Adulterers

Beloved: Where do the wars and where do the conflicts among you come from?  Is it not from your passions that make war within your members? You covet but do not possess. You kill and envy but you cannot obtain; you fight and wage war. You do not possess because you do not ask. You ask but do not receive, because you ask wrongly, to spend it on your passions. 

Adulterers! Do you not know that to be a lover of the world means enmity with God? Therefore, whoever wants to be a lover of the world makes himself an enemy of God.  Or do you suppose that the Scripture speaks without meaning when it says, The spirit that he has made to dwell in us tends toward jealousy? But he bestows a greater grace; therefore, it says: God resists the proud, but gives grace to the humble. 

So submit yourselves to God. Resist the Devil, and he will flee from you. Draw near to God, and he will draw near to you. Cleanse your hands, you sinners, and purify your hearts, you of two minds. Begin to lament, to mourn, to weep. Let your laughter be turned into mourning and your joy into dejection. Humble yourselves before the Lord and he will exalt you. (James 4:1-10)

What a rebuke!  James calls us adulterers because we choose to be lovers of the world and not God.  We do not submit to God, but are tempted by the devil.  In this case James doesn’t mean loving the world (our environment) and all its creatures.  He means loving that which separates us from other people through anger, envy, and pride.  He knows that world creates conflict and war – killing.  He knows that those who insist on being first and #1 are those that covet and are enemies of God by being focused on self and not on others, especially the poor.

Our Gospel addresses #1 thinking.  It reads: Then he sat down, called the Twelve, and said to them, “If anyone wishes to be first, he shall be the last of all and the servant of all.”  Taking a child, he placed it in their midst, and putting his arms around it, he said to them, “Whoever receives one child such as this in my name, receives me; and whoever receives me, receives not me but the One who sent me.” (Mark 9:30-3)

So, are we adulterers, or not?

Deacon David Pierce