15 Pentecost

September 1, 2024

 

James 1.17-27; Mark 7.1-8, 14-15, 21-23

+ I have been at St. Stephen’s for a very long time now.

 

And in that time, you have seen Fr. Jamie in various moods.

 

Jovial.

 

Frustrated.

 

Sad.

 

But one that you have not seen very often is Fr. Jamie angry.

 

Some of you have.

 

But it’s very rare and far between.

 

But truth be told: I can be angry.

 

I have been angry about many things—especially the larger Church and the how people in the Church and in society are treated unfairly.

 

I get very angry about injustice and inequality.

 

My sister and I were talking about our anger the other day, and we both realized we get our bouts of anger from our mother.

 

My mom could get truly angry.

 

As she would say, when she was mad, “I’m seeing red.”

 

So do I!

 

When I am mad, I literally see red.

 

It’s the Irish in us I guess.

 

And when I do I always try to keep it myself.

 

But sometimes, I can’t hide it.

 

And it can unpleasant.

 

Of course, I’m human too.

 

We’ve all done this in our lives.

 

We’ve all been angry.

 

We’ve all lost it.

 

We’ve all been our worst.

 

We’ve all shown our shadow side, shall we say.

 

And we all have one—a shadow side, a dark side of our very selves.    

 

In today’s Gospel reading, we get a list from Jesus of some things the shadow sides of people do.

 

This list that Jesus lays out is a pretty strong and straightforward one.

 

And an uncomfortable one.

 

And most of us can feel pretty confident we’re free and clear for the most of the ones he lists.  

 

After all, most of us don’t steal, don’t murder, don’t commit adultery, aren’t purposely wicked, are deceitful, don’t slander

 

A few we might not really understand: avarice (which is just another word for greed)? licentiousness (which just means immorality, being immoral)?

 

Yes, we’re not guilty of these!

 

Then there’s folly? Folly? What’s so horrible about folly?

 

Folly could be seen as being frivolous or ridiculous.

 

But then, there are a few we find might actually hit home a bit, such as Envy and Pride.

 

For me, these two are the two that stumble me up the most.

 

These are the two of this whole list that I struggle with and fight against and try to overcome in my life.

 

Yes, I have been envious of others.

 

And, on occasion, I have been prideful.

 

What is especially apt about this morning’s Gospel reading is that Jesus takes these ugly things—these things from our shadow side—and uses them to engage fully the Pharisees and the scribes.

 

Now again, Pharisees and scribes were the righteous religious ones of Jesus’ Jewish world.

 

The Pharisees followed very strictly the Law.

 

And the Scribes were the ones who meticulous copied out the scrolls of the Law.

 

These were the experts of the Law of their age.

 

Jesus takes their condemnation of him about cleanliness and keeps the conversation going regarding cleanliness.

 

He simply takes their conversation up a notch.

 

He says, You are worried about what defiles the hands.

 

I am concerned with what defiles the heart.

 

The heart, for Jewish people of Jesus’ day, was truly the center of one’s being.

 

From the heart everything emanated.

 

The heart directed the mind.

 

It directed our thoughts.

 

If your heart was pure, then you were pure.

 

If your heart was evil, then you did evil.

 

Because where your heart leads, your actions follow.

 

Hence, his list of things that reveal the shadow side.

 

If our heart is full of pride, or envy, or lust or frivolous folly, then our hearts are not filled with God and love. 

 

But one that I am surprised Jesus did not list here is “anger.”

 

And if we did that to the list, then this would win the prize with me.

 

As I aid at the beginning of my sermon, know me as a pretty laid-back kind of person for the most part.

 

I don’t seem to fly off the handle very often.

 

I don’t think there have been too many people who have actually seen me completely lose it with anger.

 

OK. Some of the wardens may have seen it.

 

And maybe James saw once or twice when I have been angry over something.

 

And to be fair, it doesn’t always explode to the surface (which can either be a good thing or a really bad thing).

 

But it’s there and every so often I am forced to confront it.

 

When I do, I find myself experiencing this terrible anger in all its force.

 

And I don’t like it.

 

And I don’t like me when I am the throes of that kind of anger.

 

Anger can be all consuming.

 

When it boils up from within, all other senses seem to shut off—or angers shuts them off.

 

It rages and roils and knocks me—and anyone else around me—around, and in the midst of it, I find I am not only angry, but almost scared by the intensity of my anger.

 

Which only, of course, leads us to our reading from James for this morning.

 

Now, I LOVE the Epistle of James.

 

And I have never understood why people like Martin Luther felt that it should be excluded from the Canon of Scripture (along with Hebrews, Jude and Revelation).

 

His reasons for doing so were because they were against Luther’s doctrines of sola gratia (or grace alone) and sola fide (faith alone).

 

Luckily, we’re Episcopalians and we are not bound by Luther’s doctrines.

 

Grace alone and faith alone are not doctrines of Anglicanism.

 

Luther very famously called the epistle of James an “epistle of straw.”

 

But, what a waste if James was not a part of our scriptures!

 

And let me tell you, it is no “epistle of straw.”

 

It is a beautiful book.

 

And I am especially grateful for the scripture we get from James this morning:

 

“…be quick to listen, slow to speak, slow to anger.”

 

What a wonderful world this would be if we all did just that.

 

Anger is something that needs to be confronted and dealt with.

 

It needs to be systematically phased out, because it is like poison in our systems.

 

It can destroy us and those around us.

 

And, as James says, “anger does not produce God’s righteousness.”

 

If we think about our heart being the center of our being—as the center of ourselves— we find that anger truly does poison the heart and therefore the whole system.

 

When we harbor anger in our hearts, we are a slave to anger.

 

And if we are a slave to anger, we cannot let love flourish. And if we cannot let love flourish, God cannot come and dwell within us.

 

We block out God and we block out the Reign of God.

 

Anger does not help the Reign break through into our midst.

 

We are not helping build up the Reign when anger rules us.

 

In fact, we hinder the Reign of God when we are angry.

 

So, these words of James speak strongly to us this morning. “Be quick to listen, be slow to speak, slow to anger.”

 

We know how speaking sows the seeds of anger.

 

And if we’re speaking, we are not listening.

 

And sometimes, when we listen, we find that anger can be defused.

 

“Be slow to anger”.

 

I have come to the conclusion that, like despair (as you heard me say again and again), anger is simply not an acceptable Christian response.

 

Like despair, which squeezes out all hope, anger squeezes out hope and love.

 

It is simply impossible to love God and to love our neighbor as ourselves when we are filled with anger, when the storms of anger are raging within us.

 

Anger prevents love.

 

It stifles love.

 

It kills love.

 

And yet, it is such a human response.

 

The fact is,  we will feel anger.

 

And sometimes, the anger we feel is a righteous anger—an anger at things like injustice and racism and homophobia and sexism.

 

We should feel a righteous anger about those things.

 

It’s just that we should not let anger consume us.

 

But let us be clear about what James is saying to us.

 

He isn’t saying that we shouldn’t get angry on occasion.

 

He is simply saying we should be slow to anger.

 

We don’t need to fly off the handle.

 

We should not react in anger.

 

There are times when we may simply need to walk away from something that makes us angry.

 

This is how being slow to anger sometimes works.

 

Sometimes we just need to recognize anger and what it is in our lives.

 

But we don’t always have to engage it.

 

And we should never let it be the driving force of our lives.

 

So, let us listen to James.

 

Let us use his words as our own personal motto.

 

Let his words speak in us.

 

Let love squeeze out all anger from our lives.

 

Let us banish from our hearts—the center of our very being—anything that prevents love from reigning there.

 

Let us banish from it those vices—both easy to banish and difficult to banish—so that pureness can exist within us.

 

And if we do that, God’s love will settle upon the very center of our being.

 

And in that moment, God’s love will give us an everlasting peace that no anger can destroy.