When Words Are Not Enough: The Attitude of Our Heart

James 3:13 – 4:3, 7-8a

When I hear the word “wisdom”, I automatically think of a person’s intelligence or aptitude; Or one of the writings of famous philosophers like Aristotle, Newton, Descartes, and Plato; or someone with doctoral degrees in several areas of study.

But James understands wisdom in a very different way.  He writes, “Who is wise and understanding among you?  How is wisdom perceived?”  The answer James offers is extremely precise: “Show by your good life that your works are done with gentleness born of wisdom.”  You could be the smartest, wisest, most intelligent person in the world and carry on debates on the nebulous questions of life and work for one of those private “think tanks” as an expert consultant.  But true wisdom is based on how a person carries themselves and lives their life.

One fine day four people were flying in a small, four-passenger plane: a pilot, a minister, and two teenagers, one of whom had just won an award for being the “Smartest Teenager in the World.”

As they were flying along, the pilot turned to the three passengers and said, “I’ve got some bad news, and I’ve got some worse news. The bad news is, we’re out of gas. The plane’s going down and we’re gonna crash. The worse news is, I only have three parachutes on board.

This meant, of course, that someone would have to go down with the plane.

The pilot continued. “I have a wife and three children at home. I have many responsibilities. I’m sorry, but I’m going to have to take one of the parachutes.” With that, he grabbed one of the chutes and jumped out of the plane.

The Smartest Teenager in the World was next to speak. “I’m the Smartest Teenager in the World,” he said. “I might be the one who comes up with a cure for cancer or AIDS or solves the world’s economic problems. Everyone is counting on me!” The Smartest Teenager in the World grabbed the second parachute and jumped.

The minister then spoke up and said, “Son, you take the last parachute. I’ve made my peace with God, and I’m willing to go down with the plane. Now take the last parachute and go.”

“Relax, reverend,” said the other teenager. “The Smartest Teenager in the World just jumped out of the plane with my knapsack.”

The Smartest Teenager in the World may be just that, but he was also selfish, devilish, and unspiritual.  And we do this all the time:  we live according to the wisdom of the world when we ought to live according to the wisdom of God. 

The apostle James knows this about us — that we all have a level of selfishness and a powerful set of human cravings. We may successfully conceal our private jealousies, desires and envies from others, but these are, as James points out, a devilish, destructive wisdom.

To say that someone is wise, at least in contemporary English, suggests that the individual has mature insight, is unusually discerning and applies knowledge with careful judgment.

In the 2003 movie Bruce Almighty!, Morgan Freeman as God gives Jim Carrey (a.k.a. Bruce Nolan) a chance to have Godlike powers since Bruce was grumbling about God’s “poor” on-the-job performance.  So when God offers Bruce the chance to try being God himself for one week, Bruce is initially overjoyed with these powers.  He immediately begins to use them for personal gain, such as by getting his job back, replacing his car with a silver Saleen S7 and impressing his girlfriend Grace Connelly by pulling the moon closer to earth one night.  Bruce finds ways of using these powers to cause miraculous events to occur at the otherwise mundane events that he covers, such as causing a meteor to harmlessly land near a cook-off, earning him the name "Mr. Exclusive”.  When given the chance to be God for a week, Bruce uses these new powers for selfish purposes.  He chooses to use his power for selfish reasons because he was relying on human wisdom for making decisions. 

So what would you do if you were God for a week, or even a day?  How will you handle the most powerful responsibility in the universe?

On NPR’s program This American Life years ago, John Hodgman conducted an informal, unscientific survey asking the question: Which is better? The power of flight, or the power of invisibility? What he found surprised him. No matter which power people chose, they used it in self-serving ways. Their plans weren’t often flashy or heroic. In fact, they were almost never heroic, nor were they really kind.

Here’s something that hardly anyone ever mentioned in his interviews — “I will use my power to fight crime.” No one seemed to care about crime or justice. Nobody wanted to work for peace — personal, local or worldwide. No one tried to be merciful, or simply just helpful.

Hodgman wondered why no one wanted to take down organized crime, bring hope to the hopeless, swear vengeance on the underworld.

One respondent, who had chosen flight over invisibility, commented, “I don’t think I’d want to spend a lot of my time using my power for good. I mean, if I don’t have super strength and I’m not invulnerable it would be very dangerous. If you had to rescue somebody from a burning building you might catch on fire. I don’t think just having the power of flight is not enough because you don’t have the super strength. I’d still be weak when I got there. I don’t fight crime now.”

He finished with — “I think I’d go to Paris.”

His answer is telling. It might just be a representative reaction of all of us, if we’re honest. Right now we might not have the heart, or the wisdom, to do good. Right now, we might, when possible, use our super powers to orchestrate private gain for ourselves or wreak havoc on others just for fun or vengeance. 

Nobody interviewed on This American Life took responsibility for others less fortunate than themselves by using their super powers for the common good. 

Nobody was interested in helping the underdog, saving a drowning kitten, beating up bad guys. It turns out most people secretly, or even openly, have stock piles of selfishness. 

This isn’t a surprise. It’s the wisdom of the world.

James writes about another kind of wisdom, a divine wisdom, the wisdom of God. 

James calls it wisdom from above. The Old Testament calls it Sophia; the New Testament commonly calls it the Holy Spirit. 

In Proverbs, the “fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom.” In the Psalms it is meditation on the law of God. In James, it is something for which we should ask of God — who gives generously — to all — without finding fault (1:5). 

It is also something that is “from above.” This is true wisdom. It is characterized by purity, peacefulness, “gentleness, a willingness to yield, filled with mercy and good fruits, without a trace of partiality or hypocrisy” (3:17).

True wisdom yields a “harvest of righteousness.” In other words, James is arguing that you can talk all you want about being wise, smart, powerful, but unless your life bears witness to good works, you’re not too wise. In fact, you’re stupid. “Who is wise and understanding among you? Show by your good life that your works are done with gentleness born of wisdom” (3:13). 

False wisdom, he says, is something altogether different. It is characterized by “bitter envy and selfish ambition.” It is “earthly, unspiritual, devilish. For where there is envy and selfish ambition, there will also be disorder and wickedness of every kind” (3:14-16). Moreover, false wisdom results in conflicts, disputes and cravings in the body of Christ (4:1). 

What to do? James is never one to leave us without some practical advice.

You want to be Me Almighty? You want to be truly wise and powerful? Here’s what you do:

Submit yourselves to God.  Give it all to God, everything: your dreams, your fears, your time, your finances, your family, your future.  Trust in the God who began a good work in you and promises to complete it.  Follow the wisdom of God in all parts of your life, not the wisdom of the world.

Resist the devil.  False wisdom will rise upon you when it feels it’s being ignored or forgotten.  In fact,  the evil one will come after you harder and more determined than before to bring you back down to living according to the wisdom of the world.  You can’t do it alone.  You’re gonna need help.  That’s where the community of faith comes into play, holding each other accountable for what we do and don’t do to honor and obey God and resist the devil.

Draw near to God.  Become best buds!  Seek a holy friendship with God.  We draw near to God through our worship, through bible study, through small groups and through private, personal prayer time.  Come into God’s presence with all that you are, with a humble and contrite heart. 

Unless our inner focus shifts from the earthly to the spiritual, we’ll bring about greater havoc on ourselves and others.

Without God’s wisdom we can do a lot of damage: We brag, we covet, we murder, we’re hypocrites, we quarrel, and we create conflicts.

With the gift of holy wisdom, wisdom of God, we can, even in our weaknesses, learn to live lives of mercy, purity, peacefulness and gentleness, which is exactly what James tells us God wants for us and from us.

And it’s not just for one of us. It’s a gift to all of us. All of us are expected to be channels of spiritual wisdom for our own greater good and for the good of those around us.