Study: The Letter of Jimmy and Peacemaking #1

 “But the wisdom that comes from heaven is first of all pure; then peace-loving, considerate, submissive, full of mercy and good fruit, impartial and sincere.  Peacemakers who sow peace raise a harvest of righteousness.” – James 3:17-18       

Peace is the most inclusive of Christian virtues. The correspondence of James with Jewish Christians idealizes social justice initiatives.  The community is made of up rich and poor people.  The rich are affluent landowners and prosperous merchants.  The poor are not only the starving and naked but also laborers and unskilled workers, retail merchants and craftsmen.  James reprimands the rich for despising the oppressed and denounces their favoritism (2:2-4).  James speaks of the rich’s merciless exploitation of the poor and weak and strongly condemns their manipulation of the justice system (2:6; 5:6).  However, he writes of a peaceful harmony that derives from the wisdom of the Beatitudes of Jesus, wisdom tradition, and the Hebrew usage of shalom. 

The world is hostile and one should assume that all sociopolitical powers, by arrogance, will persecute and admonish the poor, yet the bitter and envy that is built upon an evil heart will only reap destruction.  James abhorred false orthopraxy.  The Palestine methodology of taking care of another was divorced from any kind of Jewish wisdom and Old Testament knowledge.

James does not shy away from the rhetorical practice of seeing one another analogically as people who are subject to God’s peace.  The urgency of James’ words expresses a passion for reconciliation.  The momentum for rhetorical wisdom derives from the sinfulness of humanity and the injustice of social oppression against the poor, thus peace-making is an action that is channeled through humility that precludes a violent solution.

Quotes: Shannon Poindexter

The best apologetics for Christianity is love.

Scripture: Romans 8:31-39

So, what do you think? With God on our side like this, how can we lose? If God didn’t hesitate to put everything on the line for us, embracing our condition and exposing himself to the worst by sending his own Son, is there anything else he wouldn’t gladly and freely do for us? And who would dare tangle with God by messing with one of God’s chosen? Who would dare even to point a finger? The One who died for us—who was raised to life for us!—is in the presence of God at this very moment sticking up for us. Do you think anyone is going to be able to drive a wedge between us and Christ’s love for us? There is no way! Not trouble, not hard times, not hatred, not hunger, not homelessness, not bullying threats, not backstabbing, not even the worst sins listed in Scripture: 
   They kill us in cold blood because they hate you.
   We’re sitting ducks; they pick us off one by one.
None of this fazes us because Jesus loves us. I’m absolutely convinced that nothing—nothing living or dead, angelic or demonic, today or tomorrow, high or low, thinkable or unthinkable—absolutely nothing can get between us and God’s love because of the way that Jesus our Master has embraced us.

Music: Counting Crows – Saturday Nights & Sunday Mornings

The anticipated “Saturday Nights & Sunday Mornings” unveiled pure genius yesterday morning.  Counting Crows did it again.  I have been waiting for this album for sometime.  I have already listened to the whole C.D. once.  Songs that bubbled to the top were, Hanging Tree; Cowboys; Le ballet d’or; and Sessions.  The lyrics for Cowboys and Hanging Tree touched my soul.  Go buy the C.D., sit back in a relaxing chair and drink a cup of your favorite coffee as Adam Duritz and the crew take you to another place.   

Books: Jesus and the Nonviolent Revolution

Andre Trocme is best known as the Protestant pastor of the French village of Le Chambon who organized the rescue of Jews during the Nazi occupation.  After the war he became a leading voice for peace and reconciliation.  He proclaims the Kingdom of God and the biblical Jubilee, and shows the ongoing relevance of his ethic of revolutionary nonviolence.  His work inspired the late John Howard Yoder and compares favorably with current authors such as Walter Wink and my favorite Glen Stassen from Fuller Theological Seminary. 

Jesus’ revolution is political by its very nature (43).

Trocme takes the reader back to implications of Jubilee and what God meant when he provide man with Sabbath.  In an age of increasing war and terror, Trocme shows people that there is another way than violence.  He lays out principles that a common person can start in their communities.  Trocme had the courage to face Nazi oppression, therefore, he practiced what he preached.

I like what he says about church and state:

Politics per se are not the church’s business (169).

The church’s business is not to establish peace between the nations, but to bear witness to the love of God, to live in his peace and righteousness (169).

These two quotes could not be more true for Christians today.  God expects only one thing: that we walk in obedience to the gospel, refusing violence in whatever form because of that obedience.  Jesus’ commitment to nonviolence did not grow out of a pantheistic, optimistic, or utopian view of the world.  It came from the evaluation of the terrible power of evil.  The sad thing, the church does not continue to manifest this redemption. 

Overall, I would rate this book a 9/10.  Anyone who is interested in Jesus, Jubilee, Sabbath, or the nonviolence movement should consider this read.  Though this book is written several years ago, it still speaks volume to the garments of terror today.

In times of war, at least, government reveal their true character; the question of governing in the fear of God does not even arise (164). 

I firmly believe that this is truest in the church today.  In times of terror and war, the church reveals their true character and the question of governing in the fear of God is lost.  The church has another task instead of bothering itself with state administration, however, will it ever change?

Study: The Letter of Jimmy and Poverty #5

As one reads the letter of James one sees that James has developed a theology of the poor in a way that was understood by his brother.  He shows a new society that opposed the governmental and worldly influence.  Religion demands a way of life that is expressed through faith and actions.  Christians must take care of the orphans and widows. 

To what extent do Christians tacitly endorse such injustice by purchasing from companies who do not treat their workers fairly, often without being aware of their practices?  To what extent do Christians support politicians who promise tax cuts for the upper and middle classes, when programs that help the needy at home and abroad are slashed in the process and most likely will never be replaced? James calls for radical and revolutionary lifestyle among Christians.  Social injustice must always be denounced by the Christian community. 

In absence of freedom of expression, the poor are often silent, and even when they speak, little attention is given to them.  James is not only theological, but methodological.  Transformational communities existed in the times of the early disciples.  Readers get a glimpse when they read Acts 2:44-45, “All the believers were together and had everything in common.  Selling their possessions and goods, they gave to anyone as he had need.” Their holistic style of ministry had no claims on any possession and they shared everything.  The evidence of this type of ministry was, “there was no needy person among them.”

According to Ched Meyers, contemporary North Americans spend $5 billion a year on special diets to lower their caloric intake; while the world’s poorest 400 million people are so undernourished they are likely to suffer stunted growth, mental retardation, or death.  The affluent Christians clearly need spiritual and practical disciplines other than the addiction to consumerism.  Rich Christians are addicted to economic privilege and power by the means to allowing others to sink into the depths of poverty. 

The letter of James pronounces an envisage Kingdom.  Christians can feel and taste the picture James paints in each letter written down.  Rich and middle class are hostages to deeply ingrained suppositions about private ownership.  Nothing challenges today’s culture more than reversing the autonomy of consumerism and selfishness.  Reading James will provoke thinking about socialization, addictions, and community sharing.               

Scripture: James 3:17-18

Real wisdom, God’s wisdom, begins with a holy life and is characterized by getting along with others. It is gentle and reasonable, overflowing with mercy and blessings, not hot one day and cold the next, not two-faced. You can develop a healthy, robust community that lives right with God and enjoy its results only if you do the hard work of getting along with each other, treating each other with dignity and honor.

Music: The Cobalt Season – But I Tell You

A good friend let me borrow this C.D. and I have found that the lyrics are authentic and not superifical.  American Empire; Glory; The Great Inversion; I, Obstruction; and Like Jesus are simply amazing.  Five out of eleven songs on a C.D. is hard to come by these days.  If you have a good friend who has this, borrow it, if not, go out and buy it! 

Books: Gandhi: The Man, His People, and The Empire

 

This monumental biography of Gandhi is written by his grandson, is the first to give a complete and balanced account of Mahatma Gandhi’s remarkable life.  It starts from early childhood and eventually leads to his death.  Written with unprecedented insight and access to family archives, it reveals Gandhi’s development of his beliefs and his political compaigns.  This book is exhausted by nature, yet each page reveals a life of contrasts and contradictions. 

After reading his autobiography, this book takes an different angle about his life as a whole.  It goes into great depth about the evolution of Gandhi’s strategies of nonviolent resistence, and examines relations between Muslims and non-Muslims, an issue that attracted Gandhi’s passionate attention and one that persists around the world today. 

What intrigued me most about this book was his reaction to WWII.  He even wrote a letter to Adolf Hitler:

Dear Friend, Friends have been urging me to write to you for the sake of humanity.  But I have resisted their request, because of the feeling that any letter from me would be an impertinence.  Something tells me that I must not calculate and that I must make my appeal for whatever it may be worth. 

It is quite clear that you are today the one person in the world who can prevent a war which may reduce humanity to the savage state.  Must you pay that price for an object however worthy it may appear to you to be?  Will you listen to the appeal of one who has deliberately shunned the method of war not without considerable success?…Your sincere friend, M.K. Gandhi (422)

He calls him friend?  His willingness to prescribe satyagraha (literally, firmnes for the truth; non-violent struggle) without understanding German realities is intoxicating.  Before he wrote this letter, Gandhi wrote about Hitler and his drive against the Jews:

If there ever could be a justifiable war in the name of and for humanity, a war against Germany, to prevent the wanton persecution of a whole race, would be completely justified.  But I do not believe in any war (400).

He has influenced great non-violent leaders such as Martin Luther King, Jr., the Dalai Lama of Tibet, Nelson Mandela of South Africa, a woman in Burma called Aung San Suu Kyi, Benigno Aquino of the Philippines, Ibrahim Rugova of Kosov, and numerous others, whether famous or not.

The strongest men have been know at times to have become weak (321).

We cannot love one another if we hate Englishmen.  We cannot love the Japanese and hate Englishmen.  We must either let the law of love rule us through and through or not at all.  Love among ourselves based on hatred of others breaks down under the slightest pressure…(287).

If the reader gets past the number of pages, then he or she will get a brief history about a man who changed an entire country.  I rate this read a 9/10.  I would recommend anyone who wants to know more about the man of Gandhi and his life.

Study: The Letter of Jimmy and Poverty #4

The tragedy leads James to speak out against faith without works. Poverty has stricken locally and globally, yet most of today’s professing Christians do absolutely nothing. The materially destitute of the world suffers because someone’s faith has no deeds. Church father Ignatius said, “That our church is not marked by caring for the poor, the oppressed, and the hungry, then we are guilty of heresy.” Scattered references throughout the book of James are helpful when one reads with the socio-economic plight of the majority in James’s audience in the background.

At the end of the letter comes the hardest and reproving teaching of James against the rich who are oppressing his audience.

He states: Now listen, you rich people, weep and wail because of the misery that is coming upon you. Your wealth has rotted, and moths have eaten your clothes. Your gold and silver are corroded. Their corrosion will testify against you and eat your flesh like fire. You have hoarded wealth in the last days. Look! The wages you failed to pay the workmen who mowed your fields are crying out against you. The cries of the harvesters have reached the ears of the Lord Almighty. You have lived on earth in luxury and self-indulgence. You have fattened yourselves in the day of slaughter. You have condemned and murdered innocent men, who were not opposing you.

The second verse leads to eschatological condemnation, described as a great ‘misery’. These people have hoarded their riches without sharing them to the needs of the community. Jesus himself said the “poor will always be with you,” but he did not intend for his disciples and Christians to keep them poor. America’s church has lost the vision of James and Jesus. People admire from a long distance, give money to the poor, and yet never find a solution. Shane Claiborne says, “I had come to see that the great tragedy in the church is not that rich Christians do not care about the poor but that rich Christians do not know the poor.”

The church was not supposed to manage poverty. It goes far to claim that James did not know anyone who was both rich and Christian. Jesus himself took up the role of liberator from oppression and of inaugurator of a new age when he began his public ministry. Ministry should revolve around redistribution and equipping people to serve and live among the poor. Building centers, lavish sanctuaries, and basketball gyms while half the world is starving to death is a biblical and worldly sin.