In a Mirror

Scripture Lessons: Deuteronomy 4: 1-2 and 6-9, and James 1: 17-27 Sermon Title: In a Mirror Preached on September 2, 2018 James is a difficult book. We’re in it though. Now, we’re in it, and I want to stay in it for a few weeks because while it’s difficult, it’s good for us to take this book of the Bible seriously. That’s because James is a life-giving book of the Bible, but my Mom asked me a couple months ago about a good Sunday School Curriculum on the book of James for her class in North Carolina to use, and I told her to pick another book. I said: “Mom, you don’t want to get into James. It’s rough,” but we do need to hear it. It’s in the Bible for a reason. However – and this is true – Martin Luther, the great church reformer who started the Protestant Reformation 500 years ago took his students out to the river, where he instructed them to turn to the book of James in their Bibles, rip it out, and throw it into the water. Now why would he instruct his students to do that? Because this book can give you the idea that your salvation depends on your behavior. If you read James without thinking about God’s grace, this book can give you the idea that ours is a religion of morals and being good, and it’s not. Instead, ours is a religion of undeserved grace, for we believe that we are saved, not because of what we do, but because of what Christ has done on the Cross. We’re saved by his blood, not by our good behavior, that’s the essence of Christianity - but that doesn’t mean our behavior is irrelevant. So, we have to turn to James, because even if we are washed in the blood of the Lamb, that doesn’t mean we can go around acting crazy. Even if we are like Prodigal Sons and Daughters, returned home and welcomed with open arms despite our years of carousing, that doesn’t mean we should go back to loose living. Even though we were baptized in water, made heirs of the Kingdom of Heaven, we still go out into the world – and the way we live may be the closest thing to a Bible that some people ever see – so James says to us - “be doers of the word, not merely hears who deceive themselves. For if any are hearers of the word and not doers, they are like those who look at themselves in a mirror; for they look at themselves and, on going away, immediately forget what they were like.” You know what that means? That means that all the time I’m telling you to remember who you are, and I’m doing that for a good reason. “Remember always who you are,” I say at the end of every worship service, “for you are God’s own. As God’s own clothe yourselves with compassion, kindness, humility and patience. Forgive each other, just as the Lord has forgiven you.” Why do I care so much about these words that I repeat them to you week after week? It’s because if we come into this room and hear that we’re God’s own, what good is it if we walk out of here and immediately forget? How does it sound if we talk and talk about forgiveness while we’re at church, but on going home we keep an account of grievances against our neighbor? How does it look if we are told to “clothe ourselves with kindness and humility”, but then go and speak to our waitress at the Red Lobster as though we were the Queen of England and she were the dirt under our shoe? That’s what they’d always remind us before we left on big trips in our old church bus back when I was in High School. You know the bus I’m talking about. It’s parked in the West Lot, and it may not run well enough to leave the West Lot for a while, but back then Mike Clotfelter and Tim Hammond would drive us in it all the way to Mexico. It says First Presbyterian Church right on the side, and back when it ran, that was a dangerous advertising opportunity – a bus with your church’s name on the side, filled with a bunch of teenagers. So, Dr. Speed would come and address us all – “Remember that where you go, you go representing our church and our Christian faith.” I remember him saying that to all of us like it was yesterday, and I also remember once that we parked in a McDonalds. This was back when McDonalds still had ashtrays and salt and pepper shakers on the table, and someone discovered that if you spun a quarter on the table just right, then while it was spinning you could slam down one of those shakers on top of it, and because the bottom was plastic the quarter would break through, all the salt or pepper would come out of the bottom and on to the table. This was one of those things that was a challenge to master. Teenagers like a challenge, and we didn’t have cell phones back then to keep us occupied, so we were bored and after eating we all were in the mood for a challenge, so we spun our quarters on the tables and busted every salt and pepper shaker in the restaurant. Then we climbed into the bus; right there on the side of it were the words “First Presbyterian Church of Marietta, GA,” then we had to climb right back out to apologize to the manager of the McDonald’s. But why would we do such a thing? Because to some degree or another, we are all like those “who look at themselves in a mirror; for we look at ourselves and, on going away, immediately forget what we were like.” So, I tell you to remember always who you are – and these words are so important that I say them at the end of every worship service, but these words and the way of life that goes with them are so profound, that sometimes I can’t get the words out of my mouth. Does that ever happen to you? The words get stuck? I learned something interesting about that last Wednesday. Last Wednesday I was listening to a radio show about Elvis Pressley, and how he would often forget the words to one of his most popular songs, “Are You Lonesome Tonight.” You know this one: Are you lonesome tonight Do you miss me tonight? Are you sorry we drifted apart? Does your memory stray To a brighter sunny day When I kissed you and called you sweetheart? You know these lines. They’re pretty easy to remember, and that was the part of the song that he could always get right, but then came the spoken verses where he wasn’t singing, just talking. Elvis was supposed to say: You know someone said that the world’s a stage And each must play a part Fate had me playing in love With you as my sweet heart Act one was when we met, I loved you at first glance You read your line so cleverly and never missed a cue Then came act two, you seemed to change, and you acted strange And why I’ll never know. Honey, you lied when you said you loved me. Now the stage is bare and I’m standing there With emptiness all around And if you won’t come back to me Then they can bring the curtain down. It was during this part where on at least 12 occasions Elvis went blank. He’d be live, on stage, in front of a crowd of people and he’d forget the words to this song that he’d sung thousands of times before. And here’s the interesting part – the very first time his mind went blank was right after Pricilla left him. You see, these words were like a mirror, and when he said them reality hit him like a ton of bricks. It will make you sad to hear the recordings. It will make you pity the King, but here’s the thing. When he got done singing those words that revealed the truth, he went right back to the same behavior that pushed Pricilla away in the first place. “For if any are hearers of the word and not doers, they are like those who look in a mirror, but on going away forget what they saw.” In the same way, when we worship God in this place, by confessing our sins and hearing words of forgiveness, it’s like we are holding up a mirror to ourselves. God holds up a mirror that tells us who we really are: namely, God’s own, sinning yet forgiven, fallen yet lifted up, broken yet healed, imperfect yet redeemed. There are moments in worship, like when we sing the words to Amazing Grace, where the truth of who we are in the eyes of God hits some people like a ton of bricks. Next time we sing it, you ought to put your hymnal down and look around at who has tears in their eyes. Some can’t make it through the first stanza, and why is that? Because we know that we were once blind, but now we see. We know that we were lost, but now we’re found. When we sing all that we see the truth of who we are – but what does it mean if we leave this place and go back to living the way we did before? Elvis stumbled right after saying words like – Honey, you lied when you said you loved me. Now the stage is bare and I’m standing there. And it was sad, but what did he do about it? Nothing. You see – obedience to the Law, it’s not about avoiding eternal punishment. No - It’s about putting love into action. My father-in-law does that – he doesn’t drive 15 miles under the speed limit because he’s scared of getting a ticket. He drives 15 miles under the speed limit, because when his granddaughters are in the back seat, he knows he’s carrying precious cargo. And parents do that too. We tell our daughters over and over again – probably 10 times a day - “You are so beautiful.” And they are, but I keep telling them that because I want to see them live like they know it. Raising their hand with confidence. Walking into school like they’re somebody, because that’s when it counts. They have to put their father’s love into action, not just when Daddy’s in front of them saying it, but when he’s not. That’s what we all have to do. Put the Father’s love for us into action. Because – we’ll all leave this church, and when we sit down at our table at the Red Lobster, everyone’s going to know where we’ve been. By the clothes that we wear everyone will know that we’ve been to church – but they’ll know that we are Christians, not by our clothes, but by our love. Amen.