The Round Church
at St Andrew the Great
Cambridge
A Sermon Preached
on Sunday 5th November 2000
by Mark Ashton
There was a light
aircraft flying over Africa, returning from an important diplomatic mission. It
had just four people on board: the Secretary General of the United Nations, a
Cambridge University professor, the Archbishop of Canterbury and a garage
mechanic who had been on holiday hitching across Africa and had got stranded at
a small airstrip in the middle of Africa where this light aircraft happened to
land to refuel. At his request they squeezed him on at the last moment. But
some time after take-off they run into a tropical storm and the pilot suddenly
announces that they are going to crash. He says, “I’m afraid there are only
four parachutes and I’m taking one.” And with that, he jumps. The Secretary
General of the United Nations is quick to leave his seat and say, “I am the
most important person on this aircraft. My death would destabilise the world
situation, so I’m taking one of the parachutes.” Whereupon he jumps. The
Cambridge University professor is next out of his seat, and he says, “Without a
doubt I am the cleverest person on this aircraft. The world is waiting for my
next book.” And so he jumps. That leaves two passengers and one parachute.
There is an awkward pause, during which the Archbishop of Canterbury clears his
throat and looks across at the garage mechanic. But before he can speak, the
mechanic, with a broad grin, says, “No worries mate! No worries at all. I guess
the world will have to wait for that next book, ’cos the cleverest person on
this aircraft just jumped out with my backpack on.”
The nature of true wisdom:
what is it to be truly clever? I don’t know whether you see yourself as a
thinker or as a practical person, as a brain or as a pair of hands. If you’re
in the latter category, the practical, the pragmatist, you may sometimes feel
that the sermons here at St Andrew the Great are too theoretical, too
doctrinal, too cerebral. And if that’s the case, then this letter of James will
have appealed to you. James is intensely practical, he’s essentially
down-to-earth. It is for the pragmatist and it has its feet very firmly on the
ground. And it’s about Christian maturity. That’s of interest both to the
Christian and the non-Christian – what it is to have a mature Christian faith.
In fact I think, at this stage, we’d better probably re-read a bit of the
beginning of the letter or we’re going to lose the plot, and forget what James
said right at the outset. I am going to read from chapter 1 (verses 2-4), where
James sets the scene for the letter: ‘Consider it pure joy, my brothers, whenever
you face trials of many kinds, because you know that the testing of your faith
develops perseverance. Perseverance must finish its work so that you may be
mature and complete, not lacking anything.’ That’s what he’s going to
be on about through the rest of the letter – maturity.
But notice how he goes on: ‘If
any of you lacks wisdom, he should ask God, who gives generously to all without
finding fault, and it will be given to him. But when he asks, he must believe
and not doubt, because he who doubts is like a wave of the sea, blown and
tossed by the wind. That man should not think he will receive anything from the
Lord; he is a double-minded man, unstable in all he does’ (1:5-8).
Notice the link there between maturity (v. 4) and wisdom (v. 5).
And the
contrast James draws with the unstable man – or woman, whom we likened
before to the tourist with one foot on the bank and one foot in the punt. The
instability of the person who puts a bit of faith in God while still looking to
this world to meet his/her needs. That’s immaturity according to James – and
perhaps the description of the faith of some of us here this morning.
Here now in chapter 3 James
has been dealing with the tongue: not counselling us to silence (Christianity
is not like Zen Buddhism – a silent wait for enlightenment to dawn).
Christianity affirms the extraordinary human ability for communication. But our
speech is both one of our most sophisticated accomplishments and also one of
our most dangerous because of its great potential to do damage. The human
tongue must be controlled; it must be directed.
Now, behind the tongue lies
the mind. And it’s there that we will find the secret of tongue-control, in
this quality of wisdom which James talks about at the end of chapter 3. We’ll
trace the logic of James’ thought through these five points.
1)
There is cleverness, and there is true wisdom (James 3: 13-15)
‘Who is wise and
understanding among you? Let him show it by his good life, by deeds done in the
humility that comes from wisdom. But if you harbour bitter envy and selfish
ambition in your hearts, do not boast about it or deny the truth. Such “wisdom”
does not come down from heaven but is earthly, unspiritual, of the devil’ (3:13-15).
Notice that the difference
doesn’t lie in the content of the wisdom or the teaching, but in the
life and attitude of the teacher: ‘… if you harbour bitter envy and selfish
ambition in your hearts …’(v. 14). James is suggesting that we could be
trying to teach something that is right and yet still be false to the truth. We
can be clever but not wise. And this cleverness of which he’s talking (which
you’ll see in verse 15 is described as “wisdom”) is characterised, in verse 14,
by bitter envy or selfish ambition – by being, I would suggest, unscrupulous in
controversy, for example. It’s characterised by selfish ambition, it’s more
interested in winning an argument than in establishing the truth – more eager
for others to notice our intellect than for them to come to a knowledge of the
truth.
William Barclay wrote on
this passage: ‘There is a kind of person who is undoubtedly clever, with an
acute brain and a skilful tongue. But his effect, nevertheless, in any
committee, in any church, in any group is to cause trouble and to disturb
personal relationships. It’s a sobering thing to remember that the wisdom that
he possesses is devilish rather than divine.’ How does James put it?
‘Such “wisdom” does not come from heaven but is earthly, unspiritual, of the
devil’ (v. 15). And this sort of cleverness is nothing to be proud of
(v. 14). In fact it actually contradicts the truth of what real wisdom is. It’s
just a way of drawing attention to myself, and saying. “Look, I’m very clever,
I’m very witty, I’m very sharp. I’m a bit quicker, actually, than you are. My
mind is going rather faster than yours is at the moment.’ So much of our
conversation can be a putting down of others. Samuel Johnson once said that ‘no
two men (and he meant women as well) can be half an hour together but that one
shall acquire an evident superiority over the other.’ We can do it in less than
half an hour here in Cambridge. It only takes about two minutes to establish
which is the intellectually quicker of the two of us – who’s further on, who
has already done his doctorate or is in the middle of his doctorate. We draw
that hierarchy in a moment, don’t we? How clever I am, how easily the
scholarly, the academic, the educated mind slips into this mould. I think this
may be a passage for a university church.
It’s been said that the main
features of the academic mind are that it is cautious, tightly organised,
faultfinding, competitive and above all inordinately aware of other academic
minds. How easily our wisdom can become a mean and petty cleverness. Which is
just saying to other people, “Please notice how clever I am.” And God’s verdict
is clear: ‘Such “wisdom” does not come down from heaven but is earthly,
unspiritual, of the devil.’
2)
True wisdom is not primarily for teaching, but for living
Now don’t get James wrong.
He’s not against teaching. Far from it! But the communication of the Christian
faith cannot be the same process as that which goes on in the school classroom
or the university seminar. Look again at our first verse: ‘Who is wise and understanding
among you? Let him show it by his good life, by deeds done in the humility that
comes from wisdom’ (v. 13). There must be evidence of the practical
application of knowledge in a good life, because true wisdom is for living that
life that we may learn how to do good and avoid evil. It is a wisdom of deeds,
if you like. It’s not a wisdom of accumulating knowledge merely in order to
transmit it (and perhaps to impress others as well on the way). It’s not the
brilliant mathematician who cannot keep his or her marriage together.
Let me quote to you from a non-Christian, Theodore Roszak, writing in
'The Making of a Counter-Culture'. 'It
is not of supreme importance that a human being should be a good scientist, a
good administrator, a good expert. It's
not of supreme importance that he should be right, rational, knowledgeable or
even creative of brilliantly finished objects as often as possible. Life is not what we are in our various
professional capacities, or in the practice of some special skill. What is of supreme importance is that each
of us should become a person, a whole and integrated person in whom there is
manifested a sense of the human variety genuinely experienced, a sense of
having come to terms with a reality that is awesomely vast.' Are not those interesting words from a
non-Christian? If a non-Christian can
see it and understand it, ought not you and I take it to heart?
You cannot teach the truth
unless you’re committed to being a certain sort of person. Let me say that of
myself. I cannot teach the truth unless I am committed to being a certain
sort of person.
We need to remember that when
we share in a Bible study group, or help on a Christian activity, or in youth
and children’s ministry. Or indeed when just talking with a friend about
serious things. We cannot communicate Christian truth unless we are committed
to being a certain sort of person. ‘Who is wise and understanding among you?
Let him show it by his good life, by deeds done in the humility that comes from
wisdom.’ You see true wisdom cannot be self-advertising.
You know those competitions
for the world’s thinnest book, when people suggest appropriate titles? – like a
travelogue entitled With Rod and Line
across the Gobi Desert, or something like that? Well, one of the strongest
contenders for the world’s thinnest book is always going to be: Humility, and How I Attained It.
Look, then, at verse 17: ‘But
the wisdom that comes from heaven is first of all pure; then peace-loving,
considerate, submissive, full of mercy and good fruit, impartial and sincere.’
I wonder if, when he was penning that verse, James was recalling his home life
as he grew up alongside Jesus? Notice that just as the true wisdom cannot be
confined to the classroom or the lecture hall, nor can it be exercised in a
vacuum. It requires relationships. Those qualities in verse 17 all presume a
context of social relationships. So that brings us to our third point.
3)
True wisdom produces right relationships
Here is one sure way to
distinguish cleverness from wisdom. It’s by what they do to personal
relationships – that arrogant cleverness, which we’ve been talking about,
separates human beings from one another; it makes divisions between us, draws
hierarchies which put me above somebody else, or somebody else a bit above me.
True wisdom brings people closer to one another, and closer to God. The wisdom
that comes from heaven is pure,…peace-loving, considerate, submissive,
full of mercy and good fruit, impartial and sincere.
For all of us present today
who are involved in any way in education, whether we are on the delivering end
or the receiving end of it, we need sometimes to ask: Is this process teaching me and others to be better? Is it teaching us
to get on better with each other? Being a brilliant physicist is actually a
lot less important than becoming a better person, although the universities,
and colleges of this city are telling us the opposite all the time. There is a
fundamental idolatry that runs around in our society – which says this: It is GOOD to be CLEVER. It’s good to
be educated, it’s good to get you’re ‘A’ Levels , it’s good to get a degree, to
get a Cambridge degree is slightly better, isn’t it? What do we mean by that
word better? It’s of little value at
all. No, no, what James is saying to us is to reverse the two adjectives: It is CLEVER to be GOOD. In fact, to
use his own language we want to change that a bit more, because James is
not saying, It is GOOD to be WISE (that sounds so much like the message of
Proverbs and of James, doesn’t it? – until we stop and think). Actually what
he’s saying is this: It is WISE to be
GOOD. There is a moral quality to true wisdom. It is in fact about that
harvest of righteousness in verse 18, to which we are going to move now.
4)
Right relationships are essential for the growth of righteousness
‘Peacemakers who sow in
peace raise a harvest of righteousness’ (v. 18). The ultimate aim
of wisdom is not that we get on better with each other. The ultimate aim of
wisdom is the righteousness at the end of the verse. But we need peace on the
way to righteousness. Why? Well, peace isn’t passive. Let me ask this: How are
we to be the sort of people we are meant to be. To be that sort of
person I guess you and I have got to change – unless you’re 100% satisfied with
yourself morally as you are here at the moment. I doubt that there is one
person who could say that of themselves. If you are, by all means walk out
mentally at this point because I’ve got nothing more I can say that will help
you. No, everyone of us is aware that actually change needs to happen inside
Mark Ashton. How is that change going to happen? The Bible’s answer is that we
need help: we need God’s help, yes surely, but we also need one another’s help.
One of the ways God helps us is through one another. You and I have some
painful changes to make in our lives, and we need one another to make those
changes.
Commentating on verse 18,
one commentator wrote: ‘A harmonious fellowship of believers is the soil out
of which grows the whole life that is pleasing to God.’ Peacemakers who sow
in peace raise a harvest of righteousness. The peace, the love that unites the
fellowship enables the individuals within it to make the painful changes that
allow a harvest of righteousness in their lives. That is the logic which lies
behind the verse. And this church, and every church, is to be a change-enabling
community. Rivalry and competitiveness will not help the harvest of
righteousness to grow. We won’t produce what God means us to produce in our
lives if those lives are characterised by a petty, competitive, point-scoring
attitude to one another – whether it’s fellow Christians or just other people
generally. The Church is to be a change-enabling community. We’ve all
entered that community by grace, because we stand as sinners forgiven because
of the Cross. And we all need the same help to change into the sort of people
that we ought to be – this ‘harvest of righteousness.’
I would suggest that the
giving and receiving of that help requires knowing each other better than we
can in a gathering of this size. We need to relate to other Christians in
smaller groups than the several hundred of a largish service. You and I need to
belong to a smaller group where we can give and receive love, acceptance,
encouragement, exhortation. It may be that you already do, in which case – does
your small group do that for you? Look at verse 18: ‘Peacemakers who sow in peace
raise a harvest of righteousness.’ I sometimes hear people in small
house groups say how supportive that group has been when they were in sickness
or difficulty – which is great. But at the end of the day it’s not just help in
sickness and difficulty, it’s help towards heaven. Do you receive that?– do you
give it (if you belong to a small group)? It’s not just cosy prayers for one
another’s illnesses, but spurring one another on to become the sort of people
God means us to become – that harvest of righteousness described there in verse
17. The Christian life is experienced in community; that is where and how God’s
grace comes to bear on us to help us change.
Now maybe you’re not a
member of a small group of Christians. That may be because you’re not yet a
Christian, but if you are a converted person today and you’re not part
of a small group, may I ask you this? Are you a better person for not being
part of a small group? Ask yourself how seriously you take this harvest of
righteousness. Is it something that doesn’t matter to you? It matters to God.
We need each other and we
also need God and that’s why I have added the first three verses from chapter
4. (Remember, James didn’t write in chapters and verses; they were added to the
text centuries later. His thought runs on much more closely than the chapter
break implies.)
5)
Accessing the source of true wisdom. (4:1-3)
I’m going to read verses
1-3, but don’t be confused by all this talk of killing and fighting. We don’t
know how literal this may have been. We can’t now tell. There was plenty of
violence in 1st century Palestine, and James himself was going to be
martyred in 62AD. But it is James’ analysis that we should note: that selfish
desire is at the heart of social discord. ‘What causes fights and quarrels among you?
Don’t they come from your desires that battle within you? You want something
but don’t get it. You kill and covet, but you cannot have what you want. You
quarrel and fight. You do not have, because you do not ask God. When you ask,
you do not receive, because you ask with wrong motives, that you may spend what
you get on your pleasures.’ Selfish
desire is at the heart of social discord. Not getting what I want is what
sets me against others. Those two kinds of wisdom in verses 13-18 of chapter 3
(the verses we have already considered) come from two very different sources.
False wisdom, cleverness, is essentially about me, my selfish ambition, my
desire to vaunt myself over other people, achieving what I want to achieve. It
is earthly and it’s even devilish.
Notice back in
3:16 that word ‘disorder’ is the same word that James has used right back in
1:8 (the bit we read at the beginning) where he talked of the double-minded
man, unstable in all he does.
It’s our little fellow with one foot on
the bank and one foot on the boat again. When we hedge our bets, spiritually,
and try to continue to look after No. 1 and look out for our own best interests
in the Christian life, we don’t just destabilise ourselves, we destabilise
others as well. We bring disorder and quarrels into the fellowship: ‘What
causes fights and quarrels among you? Don’t they come from your desires that
battle within you? You want something but don’t get it. You kill and covet, but
you cannot have what you want. You quarrel and fight.’ Selfishness is
the enemy, says James.
But look at the end of verse
2. It is a rebuke but it is also a lovely, lovely promise, coupled to what came
earlier in the letter: ‘You do not have, because you do not ask
God.’ You see, there is a source of true wisdom always available to the
Christian. Remember chapter 1 verse 5: ‘If any of you lacks wisdom, he should ask
God, who gives generously to all without finding fault, and it will be given to
him [or her].’ What is that promise of wisdom? Look back again at 3:17 –
this is what God has promised you: ‘The wisdom that comes from heaven is
first of all pure; then peace-loving, considerate, submissive, full of mercy
and good fruit, impartial and sincere.’ It is a wisdom of behaviour
more lovely than anything, I suggest, that you and I would dare dream for
ourselves: that that verse could describe me, Mark Ashton – it is the promise
of God to me. If I ask of Him, this is what He longs to give me. Without
stinting, without rebuke. And that’s what we’re meant to be doing with those
desires that he talks about at the beginning of chapter 4. We’re not meant to
follow the teaching of the East: to deny our wants, to rise above desire, to
ignore passion, to eliminate ambition, to sublimate our longing, to obliterate
all craving. No. We are meant to be longing, desiring, craving sorts of
creatures. But all those longings and desires are made for the God who made us
like that in the first place. We are not to rise above desire – we are to lock
desire on to God and say to Him, “God, please give me what you have promised to
give me there in verse 17,” in order that we might long for Him and find Him in
His Son Jesus
, who, though He was in the form of God,. did not count equality with God
as something to be grasped, but emptied Himself, taking the very nature of a
servant, being made in human likeness. And being found in appearance as a man,
He humbled Himself and became obedient to death, even death on a cross!
(Phil. 2:6-8).
If we are Christians, that
is available to us as we ask God for it. God longs to do it in us. If we’re not
a Christian to day, can I just ask you this?– do you have a life-goal better
than that? Weigh up the world’s wisdom against that and see how the two compare.