[taken from the readings for the day]
James 3:13-4:4:
13 Who is wise and understanding among you? Let
him show by good conduct that his works are done in the meekness of wisdom.
14 But if you have bitter envy and self-seeking
in your hearts, do not boast and lie against the truth.
15 This wisdom does not descend from above, but
is earthly, sensual, demonic.
16 For where envy and self-seeking exist,
confusion and every evil thing are there.
17 But the wisdom that is from above is first
pure, then peaceable, gentle, willing to yield, full of mercy and good fruits,
without partiality and without hypocrisy.
18 Now the fruit of righteousness is sown in
peace by those who make peace.
1 Where do wars and fights come from among
you? Do they not come from your desires for pleasure that war in your members?
2 You lust and do not have. You murder and
covet and cannot obtain. You fight and war. Yet you do not have because you do
not ask.
3 You ask and do not receive, because you ask
amiss, that you may spend it on your pleasures.
4 Adulterers and adulteresses! Do you not know
that friendship with the world is enmity with God? Whoever therefore wants to
be a friend of the world makes himself an enemy of God.
An important idea here is that the knowledge of the world is
earthly, sensual, demonic.
In Christianity, everything can be divided into that which
is heavenly and is reflective of God’s will, and that which is earthly and is a
corruption or perversion of the heavenly will. This is not to say that the
Earth itself is a bad, corrupt thing –
on the contrary, we have extensive quotations which show Creation is a
reflection of God, and that our proximity to the natural world and animals is
enlightening and wonderful. Many great Christian saints like St. Porphyrios,
St. Maximos the Confessor, and St. Silouan the Athonite talk about all of
creation as being a reflection of God’s will and that it is impossible to be a
Christian who does not esteem the created. St. Porphyrios went so far as to say
that all creatures sing blessings to God… Catholics believe something similar
to the Orthodox here, where they say that the Priest’s (nearly always) daily
celebration of the Eucharist involves prayers said on behalf of the animals.
What is meant by earthly is that which is fallen and
reflective of man’s corrupt state…
This is also regarded as being partly demonic.
We see also in passage 4:1 the implication that the origin
of all violence is selfishness. Selfishness itself can be regarded as demonic.
This leads to the climax of the whole passage for the day of
January 25th: whoever
therefore wants to be a friend of the world makes himself an enemy of God.
Which is to say, following the very obvious path of worldly people, which is
selfish, is to put yourself in alignment with the demonic, who are the enemies
of God. The name of Satan himself famously meaning ‘the opposition’ to God.
The takeaway from this may simply be that Christianity, at
its heart, seeks to reject selfishness and bitterness (James 3:15), envy and
self-seeking (3:16), desire for pleasure (4:1), and worldliness (4:4), which
can be characterized as ‘earthly, sensual, demonic’ (3:15), and views it as the
ultimate source of discord and violence on earth (4:1).
There is also the lesson that prayer must be oriented
towards what is needed for the self and others – not for fulfilment of our
sensuality (4:3).
