Is it already in September? I remember thinking September was weeks away. Could I have been that wrong?
I had a very good run this morning after having not run yesterday; I had the 8:00 service, and didn’t have enough time (I estimated) to run, cool down, shower, get to St Nic’s, etc. before the service. As things went, the service was fine, and I joined Margaret, David, and Marlies for the 10:30 at St Helen’s. We then decamped to the town square for a leisurely and tasty brunch, then home for David and Marlies to pack and head in to Oxford. So when morning came today, I was well-rested; I limbered up quickly in the 18°, 100% humidity air, and ran to a comfortable, somewhat ambitious pace. Coffee, fruit, shower, Morning Prayer (in church again, yay!), and I’m about to tackle some correspondence after writing a squib for this week’s newsletter. Then I’ll begin work on a homily for Wednesday Mass, and presumably some further tasks and errands to keep me from loitering on a street corner and causing a public disturbance. Yesterday’s homily below…
Proper 17 B – St Nicolas’s, Abingdon
1 September 2024
+
James 1.17–27 / Mark 7.1–8, 14, 15, 21–23
If any are hearers of the word and not doers,
they are like those who look at themselves in a mirror
+ In the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit – Amen
Say what you will about James, but nobody can deny that he knew how to torture a metaphor. In our lesson this morning, we can clearly understand that he urges us to be steadfast, not fickle; but he chooses to frame the point by invoking God’s changelessness as ‘the Father of Lights’, presumably referring to the stars and planets. We can clearly understand that James wants us to think of ourselves as children of God, so he reminds us that God gave us birth ‘by the word of truth’ that makes us sort of the first installment of creation. Most perplexing of all, James wants us to be active, effectual followers of Jesus, not just nodding, passive Christians. But he chooses a disjointed metaphor for getting his point across; if you diagram his discourse, you end up with some twisty lines that criss-cross and get tangled before they give up in defeat.
St James puts it this way: ‘Be doers of the word and not only hearers who mislead themselves. If someone is a hearer of the word and not a doer, this person resembles a man who observes the face of his genesis in a mirror; for he observes himself and goes away, and immediately forgets how he looked. But the one who peeks into the perfect law of freedom and keeps at it—being not a hearer who forgets, but a doer who works—this one will be blessed in what he does.’ Thank you, James. We take your point that we should be doers, not just lookers. But where does the mirror come from, and who forgets whose face, and what does genesis have to do with it?
As best I can make out, his metaphor runs this way. Let’s suppose that you glance into a mirror, a first-century mirror that reflects in only a blurry sort of way, as if you’re looking at polished metal. You take a look at yourself in this reflection, and you can only vaguely see yourself, and once you look away even the imprecise impression you had disappears. That’s how the faith of the nodding, passive follower works: they get a vague idea of what discipleship looks like, and they forget it as soon as they stop listening to the preacher. They’re forgetful, ‘Yeah, whatever’ disciples.
By contrast, James proposes that serious-business, get-down-to-it disciples don’t look into a polished metal mirror. Instead, they look into the Law, the Torah, which gives an exact, perfect representation of our souls value, about our willingness to rely on God and follow his Way. People who look into the Law, instead of looking at themselves in a mirror, get a truer picture of their character by actually doing what God asks of us. And that understanding of our character, that working picture of our selves, sticks with us — just as we more easily forget the needs of the hungry if we read about them in a newspaper, but we remember more vividly by actually offering them help, buying them a sandwich or finding them a safe place to sleep. And God blesses those who take the perfect Law to heart, who care for orphans and widows in their distress and keep their souls from the wear and tear and spots and stains that come from worldly cares.
St James likes using obscure metaphors that are themselves a little like the dull reflection of the Gospel he teaches — but we don’t have to succumb to the brass-mirror bafflement that leads forgetful, nodding passivity. When we enact God’s perfect Law of freedom by helping our sisters and brothers, by feeding the hungry and clothing those in threadbare poverty — when we do what God asks in the Law, we understand with our hands, our backs, our muscles and nerves and ultimately in our hearts and minds that our steadfast, reliable God invites us steadfastly, reliably to do the Gospel work of reconciliation that hallmarks our standing as children of God. If we actually do what we profess, we won’t forget the word of truth; we’ll live it, Truth will be our watchword —
In the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit,
Amen