1. This year
Just to one side of their mouth there a tiny little piece of lettuce has attached itself to their face.
Would you say something?… you’re a messy eater aren’t you. Do you lean over the table and try
to say without anybody else hearing… Excuse
me, I hope you don’t mind me saying, but Do you know there’s a piece of lettuce
stuck on your face? Or Maybe You try to ignore it. But every time they
speak you look at them your eyes are drawn to this little scrap of food… it
moves up and down every time they speak.
Now imagine this: You are the person with the lettuce stuck on your face, and you notice this strange man on the other side of the table. making gestures at you. You think. Is there something on my face? Almost as a reflex action you reach up and brush it away… and this little scrap of lettuce drops on to the table cloth.
If someone says something to us about our appearance…
our response is almost automatic.
Now it is not unspiritual or un-christian to be concerned about our outward appearance. If you doubt that, well think about this… God paid a lot of attention to us when he created us and gave us these bodies to live in…(I know he paid more attention to some than to others but still!!!) It is part of our God –given nature that we should appreciate beauty, (after all one day we will appreciate the beauty of Jesus when we see him face to face) It is part of our God given nature that we should be concerned with how things appear to the eye. So it is not at all surprising that we should be concerned with our appearance. Just because you are sloppy it doesn’t mean you are a saint. And just because you are smart it doesn’t mean that you are a sinner. Where we go wrong is if we allow our understanding of ourselves to be shaped by the values and ideas of the culture we live in rather than by what we know to be the truth of God’s word. (as we saw last Week ) If we live as if “life is one long catwalk.” As if life is all about appearing good in front of other people. When in fact
the
opinion that shapes our destiny is not the opinion of our next door neighbour
or the folk at work... it is the opinion that GOD has of us.
It’s how we walk in HIS sight that matters.
It is so easy to devote more attention to how we look to other when we should really be concerned with how we appear to God.
2. The Bible passage this morning reminds us that there is nothing about us that God doesn’t notice.
The problem is we are not always as
concerned with what God sees IN us, as we are with what other people see OF us.
So imagine this… If you were out doing the shopping in Safeway’s and somebody said Do you know you’ve got a black mark on the end of your nose… you would probably automatically rub it of.. and say has it gone. And Next time you saw a mirror it wouldn’t be that unusual if you were to just check and give your nose another rub to make sure the mark was gone.
But - What if someone in Safeway’s told you there’s a black mark on the end of your nose,
and you said ooo thanks very much and
then went straight off to the loo to look in the mirror. And then you stand
looking in the mirror.. see the mark on the end of your nose… but then do
nothing about it… and then you turn away from the mirror and immediately forget
the mark was there. Now That would be unusual.
This mornings reading says that is just what it is possible for any Christian to do.
3. For if you just listen ( he is talking about listening to God’s word) and don’t obey, it is like looking at your face in a mirror but doing nothing to improve your appearance. You see yourself, walk away, and forget what you look like. Literally the text speaks of someone closely examining themselves in a mirror and then forgetting or ignoring what they found there.
James is saying that God’s Word to us can be like a mirror. As we hear God’s word to us we can begin to see ourselves not as the people we imagine we are, but as the people we really are.
I can still remember the first time I realised that my head was not covered with quite so much hair as it used to be. I had gone to another department of the college where I worked, with a message for someone I knew there. I left the message with another member of the staff there and came back. Later on my colleague said he had received a message but he didn’t know who it was from… and then he had been told that it had been delivered by someone who was fairly thin, wearing a blue denim jacket and going bald – and so he knew it must be me. It was the first time I had heard anybody describe me like that. It brought home to me the painful truth about my follicle situation !
God’s word is always spoken to us in love. He can help us to see the truth about ourselves… but sometimes that can be painful.
4. If the bible is like a mirror. How often do you find that as you read the bible,
you are looking at yourself in a new way? Perhaps recognising some feelings or
thoughts you had that maybe you hadn’t acknowledged before. And then what do
you do about what you see. Do you take action to deal with what you see in the
mirror… or do you turn away and forget it? The letter of James is not a bad
place to start looking in the mirror of God’s word. Just look at what is said in this mornings
reading…
be quick to listen, slow to speak, and slow
to get angry.
Sometimes we
can be just the other way round..
too busy to listen properly,
too quick to speak and give our opinion,
and incredibly quick to get angry if
something irritates us.
When you look at this mirror.. do you see anything here that is true about you in it. Remember the word of God is spoken to us in love. It is not to put us down but to build us up, to help us to see ourselves as we are so that we can do something about our appearance - in Gods eyes.
Your anger can never make things right in
God’s sight.
Are you still angry about something.. or somebody. Are you still avoiding someone.. not speaking to someone, distancing yourself from someone. Are you still saying negative things to other people about someone has upset you.
Look in the mirror and see if you are angry. God seems to be saying
very clearly that our anger is never going to solve anything. In fact anger is
often much more destructive of the person who is angry than the person to whom
anger is directed.
So
get rid of all the filth and evil in your lives
I think it’s brilliant how we can put out the rubbish and
someone comes and takes it away. The bins we have last for two weeks. By that
time it’s getting pretty smelly.. and sometimes can get flies in when all the
stuff inside them goes rotten. I wouldn’t like to just pile up all the rubbish
we produce in the kitchen, and leave it there. Even if it was left on the floor
for just two weeks it would start getting pretty smelly.
But sometimes we can hang on to rubbish in
our lives not just for a couple of weeks.. but for months and YEARS. You know
what the rubbish is.. if you look in the mirror… The un-forgiveness, the
big-headedness, the boastfulness, the judging of others, the greed and
covetousness, the meanness and self-centredness that actually cuts us off from
God as well as from other people. Problem is we can look in the mirror.. see
what needs to be done… listen to the word of God.. and then walk away and
forget what we have heard and what we have seen of ourselves.
Hanging on to the rubbish – are you doing
any of that at the moment. If we look into the mirror… God is saying get rid of all the smelly stuff. I can see
the rubbish… look there’s some there... some there.
Get
rid of it .There are lots of other things just in this short passage…
If
you claim to be religious but don’t control your tongue, you are just fooling
yourself…
Show picture of tongue cleaner.
God seems to be quite concerned about
cleaning up our tongues. He knows just how much damage we can do with them. The
tongue cleaner that Jesus offers doesn’t work from the outside like this one. His cleaner… the Holy Spirit works from the inside.
It’s
the gunge on the inside that leads us to allow our tongues to speak gunge into
other people’s lives. If there are to be any
changes in any part of our life, as a result of our looking in this mirror..
they will only come about if we actually want God to change us, that is if we
invite the Holy Spirit to help us to change, and if we make choices to allow
ourselves to be led and guided by the Spirit.
we
must care for orphans and widows in their troubles,
That’s not an
exhaustive list of people to care about.. it doesn’t mean that we don’t have to
care about people who are not orphans!
The bible often uses this phrase simply to talk about people in need. God is
looking at us to see that we DO care about the people that he cares about. He
wants our hearts to contain as much as they can of his love. So that we start
to have his compassion for others.
…and
refuse to let the world corrupt us.
While we were on holiday… had some milk in the fridge that went mouldy. I felt a bit aggrieved because we had only had a tiny bit out of it. Just opened it the day before … and it went mouldy long before the sell-by date. Milk will keep longer if it isn’t opened. The problem is - as soon as you open the bottle and the milk comes into contact with the air, then bacteria and stuff in the air get to work and the milk go off quicker.
As Christians we are supposed to be in contact with people who don’t know God. We are supposed to be in places where God is NOT honoured.
Show Cameron on Big Brother…
It seems as if Cameron was doing what Christians are supposed to do.. turning up in places where they might be least expected to be .. and then demonstrating what it is to live as a friend of Jesus. (And he won. Amazing. Perhaps there is something attractive about the Christian lifestyle after all!)
Just because we are in contact with people
who don’t know God, and we are exposed every day to ideas and values that are
contrary to God’s will… we are not supposed to be influenced and by those situations and values.. it’s the other
way round.. we are supposed to bring into those situations the goodness and
love of God and the knowledge of what he
requires. Refuse to be corrupted…
When you look in the mirror.. are there parts of your thinking maybe with regard to your lifestyle, your values, your aims in life, your sexual relationships, or whatever… where you are being shaped, corrupted by.. your contact with others who do not know Jesus. Don’t cut yourself off from them... but ask God to help you to demonstrate in your life what it is to live in friendship with and obedience to Jesus.
We are supposed to be make a difference to the world… it’s not supposed to be the other way round!
Do remember - this letter of James was written to a group of Christian people who all knew and loved Jesus.
It was written to a group of people who were learning how to love him and to love one another.
It was written to a group of people who were learning to look in the mirror and to face up to the truth about themselves, and learning to ask God’s Holy Spirit to help them to become more like Jesus.
In other words it was written to a church… like this one, to people like me and you.
The message in this sermon today is simple… read this passage from James again today… and as you hear what it says… look in the mirror..
look closely and ask God to show you if you can see yourself in any of the things that are said in this passage… and if you can find your reflection there… don’t forget what you have seen.
As a first step.. agree with God… yes Father you are right. You don’t like what you can see in me… and I don’t like it either.
And then agree to co-operate with God is changing that pattern of behaviour, that attitude or whatever… And even if it seems painful to you.. remember that God loves you and all he wants to do is to set you and me free to really know life in all it’s fullness as his children.