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There was a programme that I watched on TV last night with Jay Blades, off of The Repair Shop, and Dame Judy Dench. The Guardian Newspaper has called it ‘the year’s weirdest but most soul-enriching TV show’. Jay and Judy were sharing with each other the places and people from their past who had made them what they were today. You could see how they had been formed and shaped to do what they were doing, both now and through their lifetimes. But in a way they also needed to choose what they did with those experiences.

Knowledge and Wisdom

I think there’s a similar sense in our reading from James. It’s OK to have knowledge or belief but there’s little point unless you do something with it. Our verses speak really of the difference or gap between knowledge and wisdom. Knowledge is knowing stuff – wisdom is living and acting upon it. Knowledge is knowing what to say, wisdom is knowing when to say it.

Traditionally, the letter of James was attributed to James the brother of Jesus, who we know from Acts was head of the church in Jerusalem. Perhaps he was responding to Paul’s views on the relationship between faith and works. But whether he was or not, he appears to be addressing what he sees as a gap between knowledge and wisdom. And there always the risk of a similar gap in our churches and religious communities now.

Some commentators consider the letter of James to be like the Wisdom literature that you see in the Old Testament, which includes books such as Proverbs. Partly that’s because James reads like a collection of sayings and teachings. These were for a developing community of Christ-followers who were starting to disperse from Jerusalem across the mediterranean countries and hoping to distinguish themselves from the rest of the world by how they lived together.

Luther

James doesn’t hold back in diagnosing the death-dealing ways of the world for the damage that they cause. This wisdom literature from James is prophetic and provocative. Famously, Martin Luther had a poor view of James deeming it an ‘epistle of straw’ for what he saw as its emphasis on doing rather than reliance upon faith in God for salvation.

But it’s not one or the other. It’s both. Perhaps, we too, need to mind the gap between knowledge about God and living wisely as friends of God.

Community of care

We start with great news: God is generous with the gift of truth, the gift of wisdom. Wisdom isn’t hidden, requiring an Enigma decoding machine to discern its direction. If we truly desire to be wise, wisdom from God will come and help us create an alternative community of care in this world.

If we dwell in wisdom and allow it to take root in us, we will be more equipped to resist the desires that disrupt both ourselves and our community. Even if many of the instructions seem aimed at individuals, the intention of this writer is to call to mind a way of living our lives together for God’s purposes.

Proverbs

The selection for today reads like a collection of quick proverbs. And there’s an embarrassment of riches. We could have picked the verse on being quick to listen and slow to speak. Or being slow to anger. Or being doers, not just hearers, of the word. Or the caution about having an unbridled tongue.

All of them are wise words. But they’re all leading to the same point and that’s where our passage ends this week. Religion that is pure and undefiled before God, the Father, is this: To care for orphans and widows in their distress, and to keep oneself unstained by the world. Those words are rooted in the Old Testament, in verses such as Deuteronomy 10:18 – who executes justice for the orphan and the widow, and who loves the strangers, providing them with food and clothing.

Wild West

We listen, we hold our tongue, we temper our anger so that we can do what God wants us to do rather than unthinkingly walking in the ways of the world. The world’s less than perfect ways are sprinkled throughout James like Wanted posters scattered through a Wild West town put there in order for the community to stop bad behaviour in its tracks when it starts to appear in their life together.

The images on those Wanted posters include: lust for money, wealth, and status. Such behaviours lead to actions that destroy the fabric of Christian community. In contrast, true religion helps the poor, the widowed, the orphaned, the ones on whose backs the rich grow their wealth (5:1-5).

A mirror

Of course, we know that we aren’t supposed to lust after money and status. But James holds up a mirror so that we can reflect on whether or not our actions betray what we know in our heads. So, we must mind the gap between knowledge and wisdom. What is it that keeps us from doing God’s word and desiring what God desires? Answering this question with honesty is how we get at what’s really at stake for us all as we seek to follow Jesus, and not merely to know about him.

The actress Cate Blanchett once said: ‘Mind the gap – it’s the distance between life as you dream it and life as it is.’

Expose the gap

As we think about living wisely as Christians here together in this time and this place, we must also honestly expose the gap between knowledge and wisdom. For James, writing 2000 years ago, sins in that gap were greed, selfishness, covetousness, and the pursuit of our own pleasure and comfort, no matter the cost to society.

Is it any different for us in 2024? The challenges posed by James are timeless – but then so is the solution… Amen

‘Mind the gap’ was delivered by Ian Banks at St John and St Mark, Bury on 1st September 2024. It was based on James 1: 17-27.

References:

• Sincere thanks to Casey Thornburgh Sigmon. This was a very last minute sermon and I borrowed heavily from her! https://www.workingpreacher.org/commentaries/revised-common-lectionary/ordinary-22-2/commentary-on-james-117-27-5
• https://www.theguardian.com/tv-and-radio/article/2024/aug/17/dame-judi-and-jay-the-odd-couple-the-years-weirdest-most-soul-enriching-tv-show