how to overcome a condemning heart, a guilty conscience

We know love by this, that he laid down his life for us—and we ought to lay down our lives for the brothers and sisters. How does God’s love abide in anyone who has the world’s goods and sees a brother or sister in need and yet refuses help?

Little children, let us love not in word or speech but in deed and truth. And by this we will know that we are from the truth and will reassure our hearts before him whenever our hearts condemn us, for God is greater than our hearts, and he knows everything. Beloved, if our hearts do not condemn us, we have boldness before God, and we receive from him whatever we ask, because we obey his commandments and do what pleases him.

And this is his commandment, that we should believe in the name of his Son Jesus Christ and love one another, just as he has commanded us. All who obey his commandments abide in him, and he abides in them. And by this we know that he abides in us, by the Spirit that he has given us.

1 John 3:16-24; NRSVue

If we take moral responsibility seriously in this life, we’re going to realize there’s always something that we did wrong and something else that we should have done, and something else we may have not done good enough in our minds. There are a host of ways that we can feel guilty and condemned.

We are told that laying down our lives for the believers in our midst means helping those in material need, doing what we can, be it big or little and everything in between. It is then evident that indeed God’s love resides in our hearts. Through adherence to the simple commandment to believe in the name of Jesus and to love one another, we can indeed overcome our guilty conscience (see helpful NET footnotes in link above), and condemning heart which can often plague us.

The commandments we’re to keep are again simple: believe in Jesus’s name and love one another. As we do that and seek to do all that pleases God, not only is our heart set at rest in God’s presence, but we have boldness in prayer that God will answer our simple, humble prayers. Our hearts set free to live in the love of God in Christ, a love intended for all.

justice and mercy

He has told you, O mortal, what is good,
and what does the Lord require of you
but to do justice and to love kindness
and to walk humbly with your God?

Micah 6:8; NRSVue

For judgment will be without mercy to anyone who has shown no mercy; mercy triumphs over judgment.

James 2:13; NRSVue

The words translated “kindness” in the Micah passage, NRSVue.

The Hebrew word חֶסֶד (khesed) is complex, sometimes translated “lovingkindness,” faithfulness,” or “loyal love.” It has also been understood as covenant loyalty.

NET footnote

Although the circumstances in the background of the two passages are different, the basic idea is the same: injustice or not doing what is right and good, and even by omission committing wrongs, as well as actual wrongdoings which are at the forefront of things.

I don’t consider “kindness” a bad translation in the NRSVue, as long as we remember that kindness is not actually merely niceness in mannerisms without any acts behind it. A graphic example of a kindness which ends up being kind in the way that can be (mis)understood today is expressing concern over bombings which kill children and women and others, while doing nothing about it. Good acts can begin with words, but words aren’t enough. Here’s a definition of kindness:

the quality of being friendly, generous and considerate… a kind act

Data from Oxford Languages

That doesn’t capture all that would be good in “kindness,” and again, we have to refer to the word in the original Hebrew as noted above. It is descriptive of God’s all pervasive, never ceasing love, a love which may at times seem hard, but is nevertheless love through and through. An effort to meet actual needs would have to be included to fulfill the true meaning of the word, at least of the Hebrew word it’s a translation of.

What is not needed nor should be desired is no accountability for truth or what is good and right. And I think based on the James passage, there should be an accent on mercy. Ultimately mercy triumphs over judgment. Given all that is so wrong in the world, and even wrong that is supported by God’s people, one is hard pressed not only to give in to despair, but to just be out and out angry and to not let go of such anger. And that’s more than understandable.

Anger is an inevitable part of being a responsible moral agent. Love is not love if not angry when love is violated. I tend to want to accentuate sadness rather than anger, but anger underlies or is on the edge of such sadness. James warns against anger, but it doesn’t forbid anger. We’re to be slow to become angry, also remembering that anger itself does not produce what is just, right and good. We can be moved by anger, but it’s an anger which we as humans can’t bear long without harm done.

Love is to prevail, an all-encompassing love: for the victims, but for the perpetrators as well. It’s certainly not a love worth being called love if the perpetrators are not held accountable. There needs to be justice always tempered with mercy. Mercy is not worth the name if justice is absent, and justice is not biblical if mercy is absent. One has to address what is wrong. Then and only then can mercy triumph over justice. Salvation means nothing at all if wrongs are brushed under the rug. Or maybe we should remove the story of Zacchaeus from the Bible (Luke 19:1-10).

At any rate, given all the madness going on in the world, we do well to hold on to both: justice and kindness/mercy/love. Remembering that we ourselves are in need of such. But taking full responsibility to be accountable for ourselves and to play our part with others in responsibly speaking out and doing what we can for what is right, good and just on the basis of love in this world.

perspective on poverty and wealth

Let the brother or sister of humble means boast in having a high position and the rich in having been humbled, because the rich will disappear like a flower in the field. For the sun rises with its scorching heat and withers the field; its flower falls, and its beauty perishes. It is the same way with the rich; in the midst of a busy life, they will wither away.

James 1:9-11; NRSVue

It doesn’t matter where you live, whether in a war torn, famine ravaged place in Africa, with little to nothing to make it through during a North Korea winter, or not having enough to eat with no affordable healthcare in the wealthiest nation in the world, the United States. Abject poverty is bad. With that we see homelessness, totally unnecessary, but part and parcel of capitalism, which prioritizes money over people so that it’s almost like a contest to see who can get the most at the expense of many others.

For most of us, we’re somewhere in between. Many struggle from week to week and month to month to make ends meet with little set aside in the case of an emergency. They are then subject to predatory lending, just another staple of the “rugged capitalism” which is more and more taking its toll. The stock market continues to rise (at this point), stockholders are happy, but workers on whose backs the money is made often don’t have a living wage and so try to work two or more jobs, and add to that, not affordable healthcare being the case for many as well, unless they press through the complicated hoops of the US health system, even after that, tough. A mockery of neighbor love, of justice.

But again, to try to speak of people in between, many will have to watch their money all the time, while some live in relative comfort, with a cushion and along with that tax breaks the poor don’t have, to make life predictable and aside from its normal stresses, manageable. Then the very few who have more than they could ever spend at least on themselves. And all such people meeting together in the name of Jesus as church. Or even those who do not. It seems like James in the above passage is speaking to all.

The poor should rejoice because they are rich as God’s children, God’s loved ones. Ironically with less money, they have less concerns of others stealing them blind. After all, what will the thieves get? But like the poor widow Jesus referred to, they can still give more than all the rich people together, as they trust in God to provide.

On the other hand, the rich can rejoice because they are merely stewards of all that God has given them. They know their time is limited, that they exist to love their neighbor, that while they’re to take care of their own, they’re also to watch out for the poor, for those in need, to help wisely where they can along with others. To try to get to the root of the problem which is inevitably systemic, not stop at giving handouts which too are important.

Rich and poor together can rejoice and glory in the God who gives life to all. Naked they came from their mother’s womb and naked they’ll return. They brought nothing into the world and they’ll take nothing out. The wise remember this, and pray, think, plan and act accordingly.

More to meditate and act on from the book of James.