Week 6 Friday (Year 1)

Readings: Genesis 11.1-9; Psalm 33; Mark 8.34-9.1

So what is the problem this time, with the tower of Babel? Why does God scatter humanity and confuse its languages? Would it not be a far better thing that they all speak the same language so as to communicate effectively with each other?

The problem seems to be that they wanted to make a name for themselves. Not that they wanted a name, but that they wanted to make it for themselves, to do it without God in other words. So they are repeating the mistake of Adam and Eve, reaching out to take and to possess something that can only be properly owned when it is received as a gift from God.

It highlights this paradox in human experience: that we spoil the thing we desire if we go about possessing it in the wrong way, often destroying the very thing we love. Human beings feared being scattered, so they built their tower, and as a result they were scattered.

It is a perfect illustration, therefore, of what Jesus says in the gospel reading today: anyone who wants to save his life will lose it and the one who loses his life for the sake of Christ and the gospel will gain it. The key to unlocking the paradox is the cross of Jesus. Where human beings sought to make a name for themselves by erecting an impressive structure, Jesus was raised up on the cross and as a result was given the name which is above all other names.

The vice of pride is one of the most difficult of the deadly sins, perhaps the most difficult of all, although envy is not far behind. Saint Augustine wonders what can undo the pride of human beings and comes to see that it can only be undone by the humility of God, something we see, once again, in the cross of Jesus.

That cross is followed, of course, by the resurrection and exaltation of Jesus into heaven, from where the Holy Spirit is sent to heal the consequences of Babel, because Pentecost is its reversal: now all the races of humanity, speaking their own tongues, yet come to understand each other and to share a common faith. It is not we who make a name for ourselves but God, working on us by his grace, who gives value to our little worth, sanctifies our sacrifices and transforms our sufferings so that we can receive the name he has had in mind for us from all eternity.

Week 6 Thursday (Year 1)

Readings:  Genesis 9:1-13; Psalm 102; Mark 8:27-33

The first question Jesus asks the disciples - 'who do they say I am?' - leaves them (and us) free to relate what others say about him, believers or unbelievers, students of history, philosophy or religion, without themselves (ourselves) ever becoming involved in an answer. But Jesus then turns and says, 'who do you say that I am?' This is a very different kind of question. It cannot be answered in a detached way. This second question confronts them, as it confronts us, with a decision about our way of life, about our faith: 'who do you believe this man was - and is?'

Peter answered for all the disciples when he said 'you are the Christ'. The Christ means the Messiah, the Anointed One, the chosen one of God promised in the Old Testament and passionately hoped for by the Jewish people. He would be a new David and a new Moses, a great leader who would restore the fortunes of the people and introduce a reign of peace and prosperity. In effect what Peter says is 'you are the one who will release us from our bonds, restore to us the fullness of life, and give us again a lively sense of being God's people'. We might say today, 'you are the healer, the teacher, the guide, the one who will enable us to find truth and freedom'.

Jesus then began to deepen his disciples' understanding of who he was, referring to himself as the 'son of man' and as the 'servant of the Lord'. It is as if Jesus said to Peter, 'yes, I am the Christ, but the fulfillment of that promise will be in a way that is radically different from anything that has been imagined up to this'. Or as if he said to us, 'yes, I am teacher, healer and guide, but in a way that explodes the limits of your expectations and opens up an unimagined and wonderful mystery'. Jesus is the one who teaches us what love is, not only as a doctrine but as a 'way' to be followed.

There is a deep paradox here. The way to his kingdom is through acceptance of suffering, rejection, and death. Anyone who becomes a servant of this Lord is indescribably weak, and yet incredibly strong, because he has placed his trust in the Lord. The one who saves his life loses it and the one who loses his life for his sake saves it. The one who dies will rise again. What can this mean? Strong is weak and weak is strong?

Jesus showed us that God is love - an infinite openness and concern for the other, enabling others to become themselves by allowing them to dwell in him. The love of God in human terms is Jesus Christ, the only Son of the Father, the Word become flesh, the savior of humankind.

To believe that Jesus is the Christ, the teacher, or the servant, means to follow him. We show what we really believe about Jesus by our works of love. So our answer to the question, 'who do you say that I am?', is given not only with our lips, or our pen, but, first and last, with our lives.

First published in the Sunday Letter, published by Rollebon Press, Tallaght, Dublin, for the 24th Sunday of the Year, 15 September 1991.

Week 06 Sunday (Year C)

Readings: Jeremiah 17.5-8; Psalm 1; 1 Corinthians 15.12,15-20; Luke 6.17, 20-26

Saint Luke, the scribe of the gentleness of Christ, is also the one who picks out Jesus's most forthright and direct warnings about the danger in being rich. It is to Luke that we owe our knowledge of great parables such as the Good Samaritan and the Prodigal Son, as well as miracles involving more than usual compassion and sensitivity - the woman bent over, the widow's only son at Nain, the man with dropsy, Zaccheus, the tax-collector presumably mocked for his short stature. The key moment in all these parables and miracles is a movement of compassion.

What Jesus says about wealth and its dangers is all the more striking coming from the lips of 'Luke's gentle Jesus'. Today's gospel reading is the first such text in the gospel. Famously, where Matthew records Jesus saying 'blessed are the poor in spirit', Luke's version is simply 'blessed are you who are poor'. Lest we think it is just an error in copying what he had received, Luke gives us the corresponding woe to go with the beatitude: 'woe to you who are rich'. It is not a mistake in transcribing.

The warning about wealth is repeated and further underlined throughout Luke's gospel. Chapter 16 gives us stories about a crafty manager, about the rich man and Lazarus, and about the right use of money. Jesus thus inaugurates a long tradition in Christian preaching along the lines of 'look what people are prepared to do, the sacrifices and work they will undertake, in order to gain this world's wealth: and what are you prepared to do for a treasure that is more lasting and more valuable?'

We will hear about a rich fool whose wealth leads him to forget the realities of life (Luke 12). We will be taught that wisdom is seen in the ones who enter the kingdom because they simplify their lives radically, trusting in God's care (Luke 12; 14). The man who wants to live well appears also in Luke's gospel and once again we are told that he cannot do what is necessary 'for he was very rich' (18.23). The story about the widow's mite is recounted by Mark and by Luke - note that she is not praised by Jesus for what she does but rather serves as an example of the kind of exploitation the temple system had come to operate (Luke 21:1-4; 20.47). She also serves as an acted parable pointing to Jesus who, like her, 'put in all he had to live on' and gave everything in his service of the Father and of the kingdom.

The message is clear: to be rich is to be in danger because it means we will inevitably place our trust in things we can possess. That numbs us to some of the fundamental realities of life: trust, gratitude, dependence, grace, relationship. It therefore makes it more difficult for us to understand what Jesus is about and to enter his kingdom.

It does not compromise Jesus's teaching to extend the meaning of 'wealth' to things other than money and material possessions. To be rich in other ways - power, influence, reputation, talents of various kinds - all carry the same risk, all provoke the same responses in their 'owners' and in others. All this makes if difficult for anybody who is rich in any of these ways to enter the kingdom of God, which is given to the poor.

Week 6 Tuesday (Year 2)

Readings: James 1.12-18; Psalm 94; Mark 8.14-21

Yesterday we heard of Pharisees looking for a sign, today we hear about the disciples failing to understand the signs Jesus has already given. When he speaks of leaven they think of bread and wonder whether he is asking them about food supplies for their journey. Instead he is speaking figuratively, symbolically, poetically if you like, for the leaven of which he speaks is not that used in making bread but that which corrupts the teaching of the Pharisees.

It is easy to sense his frustration. Do they not yet understand? Are their hearts hardened? Do they not see, hear and remember? The teacher is exasperated, and these are supposed to be his better students, the ones closest to him! But just like the Pharisees yesterday they fail to appreciate the signs he has already given. They think literally, mechanically, whereas he is trying to lift them through the signs he has given to an understanding of God's presence, power and goodness.

The first reading teaches that temptation comes not from God but from desires which are leading us to sin and so to death. Our desires are so often immediate, insistent, demanding, blinding us and distracting us, preventing us from understanding. But Lent begins tomorrow, a time when we consciously expose ourselves to temptation, driven to do so by the Spirit and taught to do so by the Church. It is a time for checking once again about the truth and reality of our commitment, of our desire: where is my heart leading me? is it a hardened heart, blind and deaf to God's presence and God's call? is it a heart of stone that needs to be replaced with a heart of flesh? what is it I truly desire?

Today is called Fat Tuesday, Mardi Gras, a day on which people traditionally feed themselves full, often with pancakes, before moving into the desert of Lent, the time of fasting and prayer and alms-giving. The point of the exercise is not to see who can be more athletic spiritually but rather to focus once again on the threefold relationship in which the great commandment of love establishes us: loving God with heart and mind and strength, loving neighbour as myself. It is a time to be spent in the company of Jesus in his word, listening to him once again and seeking to understand his teaching in the way in which he intends it.

We ask Our Lord in this season to open our minds, to soften our hearts, to enable us to see more clearly and to listen more carefully, to remember his love and his sacrifice. We ask him to help us understand the height and depth and length and breadth of his love which surpasses knowledge so that we might, by Easter, be filled with the fulness of God.

Week 6 Monday (Year 2)

Readings: James 1.1-11; Psalm 119; Mark 8.11-13

No sign for you, says Jesus. Perhaps the problem is the motivation of the people asking him for a sign. He has been working miracles, and so giving signs, for weeks at this stage and he might well have said that to them: 'what do you think I've been up to this past while?' But it is as if they regard his miracles as tricks, bits of magic, and they are asking him to do a trick for them. But the miracles are never tricks, they are always in response to human need, ways of healing, helping, feeding, teaching, casting out demons.

We often express a similar desire: would it not be of great help if God were to give just one convincing, unambiguous sign that would be undeniable, transforming, compelling? Jesus might say to us something like 'but my heavenly Father is shouting at you with the signs he gives you every day, in creation, in people, in the gifts of grace, in the sacraments, in the goodness of genuinely holy people'.

Think of the wonders of the world, the extraordinary sophistication of the human body or of any animal body - each one is a kind of miracle. Think of the trees and bushes waiting now for a first stimulus to set them off once again in the process of budding, growing leaves, blossoming and bearing fruit - each one is a kind of miracle. There are so many signs all through creation of the goodness and care of God. Water into wine? St Augustine says God is doing this every day, sending the rain and the sun to enable the vines to grow, the grapes then gathered and through the intelligence and ingenuity of human beings, turned into wine - a daily miracle, water becoming wine.

We have begun to read the Letter of James, a reading that will be interrupted by Lent and Easter, but we will return to it thereafter. It is a wonderful presentation of another great sign of God's presence and that is a community of people living together in faith and hope and love. Where there is such a community there is a compelling witness to the goodness and grace of God.

James describes the recipients of his letter as people 'of two minds'. We are like that often enough: we waver and doubt and wonder. Lent, beginning in two days time, is a season in which we strive to be single-minded again, focusing clearly and simply on what our faith and vocation ask of us. We have received so many signs already, so many testimonies to the power and goodness of God. They are there, all through creation, and especially in the people the Lord entrusts to our care. It is over to us now, we might say, to submit our hearts and minds to the testing of Lent so that we will be more effective signs in the world of his power and goodness.

The Irish poet Joseph Mary Plunkett expresses very beautifully our faith that in all things God is revealing his creative and redemptive power:

I see his blood upon the rose

And in the stars the glory of his eyes,

His body gleams amid eternal snows,

His tears fall from the skies.

I see his face in every flower;

The thunder and the singing of the birds

Are but his voice - and carven by his power

Rocks are his written words.

All pathways by his feet are worn,

His strong heart stirs the ever-beating sea,

His crown of thorns is twined with every thorn,

His cross is every tree.

Week 6 Sunday (Year B)

Readings: Leviticus 13:1-2,44-46; Ps 31; 1 Corinthians 10:31-11:1; Mark 1:40-45

On the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel is Michelangelo's famous painting of the creation of Adam, in which the outstretched hand of God the Creator almost, but not quite, touches the outstretched hand of Adam. Within that tiny gap between the two fingers is found - so we can imagine - the entire energy of creation, as the One-who-is reaches out to the one-who-is-not so that he might come to be. God said 'let there be', and there was.

In today's gospel reading Jesus reaches out and touches a leper who has asked to be made clean. In that moment when the outstretched hand of Jesus reaches the suffering body of the leper is found - so we can imagine - the entire energy of the new creation, as the Word become flesh reaches out to the one subject to the power of sin and death, so that he might live a new life. Jesus said 'I will, be clean' and the leprosy left him.

In touching the leper Jesus acts scandalously, breaking the laws of which we are reminded in the first reading of today's Mass. The leper was unclean and must live apart, says the Book of Leviticus, he must live 'outside the camp'. So we can imagine this also, that the hand of Jesus reaching out to touch the leper, reaches out from within the Law, from within the traditions and decency of Israel, from within culture and civilization as human beings succeed in establishing those things. He reaches out from within law, decency and civilization to touch someone who is unclean, dwelling at the margins and even beyond the limits of law, decency and civilization.

In doing this Jesus reveals the radically scandalous truth that God is love. Moved with compassion for that which is not (so Thomas Aquinas puts it) God creates. Moved with compassion for the one who is suffering (Mark uses the graphic term 'feeling it in his guts') Jesus creates anew. God is not waiting for us to become presentable, to tidy ourselves up, before receiving us back. Saint Paul says that even if we do have all sorts of impressive moral and spiritual achievements to report but are without love then it is of no use to us at all. What proves that God loves us, Paul says elsewhere, is that Christ died for us while we were still sinners. God's love comes to touch us while we are still lepers.

Also striking about this encounter with the leper is the fact that, at the end, the leper can return to civilization while Jesus 'could no longer openly enter a town, but was out in the country'. It is as if they have swapped places, the leper now cleansed can move in human society again, Jesus is obliged to live as if he were a leper, outside the camp. His marginalization becomes more pronounced as the story unfolds and the power of sin asserts itself ever more strongly against him. Eventually he will be crucified outside the city and will even 'descend into hell'.

Here is the great saving scandal in which Christians believe, that God is scouring the limits of His creation, way beyond the boundaries we can manage, loving His creation even to its furthest, weakest, most alienated limits. From within the law ('go show yourself to the priest') Jesus transcends the law ('he stretched out his hand and touched him'). From within the community Jesus reaches out to touch one who is outside the community. Love inspires this development and leads to the establishment of a new law and a new community.

In touching the leper Jesus gives us a glimpse of what his work is all about. He is setting new boundaries. He opens up for us the possibility of a 'civilization of love' that draws us and haunts us because we have come to believe that this is where the love of God - the love that God is - is to be found and experienced. As Paul puts it in today's second reading, those who imitate Christ reach out not for their own advantage but that of many, that they may be saved.

 This homily was first published on torch.op.org for 15 February 2009

Week 6 Sunday (Year A)

Readings: Sirach 15:15-20: Psalm 119; 1 Corinthians 2:6-10; Matthew 5:17-37

The opening verses of today's gospel reading have been described as the most controversial in the New Testament. Jesus says that he has come not to abolish the law and the prophets but to fulfill them. Not an iota or dot of the law will pass from it until it is accomplished. But Paul - and Jesus elsewhere - speak and act as if the law has, very definitely, been surpassed to be replaced by faith and grace.

Jesus teaches that there is at least continuity between the first covenant and the new covenant, between the law given to Moses on Sinai and the law taught by Him in the Sermon on the Mount. Here Jesus presents the fullness of the law once given to the Hebrews at Mount Sinai. Give full weight to the term 'presents': he presents it in the sense of teaching it and expounding it, but he also presents it in the sense of making it present to those who are listening at the present moment of their encounter with Him.

There is continuity between the old law and the new law. In a series of illustrations Jesus, an excellent teacher, points out how the Law is to be fulfilled: 'you have heard that it was said ... but I say to you'. He does this for killing, adultery, divorce, oath taking, vengeance, and love for others. These are the central commandments of the Mosaic law (as well as being the primary precepts of the natural law). These commandments remain but they are to be observed in a particular way. They are to be interiorized, lived not simply as a matter of external obedience or out of fear, but as a matter of internal conviction and out of love.

Just as there is no new commandment in the Sermon so there is nothing that is not found already in the prophets, especially in Jeremiah, Hosea and Ezekiel. We might be tempted to say that Jesus here turns the religion of Israel into a religion of the heart whereas before it was a religion of 'rules and regulations'. This is a profound misunderstanding (and has been one of the roots of anti-Judaism in Christian history). Read these prophets and you will find already everything Jesus says about observing the Law from one's heart. What's the point of circumcising your flesh if you do not circumcise your heart? That's Jeremiah. What you need is a new heart and a new spirit (implication: not new laws, you already have all you need): that's Ezekiel. The problem is that you have forgotten the law God has already given you, you have no real understanding of it, or of the divine love and mercy in which it originates: that's Hosea.

So what does the fulfillment of the law mean? If Jesus adds nothing to the commandments of the law and adds nothing to what the prophets had already taught about its spiritual character, is there anything new here? Of course there is. The new thing here is the teacher. This teacher of the law is also the one who observes it fully; in his own person he perfects it, he fulfills it, he accomplishes it.

The term 'pleroma' means completion or fullness. Jesus says that the law stands until it reaches its fullness, its end. And what is the end of the Law? It is the manifestation of the holiness of God, and a communion established on that holiness between God and God's people. So the Law is not fulfilled until that holiness is manifested and that communion is established, things to be done precisely by one who observes the Law ('salvation is from the Jews'). In giving the Law to His people God revealed His mind and heart, He shared with them His words and His love, His wisdom and His truth. The law was given through Moses, grace and truth have come through Jesus Christ: we know this from the prologue to John's gospel. Wisdom and teaching were already given through Moses, Jesus Christ is the one who enables a life according to that wisdom and teaching. He is the Spirit-filled One who gives the Spirit, poured into our hearts as love, so that we can observe the Law in the ways in which he asks us to do it - not just in our words but from the depths of our hearts.

'Love is the fullness of the law': so Paul says in his letter to the Romans (13:10) and once again the term 'pleroma' is used. In other words Jesus Christ is the fullness of the law. Not a dot or iota will pass away 'until all things have taken place', 'until all is accomplished'. In the moment in which Jesus breathes forth the Spirit he says 'it is accomplished' (John 19:30). Then everything is finished, perfected, fulfilled.

The Sermon on the Mount is a wonderful text, often taken to be the finest summary of the specifically 'Christian' moral teaching. It can be a bit of a shock to realize that there is nothing in it that is not already in what Christians call the 'Old Testament'. If we go looking in it for a new teaching, a new doctrine, a new commandment, or even a new reason for observing the law, we are barking up the wrong tree. We have not listened to Jesus: 'I have come not to abolish the law and the prophets but to fulfill them before which not a dot or iota will pass away'.

The great, extraordinary, mysterious fulfillment of the Law which is given in the Sermon is not in the teaching but in the Teacher. This is where the law is fulfilled and this is where it is accomplished. Here is the obedient One who lives completely from the love of the Father, manifesting the holiness of God in everything he says or does, establishing between the Father and humanity the communion that was God's intention from the beginning. God gave the law to Moses, to help the people to live in communion with God. The Father sends his Son into the world, full of grace and truth (the divine attributes of steadfast love and faithfulness), so that all who live in His presence might be children of God. Jesus comes not just to help us but to enable us to live according to God's law.

You have heard that it was said 'observe the commandments of the law and you will live'. But I say to you, 'all who believe in Him will live the kind of life He lived, will be set free by the truth, and they will never die'.

Week 6 Friday (Year 2)

Readings: James 2:14-24, 26; Psalm 112; Mark 8:34-9:1

The Letter of James presented Martin Luther with serious problems because, as we’ve just heard, it says that ‘a person is justified by works and not by faith alone’, whereas Romans 3.28 says that ‘a person is justified by faith apart from works’, and for Luther that was the heart not only of Paul’s gospel, as we might say, but of the gospel. Luther therefore placed this ‘epistle of straw’ (as he called James) at the end of his New Testament, along with a few other texts that seemed not to fit as he thought they should with what Paul says in Romans. This crux of interpretation is actually one of the easier crosses to take up and most interpreters now have little difficulty accepting that Paul and James are making complementary rather than contradictory points. 

In fact the taking up of one’s cross, which is what Jesus asks his disciples to do, seems to be neither simply a matter of faith nor simply a work but something in between, or rather something involving both, an allowing or an accepting, something more like prayer which is impossible without faith but whose ‘merit’ (if we may use that term) is not simply proportionate to the energy we put into it. It is more like opening up to, and becoming aligned with, the work of God, this kingdom of God coming with power, which is clearly God’s work but which comes about through the love and obedience of the man, Jesus Christ. And who are we to object if God has given us the victory through our Lord, Jesus Christ (as Paul himself puts it), if God has given us a standing in His sight through our participation in the Spirit and our baptism into Christ? Of course James does not spell all that out which is why his practical approach, refreshing as it is, can begin to seem like a kind of moralising.

The passage from Mark’s gospel assures us that following Jesus is not a matter of gaining the world, a great achievement of ours, but is something paradoxical and not easily understood, renouncing myself, taking up my cross, and losing my life for His sake and for the sake of the Gospel. While we are thinking about interpreting texts, and reconciling divine grace with human freedom, the needy neighbour is sent our way so that we can put to the test our claim to be following Jesus. Surely this is an emphasis in the letter of James which undoubtedly belongs to the heart of the gospel.

Week 06 Wednesday (Year 2)

Readings: James 1:19-27; Psalm 15; Mark 8:22-26

I have a friend whose eyesight is poor. She needs glasses if she is to see anything, near or far. Sometimes, when being driven in a car or sitting in a meeting, she takes her glasses off. 'I like to see the world through a haze every now and then', she says. It is a way of relaxing, a way of stepping back a little from the full impact of reality. Perhaps it is true about many of us regarding spiritual and moral things: we prefer to see hazily, or partially, or selectively, rather than see all that can be seen and see it clearly. 'Human kind cannot bear very much reality', T.S. Eliot wrote.

However we understand the unfolding of the miracle in today's gospel, this much is clear: there is a stage between total blindness and seeing perfectly clearly. Perhaps, as at dawn or dusk, there is a spectrum along which we can place different kinds of seeing, different kinds of clarity.

The first reading, from the Letter of St James, also speaks about seeing. 'Look steadily at the perfect law of freedom', he says, and make that contemplation the basis of your actions in the world. Using a different vocabulary to what we find in Mark, James also speaks about other kinds of vision - imaginary and deceptive illusions, for example. His call is simple and clear: the word is planted in you, contemplate it with a steady and sustained gaze, and then act in accordance with that word which is the law of freedom and the word of truth.

The gospel reading also speaks of different kinds of seeing using a number of variations of the simple Greek term 'to see'. Emerging from his blindness the man has hazy and uncertain sight, but then comes to looking steadily, beginning to see, and eventually seeing clearly.

The concern in both readings is for a vision that is reliable and enduring not just occasional and sporadic. Our contemplation should become habitual, establishing in us a persevering sense of the truth we have seen and of what it asks of us. Do not listen and then ignore what you have heard, says James, do not look and then forget what you have seen. Do not stop at the point where you are seeing something of reality but in a hazy, ill-defined way. Do not let your religion remain at the level of imagination and deception but bring it strongly and straightforwardly from hearing and seeing the word to practising and implementing it.

Pope Paul VI described contemplatives as 'the clear eyes of the Church'. They are people called to give all their attention to the Lord, listening to his word and coming to see its truth and meaning. There are what we might call 'professional' contemplatives in the Church, men and women whose way of life is set up in such a way that it can support them in this kind of mindfulness. But we are all called in different ways to be hearers and seers, practitioners and doers of the word, seeing the needs of those around us, seeing the ways in which the world will only confuse our vision and impede our listening. What does it take to move us from seeing people as 'trees walking about' and instead to see them as widows and orphans and others who need our help?

Week 6 Monday (Year 2)

For the next two weeks the first reading at weekday Masses is taken from the Letter of Saint James. Here are some thoughts on James that might be helpful in preparing homilies during these days.

_______________________________

The Letter of St James comes to mind when thinking about community life. Invariably young men coming to find out about the Dominicans mention community life as one of the things they want, one of the things that attracts them to our way of life. But then we know from experience that community life often becomes problematic later on, some come to find it heavy, unhelpful, and a burden that seems not worth bearing. James is about this, about people who believe in Christ trying to live together, and the difficulties they experience. He has many comments relevant to community life in his discussion of vices and virtues, of anger and partiality, of control of the tongue, of jealousy and ambition. It is a very practical letter.

James puts his finger on the attitudes and dispositions that make life together difficult. People are usually relieved to be given a diagnosis for a problem even before they are told whether there is any treatment for it and what that treatment might involve. To understand where problems arise, why there are problems in the first place, is already a growth in wisdom. James does this for us. The letter belongs firmly within Jewish traditions of practical wisdom, drawing on the sapiential and prophetic literature of the Old Testament. This brings him close to much of the earliest gospel material. His teaching is similar to what we find in Matthew and Luke, about beatitudes and woes, attitudes to the Law, not judging others, prayer, the danger of riches, and so on.

James is very clear that problems in communities arise as a result of problems within individuals: 4:1ff. So it is not a Marxist-style analysis that we find here, seeing problems originating in systems or structures or other people's use of power, but rather a spiritual and even psychological analysis, seeing how problems for living together arise from conflicts internal to individuals. This is why desire is such a central concern in the letter. He is not just referring to lust but to 'having' in general, and to 'wanting' in general, to the kind of having and wanting that can only be fulfilled at the expense of others. ‘Where you find jealousy and ambition you find disorder’, he says in 3:16. This is where things go wrong. In Old Testament terms it is foolishness, manifesting itself as bitter jealousy and selfish ambition. I want to have - but my wanting to have sets off these negative things in me: jealousy and ambition. His analysis seems to anticipate the kind of thing René Girard talks about in his analysis of desire and its destructive consequences for human societies.

There is, however, also a 'socio-political' level to the analysis we find in James. He speaks of the danger of riches, and power, the way we are with the rich and powerful, and the way we are with the poor and lowly. It is still the case that we respond differently to neat and tidy well-dressed people, and to dirty and untidy smelly people. We will find ourselves reacting differently to people whom the world has decided are important and to those whom it has decided are not important. We can translate that into our dealings with each other in families and communities: who counts? what’s the pecking order?

So what to do? Prayer is one of the things to do and James talks about it quite a few times for such a short letter, and not only in the famous passage which the Church sees as establishing the sacrament of anointing, the prayer of faith for the sick person. And there is an interesting twist because James warns us that we can even put our prayer at the service of our desire. You might say, 'well, is that not what we are supposed to do?' Thomas Aquinas calls prayer 'the interpreter of desire'. But, James says, ‘you ask and do not receive because you ask wrongly, to spend it on your passions' (4:3). The passions he has just been talking about are jealousy and ambition so we have to watch out that we do not try to put our prayer at the service of these.

As we read through the letter we will probably find ourselves wanting James to be more Christian – to say something about Christ, and about love, and about grace. He does not say much about Christ, he mentions love of neighbour as the ‘royal law’, and he echoes Old Testament passages which say that God gives His grace to the humble.

For one who talks a lot about mercy, his analysis is fairly merciless. He invents a word for his readers – you are dipsuchos, he says, double-minded, split, your desire fragmented, and here is the root of your problems. ‘Above all’, he says in 5:12, and we expect something big after that, ‘above all do not swear by heaven or earth or anything else. Let your yes be yes and your no be no’. It is a bit disappointing after the lead in ('above all'), but maybe the world would be transformed, and our community life improved remarkably, if we used our tongues with the care James recommends, and if when we did speak we did it with the integrity and directness he encourages.

Although he does not get round to spelling out solutions as clearly as other moralists of the New Testament (Paul, 1 Peter), James brilliantly diagnoses the problems of community life and reminds us of the need to cast ourselves humbly on God’s grace: James 4:7a,8,10.