I want today for us to reflect upon the teaching of Saint James, the Brother of Our Lord Jesus Christ. I will give attention especially to two verses, both of which are well known. The first is “Be doers of the Word, and not hearers only, deceiving yourselves.” And the second comes at the end of the passage we heard, where James teaches, “Religion that is pure and undefiled before God the Father is this: to visit orphans and widows in their affliction, and to keep oneself unstained from the world.”
To reflect on the teaching of Saint James, I begin with the words, “All God wants is the human heart.” These are words I have said so often in my time as Rector of Saint Paul’s, even in my sermon on the first Sunday as your Rector. These words are not found in Scripture in a literal, word for word, sense. They come from a Christian monk revered both in his life as a Saint and certainly after his death revered as a Saint. Saint Antony the Great, who died in the year 356, who lived as a hermit in the Egyptian desert, the biography of whom was written by another great Saint of the Church, Saint Athanasius. It is to Saint Anthony that many pray when they lose their car keys, cellphone, or something like that. He has a great track record of helping people locate lost things. All God wants is the human heart, he teaches us. Sometimes our heart may be lost to sin and ungodly behavior, so Saint Anthony reminds us where our true heart is found: it is only found in Jesus Christ.
We see this in Joshua’s final address to the children of Israel before he died. Joshua had been a close disciple of Moses; Joshua accompanied Moses as he ascended Mount Sinai to be with God, and accompanied Moses as he descended to find the people had made the idol of the molten calf. Joshua succeeded Moses as leader of the children of Israel; he took them across the River Jordan, and led them as they fought and took control over Jericho, as well as the lands of the Amorites and many others. Joshua had seen it all, thus his final words were full of wisdom through his deep experience witnessing to the challenges and reality of keeping our relationship with God. And so Joshua said, just before he died: “Then put away the foreign gods which are among you, and incline your heart to the Lord, the God of Israel.” For Joshua, it was idols and idolatrous behavior that separates us from God, and keeps our heart from God. Whether it is external idolatry, or inward idolatry, even idolatry of the self, idolatry and disobedience go hand in hand. When we proclaim and believe that Jesus Christ is King and Saviour, we destroy the idols that separate us from God, and we incline our heart to God as an offering of living sacrifice, which is how God made our heart in the first place.
Our Lord Jesus speaks through Isaiah and says, “Say to those who are of a fearful heart, ‘Be strong, fear not!’” For a heart that is strong in faith, and not buried in anxiety and fright, is a heart that given to God; is a heart that God possesses, it having been freely and completely given to God as Saint Mary Magdalene freely and completely gave to Jesus the expensive alabaster jar and yet more expensive spikenard oil. Hear how Jesus speaks through Isaiah about those who give their heart to God: “The eyes of the blind shall be opened, and the ears of the deaf unstopped.”
It is the same as Our Lord Jesus is recorded by Saint Mark as healing the man who was deaf with an impediment of speech. “Ephphatha” Jesus said. That is, “Be opened.” When we give our hearts to God, when we lift up our hearts unto the Lord, Jesus says “Ephphatha”; He says, “Let your heart be opened.” With our heart given to God and open, as Jesus says through Isaiah: the lame shall leap like a deer, the tongue of the dumb sing for joy. Waters break forth in the wilderness, streams flow in the desert. All of the rich imagery from Isaiah refers to the human heart. All God wants is the human heart, because when He has the human heart, He can work His grace, His energies through the heart freely given to Him.
This is how the teaching of Saint James is understood. Everything James teaches us demands nothing less than a heart opened by God, a heart of humility, patience, and love. When James says “Be doers of the Word, and not hearers only, deceiving yourselves,” Saint Antony’s teaching clarifies what this means. A doer is a person whose heart is given to God, who seeks to do God’s will, and seeks in all things to be agents of Christ’s peace and love to a world desperate for both. A hearer is a person who is holding something of his or her heart back from God, holding something back like Ananias and his wife Sapphira as described by Saint Luke in Acts 5. They sold a piece of property but kept back some of the proceeds; quite contrary to the free-will offerings of the early Christians, in which (according to Saint Luke) no one said that any of the things which he possessed was his own. Ananias and Sapphira, unlike Saint Barnabas and the rest, held back their heart (as symbolized by the proceeds of the sale of their property) and they feel down and died at the feet of Saint Peter. In the matter of our heart, Our Lord means business.
Brothers and sisters, Our Lord does not want our heart for His amusement or as a game; He wants our heart that He can transform our heart, and through the transformation of our heart, lead us more and more into salvation, into health, and into unity with Him for eternity. And how do we know we have given our heart to Christ? Saint James tells us it is when a person does true religion: visits orphans and widows in their affliction, and keeps oneself unstained from the world. All of this can be interpreted both literally and spiritually. Literally, to keep oneself unstained from the world is to avoid getting involved with the evil things of the world; spiritually, it means active participation in the Liturgy and Sacraments, which cleanse us, bless us, and protect us. With respect to the orphans and widows of the world, literally we are to comfort and help them with the nourishment of material help; spiritually, a soul is the widow who has lost her spouse, that is Jesus Christ, through mortal sin; and the orphans are those who have lost their Heavenly Father, that is God Almighty, through sin. To visit these means we comfort and help them with the nourishment of spiritual teaching. All of this, says Saint James, is true religion. When we do this, we are blessed in our doing; we are merciful in our doing. Jesus said, “Blessed are the merciful, for they shall receive mercy.” When we do this, we know our heart is given to God.
And so again I say, Come Holy Ghost, our souls inspire, and lighten with celestial fire. Fill us with life, fill us with grace. Remove our blindness and open the eyes of our heart—that in yearning for deeper relationship with the living Christ, we give Him our heart, and see Him revealed as not only man, but truly as God: Christ Who lives and reigns with the Father in the unity of the Holy Ghost; ever one god, world without end. Amen.
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