Mennonite Weekly Review

“Listen to my words,” said Richard Santana, a former gang member, stunning 300 students at Kansas City Community College last September. Santana’s had been a gang of nine homeboys in Los Angeles. Twice he was incarcerated. Now, looking the part in a black coat and dark sunglasses, he urged the young people to “avoid falling in with bad crowds, abstain from drugs and alcohol, honor yourselves by holding each other accountable, respect yourselves.” As he spoke, Santana removed his outer clothing to reveal a white-collared shirt and tie, looking like the well-educated man that he now is, with master’s degrees in adolescent psychology and human development. In other words: you all get busy and do something.

Stackley

The Epistle of James is a short letter, sent by snail mail (take your time!), as current and convicting now as it was to those who read it first. We have the option of joining that “cloud of witnesses,” to use the language of Hebrews 12. We have figured out that the biblical writers meant what they said and that they were talking to us. Or not. We choose whether we’ll do the Word as well as hear it.

Hearers who became doers

Biblical stories abound of hearers who became doers. The fishermen disciples “left their nets.” Zaccheus rewrote his income tax form. The unnamed Samaritan woman compelled her neighbors to “come and see.” Peter’s mother-in-law got up from her sick bed and cooked for her guests. The bent-over woman (in Luke 13) praised God after being able to stand up straight. Matthew left his cushy job as an IRS agent. The handicapped beggar (in Acts 3) jumped, praising God, when he was healed. Barnabas sold a field so that “there would be no needy people among them” (Acts 4:36-37).

Here are some contemporary examples of hearers-become-doers. In March, Louis Vitale, a Franciscan, was released from prison, having been incarcerated for protesting the treatment of Iraqis in Abu Ghraib Prison. Salvadoran archbishop Oscar Romero began preaching against injustice, and paid with his life in 1980. Martin Luther King Jr. began walking with disenfranchised and underpaid folks. My pastor, Robert Kaufman, changed professions (“heard a new Word,” he says) at the encouragement of First Mennonite Church of Christian at Moundridge, Kan. The children of First Mennonite Church at Beatrice, Neb., heard the Word and raised $545 in pennies for Mennonite Central Committee.

Jesus is clear. “Why do you call me ‘Lord, Lord’ and do not do what I say” (Luke 6:45-46)? James got it.