A Sojourner’s Thoughts

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Lost in James

I am blogging this on Thursday Aug 7th, from a state park in South Dakota, but I don’t know when it will get posted. I have access via my iPhone, but I really don’t want to us it for blogging.

I am stuck in the last section of chapter 1 in the book of James. I am not stuck intellectually, rather I am stuck practically. James lays out two things that define pure and undefiled religion, serving orphans and children and keeping from being polluted by the world. I blogged about the first part the other day it you want to look back.

This section begins with the author telling us to be quick to listen, slow to speak and slow to get angry. We are then told to not only listen to the word, but to do it. Our faith, our religion, our relationship is not static, rather it should be active and alive. My question is how have you shown your faith lately?

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Pure and Undefiled Religion

Don’t blame me if you don’t like the title, but it comes right out of the epistle of James (1:27).

When I read this yesterday I don’t know why I hadn’t noticed this verse before. Perhaps I was reflecting on the beginning of the section were we are told to “be doers of the word, and not hearer only…”(James 1:22 [NKJ]). James 1:27 says this:

Pure and undefiled religion in the sight of our God and Father is this: to visit orphans and widows in their distress, and to keep oneself unstained by the world. (NASB)

There were Old Testament laws to help protect the widows and orphans of the day, but they were not always followed. This class of people were often oppressed or neglected.

Who in our society today may be classified as oppressed or neglected? This is where the ideas of social justice and liberation theology come into play. We who call ourselves Christ-follower need to be ready to give voice the voiceless. We must stand with the oppressed. The question I as is how can I do this? How does the community of believers I am a part of do this? How does the Church do this?

Here are two things that I am currently involved with. One, is my work with Habitat for Humanity. Not only do I help pound nails but I help educate high school and college age student in the areas of poverty, homelessness, and affordable housing. Second I spend most of my Wednesday evenings with a group of men at the state prison in Lino Lakes. We are working through materials from Heart of a Warrior ministry.

I would love to hear from you about how this can be accomplished in your life.

I will touch on the second part of this verse in the coming days.

I leave you with this translation of this passage from The Message:

Real religion, the kind that passes muster before God the Father, is this: Reach out to the homeless and loveless in their plight, and guard against corruption from the godless world.

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What to read?

I was recently asked by someone for three books that I would recommend that he reads. The Bible was a default answer so I could not use it. The three books that I chose were: Uprising: A Revolution of the Soul by Erwin McManus (there are a number of McManus books that I could recommend [We has already read The Barbarian Way]), We Drink From Our Own Well by Gustavo Gutierrez, and Celebration of Disciplines by Richard Foster. So why these books?

I picked Uprising because it is a book that really touched me. In this book McManus unpacks the reason “Why?”. Ultimately, he concludes that we are here to serve others. This reason for being is part of who I am.

The second book We Drink from Our Own Wells is one that I recently read for one of my classes. This book is about the topic of liberation theology that was written over 20 years ago. Social justice and liberation theology has been a topic that i have been pondering about and doing something about for the last couple of years now. As Christ-followers we need to come along side the oppressed and give a voice to the voiceless.

The final book Celebration of Disciplines is a classic book about various spiritual disciplines. To develop ourselves into the person God wants us to be, we need to be intentional about our spiritual formation process. This book can be used to help guide you in picking those disciplines that you can use to draw you closer to God.

My question to you is what books would you recommend?