Dear Friends in Christ, grace and peace to you from God our Father and our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.  Amen.

Christians can be their own worst enemies. A ship was sailing past a remote island and discovered a man who had been stranded there for several years. The captain and the crew went ashore to rescue the man and noticed he had built three wooden huts for himself. They asked him, “What is the first hut for?” He said, “That’s my house.” The captain asked, “Ok, so what’s the second hut for?” He answered. “That’s my church.” Then curiously, the captain asked, “Ok, so what’s that other hut over there for?” He scoffed, “Oh, that? That’s the church I used to go to.”

Surprisingly, this is not new.  Christians have been fighting with each other since the day the church was established.  Regrettably, it seems to be a part of our DNA which makes us our own worst enemies. That is not, however, what God intended.  Instead, we were called to live our lives as messengers of the good news.  Jesus, himself, invited his followers to use their lips and voices in the service of God, to praise and worship him and his whole creation. That is the Ordinary Discipleship of faith that I would like to share with you today.

We don’t know what motivated the disciple John and the other disciples suddenly to stop an unknown man from doing good thing and exorcising demons in the name of Jesus.  Perhaps, John was trying to justify himself. After all, in the previous scene, he had been caught arguing with his brother about who was greatest.  It was then, that Jesus had placed a child in the center of his little band of twelve and said that whoever welcomed one such child, welcomed him. Or it could be that the disciples were simply trying to protect the name of Jesus.

Whatever the reason, Jesus surprised them. He didn’t emphasize the differences between groups and factions.  Instead, he taught his disciples that “Whoever is not against us is for us.” And ever since then, all kinds of public leaders have chosen to rephrase these words to their own advantage, “Whoever is not for us is against us!”  If you aren’t part of the solution, then you are part of the problem. From Lenin and Mussolini to George Orwell to George W. Bush and Hillary Clinton, even literary figures have used the words. In “Beauty and the Beast,” Gaston tells the villagers as they prepare to kill the Beast, “If you’re not with us, you’re against us.”  And at the end of “Star Wars: Revenge of the Sith,” Darth Vader tells Obi-Wan Kenobi, “If you’re not with me, then you’re my enemy.” Clever and powerful words, to be sure, but that was not what Jesus taught.

That was the same attitude and rigidness that was dividing the Jesus’ followers and making the church it its own worst enemy in the first decades after Jesus’ death and resurrection.  No one understood this better than Jesus’ brother, James the Just. The Temple in Jerusalem was divided between the Pharisees, the Sadducees, the Herodians, the Essenes, and the followers of the Way who were the followers of Jesus.  Three of the most prominent members of the Way, James, the brother of Jesus, Peter the one who Jesus had said he would build his Church, and Paul the apostle to the Gentiles, were not of one mind. They all had different views of what was right in the eyes of God. James was the most conservative, wanting to maintain the Jewish traditions.  Paul was the most progressive and was willing to welcome Gentile believers to the faith without demanding that they become Jewish first.  Peter took the middle ground, serving as a bridge between the two.  And so the disputes began, in every congregation around the Mediterranean Sea, and they were often very personnel. James was saddened and disheartened. A church of quarreling Christians was hardly worth joining.  More importantly, such Christians followers undermined the very gospel of Jesus Christ was that was meant to save and bring life. With such mean spirited, back-stabbing and in-fighting who would ever truly feel welcome in such a community. How could such a sorry band of believers represent the noble Body of Christ?  It is just as true today.  And so James the Just wrote his epistle to addressing the language of civil discourse in the church. It is a harsh and sobering rebuke.  “How great a forest is set ablaze by a small fire!  And the tongue is a fire. For every species of beast and bird, of reptile and sea creature, can be tamed and has been tamed by the human species, but no one can tame the tongue- a restless evil, full of deadly poison.”

Now as good Lutherans, it would be easy to dismiss James’ writing, after all Martin Luther considered it be a straw epistle that he would eliminate from the Bible.  Jesus, himself, however, said some equally harsh things, “If your hand causes you to stumble, cut it off; it is better for you to enter life maimed than to have two hands and to go to hell, to the unquenchable fire.  And if your foot causes you to stumble, cut it off, it is better for you to enter life lame than to have two feet and to be thrown into hell.”  But these are not warnings for those who are against Jesus. These are words for those who call themselves followers, and yet intentionally choose by their words and actions to mislead others, becoming a stumbling block for to the faith.

My friends, we live in a troubled, polarized world, but Jesus’ followers don’t have to embrace the uncivil tone that surrounds us, nor do we have to be viscerally opposed to someone with a different point of view, or political understanding.  No Christians don’t have to be their own worst enemy.  Instead, we can choose to embrace Jesus’ words that “Whoever is not against us is for us,” and honor those who are different from us. “For whoever gives you a cup of water to drink because you bear the name of Christ will by no means lose the reward.” God wants us to be like that unnamed man who didn’t have time for such questions about who was right and who wrong, because he was too busy healing and feeding and sowing seeds of grace and mercy abundantly in the name of Jesus.  That should be the task of ordinary discipleship.

One of the earliest prayers I learned in church is from Psalm 19.  I heard it spoken every Sunday, as the pastor stepped into the pulpit to begin the sermon. “Let the word of my mouth and the meditation of my heart, be acceptable in your sight of Lord, my rock and my redeemer.”  I though it was a prayer reserved for pastors.  What if every Christian chose to embrace that practice.  How the discourse in our society would change.  Yesterday I read this prayer in my daily devotional. “Lord, help us have the self-control to think before we speak, so that the words exiting our mouths are pure and respectable, not only to those we are speaking to, but to you also. Guide us and keep us in your ways.”

You and I have to make a choice daily of how we chose to speak. And sometimes, that takes a lot of work. We have good news worth proclaiming. And still Christians refuse to follow Jesus own example, and some do not even bother.  From the same mouth come blessings and curses. To this James boldly states, “This ought not be so.”  You have a choice.  So work to let the blessings flow from your mouth and not the curses.

James understood the cost of such a choice. He also knew that as a teacher he was under greater scrutiny than others. The followers of the Way were growing in number- even in Jerusalem where the majority of new members were all Jewish. 1n 62 AD, when Ananias, a member of the Sadducees became the High Priest, he decided to eliminate all opposing voices, in particular, James and his heretical teaching of Jesus being raised from the dead.  It was perfect timing.  The Herodian king had died, and the Roman Empire was changing governors. According to the historian Josephus, Ananias called a secret meeting of the Sanhedrin, and James as well as others were found guilty and sentenced to death by stoning.  In another writing, it took place at the feast Passover, when the elders told James to climb up onto a roof and speak out against Christ. James recognized the possibility of proclaiming the good news of Jesus, so he climbed up the Temple, and began to speak to the people about Jesus as the Messiah. The infuriated priests and elders cast him down from the roof, and he was badly injured though still alive. A man then ran up and gave him such a vicious blow on the head with his staff that he died instantly. Thus James, Jesus’ brother whom the people regarded as Just and Righteous, died a martyr’s death, all for daring to proclaim the blessings of God instead of curses.  Within a year of his death, the new Roman leadership removed the High Priest Ananias from his office, but he remained under Roman protection. In 66 AD, during the First Jewish Revolt, an angry crowd killed Ananias.

James the Just spoke with ordinary discipleship and would be remembered as a beloved saint. The powerful Ananias would be forgotten as a cruel and ruthless leader. How lovely are the messengers that preach us the gospel of peace. Amen.

May the peace of God which passes all understanding keep your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus. Amen.