Study: The Letter of Jimmy and Peacemaking #7

Conclusion

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. Concerned for pure speech in Jas. 4:11-12, he commands not to speak evil of another, but to show love. This is a moral and ethical teaching of nonretaliation. Slander against a community member is forbidden for one reason: it makes a judge of the law and usurps God’s role. Thus, 4:11-12 finishes with an oppositional chain of thought that began in 3:17.

James writes that justice pursued in peace by those who make peace marks true wisdom and stands in opposition to the human craving and desire that generates envy which leads to quarrels, fighting (violence), and murder, oppression of the poor and wars, and idolatrous pride and slander. The author denies war and class struggle. Love is the most durable power in the world beautifully portrayed and exemplified in the life of Jesus Christ; it is the most potent instrument available in man’s quest for peace. The connection between peace/peacemaking is formatted in the Trinity, the “God of peace” in Phil. 4:7-9, “Christ of peace” in Col. 3:12-15, and “the Spirit of peace” in Gal. 5:22. Ever since the beginning, shalom has been presented in all of God. James knew the connection of intrinsic formation in Jesus, “Christ being formed in you” (Gal.4:19) means that the gospel-peace reigns in each believer’s heart.

Unless the church is ready to die developing new nonviolent attempts to reduce conflict, they should confess that they never meant that the cross was an alternative to the sword. Most Christians in the United States are finding it difficult to promote peace and love because of government policies and actions. The world sees clothed in battered garments of catastrophic wars, which leave men and nations morally and physically bankrupt. The tension and struggle between good and evil dramatically reveals a war inside of man. James knows the forces that wage in the heart and soul. Thus, he says, “If any of you lacks wisdom, he should ask God, who gives generously to all without finding fault, and it will be given to him.”

Study: The Letter of Jimmy and Peacemaking #6

Martin Luther King, Jr. said, “Violence brings only temporary victories; violence, by creating many more social problems than it solves, never brings permanent peace. James did not want violence as the means of reaching a desirable end, but he wanted peace because it is nonviolent. He was announcing that a social revolution was underway – the messianic reign of shalom had begun.

James takes for granted the world’s present social and economic situation that had been established, as it had to ensure that the righteous would grow and mature spiritually through suffering. He writes about hope, however, he knows that the social structures will not offer to the poor the promise of a radical change that Jesus instilled in all his followers. Violence always provokes violence and irresistibly engenders new forms of oppression and enslavement. James desired freedom in all of humanity, Gentile or Jew.

The church was not fostering social or economic justice. The oppressed were tempted to become bitter and angry. James develops his thesis under the premise of loving people. He challenged the community to foster love through the channels of economic and social justice.

Study: The Letter of Jimmy and Peacemaking #5

The beatitude, “Blessed are the peacemakers, for they will be called sons of God,” is a positive work of reconciliation. This beatitude is thus an identity-forming announcement. Due to the social dimension of the beatitudes, such reconciliation cannot refer to our relations to God; rather, it concerns relationships among humanity. Striving for peace means one’s desire for harmony and order. This requires dedication to social justice. Peace is an effort to resolve degrading and anguishing conditions arising from national and international injustice, which threatens human society with violence and destruction.

Peace includes striving for justice while making it accessible to everyone and seeking progress without exclusion or discrimination. James was familiar with these collections of Jesus’ sayings; therefore, he adapted and partially recited them for his own persuasive purposes. Justice then, is a function in James as reconciliation, which itself is a role of “loving your neighbor.” The Old Testament, which James and his readers were familiar with, has a vision of God ending all war and bringing peace.

James Fostering Economic Justice

James preserves the ruins of a different kind of battle, communal and nonviolent, where love and purity are the weapons of choice against foreign power and moral deterioration. The practices of peacemaking are confirmed by the fruits that produce righteousness. James clearly wanted social change in his listeners’ attitudes and he desired for them to begin sowing seeds that disarm conflict without any acts of violence. Economic deprivation is a major cause of homicides. Due to the rich oppressing the poor in the Palestine church, the likeliness of the poor to act out in violence increased.

Study: The Letter of Jimmy and Peacemaking #4

James and His Brother Jesus

Christians live between two advents: the parameters of violence and peace. Some would say situating peace within God’s divine relationship to violence protects us from using peace as a justification for war or an excuse for indifference. Others actively engage peacemaking needs in the prejudices of the world. Jesus, in the Sermon on the Mount, connects his listeners to an envisage kingdom. The Synoptic Gospels’ presentation of Jesus, the Messiah, draws on Old Testament texts and traditions to mark Jesus as the holder of peace.

For more than two centuries, scholars have held that James uses a tradition of Jesus’ sayings throughout his epistle. James is not only the key to a re-evaluation and reconstruction of Jewish Christian history; he is also the key to understanding the historical Jesus. Jesus’ ethics did not identify with the Empire or any nationalism.

Jesus was defined by his words and actions. N.T. Wright states, “We must root our church practices, our discipleship, and our Christian faith in the real Jesus or we turn our faith into a feather – a thin, soft feather that blows with the wind and conforms its shape to whatever group interests it comes upon.” Early followers of Jesus tried to wrap their minds and thoughts around his extreme teaching on peace. For the first three hundred years of the Christian movement, the church was almost unanimously pacifist.

The church was committed to making a clear witness to Jesus’ ethics. In this view, trying to make that witness while advocating killing enemies is wrong because not only does it advocate killing people, but also it disobeys Jesus and distorts their lifestyles. Jesus cares deeply about the sacredness of human life and pointed to another way of deliverance from violence. Following Jesus focuses on finding alternative initiatives that prevent violence. Participation in God’s reign means the pursuit of God’s shalom in a world shattered by hostilities. Jesus offered an alternative model to break the cycle of violence and broken relationships. Those who are truly his children will emulate his efforts to make peace, even with those who are the enemies (Matt. 5:43-48).

Study: The Letter of Jimmy and Peacemaking #3

Further, the use of phoneuete in Jas. 4:2 (“kill” in RSV, “commit murder” in NRSV) indicates warlike action within the community. According to Willard Swartley, the RSV translation of en tois melesin hymon at the end of Jas. 4:1, as “within your members” is a better translation than NIV’s “within you”. The Greco-Roman moralist tradition of envy was contentious within this Jewish Christian community.  Socrates regards envy as the “ulcer of the soul.” 

 

Ultimately, envy leads people to murder.  Due to the evil experienced in the social structure within the church, James wanted the listeners to consider the diseased human freedom to desire an uprising; however, he uses language against such actions.  According to Enrique Nardoni, “Anger and violence do not produce justice; they cannot establish the right social, political, and economic order on earth in accordance with the creator’s design (1:20).”  The alternative vision for community life is peace.  This kind of lifestyle in Jas. 3:17 will lead to a harvest of righteousness-justice.  The two opposing paradigms of wisdom are against each other: the fruits of peace or the fruits of the evil one.

  

Shalom in the Old Testament Scripture

The mainstream ethical consensus among Jews was the affirmation of shalom.  The reconstruction of this social ethic derived its guidance from a peaceful God.  Jesus’ own message proclaimed peace on earth.  He had positive respect for the institutions of society, even the Roman government, yet he constructed a shalom message to his followers. 

 

Shalom is an iridescent word, with different levels of meaning in Hebrew Scripture.  The basic meaning is wholeness or completeness.  Understanding its meaning in the Hebrew Bible is a prerequisite for the study of peace in James.  Shalom occurs well over 200 times in the Hebrew Bible and has many dimensions of meaning in context: wholeness, completeness, well-being, peace, justice, salvation, and even prosperity. 

 

Perry Yoder proposes that the word shalom contains a moral quality, therefore shalom is the opposite of violence considered in James.  James writes that bitter envy and selfish ambition in the heart are actions that violate shalom.  Early Rabbis reflected on the relationship of peace to justice, truth, and mercy.  The rabbinic tradition provides a rich resource that complements Christian understanding of peace. Swartley says:

In the early medieval period, Jewish reflection spiritualized biblical war imagery, while Christian theologians, notably Augustine, spiritualized or internalized the pacifist teachings of the New Testament.  Christian thought began to take OT war imagery literally to develop “just war” doctrine and justify imperial extension, leading in subsequent stages to theological justification of the Crusades. 

Reflections on the relationship between shalom to justice and truth to mercy are harmonized in the right kind of wisdom. 

 

 

Study: The Letter of Jimmy and Peacemaking #2

Two Kinds of Wisdom 

 

James did not remain abstract in his reference to works in the preceding chapter.  He warned his readers against the injustice of the rich.  With hundreds hungry and a minority overfed, there is little change for peace in the world of James.  The motif of wisdom introduced in 1:5 pervades the Epistle and reaches its climax in this section.  The Greek word for wisdom used by James is “sophia,” which is broad and full of intelligence, used to describe the knowledge of very diverse matters.

 

The heavenly wisdom has seven adjectives ideal to the character of Christ, which calls not for an accumulation of virtues, but for the submission of the entire personality of God (Jas. 4:7).  First mentioned are inner characteristics of a person and then follows the outward evidence of Christian wisdom.  Purely, the wise man will associate himself with Christ and will keep himself unspotted from the world (1:27).

 

The heavenly wisdom found in James resembles another New Testament text, Paul’s delineation of the “fruit of the Spirit” (Gal. 5:22-23).  James is writing before Paul, therefore, James is not familiar with Paul’s theology.  The author rejects war and class struggle.  According to James, such struggle reflects a lack of wisdom.

 

The preeminent attribute that wisdom produces is cleanliness or pure decisions.  The word pure (hagnos) connotes innocence and moral blamelessness.  James has harmonious convictions that a person must combat devilish wisdom, nevertheless, provides virtues that are practical and direct.  These qualities are communal driven.  They are not necessarily individualistic, rather the reason for this parenetic wisdom is an expression best expressed through community.

 

 

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.

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.               

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.

Study: The Letter of Jimmy and Poverty #3

James was aware of Jesus’ mission as he drew a lot of his preferential concern for the sick and afflicted.  Through Jesus’ liberating healings, he anticipated the full freedom in the consummated kingdom – the restoration of the human beings to integrity and fullness according to the Kingdom plan.  Jesus taught through his actions.  He emphasized an effective love by showing compassion.

Jesus’ life and teaching bore witness to an undeniable commitment to the poor and marginalized within society.  Today’s readers of James may inquire how to apply the Letter of James to a community, made of middle-class and rich, in which support programs rarely reach out to the poor.  The imagination James had is beyond any support program a church can offer to the world.  The book of Acts writes poetically the dream of the church.

Acts 4:32 states, “All the believers were one in heart and mind.  No one claimed that any of his possession was his own, but they shared everything they had.”  They would sell everything to distribute to anyone who had a need.  This is the vision that caught James’s heart.  The lifestyle models were corporate and mutual.  Campolo says, “Jesus never says to the poor, ‘Come find the church,’ but he says to those of us in the church, ‘Go into the world and find the poor, hungry, homeless, imprisoned,’ Jesus in his disguises.”             

Shortly after this hearty discussion about discrimination James writes:

What good it is, my brothers, if a man claims to have faith but has no deeds?  Can such a faith save him?  Suppose a brother or sister is without clothes and daily food.  If one of you says to him, “Go, I wish you well; keep warm and well fed,” but does nothing about his physical needs, what good is it?  In the same way, faith by itself, if it is not accompanied by action, is dead.

People who are poorly clothed are clearly those who are in desperate need of immediate help.  There is a demand in the response to the hungry and nakedness.  James faced a situation in which the self-indulgent and greedy threatened to create not a community of compassion, but one of social stratification and privilege.  Singer and songwriter Rich Mullins wrote a song entitled, Screen Door, which says, “Faith without works is like a song you can’t sing.  It’s about as useless as a screen door on a submarine.  Faith without works, baby, it just ain’t happenin’.”

            True faith, James insists, shows acts of mercy and compassion.  If one person was without, then the community should be challenged to go without until that person has the basic needs to survive.  The church wrestled to free themselves from distant acts of charity, but rob the poor with the gift of community.  The empty words of wishing someone well, warm and filled with food, without offering any help, Blomberg writes, “Illustrates a vacuous profession of Christian faith.” James wanted proof that they were serious about their faith in Jesus Christ.  He wanted them to help end poverty, not simply supervise it.

---