sharper than any double-edged sword, penetrating as far as the separation of soul and spirit, joints and marrow. It is able to judge the thoughts and intentions of the heart. 13 No creature is hidden from him, but all things are naked and exposed to the eyes of him to whom we must give an account. Do we even want to know our blind spots? And what can we even do about them?
I was thinking of Saturday Night Live back when it was funny, they'd feature Stuart Smalley, the “sensitive, sweater-vest-wearing host of a public-access cable show” who'd frequently offer viewers "daily affirmations." He encourage listeners to look in the mirror with him and repeat, “I'm good enough, I'm smart enough, and doggone it, people like me.” James is not Stuart Smalley. For James, faith isn't a philosophy to be debated but a life to be lived. He repeatedly holds up the mirror of God's word not for our condemnation, but for our transformation. To be transformed you don't just catch a glimpse of yourself and walk away. No, you peer intently into the mirror, you don't ignore what God is showing you, and you do what the Word commands.
For James the same word that convicts, gives us new birth. The same Word that gives new birth, enables new thoughts, desires to germinate, enables new behavior, new habits, new character, new destiny to take hold. There is grace, and with grace a hopeful expectation of transformation!
The great irony of modern "spirituality" is we live in a culture obsessed with literal mirrors (we’re obsessed with our own selfies, filters, brand, style). We're terrified of what the mirror of God's Word might show us, and others might think of us, if all the filters were stripped away. But for James we must learn to face the truth about ourselves, and invite God's Word to transform us.
James’s way of holding up the mirror of God's Word begins something like this… James 1:26 he begins, “if anyone thinks he is religious…” Most everyone these days consider themselves either “religious,” and if not part of organized religion, perhaps “spiritual.” Being religious is a way we flatter ourselves into thinking, “I'm good enough, I’m religious enough, and doggone it, God likes me just way I am.”
Let's just step through James 1-2. . .
Your Tongue? You think you're religious but… James 1:26, “If anyone thinks he is religious without controlling his tongue, his religion is useless and he deceives himself.” Now soon enough, James is going to have a lot more to say about the tongue. In James 3:2 he says, “For we all stumble in many ways. If anyone does not stumble in what he says, he is mature, able to control the whole body.” How uncomfortable does it make you feel to know your tongue is a measure of true religion? Our mouth is like a tube of toothpaste. It doesn't take much to get the job done, but still, we squeeze out a month’s worth unto our toothbrush. Once you squeeze it out you can't put it back into the tube. How many worthless words… empty words… idle words, malicious words, coarse words, partisan words, godless words have spewed out of our mouths?
Again, I don't think its James intent that we condemn ourselves… but neither is it his desire we continue to be self-deceived in a self-congratulatory, self-affirming, Stuart Smalley kind of way. Our prayer ought to be, “God may your words be our words, your truth, our truth. May every word give weight to your glory.”
Your Hands? You think you're Religious but… Whenever Stuart Smalley would hear the word “but" he'd say, “Chicken Butt" and everyone laugh. But James 1:27, “27 Pure and undefiled religion before God the Father is this: to look after orphans and widows in their distress and to keep oneself unstained from the world.”
If there is one thing that causes younger people to become disillusioned with Christian Religion, it’s James 1:27. By the age of eighteen they've heard so much prattling but seen so little pure & undefiled religion. Prattling is a good old English word. We Christians love to ride our moral high horses, our ideological high horses. We passionately rattle on about this evil or that, and what's wrong in the world.
For James the measure of pure and undefiled religion is you get off your high horse and step down in the muddy gutter to help the distressed.
• You come alongside that distressed mother, unsure whether to give birth;
• that distressed orphan, who has no family, nor security, nor shelter;
• those distressed children, like at Lee School, who don't know if they’ll eat that night.
• those distressed families living on the street, harassed, homeless, without hope.
• those distressed widows and orphans of James… the alien, stranger, prisoner, hungry, sick that Christ commanded us to love.
Christianity isn't a hashtag religion. Pure religion isn’t performed on a political platform, nor a church stage, nor a moral high horse, but in lifting up the distressed. True religion demands proximity, not just publicity. And our prayer is that God's Word will change the character of our religion.
Your Thoughts? You think you're Religious but… James 1:27, “Pure and undefiled religion before God the Father is this: to look after orphans and widows in their distress and to keep oneself unstained from the world.” Also James 1:21 he says, “Rid yourselves of all the moral filth and evil that is so prevalent, humbly receive the implanted word, which is able to save your souls.”
I'm not saying this to add to anyone’s shame… but as an invitation to transformation. How do you understand James 1:21, 1:27? We think we're religious, but how much polluted content do we stream into our homes? We think we're religious, but we marinate our minds for hours upon hours on TikTok, Instagram, Facebook, YouTube, Netflix, Amazon Prime. We fill our minds with crass song lyrics, the sleezy prose of novels, the violence of video gaming, the sewage of pornography. At our fingertips we have every technological tool needed to simulate every imaginable sensual desire.
Imagine if you could be transported back to Little House on the Prairie’s Days. Or, to New Testament Days? Comparatively, how much MORE moral filth needs to be flushed today compared to yesterday? Do not despair, the same Word that exposes pollution is powerful enough to cleanse it, to purify heart and mind.
Your Attitude? You think you're Religious but… James 2:1-7, “My brothers and sisters, do not show favoritism as you hold on to the faith in our glorious Lord Jesus Christ. 2 For if someone comes into your meeting wearing a gold ring and dressed in fine clothes, and a poor person dressed in filthy clothes also comes in, 3 if you look with favor on the one wearing the fine clothes and say, “Sit here in a good place,” and yet you say to the poor person, “Stand over there,” or “Sit here on the floor by my footstool,” 4 haven’t you made distinctions among yourselves and become judges with evil thoughts? 5 Listen, my dear brothers and sisters: Didn’t God choose the poor in this world to be rich in faith and heirs of the kingdom that he has promised to those who love him? 6 Yet you have dishonored the poor. Don’t the rich oppress you and drag you into court? 7 Don’t they blaspheme the good name that was invoked over you?”
You're religious, but you didn't notice the alien, stranger, or poor among you. You're religious, but it doesn't occur to you to break out of your religious clique and engage that distressed person sitting off by themselves. Why are young people disillusioned with Christian Faith? Because Christian elitism permeates the modern church. We've got our stuff together, we've got the gold ring, and fine clothes… but we won't associate with people of lower status.
Your Heart? You think you're Religious but… James 2:8-13, “8 Indeed, if you fulfill the royal law prescribed in the Scripture, Love your neighbor as yourself, you are doing well. 9 If, however, you show favoritism, you commit sin and are convicted by the law as transgressors. 10 For whoever keeps the entire law, and yet stumbles at one point, is guilty of breaking it all. 11 For he who said, Do not commit adultery, also said, Do not murder., So if you do not commit adultery, but you murder, you are a lawbreaker.”
To “profane” God is to treat his Law as optional, dismissible. But God's Law isn't like some customizable, designer garment we throw on. The Law is a single garment. You cannot tear even one corner of it without ruining the whole thing. If you profess to love God but show favoritism… you’ve profaned the Lawgiver.
Your Soul? You think you're Religious but... James 2:12-13, “12 Speak and act as those who are to be judged by the law of freedom. 13 For judgment is without mercy to the one who has not shown mercy. Mercy triumphs over judgment.” The first part of mercy is simply this: has the mirror God's Word humbled you? Do you realize the extent to which you can only be saved by God's mercy?; The second part of mercy is profoundly this: Do you imagine yourself so exceptional, so religious, so spiritual, as to need “less" mercy than others?
True Christian faith is this… as we await a mercy-filled judgement for ourselves, we dispense that mercy in spades to one another. We eagerly forgive as you’ve been forgiven. We love the least, descend from our high horse, care for the distressed, put our prejudices in check. The “Royal Law of Love" and "Royal Law of Freedom" demand that those who have received God’s mercy and love also extend it! If we’re "partial" in our mercy, we invite a judgment without mercy.
Looking intently into the mirror of God's Word ought to be a hopeful, joyful exercise in Spiritual Formation. As we look intently into the mirror (together) we pray, “God I’m not good or pure or undefiled or religious enough. But God, your Word, your love, your mercy your grace is powerful enough to save my soul. Lord sanctify my tongue, hands, thoughts, attitude, heart!