This is a sermon that I preached on Sunday, 9/22/24, at Berkeley Friends Church. The scripture reading for this sermon was: James 3:13-4:10; Mark 9:30-37. You can listen to the audio, or keeping scrolling to read my manuscript. (The spoken sermon differs from the written text.)
I struggle with being a Christian. I struggle, because the teaching and example of Jesus go against my natural way of being. It’s not something I would have made up – not because I’m not creative enough, but because the gospel as preached by Jesus and as recorded by the early church in the scriptures simply doesn’t work for me.
I don’t like to surrender power. I don’t want to become like a child. I’m a lot like the disciples in our gospel reading this morning: I want to be the greatest. At this point in my life, I’ve accepted that I’ll probably never be Muhammed Ali-style “the greatest,” but I’d like to be spectacular after my own fashion. I want to make an impact, make a difference, exercise influence, to be important.
I suspect you do, too.
It’s not normal for full-grown adults to want to be children again. Very few of us want to be helpless, needing to be led around by adults – metaphorical or otherwise. It’s not normal to want to be dependent and invisible. We want to have agency.
And shouldn’t we? Surely, the kingdom of God isn’t a state of learned helplessness.
In our reading this morning from James’ epistle, he writes that the source of conflicts and disputes among us comes from our selfish cravings. We want something, and we don’t have it, so we do whatever it takes to get it. Sure, we might not literally commit murder – but we live in a spirit of murder. We’re willing to do what it takes to get the things we crave.
We often feel proud of ourselves for our charity and social activism, but how often are we giving out of our abundance, rather than from a place of vulnerability? It’s easy to be compassionate towards others once you’ve already gotten yours. It’s something else entirely to go without while others prosper. That’s what Jesus did on the cross, and it’s a hard act to follow, to put it mildly.
When I have any doubts about my own drive to get what I want, to be in control and not have others trample on my rights, I just think about myself in Bay Area traffic. The drivers out there are completely insane – but of course my driving is impeccable. All of those people are driving like maniacs; why are they in such a hurry? But of course, it’s completely natural that I go fifteen over the speed limit in order to get the kids to martials arts on time. When another driver cuts me off, I’m enraged. When I cut someone else off, of course, it was an accident. Why can’t they be more understanding? Why are they honking at me?
What James is saying here is that all the ridiculous people in the world who make my life miserable – well, I’m that person. I’m the one making the world a worse place, because I’m so insistent on having my way. I’m so trapped in a cycle of getting what I want, on my terms, right now, that I co-create a world in which everything is a competition.
So what’s the solution?
I have a tough time with James here, because, at first, it seems like he’s saying we should just give up trying to get our way at all. And he is saying that. And that makes sense, maybe, when we’re talking about who gets to take the last piece of pie, or who gets chosen to be class president. But what about when I’m right? What about when it’s important?
What about when I’m driving my injured child to the hospital, and I know that I need to speed? Should I just accept the terrible drivers who are getting in my way? Should I slow down to make room for them while my family is in danger? Or should I go even faster, drive even more aggressively, to make sure that the vulnerable are protected and the truth is served?
Should I set aside bitter envy and selfish ambition in my heart when I’m a diabetic trying to get the insulin I need to survive? Should I just roll over when I see injustice being committed? Should I become a doormat, unwilling to defend myself and those I love, because – after all – my desires are the root cause of murder? Is the only possible Christian response to any situation “peaceableness, gentleness, willingness to yield”?
Maybe. There’s definitely an argument to be made, both from James’ epistle, as well as from Jesus’ example of dying on the cross rather than fighting his oppressors. If anyone was ever right, it was Jesus. If anyone ever had the justification to defend himself, it was him. And yet he didn’t. You could say that, in a certain sense, Jesus let the bad guys win. (That is to say, he let us win, while we still hated God and were willing to murder him in our blindness and rage.)
Yet I see a tension here, a wrinkle that won’t quite iron out, both in Jesus’ example and in this letter from James. Because, on the one hand, we are called to yield ourselves entirely to God, to give up our striving and demanding our own way. But on the other hand, God vindicated Jesus by raising him from the dead and seating him at his right hand. Jesus submitted himself completely to God and bore the violence of sinful humanity; yet, ultimately, he triumphed over the grave and conquered the true enemies: Sin, death, and the devil.
So, love submits to God; love also triumphs over evil.
We see a similar dynamic tension in James’ epistle. To begin with, James is extremely clear: We are to submit our own wills and surrender our selfish desires so that peace, gentleness, and the fruit of righteousness can reign. We are to make peace, to be humble, because “God opposes the proud, but gives grace to the humble.”
Yet immediately after pronouncing this verdict, James continues: “Submit yourselves therefore to God. Resist the devil, and he will flee from you.” This is the crux of it, isn’t it? We’re to submit ourselves to God, but not to the devil. We’re to surrender our wills to God, but then we are promised power to resist the devil – to resist him and to triumph over him, just as Jesus has.
What is the meaning of this? What does it look like to be yielded, humble, peaceable, gentle, and kind – yet also resisting the devil and conquering evil?
This path that James calls us to would be – frankly – completely nonsensical if we didn’t know the story of Jesus. Because it is in Jesus that God has shown us the way to this humble triumph, this victory through surrender, this harvest of righteousness that is sown in peace by those who make peace.
It’s significant that the early Quakers cited our reading this morning – specifically James 4:1-3 – at the beginning of the letter that they wrote to the newly enthroned King Charles II in 1660. In this letter, which is the basis for the Quaker peace testimony, leading Quaker signatories, including George Fox, wrote “We know that wars and fightings proceed from the [selfish desires] of men… out of which the Lord hath redeemed us, and so out of the occasion of war.” They wrote, “We utterly deny… all outward wars and strife, and fightings with outward weapons, for any end, or under an[y] pretense whatsoever; this is our testimony to the whole world.”
The key word here is outward. The Quaker movement never denied the use of spiritual weapons. They never denied the waging of the Lamb’s War, which is precisely the inward, spiritual warfare against sin, death, and the devil that the early church taught and practiced. They understood the message of James, and the pattern demonstrated for us by Jesus – that submission to God means true peace, harmony with God and with those who seek to follow him; but that that path to peace may lead through the cross, where we will do battle with the devil – and through God’s grace prevail.
This is a hard teaching for me. The peace testimony, the cross, the resurrection – it’s all of one piece, and it’s all immensely challenging. Because I don’t want to die – literally or metaphorically. I don’t want to surrender control. But that’s the path that I’m being invited into by Jesus. That’s the path that we as Berkeley Friends Church have been called to.
I struggle with being a follower of Jesus. I struggle with following his example, and that of the many saints and martyrs that have leaned upon the Holy Spirit to follow in his footsteps. I struggle to be a Christian, but I take comfort in the fact that Jesus’ early disciples did, too.
The gospel is not something that we achieve through our own strength and determination. The gospel is a process of losing control.! The good news of Jesus is that we can lose control, and God will still be God. We can release our grip on life, and the Holy Spirit will intercede. We can face the cross – whatever that looks like for each of us in our own lives – and Jesus will walk with us. He has drunk that cup to the dregs. He is worthy, and he is faithful.
What does it look like for you to walk in this way of humility and peace in your personal life? In your work? In your relationships?
What does it mean for us as a church community to embrace the way of the cross, which surrenders our own will and conquers illusion and evil through our submission to Christ?