Enduring
I was indoctrinated into a religious tradition that had an abiding dislike for the letter of James. They didn’t like it because Martin Luther didn’t like it. He called it the “epistle of straw” and said it didn’t preach Christ enough and was too focused on works’ righteousness.
Lutherans were/are big into faith alone. They don’t like anything that whiffs of works as salvific.
So it is with some surprise that here in the middle of life I find myself increasingly enamored of James’ letter. It’s quite wonderful, really.
Anyway, this isn’t going to be a full-on exegetical post on the letter of James, but it is going to highlight one thematic I love in the letter. It’s his opening statement:
Chapter 1: My brothers and sisters, whenever you face various trials, consider it all joy, 3 because you know that the testing of your faith produces endurance. 4 And let endurance complete its work, so that you may be complete and whole, lacking in nothing.
One additional Lutheran tendency was to elevate Paul because Paul is the “faith alone” guy. Down with James, up with Paul. And yet on this particular point, the topic of endurance, it seems James and Paul thought in similar ways. Compare:
Romans 5: Therefore, since we are justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ, 2 through whom we have obtained access to this grace in which we stand, and we boast in our hope of sharing the glory of God. 3 And not only that, but we also boast in our afflictions, knowing that affliction produces endurance, 4 and endurance produces character, and character produces hope, 5 and hope does not put us to shame, because God’s love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit that has been given to us.
These are not so wildly different one from another. In fact it’s more like Paul had recently visited Jerusalem and sat down with James and then while drafting his letter to the Romans included a theme comparable to the one James sat down and forwarded in his own letter.
Somehow faith and endurance are linked. Enduring is a thing. And the peculiar thing it is has to do with the posture we take in relationship to trials and afflictions.
In the 21st century I think we have a complicated relationship with trials and afflictions. We’ve had a cultural emergence at least in many places that prioritizes comfort, leisure, rest, pain relief. Even if not all or even most people are able to achieve the levels of comfort and leisure to which they aspire, nevertheless they aspire.
Everybody’s working for the weekend.
We certainly would have to recognize that Paul and James lived in a culture that divided rest and work differently than we do. I tend to imagine most people in their day worked constantly and perhaps if they could swing it observed a sabbath day of rest on religious grounds. But I just assume that survival in that era meant a grind culture for many if not most.
Leisure then as now included a significant class divide.
But intriguingly Scripture rarely highlights leisure and recreation. You don’t see people taking a break to play games. There aren’t really sports. Certainly people get away for a break but it is typically either to get away for prayer, or simply because they walked everywhere and it took time to do that.
Oh, and people hosted parties and ate together. That’s all over the place.
In our day, we set ourselves leisure goals. Some of us inadvertently go as hard on our leisure as our work, aiming to read a certain number of books on vacation, stay caught up on the latest shows, attend season ticket holdings at sports ball.
All of this has created a more complex context for the way we think about afflictions and trials. By and large I think we tell ourselves we’re not supposed to have them, that we can and should take the medicines or paths that relieve us of them, that such afflictions and trials are not fair or right.
All the while, ironically, many still are suffering such trials and afflictions more than ever, now with the added mantra that somehow they’ve failed because they haven’t escaped them.
I don’t like and never have liked the old adage that “God will never give you more than you can handle,” which is a load of bullshit as I’ve regularly seen people be given far more than anyone can or should handle.
But I do understand the desire to take a different posture toward affliction and trials. A posture that facilitates endurance.
And anyone who has gone through trials and afflictions can in fact testify that when we endure them, on the other side some of the time we do find that it builds character (Paul), that it “completes” us (James).
I should add, when Paul and James speak of trials and afflictions, they are speaking of specific trials and contextual afflictions. They are the ones especially that come about precisely because we are striving to be faithful.
Not all trials are character producing. Some are just plain awful and we should all be working to help relieve the pain caused by such trials.
No child needs to hear that being abused his character producing. No family who has lost loved ones in a military attack needs to be told that their suffering builds endurance.
But Paul and James are helping us think differently about such afflictions and how we might in many instances turn and “consider it all joy.”
Given we are living during the rise of authoritarianism in our country (and the world) all of which is designed to grind everyone down into compliance, these encouragements of Paul and James seem ever so timely.
Rather than feeling like joining the fight is stealing us away from our leisure, there’s some relief in knowing that living the afflictions and trials that come along with the fight can and do bring their own kind of joy. That they give us endurance. That they actually in some ways complete us.
I have to mention running here at the end of this post. I’ve been a long-distance runner for almost 40 years. Although I can’t claim to challenge myself as much as some who run ultras or train at competitive speeds. In this sense perhaps I have avoided more “afflictions” or trials out running.
But what I have done is built up endurance. Any day of the week I can go out and run 15 miles comfortably.
I take a similar approach to the most difficult aspects of Christian practice. Whether it’s welcoming refugees or striving for LGBTQIA+ inclusion, the point is endurance. I hope to do it over the long haul.
James had that chance. Paul less so. But both considered the how of enduring. I find that inspiring.