SAINT JAMES DAY – 2023
2 Corinthians 4:7-15
Acts 11:19-21, 12:1-3, 24
Matthew 20:20-28
Do you remember the ad campaign a few years ago (is thirty years a few?) “Be Like Mike.” Don’t you want to be a winner like Michael Jordan? Drink some Gatorade. (Gatorade never did improve my jump shot, however.) Something somewhat similar is going on as we celebrate our patron today. As we gather for the feast we are challenged: “Be like St. James.” There isn’t anything we can drink or wear, there isn’t something we can buy which will help us be like St. James. It is, rather, entering deeply into the scriptural portrait we have of the apostle that helps us understand how we can be like him in following Christ.
The first thing to notice about St. James is that he bears a family resemblance to us – that is to say, he was a mess, a human being with the usual complement of faults and failings. The gospel for today describes some of his less attractive traits. He was pushy. He was looking to climb what he perceived as the corporate ladder and didn’t mind stepping on a few heads along the way. Or maybe it wasn’t him who was pushy but his mother was pushing him and he simply went along, hiding behind his mother’s skirts. He was a braggart, thinking he could drink that cup when he really had no clue about what was demanded. In any case, he acted in ways that created anger and resentment from those closest to him. This is the same James who was given so many blessings being with Jesus – he saw the transfiguration, the miracles, the multiplication – and yet none of that was enough. He was ungrateful about what he had been given and wanted more. We know from another passage that he was also hot tempered. Jesus called him one of the Boanerges, the sons of thunder, because he was rash and impetuous. When he felt that someone had disrespected him he lashed out at them. He wanted to respond with violence, rain down fire upon them, to show them who was boss. He was also impatient. Are you going to restore the kingdom of God now? He asked Jesus. And, in the end, he was fearful, cowardly. When the going got tough he did a Georgie-Porgie and ran away. Instead of having Jesus’ back he hid in the back. Your list of faults and character flaws might have a few different wrinkles from St. James but the basic picture is the same. Like James we are not the ideal characters we wished we were and we would like to be, and do, better.
As St. Paul puts it in the epistle we, all of us, you, me, St. James, are “earthen vessels,” clay pots, fragile and weak, capable of shattering at the least pressure. What St. James demonstrates, and why we want to become like him, is what God can do even with the likes of him. When St. James came to know Jesus as more than a nice guy and good teacher but as the Risen Lord, when the Holy Spirit of God filled him with the flame of God’s love, then he was transformed from “what’s in it for me” James into “how can I serve you” James. This was not the result of some kind of self-improvement program but rather a surrender of his own preferences into the will of God for him. His life shows the surpassing power is of God and not from us. Like St. Paul he might find himself, “afflicted, perplexed, persecuted, struck down” but that did not discourage him. Instead by relying on what God could do with him he found the courage to give it all to the divine will. As the Acts of the Apostles reports, he was the first of the followers of Jesus to give his life for the faith. The transformation was complete. From a “look out for number one” type of guy he became a “look to Jesus and all will be well” type of guy.
All of which suggests that we shouldn’t be like Mike or even be like St. James. What we should do is be like Jesus. We are like Jesus when we claim our identity as beloved children of God with whom the Father is well pleased. Jesus heard those words at his baptism and each of us were named and claimed by God at our baptism as beloved from the first moment of our existence. We are like Jesus when we recognize that every person that we encounter is also precious in the eyes of God. Every single individual is a child of God, made in God’s image and likeness, noticing, in particular, those who are neglected, rejected, disrespected. We are like Jesus when, as the Church puts it nowadays, we show a preferential option for the poor. We are like Jesus when we forgive seventy times seven times. We are like Jesus when we turn the other cheek. We are like Jesus when we drive out the demons — those things which make us doubt our value and worth or cause us to diminish the value of others: demons of poor self-image, low self-esteem, lack of confidence, unfavorable comparisons with others, fear of failure, worry and anxiety. We are like Jesus when we bring healing into our homes, our families, our hearts. We are like Jesus when we pray to the God who always hears us, presenting our needs to God with hope and confidence. But also when, like Jesus, we append to every prayer “but not my will but thine be done.” Being like Jesus might seem beyond us but we remember St. James today because if he could do, so can we. The goal we are striving for is that one day we will be able to say with St. James and St. Paul, with all the saints, “It is now no longer I that live but Christ lives in me.”
