Hard words

James 4:4New Revised Standard Version (NRSV)

Adulterers! Do you not know that friendship with the world is enmity with God? Therefore whoever wishes to be a friend of the world becomes an enemy of God.

All-righty then!

Ah, James.  That gentle voice from the New Testament.  What are we to do with you?

I'll admit off the bat that the Epistle of James has never been my favorite.  And had I included the rest of this passage today, there would have been more "fun" to share.

But I've always also liked a challenge, and this verse certainly is that.

What do we do with this passage?  How does it make you feel to read this?  Do you agree?  Disagree?  Why or why not?

Answering those questions is, I think, what I believe you do with it.  You wrestle with it.

Sometimes scripture is meant to be wrestled with just as Jacob wrestled the angel.  And as you wrestle with it, here are some questions and points to think about:

- How does this fit with the knowledge that God created the world and declared it good?

- What does James mean by the "world?"  Is he perhaps meaning something else?

- What does James mean by "friendship?"

- Does my attachment to things in this part of God's world keep me from living into a broader sense of God's fullness?

- What do I think of as things of this world vs. things of God?  How do I live into the tension of those?

- Is James using some hyperbole here?

- Who was James talking to originally in this passage?

When faced with a troubling passage I find it is usually good not to simply take it at face value.  Well, often it's good not to take any passage in the Bible at face value.  There's always a lot of stuff going on within it.

So a passage like this isn't one I would simply accept as is.

But I also wouldn't reject it as is either.  As with all of them, God perhaps wants us to ingest and absorb and wrestle with it to see just how the passage addresses our lives.  My life.  Your life.  Our lives together as God's people and people who live in the world now.

What does God want you to think about here?

Holy God, sometimes your word is hard.  Help me not to simply accept or reject without first trying to discern where it is you want to take me with it.  Amen.