Cantate 2025
Cantate – the Fourth Sunday after Easter
James 1:16-21
May 18, 2025
Alleluia! Christ is risen!
The epistle of James has always been controversial. One of the earliest lists of canonical (or, accepted) books of the NT comes from the end of the second century, in Rome. James is not mentioned. Put differently, the Roman church did not accept James in the first centuries of Christianity. James gained widespread acceptance when Jerome included it in his Latin translation of the Bible, called the Vulgate, early in the fifth century.
It’s not uncommon today to find papal apologists slandering Luther by saying he removed James and other books from the Bible. This is not true. Luther, whose doctorate was in Biblical studies and patristics, was well aware of the controversial history of James. And he was aware of how the Roman priests pitted James against Paul. You really cannot understand Luther unless you’ve had a learned professor who says outrageous things to force you to reevaluate everything you believe.
That’s what was happening at the time of the Reformation, concurrent with the Renaissance movement. They were recovering the original sources. They were learning Hebrew and Greek, and discovering there were problems with the Latin translation of the Bible. Those problems had compounded over the previous eleven centuries, developing a false religion centered around human action, the sacrifice of priests, and a righteousness that came by works.
Students of history, they learned that the claims of the Church of Rome were fraudulent. For example, the “Donation of Constantine” was an 8th-century forgery that purported Constantine gave the pope primacy over all other churches, temporal power over Rome and the western half of the Roman Empire, and the right to use imperial insignia. The pope used this to create the papal states.
In 1440 Lorenzo Valla exposed the “Donation of Constantine” as a forgery. This was a few decades after the Roman church murdered pastor Jan Hus. Hus was an early reformer and the rector at the University of Prague. The world was ready for a return to truth and an end to the corruption.
So it’s natural that men like Luther and his learned opponent Erasmus were rethinking all these questions: can we trust the Latin records, since some are forgeries, and Latin is not one of the Biblical languages, and there has been much falsehood mixed with truth? It was a transitional age, as the printing press spread information rapidly, and suddenly people had access to books, and were reading them faster than Rome could burn them.
We live in a similar chaotic age; the gatekeepers of the legacy media are exposed as frauds, and the internet spreads information true and false faster than we can process it.
But during the Reformation, despite the intense and often vitriolic discussions—after all, people were getting murdered for questioning the Roman authorities—James remained in the German Bibles being printed, and now in our English Bibles. James is God’s Word. At Immanuel we still use the church’s ancient series of readings, which prescribes James to be read on this Sunday. And I am certain that Luther would tell you today we need James more than ever, because large swathes of global Lutheranism have fallen into error. Many who claim his mantel are misusing the gospel as a cloak for vice.
It’s all too common today to find exactly what Luther objected to under the Pope. Back then, people were using indulgences to live however they wanted. You just buy the forgiveness of sins, and then indulge in the sin. Now, the free forgiveness of sins has become in too many churches a freedom from any Law, a freedom to fornicate, a freedom to slander, a freedom to accumulate obscene amounts of money, and doom-scroll the night away.
The church always needed James, for James reminds us that we should check our anger, love our brother, and look for God’s righteousness.
But James grounds it all in God’s gift. The Gospel is the only power to true righteousness. The Law cannot produce it. So James says, “Do not be deceived, my beloved brothers. Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father.” From above - that’s Baptism talk. It’s the same word Jesus uses in John 3, where it’s often translated as “again.” “You must be born again,” Jesus says – at least that’s how Nicodemus chooses to hear it. This is one of those words that can mean two different things, depending on context. We have lots of words like that. A party can be one side of a lawsuit, or it can be a celebratory gathering, or it can be a political grouping. One word, lots of meanings. You only know from context.
Nicodemus hears, “You must be born again,” but Jesus means, as the context makes clear, “You must be born from above” - you need a birth from God; the birth from below, the birth from our parents, brings us into corruption and death. The birth from above, the birth from the Holy Spirit, brings us into righteousness and life.
So everything starts with the good and perfect gift that comes from above, that the Father sends down to us. James keeps going with the Baptism, new-birth language in the next sentence: “Of his own will he brought us forth by the word of truth.” That also sounds an awful lot like John’s Gospel, where Jesus is the Word, and He is the Truth. James combines it, and tells us that’s where our life is. It isn’t in sports teams or money or carnal lusts or victory in the foolish fights we wage with other people, even in the church. He is telling us to stop saying so many of our own words and pay attention to God’s Word.
“Know this, my beloved brothers: let every person be quick to hear, slow to speak, slow to anger.” Good advice in general: listen first, before you speak. Don’t use many words. But this is more than general advice. James has just been telling us about Jesus, the Word of Truth. He’s saying, “Be quick to hear Jesus!” And when we hear Jesus, we shut our own mouths – and especially, we have to stop being so angry. Because what does Jesus tell us? “Everyone who is angry with his brother will be liable to judgment” [Mt 5:22]. It’s God’s place to be angry. He is the judge. Jesus says that in the Sermon on the Mount.
Isn’t it interesting that a little later in the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus says, “Seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness”? After telling us to not be angry, the next thing James says is, “For the anger of man does not produce the righteousness of God.” James is taking the words of Jesus in Mt and applying them to his particular situation, where people are being rude to each other, rich people are being stingy, and the church is suffering.
James lets them have it. “Therefore, put away all filthiness and rampant wickedness.” What is filthy in your life? What disordered desires dominate you? God’s Word says, “Put them away.”
It’s a stern message. But it is never delivered without the promise of the Gospel. “Put away all filthiness and rampant wickedness and receive with meekness the implanted word, which is able to save your souls.” See here how it’s the Word that does the work, the Word saves us. Does James mean Jesus the Word (the Logos), or does he mean the spoken Word, like when we read the Bible? They go together: the Bible delivers Jesus to us; the Word is spoken over water, and we are joined to Jesus in Baptism; the Word is spoken over bread and wine, and they deliver to us Jesus’ Body and Blood; the Word is spoken over sinners, and Jesus Himself forgives us.
We are called to receive Jesus with meekness. It’s a tough word to put into English; it’s not weakness, but more to be calm, not in a rage, a person moderate in temperament, able to reconcile with others and forgive. This is a virtue we want to inculcate in our students at ILS.
The overarching theme of today’s liturgy is the song of joy. And it’s that forgiveness—the birth from above, the reception of the Word that saves us, the gift of our own coming resurrection—that’s what causes us to sing our Alleluias. For despite the filthiness and wickedness that still stubbornly clings, we are an Easter people, and Alleluia! is our song. So take to heart both this law and gospel in James, sing for the rest of your life this new song:
Alleluia, Christ is risen!