James Week Four - Two Kinds of Wisdom
Preached by Rev. Lucy Flatt
Sunday 19th of September
It was great to gather digitally last week and to have our good friend John share with us James’s challenge to tame the tongue.
Today we will explore James’s challenge about wisdom. What wisdom is. Why we need it? And how God’s wisdom is contrasted to the wisdom of the world.
James begins: who is wise and understanding among you? By his good conduct let him show his works in the meekness of wisdom.
But what is wisdom?
When we think of wisdom we may recall a Greek stature with a dude thinking, or the hmmm emoji, or perhaps something around knowing the difference between right and wrong – King Solomon perhaps.
A quick Google reveals wisdom as “the quality of having experience, knowledge, and good judgement; the quality of being wise.”[i]
Today we might apply this definition to our government in moving us to level 4 to prevent the spread of Delta. We might say that a sportsperson is wise when they display good judgement in a game, or we might say someone is financially wise when they read the stocks and invest soundly.
But what does James say Wisdom is?
James begins by telling us what wisdom is not.
Wisdom is not bitter jealousy, selfish ambition, boasting or being false.
Rather these characteristics are earthly, unspiritual, and demonic!
Eventuating in disorder and every vile practise!
Surely none of us are that bad?
This must be a list for the group James is talking to in the first century not for us who live in the 21st century…
but….
In recent days the news has announced that humans really are that bad.
We really are capable of every vile practice.
I remember being particularly challenged on the state of humanity in an ethics paper when I was in my third year of Philosophy. Instead of reading some deep confounding philosopher we were all sent home with a copy of the Oscar Wilde’s novel ‘the portrait of Dorian Gray. This is a story as Penguin books puts it “of evil, debauchery and scandal, Oscar Wilde's only novel tells of Dorian Gray, a beautiful yet corrupt man. When he wishes that a perfect portrait of himself would bear the signs of ageing in his place, the picture becomes his hideous secret, it mirrors Dorian's own downward spiral into cruelty and depravity.” Dorian proclaims “I am jealous of everything whose beauty does not die. I am jealous of the portrait you have painted of me!'[ii] – Dorian is full of selfish ambition and jealousy!” and his life leads to disorder. He thinks he is wise – attaining his goals, but his jealousy corrupts him.
Everything he envies becomes an enemy to be eliminated.
Like Dorian Gray - we can be fooled by what we see in the mirror. We can be enticed by our own false selves, our selfish desires, our jealousy of others, justifying our actions, and hiding ourselves from God.
James argues that wisdom from above is pure, peaceable, gentle, open to reason, full of mercy and good fruits, impartial and sincere.
A huge contrast to the wisdom of humanity!
Unlike the Zealots of Jesus and James day, those extremists who sought to bring the Kingdom of God to bear through violence, wise people are characterised by peace. James may be intentionally drawing our attention to Jesus’ seventh beatitude - blessed are the peacemakers for they shall be called children of God. Through his emphases on peace as we read in a harvest of righteousness sown in peace by those who make peace.
To be wise is to be people of peace.
Being a peacemaker is to be a child of God. It “is part of being surrended to God, for God brings peace… God shows love to his enemies.” In the pursuit of peace “we are to abandon the effort to get our needs met through the destruction of enemies.”[iii] So to be wise, according to James is to be a peacemaker. And a peacemaker according to Jesus is to be a Child of God.
But, James anticipates, we are not peacemakers.
What causes quarrels and what causes fights among you? Is it not this, that your passions are at war within you?
We are egocentric creatures!
Dallas Willard in his book a Life without lack reminds us that people are self-obsessed. We are obsessed with ourselves. We are wounded creatures who in turn wound others. We ruminate on our hurts locking ourselves into a cycle where we turn away from, rather than to – God.[iv]
We do not have, because we do not ask. 3 We ask and do not receive, because we ask wrongly, to spend it on our passions.
We ask for our own selfish desires and ambitions.
I am amazed at how often my prayers reflect my own wants, the fulfilment of my own selfish ambitions. How often I end up at the vending machine of prayer certain that the vending machine is broken and incorrect rather than my own selfish desires.
We are as James accuses his listeners – an adulteress people!
Where we should be in covenantal relationship with God. We turn aside and replace him by what’s before us. Like the adulterous imagery of Hosea – we turn away from God for the idols of our world.
We drown him out in our distractions and then become cross when he feels far away, justifying that it is not us but God who is to blame.
James calls us out.
Do you not know that friendship with the world is enmity with God? Therefore whoever wishes to be a friend of the world makes himself an enemy of God.
There’s no hiding.
If it’s not God reforming our desires and directing our wills – it’s not wisdom.
We are not children of God but enemies.
But recall – God loves his enemies.
he gives more grace.
Quoting directly from Proverbs 3:34 James reminds us that God’s grace is sufficient. Therefore it says, “God opposes the proud but gives grace to the humble.
When we are proud we are self-centred.
When we are humble we know we are not enough.
We know that we are creatures made by a creator in need of his grace.
Therefore, says James, we shall submit ourselves to God, resist the devil and he will flee from you, draw near to God and he will draw near to you.
Like the Levitical priests when a person acknowledges their sin they are to draw near God and ask for forgiveness through a guilt offering and God will draw near to them.
God places a lot of freedom on us to respond.
He does not force us to see our wrongs, or drag us back to himself.
He doesn’t come down in a cloud of fire and smite us.
He leaves us to live in, to ruminate in our consequences.
I am amazed at how quickly God can become inconsequential in my life. Through the smallest and innocent of actions I convince myself that I do not need him, that my aspirations are good, and that my desires are wise, that I know better than God.
When I realise that I’m pursuing my own goals, rather than God’s I become fearful that he will oppose my desires, my will, and actually make me go somewhere or do something I would rather not do. And he does.
He does because when it is my will, and not his will. It is earthly wisdom not the wisdom from above reigning in my life. I am an enemy of God.
But, when our wills humbly submit to God’s will, there the Kingdom of God reigns. When we take time to seek God, to ask him to rule there we become peacemakers. We are called Children of God, and we live in submission to his will.
James’ challenge to us this morning is to pause and examine our own lives. To consider is it the wisdom of God or the wisdom of the world that we allow to shape us?
Are there areas in our lives where we’d rather God not go? Parts of our lives where we shut God out? Parts where we think we know better than God? Plans that we have pushed God out of?
Humility and submission to God is hard.
Laying down our hopes and dreams before him and praying that “his will be done” is
uncomfortable, costly and annoying.
Making time for God in our day can be frustrating. Pausing to seek him, to spend time with Him, to have Him shape our desires and wills is costly. But James promises when we draw near to God He will draw near to us.
It is up to us to determine the level of acquaintance we have with God.
So today, let us pray that God’s wills and desires become our own wills and desires. That God’s wisdom would reign in us. That we would be a people characterised by peace with good works, a people of Godly wisdom.
Let us draw near to God and he will draw near to us.
let us pray.
[i] Google search “wisdom definition”, Dictionary Definitions from Oxford Languages
[ii] The picture of Dorian Gray. https://www.penguin.co.nz/books/the-picture-of-dorian-gray-9780141199498
[iii] Kingdom Ethics, Glen H Stassen & David P. Gushee, p.
[iv] Life without Lack, Dallas Willard. P.4