Sermon Tone Analysis

Have you ever felt like you don’t belong?

Maybe it was in a context of school, or the neighborhood kids, or in an entirely new place you moved to.

Likely, we all have at various times in our lives.

I’ll never forget, not long after Pastor Cindy and I moved to Kentucky in 2011, one of our neighbors asked us where we were from.

After telling them, we heard something to the effect of - Yeah, we’re not from around here either, we are from such and such county.

We didn’t think much of it in the moment, but when we looked up where that county was a little later that day, it was only a little over 50 miles away.

You see, counties are quite small in Kentucky and people take great pride in where they were from.

We were certainly the outsiders and quickly realized it would take some time to truly feel like we belonged.

Belonging can be such a fickle and painful process in life.

As the popular researcher and writer Brené Brown describes in her book, Braving the Wilderness, she struggled to fit in after moving to New Orleans in the late 60s.

In Brown’s case, her name created quite a bit of controversy itself, as she tried to understand the largely segregated world of the south that she found herself in as a young child:

Experiences of not belonging are the time markers of my life, and they started early.

I attended pre-K and kindergarten at Paul Habans Elementary on the west bank of New Orleans.

It was 1969, and as wonderful as the city was and still is, it was a place suffocated by racism.

Schools had only become officially desegregated the year I started.

I didn’t know or understand much about what was happening, I was too young; but I knew that my mom was outspoken and tenacious…

We had moved there from Texas, and that had been hard for me…Homeroom lists were used to determine everything—from attendance records to birthday party invitations.

One day my mom’s room-mother partner waved the list in front of my mom’s face and said, “Look at all of the black kids on here!

Look at these names!

They’re all named Casandra!”

Huh, my mom thought.

Maybe this explained why I was being left out of so many of my white friends’ parties.

My mom goes by her middle name, but her first name is Casandra.

My full name on that homeroom list?

Casandra Brené Brown.

If you’re African American and reading this, you know exactly why white families weren’t inviting me over.

It’s the same reason a group of African American graduate students gave me a card at the end of the semester that said, “OK.

You really are Brené Brown.”

They had signed up for my course on women’s issues and almost fell out of their chairs when I walked to my desk at the front of the classroom on the first day of class.

One student said, “You are not Casandra Brené Brown?” Yes, ma’am…The black families were welcoming to me—but their shock was noticeable when I walked through the door.

One of my friends told me I was the first white person who had ever been inside their house.

Brené Brown, Braving the Wilderness: The Quest for True Belonging and the Courage to Stand Alone, Random House Publishing Group.

We all want to belong somewhere.

In fact, there is a basic human desire of belonging.

However, here is where I want to challenge us this morning, and where I believe God wants to challenge us this morning.

The church should be the first and easiest place for people to feel like they belong, but sadly, that is often not the case.

I have heard way to many stories over the years of people hurt by the church.

Now there are certainly a variety of reasons for this, but we are called to be a place where everyone belongs - everyone feels welcome - and we are to go out of our way to do so, just like Jesus did during his earthly ministry.

If you have your Bibles, turn with me to James chapter 5.

Now I want to read this same passage from The Message version, as there is some plain language that I think will help us grasp some of these concepts:

Warning to the Rich

As this chapter starts, we again see this idea of the rich being corrupt.

Before we go any further, I want to make sure we understand the context of this.

First, the adjective corrupt appears in our translations, but did not appear in the Greek.

Our study guide for this series tells us this is because first-century readers would have already understood that the rich were corrupt based on their historical, cultural, and religious contexts.

As we’ve discussed in previous messages in our study of James, the rich had historically oppressed the poor by not giving them their appropriate wages.

The Old Testament prophets Amos, Micah, and Isaiah all call out the rich for their oppression of the poor.

Therefore, the corruption was a long-standing practice.

Culturally, Jews and early Christians believed that there was just enough of every-thing—food, water, health, fertility, etc.—for everyone to have what they needed.

Therefore, since the rich had more than they needed, that must mean they had taken from others who did not have enough.

Religiously, the rich had also compromised themselves with the Syrian empire in the two hundred years before Christ’s birth in order to gain economic advantage.

The poor rebelled against the Syrians in the Maccabean Revolt of the 160s BC.

They set up the Hasmonean Dynasty, which ruled Palestine for eighty years before the Romans took over.

Prompt payment of wages was a big deal in that day as many people were “hand to mouth” - the daily wages were buying the thing they needed to survive that day.

When these were witheld, it was certainly a form of oppression.

We see James echo this warning to the rich again in this context.

Let’s look at some of these messages from the prophets:

When we look at The Message version of verse 1, we see the word arrogant and the suggestion to take some lessons in lament.

The focus seems to be on greed and piling up wealth for themselves versus having an attitude of serving others and giving out of their excess to others who need it.

Let me say this, money in and of itself is not bad.

The problem becomes what happens to so many people who have money.

It starts to control them, it starts to turn them inward which leads to selfishness.

It leads to a disregard of the will of God, which ties back to the royal law we have mentioned several times throughout our study of James - “love your neighbor as yourself.”

It’s not universal, but there is certainly a trend throughout history and in our society today when it comes to money and power.

James is condemning the rich for selfishly using their resources on themselves and failing to do anything to serve or help others.

In fact, we see things being turned on their head, as the corrupt rich people who were so used to coming out on top of legal battles, would find themselves in the opposite position when they find themselves standing before God as judge.

Here’s the big problem with money and power - it doesn’t last forever.

Have you ever noticed when you got a raise that you were excited but it seemed like you didn’t have any more money each month?

We tend to spend what we have.

We see James alluding to Matthew 6 in the Sermon on the Mount where Jesus advises us not to store up treasures on earth where moth and rust destroy, but instead to store up for ourselves treasures in heaven.

The problem isn’t the money, it is when we have the wrong focus and motive and they don’t line up with being a follower of Jesus Christ.

Money provides false hope because we are not keeping our focus on the hope that comes from Jesus Christ.

Patience in Suffering - The Need for Patient Endurance

We then see James transition to the idea of patience, particularly in suffering.

It’s a bit of an abrupt change from the warning he gives to the corrupt rich, but he transitions to the thought that Christians need to be patient because the appearing of the Lord is near.

This next part is probably the toughest of this passage, we must not grumble against each other, because we will stand before the judge who is yet to come.

For the Jews, the last days begin with the appearance of the Messiah.

Therefore, the readers of James considered themselves to be living in the last days, which is why James urges the poor to be patient—because judgment would soon come for their oppressors.

James uses the idea of the preparation of the farmer to compare with Christians waiting for the coming of Christ.

The farmer prepares the soil, plants the seed, waits for the sun and the rains to grow the crop, and finally comes the harvest.

If you know anything about farming, you know that the farmer doesn’t plant the seed and then just kick back and relax waiting for the harvest.

Instead, he does everything he can to help grow that crop - he continues to work.

This is similar to what Christians should do.

Yes, we are awaiting Christ’s coming Kingdom, but we are also not to just sit back and wait, we are to get to work loving others and serving others and do everything we can to help grow God’s Kingdom in the here and now.

Job is mentioned because he is the prominent example in Jewish literature of someone who was patient in suffering.

He was the parade example of patience.

If you haven’t read the story of Job, I would encourage you to do that.

He was “blameless and upright” wealthy man, who endured the many trials of Satan that God gave permission to Satan to put him through.

But here was the thing.

God trusted that Job was authentic and real in his faith and that he would remain faithful no matter what.

Satan, on the other hand, didn’t think Job would do so.

Can you imagine God trusting your faith in Him so much that he would allow Satan to come at you like he did Job?

What a compliment!

We see Job’s friends come to comfort and assume that this is all happening because of some hidden sin.

Even his wife urges him to curse God so that this would all stop.

But Job refused.

He continues to call on God, lamenting what is happening, but never losing faith.

In the end God restored the things he lost, but what perseverance and trust to have in God.

It is awe inspiring.

While we may not ever go through trials like Job, we are promised that we will have trouble in this world because of Jesus Christ.