The Fifteenth Sunday after Pentecost
James 1:17–27
I need to warn you: this is a political sermon. Or, to be more precise, this is a sermon about politics. I know that politics are a touchy subject. We have a separation of church and state in this country, so we usually want our politics to leave religion alone and our religion to leave politics alone. Besides, talking about politics stirs up people’s emotions. We tend to get into arguments when we talk about politics. And many of us think that being a Christian is about not having arguments, so we would rather leave politics out of the religious discussion. But on this Sunday that stands in the heat of the political season, and with today’s text from the Epistle of St. James, politics simply cannot be avoided.
And the reason we can’t avoid politics today is because James gives us these words: “But be doer of word, and not merely hearers who deceive themselves.” Be doers of the word, and not merely hearers who deceive themselves. It some ways, that’s a pretty simple message. James tells us that we can come to church, we can read the Bible, we can study the life of Jesus, we can pray… but none of that amounts to much if we don’t live out our faith through our daily lives in the world. If we just listen to the Gospel message, or even if we memorize it, or go around repeating it to everyone that we see, then we are deceiving ourselves. It’s not enough just to hear it. It’s not enough to understand it or to believe it. No, we are deceiving ourselves unless… unless we do the Gospel message that we have heard. We have to do our faith, to live our faith.
Sometimes we like to just hear the message, and then to put it away for safekeeping. We come to church on Sunday to hear how much God loves us, and that God forgives us, and that God will take care of us… and those are all very important and true things. But then, sometimes we tuck those things away, and we get up on Monday morning, and we continue with our ordinary lives as if Sunday never happened. We sometimes prefer a religion that makes us feel better, gives us hope and confidence, but doesn’t cramp our style, doesn’t put too many restrictions on how we live, and act, and interact with other people. We joyfully say, “Jesus loves me,” and then we go out and forget to love our neighbors.
But James is there to check us when we get sucked into that kind of cheap religion. James says, “Don’t be deceived. Don’t let them fool you. You need to do the word. It’s not enough just to hear it.”
That means that the Gospel message that we hear on Sunday cannot be separated from our public lives. Our faith has to effect our decisions, our choices, our actions, or it is no faith at all. If we’re going to be doers of the word, then our experience of God has to have an effect on each and every thing that we do, from the way we treat others, to the way we do business, and yes, even to the way that we vote and make political decisions. A faith that is separated from politics is a fiction. Faith must effect our political decisions. In fact, for the responsible Christian, faith should be the number one factor in how we vote, and campaign, and debate.
But what does that really mean in practice? How exactly should we do our faith in the political sphere? How should we vote as responsible Christians?
Well, James has some advice for us there, too. And it might not be the advice that we’re expecting when we think about faith and politics. James says, “Everyone must be quick to listen, slow to speak, and slow to anger; for your anger does not produce God’s righteousness.” Quick to listen, slow to speak, slow to anger—how can that have anything to do with politics? Don’t our politics seem to be the very opposite of that: being slow to listen, quick to speak, and quick to anger. Especially when we bring faith into politics, we usually put the emphasis on being certain and unwavering, identifying unfailing moral truths and fighting for them without reserve, and attacking anyone who gets in the way. Faith in politics is usually about being sure what God wants, and demonizing anyone who disagrees as a Godless degenerate.
But James tells us that the way to do our faith is to be quick to listen, slow to speak, and slow to anger. And that, I would suggest, is the very model for doing our faith in the political arena. It may sound a little far-fetched, but it is the key to being a faithful, responsible, active Christian citizen.
First, be quick to listen. We usually aren’t very good at this when it comes to politics. Most of the time, we already have our minds made up when it comes to one issue or another, so we don’t really want to listen to the opposition. And this seems to be increasingly the case as our political debate in America has become more and more polarized. We seem to be more and more inclined to think that our political party is right and that the other party is immoral, dangerous, and crazy. We tend to say, “I don’t know how anyone could possibly believe that about abortion, or about the death penalty, or about the economy, or about climate change.” And once we’ve said that, we stop listening. We are convinced that our conclusion is correct, and so we assume that any other argument is made up of lies and propaganda. And we’re often tempted to call our political opponents “unChristian.”
Something that we very rarely say is, “Christians of good faith can look at the same issue, read the same Bible, pray to the same God, and come to different conclusions.” That’s a hard thing to accept. If God really is the same God for all of us, then shouldn’t it be obvious how God wants us to think and act and vote? Shouldn’t it be clear which side God is on?
The problem is that no matter how much we study, no matter how much we pray, no matter how much we read the Bible, there is not a single one of us that has the mind of God. We are all created in God’s image, we are all loved by God, but none of us completely understands God. Every single one of us, no matter how hard we try, will spend some of our time being on the same side as God and some of our time being on the opposite side as God. There’s no avoiding it, because none of us are perfect.
And that is precisely why it is so important to listen to one other. Because it does not matter how far afield you might think someone’s views are, it doesn’t matter how crazy they seem, the truth is that they are still a child of God, and sometimes, even if it is only very rarely, they will be speaking God’s truth. It’s hard to accept, because we tend to be negative creatures. We hear someone say something that seems against God, and we stop listening to them altogether, and we miss the nugget of truth that that person has to share with us. So it’s very important to be quick to listen, even when it is difficult.
Second, James tells us to be slow to talk. Now this doesn’t mean that we shouldn’t talk at all, that we should just keep our opinions to ourselves. And it doesn’t mean that we should only talk when we think that our listeners will agree with us. What it does mean is that we should be careful about what we say, and how we say it. We should say what we really mean, and not spew out the first argument that comes to our minds. Because the point of debate is not to win. That’s not what we’re meant to do, to just destroy those who disagree with us. The point of debate is to seek the truth, to find the best way. And so before we speak, we need to make sure that we’ve taken the time to consider what our opponents have said, to understand where they are coming from and what values they are trying to protect. And when we answer, when we speak, it should be constructive. Our words should serve to bring about understanding, not destruction. Our words should build up something good, not just knock down something that’s imperfect.
Third, James tells us to be slow to anger. This may be the hardest thing of all. Political issues really get our blood boiling because they have such far-reaching consequences that affect the lives of so many people. It’s our normal tendency to get angry when we’re talking politics. And when we start to apply our faith to politics, it becomes all the more emotional, and we become all the more angry. We believe so strongly, and we want so badly to win, that our aggressiveness often gets out of control, and we turn to anger as our chief weapon.
But James warns us that this is counterproductive. We may win the debate, we may get our candidate elected or our measure passed, but in the end, our anger will not lead to the righteousness of God. It’s because our anger takes an opponent and turns them into an enemy. Anger takes someone we disagree with and turns them into someone that we hate, and someone who more than likely will hate us right back. Anger may help us in the short term, but the lasting side effects are devastating. It’s easy to see in our political situation right now, when we seem so focused on attacking each other that it would hardly occur to us to work together on the things that we can agree on. Instead, we demonize, we demean, we attack, and we become more and more divided, less and less able to work together. And that doesn’t lead to God’s righteousness; it leads only to meaningless conflict.
That’s not to say that all conflict is bad, though. Wherever two or three people are gathered together, there is bound to be conflict. That’s what politics is supposed to be, a way for us to mediate our inevitable conflicts and come to a mutually agreeable solution. But the conflict itself cannot be avoided. Even in the church, conflict cannot be avoided, because disagreement cannot be avoided.
Christians of good faith, no matter how much we study or pray or read the Bible, will inevitably disagree on political issues. And we shouldn’t just try to tolerate disagreement when it pops up, we should expect and embrace disagreement. We disagree, not just because God is ultimately unknowable, but because our political solutions are at best pale, imperfect, incomplete reflections of the divine will.
We have to expect that we will disagree about politics. But we don’t have to resort to angry and contentious bickering. We can treat each other with charity and respect. We can be quick to listen, slow to speak, and slow to anger. We can recognize each other as children of the same God, sisters and brothers, each one created in God’s image. And we can come together in loving fellowship despite our differences.
So in this political season, I encourage you to do your faith. Lobby and campaign for those things that your faith leads you to believe, but do so with love and charity. Expect your sisters and brothers to disagree with you at times, and when they do, be quick to listen, slow to speak, and slow to anger. And don’t let your political disagreements get the better of you when it comes to fellowship. One of the most beautiful things about the church is that we can disagree in good faith, and yet we can still worship together, we can still pray together, and we can still gather around the same table of blessing as sisters and brothers, children of the same God, who created and loves us all. Thanks be to God.