Fourth Sunday after Easter
Bishop Ray R. Sutton

 A doctor had to give his patient some difficult news. "You," said the doctor to the patient, "are in terrible shape. You've got to do something about it. First, tell your wife to cook more nutritious meals. Stop working like a dog. Also, inform your wife you're going to make a budget, and she has to stick to it. And have her keep the kids off your back so you can relax. Unless there are some changes like that in your life, you'll probably be dead in a month." 

"Doc," the patient said, "this would sound more official coming from you. Could you please call my wife and give her those instructions?" 

When the fellow got home, his wife rushed to him. "I talked to your doctor," she wailed. "Poor man, you've only got thirty days to live."

The poor man in this story was required to change some things in his life. The Epistle lesson today from the Book of James speaks a great deal about the need for change in the way some early Christians were living. Ironically, in our particular passage James calls us to change by way of contrast to what doesn’t change, the Lord. What doesn’t change is the source of true change in our lives. James states, “The Father of lights, with whom is no variableness, neither shadow of turning” (James 1:17). The words “shadow of turning” call on the image of shadows produced by the movement of the earth in relation to the sun. God is the light that comes from heaven. The sun is fixed. It doesn’t move. The world turns causing shadows to be cast across the earth. But there are no shadows in the God. He and His laws don’t change. The world may change but He doesn’t. A member in our parish sent me a funny story about the peril of a man who tried to deny the words of a sign on a road in the Cajun country of southern Louisiana: Reverend Boudreaux was the part-time pastor of the local Cajun Church, and Pastor Thibodaux was the minister of the Covenant Church across the road. They were both standing by the road, pounding a sign into the ground that read: “Da End is Near! Turn You self Around Now! Before It's Too Late!” As a car sped past them, the driver leaned out his window and yelled, “You religious nuts!” From the curve they heard screeching tires and a big splash... Boudreaux turns to Thibodaux and asks, 'Do ya tink maybe da sign should jus say “Bridge Out”?

God never changes. Where He says the bridges are out in life always remains the same. If humans try to ignore God’s instructions and warnings, they’ll crash just like everyone else. James alludes to God’s unchanging instructions when he writes, “By His own wish He made us His own sons through the Word of Truth” (1:18). God’s Word is the sign by the road that tells us which way to go as well as where the bridges are out. These instructions are as true today as they were thousands of years ago. God and His Word are the constants in contrast to everything else that changes for good and ill. There’s an old rhythm and blues spiritual about how God doesn’t change. It’s simply called, “God don’t never change.”

James sets his call to change precisely in contrast to God who doesn’t change. He states that our lives should not get caught up in changing the wrong way but in the right way. The wrong way of changing is expressed in the words of the J.B. Phillips translation, “Let every man be quick to listen but slow to use his tongue, and slow to lose his temper. For man’s temper is never the means of achieving God’s true goodness” (1:19-20). Anger changes a person the wrong way. In the end, the one who is angry can do great damage and even make himself look foolish. A “Do it yourself” catalog firm received the following letter from one of its customers: "I built a birdhouse according to your stupid plans, and not only is it much too big, it keeps blowing out of the tree. Signed, Unhappy.” 

The firm replied: "Dear Unhappy, We're sorry about the mix-up. We accidentally sent you a sailboat blueprint. But if you think you are unhappy, you should read the letter from the guy who came in last in the yacht club regatta." There is an old Chinese proverb that says, “The fastest horse cannot catch a word spoken in anger.” Anger destroys humans and rots their souls with bitterness. It is a force of change, the wrong kind of change.

Finally, James comes to the right way of change. He writes, “Have done, then, with impurity and every other evil which overflows into the lives of others, and humbly accept the message that God has planted in your hearts, and which can save your souls. Don’t only hear the message, but put it into practice; otherwise you are merely deluding yourselves” (1:21-23). True, proper change for a person comes by “hearing the message” of God and “putting it into practice.” It won’t do merely to hear. We have to apply what God tells us. Our walk has to match God’s talk and Jesus’ walk. In the words of our collect, if we “will love what God commands and desire what He promises,” we will change for good. God won’t change us for us. We have to step in faith and obey Him. Then we’ll see the change. God will supply. An astounding missionary to China in the 19th century named Hudson Taylor once wrote, “Depend on it, God's work done in God's way will never lack God's supply.” God doesn’t change. The collect for today says “our hearts are surely there to be fixed.” If we do, we don’t change the wrong way. If we obey, we’ll change the right way. Amen.