Below, From Above

 

Below, From Above

 

James 1:17-27

1:17 Every generous act of giving, with every perfect gift, is from above, coming down from the Father of lights, with whom there is no variation or shadow due to change.

1:18 In fulfillment of his own purpose he gave birth to us by the word of truth, so that we would become a kind of first fruits of his creatures.

1:19 You must understand this, my beloved brothers and sisters: let everyone be quick to listen, slow to speak, slow to anger,

1:20 for human anger does not produce God's righteousness.

1:21 Therefore rid yourselves of all sordidness and rank growth of wickedness, and welcome with meekness the implanted word that has the power to save your souls.

1:22 But be doers of the word and not merely hearers who deceive themselves.

1:23 For if any are hearers of the word and not doers, they are like those who look at themselves in a mirror;

1:24 for they look at themselves and, on going away, immediately forget what they were like.

1:25 But those who look into the perfect law, the law of liberty, and persevere, being not hearers who forget but doers who act--they will be blessed in their doing.

1:26 If any think they are religious and do not bridle their tongues but deceive their hearts, their religion is worthless.

1:27 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.

 

Some of you are old enough to remember television ads for “Memorex,” a company that manufactured recording tape, including reel to reel and cassettes. (Some of you aren’t old enough to remember TAPE, are you?) In the TV ad, legendary African American singer, Ella Fitzgerald, is singing a jazz “scat” of notes, and the viewer is challenged to judge whether the sound is “real” (Ella’s voice on the ad) or “Memorex,” meaning it is coming from an audio tape replay of her voice. Of course, the answer is that it is a replay from a Memorex tape. For a long time, this question/phrase came into the popular lexicon—“Is it REAL or is it Memorex?” I still use it, from time to time, but not too many now know what it means. Oh, the trials of WAY out aging the popular culture!

 

What made me think of this story is the “perfect gift” that verse one of today’s narrative mentions. On one hand, the “perfect gift” is God’s gift of life to the world and to us; on the other, it could be seen as God’s only perfect Son, sent into the world to live, heal, nurture, preach, die, and then live again, among God’s human creation. We are products of the creative mind of God, and Jesus IS God, not just a copy—certainly REAL, not Memorex!

 

When I think of the word “shadow” used here in verse one, I think of my philosophy class in college. I believe it was Plato who suggested that there are these perfect “ideas” in the mind of the divine, and yet what becomes the actual “things” representing them on earth are less than perfect copies. Platonism was known in the days of the author of James, and very possibly, he is directly rejecting it, in this passage. He appears to be saying that what God created on earth WAS perfect, and not “Memorex” replays of ideas in the divine mind. Likewise, the Platonists in James’ day might have described Jesus as in “imperfect,” earthly “copy” of the idea of a “son of god” in the divine mind. Again, James makes it clear that the “Father of lights” brought forth the creation NOT as a ”shadow” version of a heavenly idea, but directly created “below” from “above,” and with “no variation” from what God intended. In fact, humanity was created SO perfectly that God could not “filter out” the divine attribute of “freedom,” “free will,” or choice without distorting the majesty of God’s creation. Interesting, that something that signals our “perfection” as a product of divine creation was the very thing that got us into trouble with the divine!

 

Jesus Christ was again not a “copy” or a representation (shadow?) of what the divine would look like on earth. We believe Jesus Christ WAS the divine, present, “tenting among” humanity. That Jesus would call himself the “light of the world” makes perfect sense in the idiom of James, who calls God the “Father of lights,” who, in Jesus Christ, came BELOW, from ABOVE—a real “field trip,” not just a latent image of God. 

 

Why does James so strongly object to the Platonic concept of “ideas” and “things”? After all, adopting this view might provide a convenient excuse for why humanity screwed up and cut ourselves off from God by making very bad choices. If we were just a poor copy, we would not be expected to choose so wisely, would we? The problem with “recordings” of real voices or sounds is that, in order to fit them onto a small piece of magnetized recording tape—or into a reasonable amount of digital memory—the sounds must be “sampled,” and some parts of it attenuated or even cut out. Even the best digital recordings are “missing” nuances and pieces of the original performance, and believe me, in the days of audio tape, LOTS of dynamics were just not able to be recorded. In spiritual terms, this would mean that, had God used “copies” of some greater divine “idea” of humanity, we could never aspire to be the kind of “children” God envisioned, and had God sent some symbolic representation of God’s Son to us, neither could we have witnessed and experienced the fullness of God. James would have none of this, instead relating the “orthodox” view that we are direct creations of the divine, and that Jesus WAS the divine, who came among us to teach, heal, and save us. Tolerate no substitutes, James would say.

 

While I usually defend the Apostle Paul from his various accusers, this is one place where I do fault him for buying into the popular Platonism of his day. Remember his illusion in I Corinthians 13, where he says we “see through a glass darkly,” or as a more contemporary translation says, “only through a poor mirror”? He goes on to say that when “that which is perfect comes,” we will see “face to face.” He got that part right, but we do NOT see now through a poor mirror. God saw to that by coming in the Perfect One, Jesus the Christ! Mirrors may be OK to comb your hair, but they distort reality, making us see everything reversed. Again, James would have none of it!

 

James then makes the case for us earthly Christ followers therefore being able to “behave” like the “perfect” creatures God made us out to be. We are now empowered to put our error and sin behind us, thanks to the Perfect One who came below from above, wiped away our sin, and filled us with the Perfect Holy Spirit. The old “tapes” have been erased, and we are back to the live performance!

 

In a related passage, James will tell us, “Faith without works is dead.” What he is saying is that as God is perfect, created us originally to be perfect, redeemed and reconciled us through the Perfect One, Jesus Christ, and has now given us the perfect Holy Spirit to lead, guide, and empower us, WE are capable of living a “perfect” witness to the world by our actions, “unstained by the world.” James’ idea here has been the “face” that launched a thousand warring theological ships, down through the centuries. Let me explain.

 

The reformed tradition, beginning with Martin Luther and his “salvation by faith alone” treatise, railed against James “faith without works is dead” postulation. Later reformers jumped on this same nixing bandwagon, suggesting that if Christians were allowed to accept James’ idea, then they might come to believe in what they called “works righteousness,” or making ourselves “good enough” to outweigh the sins we commit. Believe me, they really went nuts over this. Luther called the Book of James an “epistle of straw” over it, and advocated removing it from the canon of scripture. But this is not at all what James had in mind, as I have already suggested. James just felt that, as long as we believe that the “perfection” of the divine mind was at work in our midst, so we could act like it, as believers, and as redeemed ones. He had a comrade in arms in John Wesley, the founder of Methodism.

 

John Wesley believed as did James, that our “good works” (Wesley called them acts of mercy) were a RESPONSE to God, born out of our gratitude for God’s perfection in creating us, in sending Jesus among us, and in restoring us to God’s intended stature among the totality of creation. “FROM faith TO works” was Wesley’s formula. Our “acts of righteousness” were nothing but the actions of a Godly, redeemed people. Wesley’s idea of “holiness” can be seen as just a return to the AUTHENTICITY of being the created children of God, and acting like it. The whole “flow” of what makes it possible came BELOW, but from ABOVE, originating with God, Godself. Jesus WAS the “Word made flesh,” and now we are able to LIVE the Word of God, because of Jesus and the Holy Spirit. Let’s keep our eye on the ball, here, and remember that the goal of “holy living” is to live into the lives God wanted us to enjoy in the first place, and to be living witnesses to those who have not yet experienced this grace. It has nothing to do with “placating” God by obeying God’s rules, just because God “said so.” This is what we often hear from the evangelicals—just obey, or be judged. How is that in keeping with what God is doing through Jesus Christ, and how is that glorifying God? Faith is a joyous thing, or at least it is meant to be.

 

This weekend is a Holy Communion Sunday in many of our churches. We United Methodists join many other Protestant denominations in believing that Christ is “present” in the elements of Communion in what we call the “real presence.” Without getting into a theological debate over how this differs from the symbolic presence of the “ordinance” folk and the “transubstantiated” presence of our Roman Catholic siblings, “real presence” signifies that we believe Christ IS embodied by the elements, but the elements don’t actually “change.” They don’t have to, to embody Jesus Christ for us. Why? Because as we receive the elements, we receive Christ afresh and anew, as Mr. Wesley preached. And then WE embody Christ for the world, through our living witness and our acts of mercy on behalf of others. 

 

The flow is toward us “below,” but it comes from “above,” this author’s positional images that make clear the source of the transforming grace AND the “target audience.” Go now, Dear Ones, and in the name of Jesus, BE REAL! Act like you are “born from above”! Amen.