Faith With Its Sleeves Rolled Up

The next letter is signed, and the name on it is short. James. Not the fisherman — that James was killed with a sword in Jerusalem years before. This is the other one: the James who stood up at the meeting in Jerusalem when the argument about the nations had run all day, and gave his answer, and everybody did what he said. He had grown up in the same house as Jesus, in Nazareth. He was his brother.

“James, a slave of God and of the Lord Jesus Christ,” it begins, “to the twelve tribes scattered abroad: greetings.” That means the Jews living far from home, in towns all over the world. And that is the whole beginning. No thank-you, no prayer for them, no news. Straight away he is telling them what to do, and he does not stop until the letter stops.

“Count it all joy, my brothers, when you fall into all kinds of testing. You know that the testing of your trust works out staying-power. Let staying-power finish its work, so that you are complete and whole and short of nothing.”

“And if any of you is short of wisdom, ask God. He gives to everybody, plainly, without telling you off, and it will be given to you. But ask trusting, and do not go back and forth. A man who goes back and forth is like a wave of the sea, blown along and thrown about. He must not think he will get anything from the Lord — a man of two minds, unsettled in everything he does.”

“Let the brother who is low down be proud of how high he is, and the rich one of how low he is, because he will go by like a flower in the grass. The sun comes up hot, and the grass dries, and the flower drops off, and the beauty of it is gone. That is how the rich man withers away in the middle of his business.”

“Happy is the man who holds up under testing; when he has come through he will be given the crown of life. And nobody being tested should say, ‘God is testing me.’ Nothing bad can touch God, and he tests nobody. Each man is dragged out and baited by what he himself wants. Then wanting has a baby, and the baby is sin; and sin, full grown, has a baby of its own, and that one is death.”

“Do not be fooled, my dear brothers. Every good giving and every finished gift comes down from above, from the Father of lights, who has no change in him and casts no turning shadow.”

“Know this, my dear brothers. Let every person be quick to listen, slow to speak, slow to get angry — because a man’s anger does not work out what God calls right.”

“So put away all the filth and the overflow of badness, and take in gently the word that is planted in you, which is able to save your souls. And be doers of the word, not hearers only, fooling yourselves. Anybody who hears the word and does not do it is like a man who looks at his own face in a mirror, and walks away, and forgets straight off what he looked like. But the one who bends over the finished law, the law of freedom, and stays beside it — not a hearer who forgets but a doer of the work — that one will be happy in the doing.”

“If anybody thinks he is religious and does not keep a bridle on his tongue, he is fooling his own heart, and his religion is worth nothing. Religion that is clean and unspoiled in front of God the Father is this: to go and see orphans and widows in their trouble, and to keep yourself unstained by the world.”

Then he goes after something they were doing in the meetings. “My brothers, you cannot hold the faith of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Lord of glory, and treat one man better than another. Suppose a man comes into your meeting with gold rings and bright clothes, and a poor man comes in in filthy clothes. And you look at the one in the bright clothes and say, ‘Sit here, this is a good place,’ and to the poor man you say, ‘You stand over there,’ or, ‘Sit here by my footstool.’ Have you not sorted people out among yourselves, and become judges with rotten thoughts?”

“Listen, my dear brothers. Did God not choose the poor of this world to be rich in trusting, and to inherit the kingdom he promised to the ones who love him? And you dishonored the poor man. Is it not the rich who push you around and drag you into the courts? Is it not they who speak against the good name you were called by?”

“If you carry out the royal law in the Scripture — you are to love your neighbor as yourself — you are doing well. But if you treat one man better than another, you are working sin. Whoever keeps the whole law and trips over one thing has broken all of it. The one who said, do not commit adultery, also said, do not murder. So speak, and act, like people about to be judged by a law of freedom. Judging comes without mercy on the man who showed no mercy. Mercy is louder than judging.”

And then he says this. “What good is it, my brothers, if a man says he has faith and has no works? Can that faith save him? If a brother or a sister has no clothes and nothing to eat that day, and one of you says to them, ‘Go in peace, keep warm and eat well,’ and does not give them what their body needs — what good is that? So faith by itself, if it has no works, is dead.”

“Somebody will say, ‘You have faith and I have works.’ Show me your faith without the works, and I will show you my faith out of my works. Do you trust that God is one? Good. The demons trust that too — and they shudder.”

“Was Abraham our father not set right by works, when he brought Isaac his son up onto the altar? You see that his trusting was working along with his works, and by the works the trusting was finished off. So you see that a person is set right by what he does, and not by trusting only. And Rahab, who took in the messengers and sent them out another road — was she not set right by works too? A body without breath is dead, and faith without works is dead.”

Then the tongue, which he keeps coming back to. “Not many of you should be teachers, my brothers. You know we will get the heavier judging, and we all trip up in a great many ways. Anybody who never trips up in what he says is a finished man, able to keep a bridle on the whole of himself. We put bits in horses’ mouths to make them obey us, and we turn the whole animal about. Look at ships, too — as big as they are, and driven by hard winds, they are steered by a very small rudder, wherever the man at the helm wants.”

“The tongue is a small thing, and it boasts of big ones. Look how small a fire sets a whole forest alight. And the tongue is a fire. With it we bless the Lord and Father, and with it we curse people who were made in God’s likeness. Out of the same mouth come blessing and cursing. My brothers, this ought not to be. A spring does not pour sweet water and bitter out of the same hole. A fig tree cannot grow olives, and a vine cannot grow figs, and salt water cannot turn sweet.”

“Who among you is wise and understanding? Let him show it by living well, with the gentleness that wisdom brings. But if you have bitter jealousy and pushing for yourself in your heart, do not boast about it and lie against the truth. That wisdom does not come down from above. The wisdom from above is first clean, then peaceable, fair, easy to persuade, full of mercy and good fruit, undivided, with no pretending in it. And the fruit of what is right is sown in peace by the people who make peace.”

“Where do the wars come from, and the fights among you? From the wants that are at war inside you. You want and do not have. You are jealous and cannot get. You fight and make war. You do not have because you do not ask; and when you do ask you do not get, because you ask wrongly, to spend it on what you want.”

“People who will not stay faithful! Do you not know that being a friend of the world means being an enemy of God? God stands against the proud, and gives favor to the humble. So put yourselves under God. Stand up to the Accuser, and he will run from you. Come close to God, and he will come close to you. Wash your hands, you sinners, and make your hearts clean, you men of two minds. Be miserable, and mourn, and cry; let your laughing turn into mourning, and your joy into gloom. Get down low in front of the Lord, and he will lift you up.”

“Do not speak against one another, brothers. The man who speaks against his brother, or judges him, speaks against the law and judges the law. There is one lawgiver and judge, the one able to save and to destroy. Who are you, then, to judge the man next to you?”

“Now then, you who say, ‘Today or tomorrow we will go to such and such a town, and spend a year there, and trade, and make a profit’ — you do not know what your life will be tomorrow. You are a mist. You show up for a little while and then you are gone. What you ought to say is, ‘If the Lord wants, we will live, and we will do this or that.’ As it is, you boast and put on airs, and all boasting like that is bad. So: anybody who knows the right thing to do and does not do it, for him that is sin.”

Then he turns on the rich, and there is nothing gentle about it. “Now then, you rich — cry, and howl over what is coming on you. Your money has rotted, and the moths have been at your clothes. Your gold and your silver have gone rusty, and the rust will stand up and speak against you, and eat your flesh like fire. You piled up treasure in the last days. Look: the pay of the men who mowed your fields, which you held back, is shouting; and the shouts of the harvesters have gone into the ears of the Lord of armies. You lived soft on the earth and let yourselves have everything. You fattened your hearts on the day of slaughter. You condemned the righteous man; you murdered him. Does he not stand against you?”

“So be patient, brothers, till the Lord comes. Look at the farmer: he waits for the precious fruit of the ground, and is patient over it until it gets the early rain and the late rain. You be patient too. Make your hearts strong, because the coming of the Lord is near. Do not groan at one another, brothers, or you will be judged. Look — the judge is standing at the door.”

“Take the prophets, who spoke in the name of the Lord, as your example of putting up with bad treatment, and of being patient. We call the ones who held out happy. You have heard how Job held out, and you saw what the Lord did at the end of it: the Lord is full of pity, and kind.”

“Above everything, my brothers, do not swear — not by heaven, not by the earth, not by any oath at all. Let your yes be yes and your no be no, so that you do not fall under judging.”

“Is anybody among you suffering? Let him pray. Is anybody cheerful? Let him sing. Is anybody sick? Let him call for the elders of the gathering, and let them pray over him and rub him with oil in the name of the Lord. The prayer of trust will save the worn-out man, and the Lord will raise him up; and if he has done wrong, it will be forgiven him. So tell your wrongs to one another, and pray for one another, so that you may be healed. A good man’s plea, at work, is very strong.”

“Elijah was a man with the same feelings we have, and he prayed hard that it would not rain, and it did not rain on the land for three years and six months. Then he prayed again, and the sky gave rain, and the ground sent up its fruit.”

“My brothers, if anybody among you wanders away from the truth and somebody turns him back, know this: whoever turns a sinner back from his wandering will save his soul from death, and cover over a great many wrongs.”

And there the letter stops. No goodbye. No greetings to anybody by name. Nothing at the end at all. He said what he came to say, and put the pen down.