Welcome to the commons cast. We're glad to have you here. We hope you find something meaningful in our teaching this week. Head to comm.church for more information.

Welcome to church. My name is Jeremy. It's always great to have you here with us. If it's your first time, then really great to meet you. Please say hi before you leave.

If you're joining us online today, it's not live. We're recording this. We're gonna upload it to YouTube after the service today. So, little different but thank you for joining us as well. It really does mean a lot that you continue to journey with us in all these different ways.

We don't take that for granted, so thank you. Before we get rolling though, it was supposed to be Bobby here today. However, earlier this week, she had a slip on some ice and she fractured her fibula. So I am plan b as she is recuperating. Please keep her in your prayers.

Although it looks like things are good, she will hopefully be back in the office this week, but we want her to take as much time as she needs. So keep praying for her. That said, we are in the middle of a series in the book of James. And this series is called faith at work because James has always been famous for, maybe infamous for, calling us to focus on how we work out our faith. Like what we actually do with our beliefs.

And how whatever salvation is, it is certainly not less than the way that Jesus shapes our lives in the world. There's a tendency at times particularly in the protestant traditions to imagine that we can think our way to heaven. To imagine that giving mental ascent to a particular set of ideological propositions can save you. But the core of the Jesus message is actually about following a way through the world, the way that leads us back to God. Last week, Bobby did an amazing job walking us through the first couple chapters of James.

In the first week of the series, I basically did a primer on who James was and we didn't really get too much of the letter. But there were a couple of really significant pieces Bobby touched on last week that are foundational for James and his approach to faith. In chapter one, he writes, do not merely listen to the word and so deceive yourselves, do what it says. Anyone who listens to the word but does not do what it says is like someone who looks at himself in the mirror and after looking at himself goes away and immediately forgets his face. Now, Bobby's illustration here was her wing tipped eyeliner.

I have no idea what that means. I barely look in the mirror on a regular day as you can tell from my beard and my hair. This is far more a lack of commitment than it is any particular sartorial choice. However, I do love this image from James because it feels very familiar, doesn't it? I look in the mirror spiritually.

I have a sense of who I am, who I was made to be, or at the very least who I might slowly become in Jesus. And then I have to drive to work in traffic. Right? On your way here, if you drove along 5th Street, you saw the construction, one lane alternating directions exactly on my way home every day from now until according to the sign, the December. That is not the Jeremy that I saw in the mirror as I sat diligently in my office studying to speak about the peaceful way of Jesus.

Now I know that's a cheap example granted. You and I both know that our world however, our society is also incredibly fractured. There are some very real and very important issues that demand thoughtful conversations and strong convictions. Except if you're anything like me, my convictions about what is right can often overwhelm the grace of Jesus that I also want to see when I watch myself speak. And to remember that how we talk to each other, how we listen to each other, and yes, how we stand up to each other, how we speak the truth to each other, all of that still needs to look like Jesus, including our social media habits by the way.

So apologies for all the times I have dropped the ball out there. Dunking on bad tweets is not your spiritual gift, so pack it away. But then we read another one of the most famous lines from James. This time from chapter two where he writes, suppose a brother or sister is without clothes or daily food and one of you says to them, go in peace and be well fed, keep warm, but does nothing for their physical needs. What's the point of that?

And part of what I like about James is just how straightforward and blunt he can be. You know Paul, he he always has these complex frankly sometimes bizarre interpretations of Hebrew scripture to support his ideas. James is just like, look, let's not waste each other's time here. If you like theology and if you're into atonement theory and if dissecting the Hebrew scriptures to find hints of Jesus, if that's your thing then have at it. If it helps you walk the way of Jesus, it is good and holy and I bless you in it.

But I do like all those things by the way too. And I really do think they help me follow the way of Jesus in the world, but James is blunt enough to say it for us, let's not pretend that that alone is faith. Belief and ascent and understanding and theology and reading the bible, all of these are powerful. They could be entry points into faith. Faith is when we actually trust our ideas enough to try them out.

And I believe a bungee cord can hold me. I can even study some of the science behind it, but the fact is when I was in Zambia and I stood at the edge of Victoria Falls, I was not ready to trust that cord with my life. And I think that's kind of what James is trying to confront us with here. Faith is not an idea. Faith is a relational trust that when I follow the way of Jesus in the world, he will catch me.

Perhaps even in those moments when I forget my face in the mirror. Today, however, we're gonna move into chapter three and James has a lot to say to us here about teachers and tongues and wisdom and leadership. First, let's pray. God of all grace, who continues to invite us to trust today. Not simply in the idea of your salvation, but also in the tangible reality of your way in the world.

To believe that the grace and peace that forms and holds our universe together can be embodied in our hearts, in our homes, in our interactions with each other. Might we slowly actually come to believe that we are being saved from our selfishness when we are generous. And from our own misconceptions when we are willing to learn and to relearn again. We are saved from our prejudice and our cowardice when we lay down our privilege, that we are saved from the grip of sin and death when we trust the way of Jesus in our lives. And God, when all of that is hard because we are afraid.

Let your spirit be near to us with comfort and courage, cheering us on as we put our faith in you to work. May we be more kind even as we hold our convictions close. And may we be more gracious even as we stand up for those who've been forgotten or left behind. And we trust the way of Jesus just as deeply as we trust His person. In the strong name of a risen Christ we pray.

Amen. Alright. Back to James. Here's our plan today. Teachers and tongues and wisdom and leadership.

But let's dive right into this one at the start of chapter three. It says verse one and James says, not many of you should become teachers my fellow believers because you know that we who teach will be judged more strictly. Now, we'll keep going in a moment here, but first of all, this is an awkward way to start a sermon. Am I right? Granted James is already two chapters deep, but still it does make it a little tough for me or at least it should.

Except here's the thing. In almost twenty years of doing this job now, one of the things that I've discovered in pastors and probably to some extent in myself as well, is that rather than read this as a warning, we often hear it as a badge of honor. And this is a really interesting phenomena I think. Because in my experience, rather than read these words and say, oh, maybe I should be a little more humble interpretations. Or perhaps I should couch my opinions in more honest vernacular.

You know what? Reading this, it's probably important that I lay bare the complexity of faith and all the ways that my ego forces its way into my words. Instead what I find is that a lot of pastors, myself included at times actually become more strident, more confident at least outwardly, more apt to speak when we should probably listen and all of that after reading this. So what is that? What is it about hearing James say be careful that sometimes leads us to less care?

Well, there's two things at play here I think. The first is what we call the Dunning Kruger effect. The second is what I'm gonna call a necessary functional arrogance. Now Dunning Kruger applies to all kinds of situations, not just pastors. But the name comes from two researchers, social psychologists, David Dunning and Justin Kruger who studied cognitive bias.

You've probably heard this term before because the Internet loves it right now. It's become the official go to for anyone who thinks they know more than they do. And essentially, the findings of the research demonstrated that the less we know about something, the more we tend to overestimate our mastery of it. Now this doesn't mean that everyone thinks they know everything. That's just how people are on the internet.

You just have to get used to it. It has nothing to do with Denning Kruger necessarily. Denning Kruger is about our overestimation of ourselves. So, I know I'm not an electrician and I don't claim to be. However, I have seen someone connect a light switch before, it's really not all that hard.

And so my estimation of how well I understand the role of an electrician is probably a lot greater than if I followed her around for the day at work. And almost certainly a lot more than if I actually took a course at say on electrician. This is really I think what happens to a lot of us as pastors. Particularly pastors like me who have done this as a career from right out of school. We graduate with a theology degree, generally from an institution that comes from within a particular Christian tradition.

That gives us a very small taste of the range of perspective and variation in church history, but usually very little experience with other religions or even different traditions in Christianity. So we overestimate our mastery of the divine. Some of us even have masters of divinity degrees. How bizarre a title is that? But that's a lot of what James is talking about in this book.

Right? That our theoretical understandings of things don't mean much until they come up against our lived experience of life on life. And the truth is, the answers that I learned in seminary about theodicy and suffering and pain, they didn't mean much last week when I officiated my friend's funeral. Because the truth is, it takes time to learn just how little we know, particularly when the subject matter is as big as God. And so I actually think that sometimes theological education makes us think we know more than we do.

And we come out of school imagining that our jobs will be to answer questions about God, but slowly we realize that most of pastoring is actually about learning how to be human with a community of people. Which again is sort of the point that James is making all throughout this letter. But this is also where we run into the second problem, something I've called necessary functional arrogance. And again, we're really talking about another form of cognitive bias here. But if you really believe that you have a role that not many people should have and depends on you being strictly judged, One of two things happens, you either slowly convince yourself that you are right all the time or you find another job.

And honestly, I think this is what a lot of pastors do. They read James' words. They say to themselves, well, I am in this role therefore I must be one of the few, which means I must be right, which means I can speak with a confidence I haven't really earned. It's a self preservation bias. We assume that James is writing about our theology or our answers about God and so we adopt a more and more strident position in those answers.

We slowly convince ourselves that this warning is somehow proof that we actually know what we're talking about. Except that's not what James is talking about at all, is it? There's this very strange thing that happens in a lot of sermons and commentaries where this opening line about teachers somehow gets disconnected disconnected from everything else in this chapter. James, however, he just keeps rolling with his thought. He says, not many of you should become teachers, my fellow believers, because you know that we who teach will be judged more strictly.

We all stumble in many ways. Anyone who is never at fault is what they say is perfect able to keep their whole body in check because the tongue is a small part of the body but it makes great boasts. Consider what a great forest is set on fire by a small spark. With the tongue we praise our Lord and Father and with it we curse other human beings who have been made in God's likeness. Out of the same mouth comes praise and cursing my siblings, this should not be.

Who is wise and understanding among you, let them show it by their good life, by good deeds done in the humility that comes from wisdom. If you harbor better envy and selfish ambition in your heart, don't boast about it or deny the proof. In other words, don't go the way of Dunning Kruger or functional arrogance. Such wisdom does not come from heaven, it is earthly unspiritual. The wisdom that comes from heaven is first of all pure, then peace loving, considerate, submissive, full of mercy and good fruit, impartial and sincere.

Peacemakers who sow peace reap a harvest of righteousness. So it's actually all of this. That is precisely what James is talking about when he says that teachers will be judged more strictly. And it's actually quite a paradigm shift to realize that James is saying a teacher should be judged on their graciousness rather than their lesson plan. And that a leader should be judged on the peace that they engender around them rather than their success and achievement.

So a bit of time we have left here, let's look at a couple of things now. First, exactly what does James mean when he talks about teachers? Second, how we sometimes teach by staying silent and finally leadership as peacemaking. And first of all, teachers. When we started today, I skipped straight to the assumption that James is talking about professional pastors here and that's because that's the assumption that we often make, but of course that's nonsense.

Right? I mean, there were no professional pastors in James world. Nobody had a seminary degree and nobody had a fancy microphone strapped to their face or spotlights or stages like anything I'm standing on. What he's talking about here, pardon the term are influencers. Now I'm not talking about Instagram.

Technically, word is didaskalos and that's a term that's applied to Jesus. It absolutely does mean teacher, but it's not a formal title. It's more like an honorific. So I've had many teachers in my life. Some of them were actually teachers, like in schools with degrees and titles to go with them and all of that's great.

Probably some of the most important teachers in your life were teachers. But certainly like you, many of the true teachers in my life have probably never been offered the title before. There are people here in this room, in this community that have taught me extraordinary things. In fact, of what I know about pastoring, learned long after seminary from you. My parents, of course, have been my teachers but they were just here visiting last month and Rachel, my wife reminded me of just how much I am like my mom.

So it's more than facts we gain from teachers. Right? We learn how to be ourselves from our teachers. And then this year, my new daughter and her birth mother, they have been my teachers as settlers on this land adopting an indigenous child and welcoming her birth mother into our family. I have been confronted with so much that we have to learn and they're being a gift, the presence in our life.

But this this is much more what James is talking about here. Not people on stages, but the privilege of assuming a place of influence in each other's lives. And he is absolutely right that we should all of us pursue that calling carefully and cautiously given the sacred responsibility that it is. But what is the measure of that calling in James' mind? What does it mean to be a good influence in community?

He hasn't left any of that up to our imagination. He's told us very specifically what he means by it. So as someone who likes to talk and does that for a living, I'm struck by the fact that for James being a teacher, even before it's about knowing what to say, it's about often knowing when to say it. Listen to this. Not many of us should become teachers.

We all stumble in many ways. And he goes on, he says, but can both fresh water and salt water flow from the same spring? My siblings, can a fig tree bear olives or a grapevine bear figs? Of course not. Neither can a salt spring produce fresh water.

Now everybody's grandma here probably used to say something like if you can't say something nice, don't say anything at all. She probably got a little bit of that here from James. However, this is about a lot more than just being nice, isn't it? James says in this chapter that our tongues can be full of deadly poison, That we can praise God and curse our neighbor at the same time and that this should not be so. And that's really what James has in mind.

I mean nice can mean a lot of things. It can mean preserving the status quo when things are toxic and that's not good. And nice can mean avoiding conflict when a sacred word is needed and that's not healthy. James has something more significant here in mind, the delicate art of being a blessing. And that's a lot more complex than just nice.

That means being in tune with spirit and wanting the best outcome for someone and earning the place in their life to offer your opinion and examining your own motives for selfishness and developing the wisdom to know when to speak to them. Because this is ultimately James' second measure of what it means to be a teacher, it's wisdom. This one is fascinating in the context of this chapter because if you were to ask me about wisdom and teachers, I would probably immediately default to wondering about how many books someone has read or how many degrees are on their walls or how many languages they speak. James goes in a very different direction here. Listen to the language that he uses to describe the kind of wisdom that we want from those we allow to influence us.

Humility, good deeds, a lack of jealousy and ambition, gentle, yielding, submissive, merciful, sincere. Honest question here. When was the last time you heard those type of words used in the context of leadership in any setting, let alone the church? Because I'll be honest, I've been in some form of leadership for most of my adult life and the words that I have been conditioned to associate with leaders are words like decisive and driven and demanding and sure things like trustworthy and honorable, but mostly things like organized and competitive and successful. Certainly not submissive or yielding or gentle at all times and yet that's what James says, those of us who teach should be judged by.

And strictly by the way, James isn't concerned with finding leaders who get everything right. Heck, in verse two, he says, we all stumble in many ways. He's interested in finding the kinds of influences in our communities that are willing to get things wrong well. Because that's what this chapter, that's what this whole warning is about. It's not about setting leaders and teachers up on impossible pedestals.

It's about ensuring that we don't get so full of ourselves that we lose sight of all the things we can't see. This year, our staff team and our board team have both been working through the book called A Church Called Tov. And Bobby led both teams in a discussion of this book as it outlines how we can learn from some of these terrible stories of abuse of power that have happened in various churches over the last couple decades. In the book, Scott McKnight and Laura Beringer walked through some of those stories and the lessons we can learn, but they land on something that they call the circle of Tov. Now Tov is the Hebrew word for good.

But that's I mean, that's kind of selling it short because something better might be wholeness, health, and goodness, and flourishing, something more like Shalom in the Hebrew imagination. But without rehearsing this entire book, it builds to this circle of good where they argue that nurturing empathy and resisting narcissism in the culture of an institution can help us push back against the culture of fear and replace that with welcome and grace. That teaches us to put people first which then enables us to tell the truth even when it's really hard. Doing that enough over time transitions our value from loyalty to justice. That nurtures service which engenders Christ likeness, which dismantles our narcissism and starts us all over again on the circle, we just keep going.

And it's a good book and you should read it, but this is exactly what James has been telling us here for a very long time. The influence and leadership and positions as teachers when grounded in anything less than empathy and compassion and listening and learning, particularly when those qualities are replaced with gifting and ambition. We'll fall far short of the calling of Jesus. Because the point of Christian community is not to be right. It is to be wrong together even as we are slowly conformed to the image of Christ.

May the strongest influences in all of our lives be peace loving, considerate, submissive, full of mercy. So that we can be gentle with each other as we journey and Christ can ultimately be our teacher today. Let's pray. God of grace who comes to teach us, but does that not through manipulation or coercion or force or fear. But He comes and demonstrates for us what it means to be peaceful and gentle and yielding and welcoming.

Walks the way of love through the world so that we can see it and understand it, taste it and touch it and eventually if we find the courage, follow it. God, would you help us, each of us to be teachers for each other? Good influences in each other's life that demonstrate over and over again our willingness to care, to come near, to be kind, to listen and when the time is needed to speak truth to each other. God, as we do this, in the way of grace and peace in the world, would you slowly build your community here among us and your kingdom around us as we trust that your way in the world really is the way back to you. In the strong name of the risen Christ we pray.

Amen.