If anyone among you thinks he is religious, and does not bridle his tongue but deceives his own heart, this one’s religion is useless. Pure and undefiled religion before God and the Father is this: to visit orphans and widows in their trouble, and to keep oneself unspotted from the world. (James 1:25-27)
James gets right down to his next prime topic in these verses; I think these verses are what he has been gently leading up to. James’ premise is that having the love of God in your mind causes you to react in certain ways. If given the choice, we help. If asked, we help. We do our religion; we don’t just sit there week after week listening to sermon after sermon. We do something to make the world a better place, to lower the suffering of the people we know and can do something about.
It is very good to send funds to missionaries; they need it and it is a help. But it is much better to be a missionary in your own neighborhood. To do that, you actually need to know the people in your neighborhood. Do you know the person who lives next door? Or two doors down? Do you know who the lady with the rambunctious kids three houses down the other way – the ones who ride their bikes all over the neighborhood and whom you caught trying to pick your roses, having thrown their bike down in the middle of the hosta bed? Yes, those kids. I remember it like it just happened.
I think they must have been siblings; she started out riding on his handlebars as he pumped along. They passed my place and I didn’t pay them much mind, but they circled back, stopped, looked around, then tossed the bike down into a bed of hostas under a maple tree and ran into my yard to the rose garden area.
I saw what they were doing through my window and quietly came out with some shears.
“Excuse me, do you need something?” I asked. The boy grabbed his bike and got out of there, leaving the other, a girl who had gotten pricked trying to pick the rose she wanted.
“The bleeding will stop,” I comforted her. “Now is this the one you wanted?” It was bent over so I assumed it was. As I recall, it was lavender and had just bloomed this year. I got the bush because the color struck me as wonderful, a new hybrid and it was gorgeous. She nodded. I cut her that rose and two others. “Who are these for?”
“They’re for my grandma, we live with her now,” she admitted. She might have been seven. “She has a headache and I saw these pretty roses and I thought they could help.”
“Well, give me a minute. I’ll wrap the stems in a damp paper towel, you sit right over there on the step while I get it.” I went inside, wrapped the stems in a wet paper towel and then some foil, and came back out with a small glass of cold water. “You looked thirsty so thought you might like a drink. Here you go, have some, and I hope your grandma likes her flowers. Next time though, just knock on my door and let me help and you won’t get pricked.”
She nodded her thanks and took off down the road.
A word in the right place, a flower in a time when you’re down. They all help.
James tells us to care for widows and orphans – they had a hard time in those days. When the man of the family died, unless there was a son old enough to work, the widows had no one to turn to for help. Men were being taken and killed for being Christians, and the early church had a hard time caring for all those that had lost loved ones. In James’ mind, those who saw the pain and did nothing to stop it were simply not really Christians, they were impostors. Those who were mean-spirited, who spoke harshly, who did not “bridle their tongue,” were not doing God’s will. They looked into the glass of faith, but when they turned away, they forgot all about it. Instead of keeping themselves unspotted from the world, they absorbed the bad; or they simply drifted, unashamed, and unafraid that they might be doing wrong.
When was the last time you gave someone a flower, or a kind word, or help? It’s an indicator of whether or not you are actually His child.