Easter 5 2018

James 1:16-21

April 29, 2018 + Quilt Dedication Sunday

Zion Lutheran Church + Nampa, ID

We live in a time when people spend their lives looking down.  When you go to a restaurant you often do not see people looking at each other, but instead they sit there looking down at their smart phones.  Basically when you go to anything where people are not required to be actively doing something or to be focused on something else, you find them looking down at their smart phones.

It’s really not surprising. When you combine the ability to communicate instantaneously with access to the internet all in the palm of your hand, that is an incredibly powerful temptation.  Combine endless amounts of reading material, the ability to interact on social media, to watch videos, to play games and you have a black hole in your hand with seemingly unlimited power to suck you in. It’s no wonder why technology has united us in ways never before thought of, more people are lonely and have fewer personal connections than before.  

While we spend so much time looking down, people in the ancient world spent much time looking up.  They didn’t have the desire to be entertained at every moment, and looked up in wonder. The ancient world was far more attuned to the moon, the planets and the stars. I don’t know about you, but apart from the Big and Little Dipper, I can’t name or find anything in the night sky.  I don’t really pay close attention to what phase the moon is in, and I only really notice it on random occasions.   By contrast the ancient world did.  Some of this was for practical reasons. God placed the sun, moon, and stars to help us mark the passage of time. And some of it was for religious reasons since it was very common to think of the heavenly bodies as somehow connected to pagan gods that controlled life. This kind of thinking was everywhere in the first century world in which James wrote.

It is therefore not surprising that James begins our text by writing: “Do not be deceived, my beloved brothers. Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of lights with whom there is no variation or shadow due to change.”  God is described as the “Father of lights.”  He is the Creator of all of things in the heavens and controls them.  James says that there is no variation in God, there is no shadow due to change.  And how can there be? Christ is the light of the world, the light no darkness can overcome. No shadows can block this light. He is eternal, all powerful, all present.

And just as important, He is reliable.  You can count on Him.  And what you can count on Him to do is to give gifts.  Our text says, “Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of lights.”  God is the giver of good and perfect gifts.  Good gifts are the benefits that we have here in this world. Perfect gifts are those we expect to have in the life to come.  In these words “good and perfect gifts” He includes all the benefits we have already been given by God and will still receive in heaven and on earth, both here and there.

This is why we pray in the Lord’s Prayer, “Give us this day our daily bread.” Not only are we praying for God to provide for us, to give us good and perfect gifts, but we pray that God would lead us to realize this and to receive these gifts with thanksgiving. To believe that they are all freely given for the sake of Christ.

Now it is easy to lose sight of this fact and focus on the things themselves.  It is easy to focus on our own actions and think that we can take credit for those good things.  And so James warns about this, “Do not be deceived, my beloved brothers.”  Our desires are disordered.  Since we don’t fear, love and trust in God above all things, we desire things. We put them first.  This desire conceives and gives birth to sin. And this sin brings forth death because that is what sin always does.  It breeds death, discord, despair.

When you look down, when you look inside, everything is tainted by your sinfulness. What is truly good, right, and salutary cannot come from within us. So instead, salvation comes from the outside.  It comes from above, from God who is Giver of every good and perfect gift.  James says in our text, “Of His own will He brought us forth by the word of truth, that we should be a kind of firstfruits of his creatures.”

While sin brings forth death, God gives us life by the word of truth.  He gives us life through the Gospel.  The Giver of good gifts gave His Son by sending Him to suffer and die on the cross.  But this is a story about giving life.  And so God gave new life – resurrection life – when he raised Jesus Christ from the dead.  He began in Jesus the resurrection of the Last Day that will be ours when Christ returns. Do not look down in the grave, but look up to the resurrection.

God has given you saving life.  He has begun that new life in you through the work of His Spirit.  As James calls Christians to live in ways that reflect what God has done for them, he says, “Therefore, put away all filthiness and rampant wickedness and receive with meekness the implanted word, which is able to save your souls.”  In Holy Baptism God used water and the Word to join you to the saving death of Jesus Christ. The saving Word that joins you to Christ has been implanted in you and has made you a child of God, quilted together into the body of Christ, the Church.  This is a word that you continue to receive as you hear it read and proclaimed.  It is a word that you continue to receive as Christ’s Gospel words are spoken over bread and wine in the Sacrament of the Altar – as he says given and shed for you for the forgiveness of sins. The Spirit of Truth which our Lord promised to send works through this word of truth, so that you have been made “a kind of firstfruits of his creatures.”  You have been redeemed, and your redemption is the beginning of God’s saving work that will extend to his whole creation.

God’s giving birth by a word is not only intentional, but it has a specific intention: that we given this life might represent all creatures before God. Just one small example, take a look at the quilts adorning our church today. They are wonderful, beautiful, work of the hands of God’s people.  Literally, blood, sweat, and tears are shed to make these quilts. They will be shipped around the world to be used as blankets, beds, comfort, security, love.  God is the source of all goodness. When we do good, therefore, we imitate Him and reflect His light to all the world. Christians give freely because God has first given so freely to us: we are only imitating our Father, growing up into His likeness.

Look up. Look up to Christ, who gives His good gives, leading us to share those gifts with others in need. Look up, for your salvation is drawing near.