This morning we heard a reading from the book of James. The book of James is really a list of moral exhortations written to a Christian community that was misbehaving in lots of ways and that blaming it on God because, after all, they thought, God shouldn’t allow temptations to come their way. That rationale reminds me of a bumper sticker I once saw that said, "It’s not my fault; somebody should have stopped me."

This morning, the book of James exhorts us to be "quick to listen, slow to speak, and slow to anger." We are told to rid ourselves of all "sordidness and rank growth of wickedness." We are instructed that if we call ourselves religious but don’t "bridle our tongues," we deceive ourselves and our religion is worthless.

There is a lot of that kind of stuff in the book of James.

And these calls to moral living aren’t hard to understand: "be quick to listen, slow to speak, slow to anger, and bridle your tongue." You don’t need help understanding what that "really" means. The book of James reminds me of a saying attributed to Mark Twain: "It ain't those parts of the Bible that I can't understand that bother me, it is the parts that I do understand."

Martin Luther, the sixteenth century reformer who started the Protestant Reformation, just hated the book of James. He called it "straw in the manger," and he was all for throwing it out. It’s not that he thought that the calls to ethical behavior weren’t good advice; it’s that he thought they weren’t good theology.

Now, remember that Luther lived in a time when the Church had embraced "works righteousness," the idea that you can earn your way into heaven by being good, which makes the concept of grace, or God’s unearned love, pretty irrelevant. Luther started a revolution by proclaiming his belief that we can’t earn our way into heaven (none of us are anywhere near that good), and we therefore must rely on God’s grace. What scared Luther about the book of James was all this advice about how to behave morally. He feared that people would take it to mean that if you just acted that way, you’d be "saved." "Focus only on grace and throw out all this advice about how to act," he said. "Straw in the manger."

Martin Luther was right about a lot of things — most things, in fact — but about this thing, he was wrong. (You heard it here first, folks!) The book of James does not say that you can be good enough on your own to make God completely happy with how good you are. (By the way, if you think you are good enough to make God completely happy with how good you are, think about everything that you say, or do, or think, and measure them against God’s standard of perfect relationship and absolutely unconditional love. And if you still think you are good enough to make God completely happy with how good you are, well, I’m afraid that you are delusional.) To be in loving relationship with God, we have to accept God’s grace; we have to accept that God loves us even though we don’t measure up. Luther was right in insisting that this message of grace is the central meaning of the Christian story, but Luther was wrong in thinking that articulating standards of behavior negates that message.

The book of James says that everything good that you do, "every generous act of giving, with every perfect gift," comes from God. Even your ability to do good is a gift from God. That means that we can’t take credit for the good things we do. Bummer, huh? But after all, isn’t taking credit for being good the first step on a slippery slope toward thinking that we don’t really need God’s grace? Aren’t we headed in that direction when we say, "I did such a wonderful thing! I am so good." You see how much more dangerous that is than, "God did such a wonderful thing through me"?

Most parents probably know the "When you, then you" rule. When you do this, then you get that. The book of James is like that. It simply says, "When you know and accept in your heart that you are this loved, this gifted by God, this dependant on this huge, unlikely gift of unearned love, of grace, then you — act like somebody who knows that and accepts it in their heart.

You see, the book of James isn’t about saying, "I’m so good" and sliding down that slope toward earning God’s love. (Martin Luther was way smarter than I am, but I’ve got him on this one.) The book of James is really about identity, and acting in the world out of your true identity. To make that point, James uses one of the most memorable images in the Bible, at least for my money. "For if any are hearers of the word and not doers," he says, "they are like those who look at themselves in a mirror; for they look at themselves and, on going away, immediately forget what they were like."

What a powerful image! If you don’t act in response to this amazing gift of unearned love, then that shows that knowing that you are a beloved child of God by God’s grace is not your identity, it’s not who you are. You look in the mirror and see your reflection, but when you turn away, you’ve lost the image, because it was just in the mirror, it isn’t really in you.

Now, we all screw up living a Christian life. If we didn’t, Martin Luther would be quick to remind us, we wouldn’t need Jesus. I doubt that I will ever be able to live up to all the moral exhortations in the book of James all the time. I wish I could tell you that I’m never slow to listen and quick to speak, but I’ve been here long enough that I would run a serious risk that some of you might tell the truth on me. I wish I could tell you that I’m never quick to anger, but I’m afraid somebody here might tell the truth on me. I wish I could tell you that I always bridle my tongue, but, … well, you know.

But I can tell you this: when I am slow to listen and quick to speak, or quick to anger, or when I don’t bridle my tongue, or when I don’t act in any of a thousand other ways that I should act, usually, after some reflection, I realize that I am not acting out of my best self as a beloved child of God. I realize that I was not viewing my brother or sister the way God views them, as wonderful and loved and forgiven for not being wonderful. I realize that, for a moment, I forgot who I am — a wonderful, and loved, and forgiven for not being wonderful child of God.

It’s not bad to have a list of moral exhortations about Christian living, but, frankly, it’s not going to mean much unless you know who you are, and live out of that identity. This is what Jesus is talking about when he says, "It is from within, from the human heart, that evil intentions come." And it is from within, from the human heart, that evil intentions must be faced. Otherwise, Jesus says (and we in the church know all too well), rules quickly become hypocritical.

So I’m going to give you some "heart homework." For the next week (yes, including Labor Day!), I want you to take a moment in the morning and look at yourself in the mirror and do four things. First, I don’t want you to ask, "What do I look like?" I want you to ask yourself, "Who am I?" Go ahead and name your demons. Be honest. If you think you’re unworthy, or incompetent, or stupid, or weak, or whatever, go ahead and say it. Name your garbage. But don’t believe it.

Second, I want you to think of your day, and all the opportunities you’ll have to be impatient, to be judgmental, to speak ill of others, to be angry, to speak instead of listening — think of whatever challenges and temptations you may face that day.

Third, say to yourself: "Today I will really believe that I am a beloved child of God by grace." Look at yourself saying it out loud in the mirror. (You might want to be sure the door is closed!) Take as much time as you need; say it as many times as you need, but don’t move on until you can believe it for that day. (And I’m serious about this: if you can’t get to the point where you can believe it for that day, call me. We need to talk about that.)

Fourth, ask yourself: How will the beloved child of God I see in front of me respond to my temptations today? Make a plan.

Let me go over this one more time:

Ask, "Who am I?" Be honest, but don’t believe your garbage.

Ask, "What do I face today?"

Say aloud, "Today I will really believe that I am a beloved child of God by grace." Say it until you mean it.

Then ask, "How will the beloved child of God I see in front of me respond to my temptations today?" Make a plan.

I hope this exercise will be helpful for us and will enable us to act better. But I know one thing that is absolutely essential for it to work: when you turn away from the mirror, you have to remember who you are.