James 4:1-10
Please listen with me to a reading from the fourth chapter of the Epistle of St. James, beginning at the first verse.
“What causes quarrels and what causes fights among you? Is it not this, that your passions are at war within you? You desire and do not have, so you murder. You covet and cannot obtain, so you fight and quarrel. You do not have, because you do not ask. You ask and do not receive, because you ask wrongly, to spend it on your passions. You adulterous people! Do you not know that friendship with the world is enmity with God? Therefore, whoever wishes to be a friend of the world makes himself an enemy of God. Or do you suppose it is to no purpose that the Scripture says, “He yearns jealously over the spirit that he has made to dwell in us”? But he gives more grace. Therefore, it says, “God opposes the proud but gives grace to the humble.” Submit yourselves therefore to God. Resist the devil, and he will flee from you. Draw near to God, and he will draw near to you. Cleanse your hands, you sinners, and purify your hearts, you double-minded. Be wretched and mourn and weep. Let your laughter be turned to mourning and your joy to gloom. Humble yourselves before the Lord, and he will exalt you.”
So far, our text.
As quoted in today’s Gospel from St. Luke, Jesus said: “For whoever exalts himself will be humbled, and he who humbles himself will be exalted.”
And as we just heard, St. James, in his Epistle, spoke in a very similar way: “Humble yourselves before the Lord, and he will exalt you.”
Humility is not usually considered to be a very useful worldly virtue. The concept of “humility” is often associated with the concepts of weakness and fear. The world honors and rewards bold and assertive people, strong and ambitious people, and not humble people.
But the idea of humility does not need to be equated with weakness and fear. If someone is humble, what this means is that he knows what his true place is. And with a proper sense of obligation, he seeks to fulfill the duties of his station in this world.
A humble person understands and accepts the limitations that are placed upon him. He is aware of the legitimate authorities that are above him, and he willingly submits to those authorities – even as he is also aware of the responsibility that he bears, with respect to those who may be under his authority in some realm of life.
A humble person does not arrogantly challenge his superiors, or pridefully attempt to insert himself into a higher status than what properly belongs to him. If advancement is to come, it will come because those who have the power to bring it about see and reward his faithfulness in his current position, and not because he has pushed himself into a role or position that still rightfully belongs to someone else.
A helpful analogy to this true concept of humility is the attitude of a good soldier. A soldier who understands and accepts his place in the command structure is willing to take orders from his commander.
He doesn’t question or defy his orders, with the presumption that he is smarter, and knows better, than his officer. Rather, he submits to his orders, and does his duty according to them.
This is a description of a good soldier. This is a description of a “humble” soldier, in the proper sense of the term. This is definitely not a description of a weak or frightened soldier!
But in this world of sin, there are not as many “good soldiers” as there should be. Human nature being what it is, people are almost never satisfied with what they currently have, or with their current situation.
They always want more – more stuff, more power, more control. They – we – are arrogant and impatient, greedy and selfish. We are not humble.
And we are not at peace. Even with all our intrigues and schemes for self-advancement – even with all the using and abusing of others as we step on them, while climbing our way to the top – there is frustration and disappointment, because we never feel as if we really are at the top.
A compulsive craving for power and wealth is a hunger that is never satisfied. The more you try to fill yourself with it, the emptier you know yourself to be.
And this pathway – paved with betrayals and deceptions – is a very lonely road to travel. When you push others aside so that you can go to the front of the line, you end up being there all by yourself: alienated from others, antagonistic toward others, despised by others.
St. James, as it were, rubs our faces in these destructive realities of our sinful lives, in this sinful world, when he also writes:
“What causes quarrels and what causes fights among you? Is it not this, that your passions are at war within you? You desire and do not have, so you murder. You covet and cannot obtain, so you fight and quarrel. …”
“You ask and do not receive, because you ask wrongly, to spend it on your passions. You adulterous people! Do you not know that friendship with the world is enmity with God? Therefore, whoever wishes to be a friend of the world makes himself an enemy of God.”
Jesus was not a friend of the world in this sense, but he was a friend of sinners in the world. And he was a humble friend of sinners. In his prophecy of Jesus’ entrance into Jerusalem, before his arrest and crucifixion, the Prophet Zechariah said:
“Behold, your king is coming to you; righteous and having salvation is he, humble and mounted on a donkey, on a colt, the foal of a donkey.”
But Jesus, though he was humble, was not weak or afraid. He was strong, and determined, and focused on the fulfilling of his duty as the world’s Savior.
In St. Mark’s Gospel, Jesus predicted the humiliations that he would undergo as Savior, as well as his ultimate victory. Referring to himself, he said:
“The Son of Man is going to be delivered into the hands of men, and they will kill him. And when he is killed, after three days he will rise.”
When Jesus went on to tell his disciples, “If anyone would be first, he must be last of all and servant of all,” he was not only admonishing them to live and serve humbly. He was also establishing the standard by which he would fulfill his calling.
Jesus “humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross,” as the Epistle to the Philippians teaches. Jesus did not wiggle himself out of the degrading things that he endured as the Lamb of God, suffering and dying as he took away the sins of the world. He faced these things head-on.
And he did not later retaliate against those who had inflicted such humiliating things upon him. He did not devote himself to scheming how to get even with them.
Instead, he forgave them. “Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do,” he prays from the cross.
As an anguished wretch of a man, dying for all other men, he cries out, “It is finished.” And with these words – which decree the completion of his atoning sacrifice – he also forgives you. He forgives you, as the law of God makes you ashamed of your self-asserting arrogance.
He extends to you the pardon that his suffering and death won for you, as you – in repentant honesty – see way too much of yourself in St. James’s description of those who love the world, and who love their status and power in the world, rather than loving God and his truth.
In his resurrection, Jesus was finally vindicated and exalted by God the Father. But it was done in God’s way, and not in the world’s way.
As the risen Lord – as the victor over sin and death, and over all his cosmic enemies – Jesus does not now “show off” before the world, boastful and proud. No.
As the ascended Lord and master of the universe, he uses his unhindered divine power to present himself to all his people, all around the globe, in his Word and Sacraments.
Through the humble and unassuming outward forms of human speech and water, bread and wine, the glorious King of Kings comes among us with a heart that is filled, not with greed and selfish ambition, but with love – love for a world of arrogant sinners; love for you and me.
And when this love does indeed touch us, cleanse us, and transform our hearts, St. James continues to speak to us, and in God’s name he sends us forth from this encounter with Christ in a new direction, with new motives and with new goals. He gives us these admonitions, with these promises embedded within them:
“Scripture…says, ‘God opposes the proud, but gives grace to the humble.’ Submit yourselves therefore to God. Resist the devil, and he will flee from you. Draw near to God, and he will draw near to you. … Humble yourselves before the Lord, and he will exalt you.”
Psalm 37 encourages us with these words: “Delight yourself in the Lord, and he will give you the desires of your heart.”
Faith in Christ is not a heavenly means to an earthly end. It is not the manipulative religious mechanism that we employ in order to flatter or cajole God into giving us the things of this world – the stuff, the power, and the control – that we desire.
The Christian religion is not a tool that we use for the fulfilling of our carnal ambitions, under a superficial cloak of sanctimonious piety. The Christian religion is, instead, the negation of all carnal ambition.
Faith in Christ is a humble thing, with a humbling effect. And it is the evidence that God has placed a new defining desire into your heart, mind, and will: namely, a desire for Christ.
You now delight in Christ, and in the earthly callings into which he places you. You delight in Christ, and in the eternal rewards that he promises you.
And when you delight in the Lord, and desire the Lord, the Lord will indeed give you the desires of your heart. Because the Lord will give you himself, when it is him that you desire.
A humble desire for Christ is not a consuming compulsion that can never be filled. By the grace of God, through the means of grace, God’s Spirit continually fills us with Christ: even to the overflowing of our delight in the salvation that Jesus bestows upon us, as we humbly and lovingly share the message of this hope with those around us.
And where there is this fullness – this fullness of Christ – there is peace and contentment. There is true wisdom from God, so that we learn how to navigate through the snares and perils of this world, without being entrapped and destroyed by them.
The prayer that the Spirit of Christ gives us – as we hear and believe the life-giving words of Christ in sermon and Supper – is the prayer of the Psalmist: O Lord, “You make known to me the path of life; in your presence there is fullness of joy; at your right hand are pleasures forevermore.”
To be sure, whatever earthly blessings God wants to give his children in this life, they will receive and accept, with humble gratitude. The opportunities he gives us to serve him and our neighbor in fruitful employment, according to our vocations, we will take, in humble thanksgiving.
But whether we are given little or much, and whatever our standing in this world may be, we are satisfied. We have the risen Christ! And when we have him, we have everything we need.
In Christ, God also raises us up – up from the selfish passions, the self-serving ambitions, and the destructive cravings of this fallen world. St. Paul writes to the Colossians:
“If then you have been raised with Christ, seek the things that are above, where Christ is, seated at the right hand of God. Set your minds on things that are above, not on things that are on earth. For you have died, and your life is hidden with Christ in God. When Christ who is your life appears, then you also will appear with him in glory.”
God in his loving providence may open before us doorways into new and more fulfilling vocations. It is not wrong to walk through such doorways, as the Lord himself may place us in a higher position in life, so that we can better serve him and our fellow man.
Yet in all our prayers for daily bread, and for all the provisions we need for our life in this world, we heed the words of the Proverb:
“Trust in the Lord with all your heart, and lean not on your own understanding; In all your ways acknowledge Him, and He shall direct your paths.”
We do not proudly and arrogantly push our way through doors that are not open before us, into the livelihoods and callings of others. We wait upon the Lord, and thus renew our strength – and our patience.
In whatever vocation we currently have – even if it is fraught with frustrations and challenges – we remember these words, also from the Epistle to the Colossians:
“Whatever you do, work heartily, as for the Lord and not for men, knowing that from the Lord you will receive the inheritance as your reward. You are serving the Lord Christ.”
And in all things – in all our godly dreams and ethical aspirations – we remember the words of Jesus:
“For whoever exalts himself will be humbled, and he who humbles himself will be exalted.” Amen.