I was a clumsy kid.
How clumsy? My parents always said I could trip over the flowers in the rug. Quite often, my shoulders clipped our corners and door-frames. I was always knocking over some cup of liquid. And, I could always count on, somehow, knocking my fork off the table.
To be clear, these things didn’t last a lifetime. After a while, I learned how to pick up the front of my shoes when I walked, seriously limiting sprawling before my peers. I did eventually figure out that I could swing a bit wider than my eyes told me to when coming near these corners and portals. Result? All but eliminated that painful shoulder bruising (plus, you know, the whole embarrassment in front of my peers.
Solving the problem of knocking over liquids presented more of a challenge. I couldn’t seem to cure that one. So, to compensate, I developed the ability to quickly grab the container as it was still tilting over. I’m really good at this mid-spill save and you can witness my ability at almost any meal. The fork thing? Well … it’s still a thing. But I think I’ve narrowed down the culprit to long sleeves. Some things are probably always going to be a work in progress.
I am what someone —a kind person, anyway— might call an “experiential learner” ... I make a lot of mistakes.
But, my errors are my tutors. I learn from my mistakes.
That’s a subtlety that may be overlooked in this week’s James passage. James says: We don’t have because we don’t ask God for what we want. And, even when we do ask God, we don’t receive because we ask for selfish reasons.
James is talking about the problems that keep popping up when we want what already belongs to others; bitter envy, selfish ambition, contentiousness … murder, even. He wants believers to understand we have gone about these things backwards. Instead of coveting and then fighting to get what we desire, we, instead, need to go to God with our requests.
Plus, we can apply the correct process (ask God), but still not receive it because we are only asking for selfish reasons. James is implying we need to follow the Golden Rule.
We need to realize that asking God to give us something that already belongs to someone else is never going to work.
Turns out: there is a right way and a wrong way to ask. And we can learn that right way.
We are to ask while in the presence of God. That means we are to be praying and listening, being still before God. And, if we ask while living the Golden Rule —i.e., seeking for others what we wish for ourselves ... just another way of saying, "Love your neighbor as yourself."— we will receive ... as promised.
Finally, it’s OK if we struggle with this a bit. We’re probably not going to excel at this when we first begin. Seriously, it’s OK. Our errors can be our tutors.
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PHOTO CREDIT: Steve Orr archives
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What are you doing Friday morning? Can you join us at DaySpring’s Lectionary Breakfast? We meet at 8:00 on ZOOM** and in the function room at Our Breakfast Place. It’s an hour like no other. We come away refreshed and fortified.
Enjoy the week!
Steve
**Contact me for the Zoom link
NOTE: Zoom allows you to mute the camera if you don’t wish to be seen and to mute the microphone if you don’t wish to speak.
SCRIPTURES FOR SUNDAY & THE COMING WEEK
Find them here:
Print them here:
Proverbs 31:10-31
Psalm 1
Jeremiah 11:18-20
Psalm 54
James 3:13 - 4:3, 7-8a
Mark 9:30-37
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