Scripture Notes: Taming the Tongue (James 3)

We all know that James is right. The tongue is an untameable little beast, “a restless evil, full of deadly poison” (James 3:8). We all know the power of words. We have all said things we wanted to take back. We know what it is like to use our tongues to hurt others, and we know what it is like to have others hurt us by their words. Yet we continue to struggle to tame our tongues, to keep our mouths shut, to think before we speak.

James compares the tongue to the rudder of a ship. It is so small, yet it can guide a large ship wherever the captain wishes it to go. He also compares the tongue to a little fire, just a spark, that can set a whole forest ablaze. If the rudder goes bad, the ship can crash into rocks and sink. If the little fire gets out of control, things burns, lots of things.

So what are we to do? James says that “no human being can tame the tongue” (James 3:8), but God can. He can and will give us His grace to help us control our tongues, to mind our words, to think before we speak. But we have to want it and accept it and use it. With God’s grace, we can fix the little rudder and direct it on the right path toward speech that will truly help and build up others and ourselves. With God’s grace, we can keep the fire under control so that it provides a beautiful light and a nourishing warmth to all those around us.

Scripture Notes: Tested or Tempted? (James 1)

In his New Testament letter, St. James makes a critical distinction between testing and temptation. Apparently some Christians of his day were getting confused, thinking that God was tempting them to commit sin. No way, James responds; God does not tempt anyone. God never deceives anyone or leads anyone into sin. God never wills us to do evil. When we are tempted, the problem is ourselves, our concupiscence (that tendency we all have toward sin), our disordered desires, our out-of-control passions. Sometimes the devil tempts us, too, nudging us toward something we know is wrong, making it look really good, prodding us to take just one more step (and then another and another) down a path we should not go. But the choice is ours, and God gives us the grace to resist temptations that come from ourselves and from our enemy.

While God does not tempt us to sin, He does test us at times, and He does so because He loves us. James tells us that God sends us trials, but He has a very good reason for this. We need to grow. We need to understand ourselves better. We need to strengthen our faith. All of this happens with God’s help of course, but it does not tend to happen when our lives are smooth sailing. It is then that we get complacent, flabby, lazy. Everything is going great, and we forget we need God. We forget we are supposed to be on the path to Heaven, and the world looks pretty good as it is.

So God wakes us up. He tests us, challenges us, sends us some difficulty to work through so that we discover how small and weak and sinful we are and then turn to Him, embrace His grace, and grow stronger by it. We learn how to endure, how to have patience, how to rely on God. We find out that we are not as independent as we thought we were; in fact, we are completely dependent upon Him. And when we work through these trials, these tests, with God’s help, they lead us to deeper faith, deeper hope, and deeper love and, as James says, to the “crown of life which God has promised to those who love Him.”

Tempting and testing, then, are fundamentally different. Temptation can lead us away from God, but only if we choose to give in to it. Testing can lead us closer and closer to God, but only if we understand what is happening and reach out to God in our need, relying on Him to give us the grace to pass the test and keep on strive for the crown of life.

Scripture Notes: Paul, an Apostle (Ephesians 1)

St. Paul begins many of his letters with a variation of the declaration that he is “an apostle of Christ Jesus by the will of God.” While we might dash right past this introduction, it actually contains a great deal of deep meaning that we would do well to reflect on. The word “apostle” refers to someone who is sent. Notice the passive voice there. Paul is not sending himself. He is sent by Christ to carry His Gospel to the world. On that decisive day on the road to Damascus, Paul encountered our risen Lord in person, and his whole life changed in an instant. He was sent, sent to the Jews, sent to the Gentiles, sent to the whole world, sent to us. He became an apostle.

And Paul knows exactly Whose will is behind that sending: God’s will. Paul did not make the first move. In fact, he was persecuting the followers of Jesus, believing them to be blasphemers. He thought he was perfectly fine, right with God, keeping the Law and in good standing as a Pharisee. But Jesus knew better. There was something more in store for Paul, and Jesus chose him specifically for his mission. Paul’s job was to accept the choice and the call and to conform his will to God’s will. 

We have the same job. We, too, are called and sent to speak the message of the Gospel to all the world. We will likely do that in different ways than Paul did, for we all have different gifts and talents and abilities and missions. But, we too, are invited to conform our wills to God’s will and accept His choice and call. 

Scripture Notes: Intense Prayer (1 Samuel 1)

Hannah is a miserable woman at the beginning of the First Book of Samuel. She is beloved by her husband, but she has no children. Her rival wife (a real issue in those days of polygamy) apparently has several sons and daughters and taunts Hannah unmercifully about it. Hannah’s husband, Elkanah, tries to comfort her, but she is not comforted. She seems to know deep down that there is only one place she can find hope and peace and comfort, and that is on her knees before God.

Elkanah and his family are devout people who often go to Shiloh, the place of God’s Tabernacle in those days, to sacrifice and worship. Hannah struggles, hardly even able to go through the motions, and eventually, she simply kneels before God, weeping and praying so intensely that her lips move (literally “shake” or “tremble”) but no words come out. She is praying from the very depths of her heart, asking God to remember her, begging for the son she desires so deeply, and vowing that if God gives him to her, she will give him back to God.

The priest Eli sees Hannah kneeling there before the Tabernacle, so deep in prayer, and he misunderstands. He thinks she is drunk. He looks only at Hannah’s appearance and makes a snap judgment without getting the facts. Eli rebukes her, but she answers humbly and respectfully, explaining the situation and outlining her misery. By this point, Eli probably feels rather sheepish (as he should), and he blesses Hannah, telling her that God will grant her request.

And God does. Hannah gives birth to a son, Samuel, and when he is still a small child, she brings him to Eli, entering her boy into God’s service, where he remains the rest of his life. Hannah fulfills her vow, for her intense prayers have been answered, and her heart is filled with gratitude and love.

Scripture Notes: Examine Yourselves (2 Corinthians 13)

At the end of his second letter to the Corinthians, St. Paul both warns and commands. There have been problems in the Corinthian Church, sins and rivalries, disunity and liturgical abuse, pride and disdain for truth and goodness. And Paul is determined to correct this. He warns the Corinthians that if he comes to them again and the problems are still active, he will not spare them. He will deal firmly with them because, as a minister of Jesus Christ, he is capable of acting by the power of God, not to condemn them (although this is a risk if they fail to repent) but to bring them to conversion.

But Paul also commands the Corinthians to “Examine yourselves, to see whether you are holding to your faith. Test yourselves.” They need a reality check, and Paul knows all too well that they are the only ones who can truly administer it. They may or may not accept what he says. They may or may not receive the truth from his pen or his lips.  But they absolutely must discern the truth within themselves. They have to look closely at what they really believe and how they really act, not with the idea of excusing themselves or pretending or trying to shove reality in a corner somewhere and ignore it, but with sincerity and truth. 

This is not an easy task. It was not for the Corinthians, nor is it for us. In fact, it can be very painful to learn the truth about ourselves. Yet it is necessary. We need to be humble enough to know and admit that we sin all the time, that we are not yet the people God wants us to be, that we tend to hem and haw, to rationalize, to tell ourselves that we are not really that bad, that we are actually pretty good people overall, and that we do not have much to repent of. But it simply is not true, and if we obey Paul’s command to examine ourselves, and do so in all sincerity, we will see much more clearly. Then we will be able to go to God in prayer and to meet Him in the sacrament of Confession and to receive the grace He wants to give us as He forgives us and strengthens us to grow closer to Him and to obey His will in love.

Scripture Notes: Crucified with Christ (Galatians 2)

“I have been crucified with Christ; it is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me; and the life I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, Who loved me and gave Himself for me.” St. Paul is quite clear in his letter to the Galatians: Christ is everything to him, his whole world, his whole life, the center of his being and his mission. 

In baptism, Paul died with Christ, just like we all do, and he rose with Christ, just like we all do. The water is a symbol of both death and life, and because baptism is a sacrament, it effects what it symbolizes. It makes us a new creation, filled with the divine life that we call sanctifying grace. God loves us so much that He came to die for us. He gave Himself for us when the Second Person of the Blessed Trinity became incarnate and suffered and died on the cross. We enter into that suffering and death but only so that we can enter into the new life of the Resurrection. We no longer live our old sinful lives; rather Christ lives in us. 

Scripture Notes: Thirsting for God (Psalm 143)

“I stretch out my hands to Thee; my soul thirsts for Thee like a parched land. Selah.” Parched. There are times when we all feel parched, dry, exhausted. Life takes its toll and drains us. We have all experienced it. 

So what do we do? We follow the advice of the psalmist in Psalm 143. We stretch out our hands to God. We recognize that at the bottom of our dryness is a thirst for Him. We pray. We rest in Him. We bring our exhaustion and anxiety and set it before him. 

The little word “Selah” that appears at the end of this verse is also key. Although saints and scholars have reflected on and debated about it for centuries, Selah’s original meaning remains a mystery. But since it is part of Sacred Scripture, authored by God, this word is included for a reason. God wants to get our attention and elicit a response. At the very least we are supposed to stop and look up, to focus on God, to turn our hearts to Him. In this case, maybe we can make the psalmist’s words our own in a deep way and add our own prayer to God based on what we are experiencing, even if, perhaps especially if, we feel as dry and parched as the psalmist.