BY JAN PAULSEN

The following was a sermon delivered January 18 at the Loma Linda University Adventist Church on the occasion of the church's annual "celebration of faith and learning."-Editors.

HE THOUGHTS I WOULD like to share with you spring from a passage in the Epistle of James. The Epistle itself, as you know, had a somewhat turbulent and challenged entry into the canon of Scripture. Luther, for example, dismissed it as a "straw Epistle," simply because it failed his primary test of "the gospel" in not giving any prominence to Christ (mentioning Christ by name merely twice and containing no reference to the resurrection).

But I would suggest it's possible that the message of the Epistle was originally given as a sermon, then later polished up and translated into Greek. If that is so, may it not be true of this, as of so many sermons, that it addresses one particular point, one particular "snippet of life"? This would mean that the assessment made by Luther and others-that the book was not inclusive enough-may have been unduly harsh.

James wants his message to be practical, as all sermons should be. What he is on to is that religion is not primarily a collection of ideas; it's a quality of life. He wants the kind of lives we live, the quality of life we aspire to find, to reflect the spiritual values we claim, the doctrines we hold to. And so he says: Religion cannot adequately be defined as so many words or formulas nicely strung together. Rather, it's a way of life.

And the text on which I want us to focus is James 1:26, 27-in particular, verse 27. (Verse 26-about keeping a "tight rein"* on your tongue-I'll let you work on for yourselves.)

James says: The kind of religion that God accepts as "pure and faultless" is hallmarked by two qualities: (1) looking after the orphans and widows in their distress; and (2) keeping oneself from being polluted by the world. He is not saying, nor am I, that this is all that constitutes "pure and faultless" religion; but he is saying that if these are not there, you've not got it.

So let us look at these.

1. Looking after the "orphans and widows in their distress."

My youngest son has lived in Rwanda for the past year working for the United Nations in their refugee and feeding programs. He tells me about life in the notorious Goma region of the Democratic Republic of the Congo. He tells me what it is like with a generation where fathers and husbands have disappeared. The war took them. Or have we so soon forgotten the images that came to us from Bosnia in the midnineties-images of the emaciated bodies and faces of young men behind barbed wire?

We live at a time when "wars and rumors of wars" are buzzing around us constantly. The language of leaders and the public media is such as to prepare us for what some have determined is inevitable. But there are other ways, better ways, of resolving issues-ways that are kinder to human lives. Has not history taught us anything? Have we forgotten the historical debris that wars leave behind?

The brutality of war always culls a nation of its most able-bodied men-men whose primary calling is to be husbands and fathers. Yet they're not the real victims of war, for they are gone, and the dead "know nothing" (Eccl. 9:5). The real victims are the orphans and the widows who are left behind to be either ignored or abused by society. (Even though widowers might today be included, I will stay close to the text and focus on widows and orphans only.)

According to James, God our Father, who is looking for a religion that is "pure and faultless" in your life and mine, puts this question to us: How are you at looking after the orphans and widows?

Exposed People
I come from a country in Europe that has excelled at its social care services. The orphans and widows, as far as their livelihood is concerned, are looked after very well. So civilized society meets the first criterion in regard to what constitutes pure and faultless religion, and I am covered.

Or am I?

Who are the orphans and the widows in my civilized and developed world? In my society, my city, in the world I will meet when I step out of my sheltered community? They are the exposed ones, the ones who for one reason or another need help to survive with any dignity-literally survive. In some countries they may actually be children without fathers, wives without husbands. But more often than not they are the poor. Jesus said we'll always have the poor with us; and as we become richer, the number of poor in our own wealthy nations grows.

Yes, the poor surely make up a large segment of the "exposed ones." But they are not the only ones; there are others. The exposed ones in our world include those who are caught in the deadly grip of an addiction and who see no way out-in fact, may not even want to see a way out. They're the ones who have been laid off from their job at age 55 and who, one year later, are still looking for a new one. They're the student who has failed his course of study for the second time and who sees only hopelessness ahead.

The exposed ones in some countries and cities are the children and widows who roam the streets and sell themselves in order to find life for a few more days. They are the ones who struggle with illnesses for which there's no known cure. Or the young woman who is so disfigured through birth or through some accident that no attractive young man wants to ask her out for an evening. Or the young man whose mind was damaged through an accident and who is now pitied by those who knew him as he used to be. These are the exposed ones. Jesus asks: How are you at looking after them?

But actually, before I ponder the questions What should I do? or What can I do? the primary questions I must consider are: Am I touched by them at all? Do they actually bother me? When I physically meet them, do I actually wish that they somehow wouldn't show up, that they would go away because their presence is embarrassing?

It boils down to a question of what's happening inside me. What does it do to my heart when people of grave misfortune come into my life-people who for one reason or another are exposed and vulnerable? Is there a cry that goes up from inside of me because I feel so for them?

An all-too-common sight I meet when I travel through Africa or Asia is that of someone with a disability who sits at a busy intersection and who, as the cars stop at the traffic light, holds out a hand, hoping that someone will show mercy on them. Sometimes it's just a child. Oblivious of the dangers from fast-moving traffic-or maybe they don't see it as a danger. Perhaps from their point of view, nothing that is worse than what's already happened could happen. And it tears you inside. Maybe just a barely audible "Oh, Lord, is there nothing You can do for this child?" that irrepressibly finds its way to your lips. A few coins seem so little!

Did not the Lord say that what you have done to one of the least of these you have done to Me? In the parable of the sheep and goats the Lord more than hints at the fact that when everything is being wrapped up and eternity is being defined, it matters enormously to Him how we have treated the losers in society. Eternal destinies will be determined by what one has done or "neglected to do for Him in the person of the poor and the suffering."¹ "Every deed of kindness done to uplift a fallen soul, every act of mercy, is accepted as done to Him."² "All the days of your life I was near you in the person of these afflicted ones, but you did not seek Me. You would not enter into fellowship with Me. I know you not."³ "The pure religion of Jesus is the fountain from which flows streams of charity, love, self-sacrifice."⁴

Just a few weeks ago we came out of a Thanksgiving and Christmas season. And we ate a lot. I should have gone downtown to a certain section of Washington, D.C., just to show that I cared enough to make the effort; but I did not. I think I failed the Lord.
The Lord loves the losers more than I understand.

"We are all woven together in the great web of humanity, and whatever we can do to benefit and uplift others will reflect in blessing upon ourselves."⁵

So according to the Scripture we read, a primary sign of whether my religion is "pure and faultless" is whether I care for the losers-care enough to allow myself somehow to be drawn into their misfortune and offer some help. Surely a Seventh-day Adventist must have a conscience that's touched by these things. Do you at this university create young minds that are capable of loving people simply because the Lord loved them first? Do they come out of your classes caring for people-people who are not going to make it unless someone cares? Do they? Jesus cared.

And How About the World?
What shall we do with the world? For the text says that there's another test of the religion God deems "pure and faultless." It preserves itself so as not to be polluted by the sins of the world.

The sins of the world are a basket too full to count. But if we were to make an effort at defining them broadly, may I suggest that they come in three clusters: (1) decadence, (2) selfishness, and (3) idolatry.

"The world" is a strange place, and followers of Christ have always had an uneasy relationship with it. The world is both where we are and what we try to run away from. It's loved by the Lord, and it's at war with Him. James's view of the world here is very similar to John's, where the world is presented as vile, full of evil practices and foul smells, a place to be detested. We have been brought up in an environment that has taught us that to stay close to God you better make sure you do not stay close to the world.

There's a seemingly irreconcilable tension between God and the world. Loss of closeness to God and fear of "contamination" seem to be that which drive us away from the world.

The world in this instance is not geography and things, but people and what people do. So don't define the world, as do politicians, from political/economic/strategic perspectives, with focus on control and dominance. The world is people, loved by God, whom He is on a course to save. And God invites us to join Him in doing that.

Therefore, we don't just run away from the world. What we need to do, rather, is to know what the world is, and how God wants us to relate to it. Do the students taught at this much-valued university know that? And can they, as they step out of these hallowed halls, relate to the world in a secure, safe, strong, take-charge manner, with a clear understanding of both the world with its dangers and God's saving commitment for the people?

For a Christian the world appears as a hostile culture, an environment that cultivates rebellion against God. The world does not take kindly to the idea that it be told by God what it should be and how it should act. The world represents a culture of choices opposed to God's. And James says: Beware, lest you be captured by these choices. As the students step out of your classes, have they been helped to see the differences between the choices they will face? The world is where we are; it is where we are asked to function for God; it is where we build our homes and practice our careers. We cannot step out of it. We just have to know how we live in it, for a religion that is "pure and faultless" is a matter of living, not just of knowing.

James says: Don't become polluted by the world. And by this he takes so huge a sweep it's almost impossible to define. The world has gone astray and is full of pollution. It contains so much-how do you catalog it? I suggested that at least we should recognize three elements (mentioned above) that we keep running into all the time: decadence, selfishness, and idolatry.

1. Decadence. Without going into all the gory details, decadence is the container that holds the "deeds of the flesh," or what Paul calls the "fruitless deeds of darkness" (Eph. 5:11). These are the activities and the mind-set that make one sink to the lowest levels of self-gratification and in the process exploit others. We slip into this mire from time to time-it's all too common, and we hope it is not too apparent. It is something that just seems to come of itself; it just happens.

This is not a statement of judgment against anyone, for we share a common humanity. There are moments of passion; a flash of anger; a flawed judgment. And there it is! But it's the sad reality that these deeds will do damage. They will stain you badly, and you probably know it. And it takes time to heal and repair, even with the help of the One who never tires of healing broken lives. Such is the pool of "decadence."

2. Selfishness. This, possibly, is the most basic of all human drives. Making sure that when all is said and done, I got what I wanted.

I talked to my mother on the phone right after Christmas. She said: "Do you ever think of childhood Christmases at home?" I said, "I do." And I told her what we used to eat Christmas Eve, and the cookies she made.

And she asked me: "Do you remember one Christmas as we were giving out the gifts there was one marked 'From Jan to Jan'?"

It all came back to me. I had seen something in the shop that I wanted to make sure that I got for Christmas; and since I felt I couldn't count on the others in matters such as that, I used my Christmas money to buy it for myself! We laughed as she reminded me. Maybe just the innocence of childhood. Or maybe a sign of something basic one has to deal with.

Christ taught us that giving is of much higher value than receiving, and that the most wonderful way to live life is to live it in the interest of somebody else. And that is a perspective that this university exists to teach.

3. Idolatry. The theme "what God is and what the Almighty can do" is the one to which Isaiah returns throughout his book; and he does so with exquisite, breathtaking beauty. Idolatry is a major concern of his, and he wants the attractiveness of God to be seen by his people.

Isaiah says that God is the One and Only-the Incomparable One. He writes: "Before me no god was formed, nor will there be one after me. . . . Apart from me there is no Saviour" (Isa. 43:10, 11). And this God says to His people: This is what I am like, and this is the commitment I make to you: "When you pass through the waters, I will be with you. . . . When you walk through the fire, you will not be burned" (verse 2). I do this, says the Lord, for "you are precious and honored in my sight, and because I love you" (verse 4).

Why would you want something else? We serve a God who cares for the exposed, the vulnerable ones. But this God will accept no competitors and no substitutes. Should anyone or anything in your life or mine become greater or more important than He, that is idolatry. And idolatry is constantly threatening to invade our lives. So don't allow any person, personality, personage, or whatever to become the object of veneration, and as such become to you a reality larger than life. Worship only the living God! And you who teach, beware of the danger of gathering disciples unto yourselves, thereby making young men and women more dependent on you than is good for them and the lives they need to live.

The lives that you and I live are the stage on which the religion that is "pure and faultless" is on display, a religion that (1) looks after the exposed ones in their distress; and (2) watches out so as not to be polluted by the world.

This is where mission is accomplished. This is where you meet the living God. So open yourselves to Him and let Him touch people through your time, energies, talents, and resources; and you will discover in the process that He has also profoundly touched you.

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*Texts in this article are from the New International Version.

¹ Ellen G. White, The Desire of Ages, p. 637.
² Ibid., p. 638.
³ Ibid., p. 640.
⁴ The Seventh-day Adventist Bible Commentary, Ellen G. White Comments, vol. 7, p. 935.
⁵ White, Patriarchs and Prophets, pp. 534, 535.

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Jan Paulsen is president of the General Conference of Seventh-day Adventists with headquarters in Silver Spring, Maryland.