Reading: James 4-5, Psalm 32

We continue today in the letter of James to the people of God scattered among the nations. James is primarily addressing the mode of life of these believers. He is applying the great commandment to love your neighbor as yourself through the lens of Jesus’ great commission to teach everything that I have commanded you. So far he has challenged an unbridled tongue, favoritism, arrogance, dishonestly, and unincarnated spirituality. That last one is particularly insidious, as a person can nod their heads at all the right things, but when push comes to shove, their lives to do not reveal a commitment to what they say they believe. James wants his audience to understand that repentance and life in the name of Jesus is more than an intellectual pursuit. Faith without works is dead. And he isn’t done.

James doubles down on his instruction to humility. He tells the believers, who apparently were complaining that they were not receiving the things they prayed for, that they were asking in a spirit of arrogance. God desires to give good things to his children, but when his children ask for harmful things, he is not going to give them to them. God is not a vending machine for our desires. The evidence of a transformed life is the humility to ask for what God wills, and those prayers are righteous and effective, as James will remind us. It is not the place of any human to put themselves on a pedestal. God will exalt the humble. God is the only judge, and the only lawgiver, whose word is final. We are not in a position to judge anyone or require anything of anyone except according to what God has revealed.

Then we get a bunch about the arrogance of those who are rich and think they have the future figured out. James warns the believers to be careful about making plans and letting them rule your life. Just as we are in no position to judge anyone, we are in no position to know the future for anyone, including ourselves. Make plans, but credit God with the right to change your plans. If you are wealthy, use your wealth for the good of those around you, not to aggrandize yourself. Because there will be a reckoning for those who misuse their privilege. And it is not a pretty picture James paints for them.

Do these warnings from James sound familiar? They should, as they are the things that the church has always struggled with, right up to the present day. James is such a timeless book. Every reform of the church rights the ship for a while, but we humans have a tendency to pull ourselves into a capsize and become hypocrites of the first order. James calls us out of this to a radical humility. To let your “yes” be “yes” and your “no” be “no.” We have no standing by which to claim any more authority than that. Doing so is literally the sin of Adam and Eve, giving into the manipulation of the Serpent.

James closes his book with the solution to the problem he has just set up. Given the subject matter he has just covered, I don’t think James is limiting his call to prayer for the sick to just the physically ill. I do think he means to include that, but not limit himself to that. He calls the sick one to put him or herself under the authority of the community of faith and ask them to pray for their forgiveness. James calls for the believers to confess your sins and pray for one another, that you may be healed. He puts the forgiveness of sin and the healing of the heart in the hands of the community. James understands that God works through his people. His closing word is that the wandering soul may be saved from death by one who goes out and finds him. There is no one too far gone for the prayers of a righteous person.