Mirrors and Doers: Sermon on James 1, Sept 2nd, 2018

Text: James 1:17-27

Grace and Peace to you from God our Father and our Lord Jesus Christ who calls us to be doers.

We’re going to start by talking about mirrors today, so I thought I’d begin with some cuteness of animals confused about mirrors.

There’s an Ole and Lena joke I like, Ole decided to get a tattoo and had some words tattooed on his back. A few hours later the tattoo artist gets a call from an angry Ole. “Ya bum, you did my tattoo backvard!” The tattoo artist is confused, “It’s backward?” Ole continues, “Ya I’m looking at it in da mirror right now!”

One of the first things we often do in the morning is look in our mirrors, for me, it’s putting contacts in, shaving, somewhat organizing hair and beard. Many people do more, get themselves already to go for the day.

In language usage, how I hear mirrors talked about most is oh, you need to go take a good look at yourself in a mirror before you judge more. Not meaning to see what you look like, but you should do a self assessment, you should be looking to see what you’re doing wrong.

Pretty much all the ways we use mirrors and talk about mirrors is to see what we need to do or change about ourselves. We look in mirrors not to see who we are, but to see what is wrong about us that needs to be modified. Need to shave, need to put make-up on, need to fix hair. But, that’s not what happens here in the book of James.

In this reading, James, most likely James the brother of Jesus, writes “But be doers of the word, and not merely hearers who deceive themselves. ²³ For if any are hearers of the word and not doers, they are like those who look at themselves in a mirror; ²⁴ for they look at themselves and, on going away, immediately forget what they were like.”

Looking in the mirror not to see how they’re wrong, but to see what they look like, to see who they are, and those who are hearers but not doers are the ones who after looking forget what they look like. What do we look like?

In Genesis 1, the story of creation, God creates us. The creation of humankind is different than the rest of creation, it reads, “Then God said, “Let us make humanity in our image to resemble us so that they may take charge of the fish of the sea, the birds in the sky, the livestock, all the earth, and all the crawling things on earth.”

27 God created humanity in God’s own image,

in the divine image God created them,

male and female God created them.

When we look in the mirror, we see image of God, we see God in ourselves. And through that we see all that God has done for us. We see God’s salvific work already done. We see that we have been saved and promised eternal life through Christ actions. For in seeing the image of God, we see Christ within us. We see the love God has for us, and all others.

I saw this Facebook post a few weeks ago. You will never look into the eyes of someone God does not love. When you look into your own eyes in a mirror, you see someone God loves.

Why is this all important. Well, we often misunderstand the book of James. Martin Luther didn’t like the book of James all that much. He thought its focus on works went against the idea of saved through faith, not works. He thought James and Paul were at contradiction with each other. Now, we don’t think so, we think they’re talking about the things in different ways. Paul says that works are not what’s needed for salvation, and James says, that doesn’t mean that works aren’t important though, they’re just not the saving thing.

James really is a fascinating book of the bible. Its focus is rather different than other books, it’s a guide, telling how to live a Christian life. But, when we hear about the things to do and how to behave, works that James says we should do, it’s all still centered around the idea of looking in the mirror. Looking at ourselves as we truly are and seeing the gifts God gives us. Seeing Imago Dei, the image of God within ourselves.

Today the lesson James gives is be doers of the word, not just hearers. James is focused on what we do here on earth, in community on behalf of those around us. If we simply hear what God has done for us, but then don’t do anything, who does that help? It reminds me of Dietrich Bonhoeffer’s thought about cheap grace. Yes, we are saved by grace, salvation is given to us as a gift through faith, but if we don’t respond to it, we cheapen it, we waste the gift God gave us.

If we look in the mirror, see all that God has done for us, but do nothing in response? It’s like we have forgotten God’s works for us. It’s like we’ve forgotten what we look like. But, if we are doers. If we hear God’s word to us, and we go out and live that, we will be blessed in our action, and so will those we help.

James says that this is religions purpose in the world. From verse 27: Religion that is pure and undefiled before God, the Father, is this: to care for orphans and widows in their distress, and to keep oneself unstained by the world. James calls us to care, God calls us to care for the lowest of the low, the least in the world. Not to prop ourselves up, but to care for those that have nothing.

In helping those in need, whoever the least in our world may be, we are doers of the word. We are people beloved by God, created in God’s image, saved through faith, responding to all these free gifts of grace by reaching out and assisting those others in this world also beloved and created in God’s image.