Notes From A Sermon: James 1:17-27

Notes From a Sermon: James 1:17-27

“Every good and perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of the heavenly lights, who does not change like shifting shadows. He chose to give us birth through the word of truth, that we might be a kind of first-fruits of all he created . . . Do not merely listen to the word, and so deceive yourselves. Do what it says. Anyone who listens to the word but does not do what it says is like someone who looks at his face in a mirror and, after looking at himself, goes away and immediately forgets what he looks like. But whoever looks intently into the perfect law that gives freedom, and continues in it—not forgetting what they have heard, but doing it—they will be blessed in what they do.” — James 1:17-27

Hold on.

“Anyone who looks at his face in a mirror.”

A mirror?

Let’s think about this for a minute.

First. Jesus. He has no place to lay his head. He owns… Nothing.

Next. A dozen apostles accompany Jesus. More than a baseball team, more men than a football team’s offensive line. Some of them have jobs they’ve left, most of them don’t even have jobs worth mentioning. And when they travel, they carry: nothing.

Remember, Jesus preached into the evening one time, and there were thousands of hungry people who had nothing to eat.

It’s difficult for us to imagine how poor the people in the Bible really are. Not just Jesus and the apostles, who are always eating at different people’s homes, but nearly all the people in antiquity are really poor.

People sleep a lot of people to a building, or they sleep with the animals, like Mary and Joseph did when Jesus was born, or they just sleep outside, on the ground, in the clothes they wear for months, years at a time.

Think of all the Bible movies you’ve ever seen. People in tents. People living in mud buildings filled with a few baskets and bundles of sticks. Sometimes, if there’re more wealthy poor people, they have a few pillows and a rug. A few more pots or earthen water jugs and drinking cups.

You know what I’ve never seen in a Bible movie?

A mirror.

Paul talks about looking through a glass darkly, and only knowing in part. He knows the reflection he sees is an imperfect vision of reality.

In Job 37:15-18, one of Job’s friends says “Do you know how God controls the clouds and makes his lightning flash? Do you know how the clouds hang poised, those wonders of him who has perfect knowledge? You who swelter in your clothes when the land lies hushed under the south wind, can you join him in spreading out the skies, hard as a mirror of cast bronze?”

A mirror of cast bronze.

Mirrors made from glass were created around the First Century, but weren’t widespread until the invention of the silvered-glass mirror in Germany in 1835.

Mirrors of the Biblical era were often highly polished volcanic stones called obsidian; 8,000-year-old mirrors like this have been found in Turkey.

Eventually polished metals were used, first brass, then silver and gold. According to an early Roman historian, by the time the Bible was written, silver mirrors were so widespread that even servants were using them.

So, when James uses a mirror as an example, he’s talking about something everyone can relate to.

“If you listen to the word,” he says, but don’t do what it says, “is like someone who looks at his face in a mirror and, after looking at himself, goes away and immediately forgets what he looks like.”

Do we spend much time now a-days looking in the mirror?

When she was around five or six, my daughter would stand in the bathroom and watch herself talk. Did your kids do that?

Do you remember Fonzie, on Happy Days? Looked in the mirror to comb his perfect hair? Years later, Henry Winkler played a lawyer on TV’s Arrested Development, and he reenacted that scene in front of the mirror.

Imaging being in the barber’s chair or the beauty shop. Where we sit and look at ourselves. Sit there helplessly and watch ourselves watch ourselves.

We learn lessons in life looking in the rearview mirror. Hindsight is 20/20, is the saying.

We don’t want to spend all of our time looking back, thinking of when life was better, or at least different. If we are always looking back, we’ll run into what’s ahead. But it’s only by looking back that we are able to get perspective on what transpired, to gain an understanding of what we experienced. To learn our lessons.

But some people never look back. They never consider their mistakes or missteps. They never think about the wrong decisions they’ve made or the effects of those bad choices.

The less we look back, the less likely we are to learn from our mistakes. And we end up making the same mistakes again and again and again.

While we’re thinking about the rearview mirror, let’s not forget about the sideview mirror, where objects, “Are closer than they appear.” We have a mirror is our cars that distorts reality – that’s kind of crazy, if you think about.

But sometimes objects, problems, troubles, difficulties are closer than they appear.

Are you familiar with the story of Narcissus from Greek mythology?

Narcissus stopped by a crystal-clear pool of water for a drink.

As he knelt down to drink, he looking in the water and saw a wonderful sight –a beautiful face gazing back at him. He was enchanted by the beauty of what he was beholding. But when he reached out to try to touch this attractive face, the surface of the water would dissolve with his touch, and the face would disappear.

Forlorn, Narcissus would remain by the stream, waiting for the water to still, so he could see the beautiful face again. Which of course was his own reflection. According to mythology, he never left that spot, never loved another, never moved on, as he gazed upon his own reflection. He became obsessed with himself.

The myth says that Narcissus died a lonely and starving death, self-absorbed, and alone, staring at himself in the deep, lonely pool of the isolated.

This is where we get the word narcissist – people who are abnormally, unhealthily, self-absorbed and focused on themselves, to the exclusion of those around them.

James warns us not to be “someone who looks at his face in a mirror and, after looking at himself, goes away and immediately forgets what he looks like.”

Do we really take time to look at who we are? Physically, mentally, emotionally, and spiritually? Or do we just glance briefly in a mirror, as we rush by, and then forget what we look like, and forget who we are. And forget whose we are.

When is the last time you looked in a mirror? Do you remember who you saw? First and foremost, you saw the face of Christ. The reflection of God’s image, as we are all created in the image of God – to be loved and to love.

This why we are called to mirror Christ, to reflect Christ back to a word in desperate need of Christ.

The church is where love is shared and truth told, and we take time in a busy, hectic week to look into the mirror of our soul. Church is like a spiritual beauty shop, or barber’s chair, where we are forced to look at our own reflections.

Perhaps, today, in church, is like the beauty shop, we’re as good as we’re gonna be, right now, looking in the mirror. As soon as we step out the door and the wind blows our hair, or the world reminds us of what the world is, then we’re walking around with crazy hair, and crazy spirits.

We don’t want to be like Narcissus, staring until we are lost to ourselves and ultimately lost to ourselves. We don’t want to be like the person James warns us about, those who glance in the mirror and immediately forget who they are.

“But whoever looks intently into the perfect law that gives freedom, and continues in it,” today’s scripture says, “not forgetting what they have heard, but doing it—they will be blessed in what they do.”

James 1:17-27

Every Good and Perfect Gift is a mirror; an opportunity to look inward. To see who we really are. To see ourselves as the world sees us.

We live in the moment.

Life takes place in the ever-present now. There’s really only this moment. The past is as dead as Abraham Lincoln and Franklin Delano Roosevelt. The future isn’t promised to us. Tomorrow may never come.

We’re fairly certain tomorrow will come, that’s why we go to the doctor and save for the future. But one day, we are absolutely certain, one day tomorrow won’t come. One day will be our last day.

So, the past is past and the future is unknown, and that means all we have is this moment.

This moment to gaze into the mirror of our souls and think about what we see. To deeply consider who is looking back at us in the mirror.

“But whoever looks intently into the perfect law that gives freedom, and continues in it—not forgetting what they have heard, but doing it—they will be blessed in what they do.”

May we look intently into God’s perfect law, may we look intently upon God’s good and perfect gifts, and may we be blessed in what we do. Amen.