Sermon Tone Analysis

James 1:

Have you ever had to listen as someone talked negatively about someone you knew and loved?

And you couldn’t even formulate the words to respond, because the person they were describing sounded nothing like the person you knew?

There was a popular Christian blogger - well, as popular as any Christian blogger can be - who I used to follow until something like that happened.

He seemed to have some really worthwhile ideas.

Actually, I still think a lot of those ideas are worthwhile.

But one day I was talking with a friend who was also a popular Christian blogger, and she began to tell me about the way this man treated his female colleagues at various conferences and speaking engagements.

I was confused.

Here’s this guy who frequently writes about justice and liberation and calls himself a Jesus Feminist, and he is demeaning toward women?

That didn’t sound like the guy whose work I read, but my friend had never lied to me before… Something had to give.

A few months later, something gave, in the form of news breaking.

His (now ex-) wife had called the police reporting him for assaulting her.

He told them she was lying and they believed him, the clergy man and police chaplain, over her, refusing to arrest him.

Family court, however, interpreted events differently, and awarded her full custody.

He had sent her several abusive and threatening emails detailing what would happen if she tried to divorce him or make his actions public.

They were in the court documents, which had become public record.

I haven’t read a word the man has written since.

What does that have to do with today’s passage?

Well, I often hear negative stories about God, and they sound nothing like the God I know.

They sound… well, they sound abusive.

Stories like “I’m a recovering addict, and God tested me by sending someone to offer me free drugs.”

Or “God tested me by taking my family away.”

Or “I have a fatal illness, but I know it’s just a test from God to see how faithful I’ll be.”

I’ll be honest: if I ever find out that’s what God is really like, that will be the last day I worship God.

I get where people are coming from.

I do.

We have this story we like to tell about a God who is in control of absolutely everything.

And that God is loving, and has what’s best for us in mind, so the only possible explanation for bad things is that they’re actually good things in disguise.

After all, God tested Abraham to see if he was willing to sacrifice Isaac, right?

[More on that story in a couple of weeks] It’s comforting in its strange way - I may not understand God’s plan, but if I can just trust that God has a plan, and that this all leads to something good, that’s better than thinking the bad stuff I’m going through is without reason.

But James says no. Nuh-uh.

No way.

Absolutely not.

God is not responsible for any of your temptations.

God did not make evil things happen in your life.

God is there with you when the bad happens, and God will be there to say well done if you make it through, to help you up if you fall, or simply to hold you if there’s no more getting up to be done.If there is a way to turn a curse into a blessing, God will be the one to find that way, and then show it to you.

But God did not have a hand in the cursing in the first place.

And thank God for that.