I love the artwork of Norman Rockwell! The way he captured moments of everyday life in such captivating images has always drawn me in. One of my favorite paintings of his is the self-portrait he painted for a cover of the Saturday Evening Post in 1960. It is called the “Triple Self-Portrait” because it depicts Rockwell sitting before his canvas, looking at himself in a mirror, and painting himself on the canvas. I actually brought a copy of the picture in puzzle form that I usually have hanging on my wall at home so you can see it. The thing that stands out to me as I look at this image is how the artist is looking at himself in the mirror, yet what he had painted on the canvas does not exactly match what we see in the mirror. And in looking up more information on this painting, I read that there were a few things Norman Rockwell did in this painting that actually stood in contrast to his true self. For instance, the painting shows a couple of messes in the artist’s workspace, but Rockwell was known to keep his studio extraordinarily neat. As I thought about our passage for this morning from James, his words about looking in a mirror reminded me of this painting from Norman Rockwell.

James writes, “[B]e doers of the word, and not merely hearers who deceive themselves. For if any are hearers of the word and not doers, they are like those who look at themselves in a mirror; for they look at themselves and, on going away, immediately forget what they were like.” Now, I can’t say I’ve done this exact thing per se, but I can think of some other examples of similar things I’ve done. Like looking at a phone number sent to me in an email or something and then going to the phone app to dial it and when the phone app loads I’ve already forgotten the number. Or when I go to the grocery store with my shopping list and I look over the list in a particular aisle to see what items from my list might be found there. And then when I look back up at the aisle, I forget what the things were that I was supposed to be looking for. Perhaps you can think of some of your own examples like that. It’s pretty easy to look at something and think we have it solid in our minds and then as soon as we look away it evades our memory. The question for us this morning then becomes, how does that pertain to being doers of the Word? And that is the question I want to explore together.

This week we begin a new sermon series that will last us through World Communion Sunday on October 3rd. And during the 5 weeks of this series, we will look at the letter of James and, specifically, that letter’s focus on putting our faith into action. And that theme is clear already in these early verses of James’ letter. “[B]e doers of the word, and not merely hearers who deceive themselves,” James writes. What does it mean for us to be “doers of the word?” Some would say that this means adherence to the rules of Christianity. As doers of the word, we live lives of purity and obedience to Christ. The Apostle Paul says something like this in Romans when talking about Torah law. Paul writes, “it is not the hearers of the law who are righteous in God’s sight, but the doers of the law who will be justified.” So, I guess that settles it. James is telling us to follow the rules, right? That was easy. Sermon over.

On second thought, maybe we should dig a bit deeper. I dug into the original Greek for this verse and discovered something kind of interesting…at least I found it interesting. The word translated in this verse as “doers” is poietes, the word from which we get our word “poet.” I wonder what it would sound like if we put that into the verse instead of doers. “Be poets of the word, and not merely hearers who deceive themselves.” Hmm…interesting, right? I’m reminded of the movie Dead Poets Society and the words of Professor Keating to his students. He said, “We don’t read and write poetry because it’s cute. We read and write poetry because we are members of the human race. And the human race is filled with passion. And medicine, law, business, engineering, these are noble pursuits and necessary to sustain life. But poetry, beauty, romance, love, these are what we stay alive for. To quote from Whitman, “O me! O life!… of the questions of these recurring; of the endless trains of the faithless… of cities filled with the foolish; what good amid these, O me, O life?” Answer. That you are here – that life exists, and identity; that the powerful play goes on and you may contribute a verse. That the powerful play *goes on* and you may contribute a verse. What will your verse be?” Poets create beauty and life and love and passion. So when I think about this verse from James imploring us to be poets of the Word, it makes me think of taking that word, that truth of Christ, and making something beautiful, something inspiring, something life-giving out of it. In that Norman Rockwell painting, Rockwell depicts himself making a painting of himself that is now exactly like what is in the mirror, but perhaps more what he wants himself to be. Be poets of the word. Inspire passion and love and life with your actions.

Now James gives us a couple ideas as to how to be doers of our faith as well. He puts it at the very end of this section of his letter. He writes, “Religion that is pure and undefiled before God, the Father, is this: to care for orphans and widows in their distress, and to keep oneself unstained by the world.” James seems to be wanting to contrast true religion, true worship of God, with what he is seeing around him…most likely the legalism of the Pharisees. The Pharisees were always quick to criticize others for not following the law, while they themselves would disregard it whenever it suited their needs. Wayne Dyer speaks to this idea when he writes, “A non-doer is very often a critic-that is, someone who sits back and watches doers, and then waxes philosophically about how the doers are doing. It’s easy to be a critic, but being a doer requires effort, risk, and change.” Many religious folks, it seems, prefer to be non-doers because it is much easier to sit back and criticize than it is to jump in, get your hands dirty, and be the change you want to see in the world. But that is what I think James is calling us to here.

And he gives us two ways to do that…one that is an outward discipline and one that is more of an inward discipline. Let’s take them in order. First, James says that true religion means “to care for orphans and widows in their distress.” Now we could read this in two ways. First, we could read it literally, that orphans and widows are the only people we need to worry about and as long as we take care of them, we are doing the right thing by God. On the other hand, we could interpret it more broadly, which I suspect is how James intended it. And we could think of the widows and orphans James refers to as symbolic of the oppressed and marginalized in our society. This opens us up to a wide range of how we might be doers of the word in our society and in our world. There is much oppression in our world, unfortunately, and that offers us many opportunities to help and provide care. As Jesus says to his disciples, “By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another.” We are doers of the word by showing our love for the least of these.

And James also says that true religion means “to keep oneself unstained by the world.” This seems to go back to our original discussion about purity and following the rules, right? Well, maybe. But I think it is more about the state of our hearts. It is an inner purity, not an outward purity. This is about our attitude toward the world. Are we holding onto grudges and being swayed in our thinking by the loudest voices or the ones that offer us something we want? Are we giving our hearts to things that are not of God? The word James uses for “to keep” is in the present infinitive tense, which means that it is an action that keeps going. So we are to keep on keeping ourselves undefiled. It is a constant struggle. And the truth is that we cannot keep ourselves undefiled. We must instead rely on the grace of God in Jesus Christ to keep us undefiled.

James tells us to be doers of the word and not just hearers. And we do that by showing love to those most in need of it…those who are outcast and oppressed by the powers of this world. And in order to truly do that, we must seek to have the same mind as Christ, to be holy as God is holy, to keep ourselves undefiled by the attitudes and prejudices and divisive rhetoric that comes at us from the world all around us. And we must seek to do these things in a way that creates life, breeds hope, spreads love, and fosters peace. And in doing so, may we be “blessed,” as James says, “in our doing.” For “every generous act of giving, with every perfect gift, is from above, coming down from the Father of lights.” May we share the gifts of God in the world as we live out the word of God that has been placed upon our hearts! Amen!