The Sunday readings “soften us up” for James’ hard line by telling us the great things Jesus does for those who really listen to what he says. He frees us from hurting others by giving us light to see what does harm. He frees us from loneliness by always being present to us and teaching us that loving unites us to others. He frees us from looking down on ourselves by showing us how he looks at us, and from despair by promising us the Holy Spirit. But he does this only if we let him guide us by reflecting on his words.
But this is rare. Most Christians don’t really want to grow to spiritual maturity and to the “perfection of love.” At Mass they don’t “listen to do.” They don’t commit themselves in any concrete ways to being disciples, “students” of Jesus. Fact is fact. What did you do in response to what you heard last Sunday? Or read in these Reflections all week? What does that say about you? (Okay, okay — but James is even tougher!)
Perseverance in reading and reflecting on Scripture is a “miracle” of empowerment by grace that makes us a “sign” of Jesus risen. The alternative is failure to be a Church that bears the witness to Jesus we should bear.
We can be disciples, or inert, or closed to God’s word (like Pharisees). Jesus breaks our inertia by leading us “out” of our cultural apathy. We become free by repeated exposure to his word combined with repeated decisions about how to put it into practice.
Failure to do this explains why we, the Church, in many ways live in contradiction to Christ’s clear teaching. We forget “who we are.” We don’t let his words mature and bear fruit in us by discipleship that lead us into mission (as prophets) and ministry (as priests) and into taking responsibility (as stewards of Christ’s kingship) for bringing about changes in society.
James keeps urging the practical response of concrete commitment to the “three R’s” of Christian meditation: Reading and Reflecting on God’s words, and Responding to them in real decisions to act on what we have seen.
Praying, “Hallowed be thy Name!” impels us to accept the discipline of discipleship. That is to let Jesus lead us up “into the mountain,” where we will see him transfigured, hear the Father speaking to us, and be moved to stay with him as disciples.
The key to everything is a commitment to a concrete regime of reading and reflecting on the word of God for the purpose of making responses in choices.
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