James 4:13-17
Introduction
It was early in 2019 and I was a pastor at a church in Ontario. I had been at the church for about four years and was ready to work on a plan of where to take the church next in terms of our ministry. Thinking about the year, I realized that the next year was going to be 2020. What better year to develop a vision than 2020. Promoting a 2020 vision would be so easy. Some other things ended up on my plate and so I was not really ready to work on it until near the end of 2019. But something happened at the end of 2019, something like a worldwide pandemic. I was not sure what 2020 was going to look like but I enough that it would be pointless to work on the church vision because of the uncertainty that would go along with the pandemic. It ended up that there was no way that I could have predicted all that would take place during the covid-19 pandemic. Even now, as I look back at it, it feels like a dream. That we closed buildings for a couple of weeks was not a surprise, but I would never have imagined that we would close our buildings for months at a time. I never thought about how quickly churches all over he world would go online. I could never have guessed how much we would have to learn and the pace of change that would be required. I wonder how many other pastors worked on a 2020 Vision for their church, only to put it right back into the filing cabinet.
At this point in time, we are pretty much back to normal even if a few changes did stick around. You probably do not want to hear this, but something like the covid-19 pandemic could happen again at anytime. With the amount of travel that takes place around the world, it will never be long before a disease in another place in the world will get here. And there is no reason why a new form of disease might not originate here. We might feel relieved that our lives are no longer controlled by the pandemic, but we have no idea what will happen in 2025 or in any year after that.
In some ways I am thankful for the pandemic. I do not take lightly the cost in lives and jobs and mental health that took place. But on the positive side, covid was a powerful reminder that life is uncertain and we never know what is around the corner.
This is something that James understood very well. We are going to take a look at what James had to say and how this might shape how we make decisions.
Predicting in the First Century
It would be easy to misunderstand what James is trying to say in this passage. Is James saying that we should never make any plans? Is it wrong for us to ever have a schedule where we are planning on attending appointments or meetings? What James seems more likely to be saying is that we should come to our plans with a great deal of humility. The problem is not that we try to organize our life around schedule. The problem is that we can easily fall into the trap of believing that we are the ones that are in control and that our future bound to submit to our personal wishes. Let’s take a look at what this would have looked like in the context of James and the church in the first century.
People throughout time have hoped that they could predict the future, not in specific but in generalities. Tomorrow will be like today, just as today was like yesterday. Let’s imagine what this looked like for James. James was the half-brother of Jesus. We are not told what that experience was like, although we try to imagine. Based on the little we have of Jesus’ childhood, Jesus was probably not the typical child. But he did live a relatively normal life, following in the trade of his adopted father Joseph. Then when Jesus was around thirty, Jesus left his regular life behind and became a travelling preacher and healer. Could James have predicted that? Jesus did not have any of the special rabbinic training that normally went into being a Bible teacher. What we do know is that Jesus’ ministry did create some chaos in the family and they collectively tried to rein him in. We are told that James and the other brothers did not believe Jesus’ claims. And then Jesus died. Whatever their differences, James must have been devastated. But at least he could now assume what things would be like for his unpredictable brother. Jesus was dead and would stay dead. Except he didn’t. We are told in 1 Corinthians 15 that the resurrected Jesus made a personal appearance to James and James became a believer. What did James expect to happen next? Probably that he would learn more about the teachings of Jesus and worship God. At that point, the Apostle Peter had risen to the position of leader of the church. Not much changes were expected. And yet Peter discovered that he was more of an evangelist and missionary than an administrator and so James found himself as the leader of the church in Jerusalem. But at least things were stable. Jesus was understood as the Jewish Messiah and the disciples were busy sharing Jesus with their fellow Jews. Except then God chose to embrace the Gentiles without them becoming Jewish first. And while some Jewish believers rejoiced, some others were very upset about this. And they looked to James to provide a solution. Eventually, Jerusalem would be destroyed by the Romans and the church would become majority Gentile rather than Jewish. There is no way that James, while hearing stories of Jesus preaching to the crowds, could have imagined all that would happen in the following decades. James had learned that life was unpredictable and the best we can do is say: ‘If the Lord wishes, we will live and do this or that.’
Unpredictability of Our Life
I don’t know about you but I try to imagine what life looks like in the future. I do not like surprises and I want to at least have a general understanding of what is going to happen. Looking back, I would never have imagined that I would become a pastor or an army chaplain or that I would live in Nova Scotia. When I met Amanda, I would never have predicted that Amanda and I would get married. When I first saw the movie the Rainman, I new thought that autism would be such a major part of my life. While my father had been sick for a number of years with the illness that would result in his death, my mother was only diagnosed a short time with cancer before she died. I have found life to be extremely unpredictable, both with the good stuff and the bad stuff.
And yet, I will regularly sit down with Amanda and come up with our five year plan. What do we want life to look like? Is this right or wrong? I would say it is normal. But I would also say that we should hold our plans with an open hand. We really do not know what life will look for us. I have often had conversations with people about the death of loved ones. In some cases it was expected and in other cases it was not anticipated. We will talk about the day before the person died and none of the people involved imagined what would happen the next day. Life is a mist. Our lives are fragile. Young and healthy people die unexpectedly every day. Relationships end suddenly and people are forced to start over. Chronic conditions develop that reshape how people live. One of the reason that I often talk about churches and disabilities is that the disabled is the only minority group that we could involuntarily join at any time. We just do not know what will happen next.
But this is no excuse for having no plans. Christians still get jobs and plan to show up for their shift, even if we really do not know what will happen between now and then. We encourage children to get an education and to consider carefully what they hope to do as a career. We plan family get togethers and purchase Christmas and birthday presents. And we should do this. But we do it with a large dose of humility. Ultimately, our future is not completely in our control. Whether God plans out every event in our life or life just happens, and Christians are divided on this, it is not us that can fully determine what will happen. We have some say through our action or inaction but we are only one small part of this.
Conclusion
One of the moments in my life that I was most looking forward to was the graduation ceremony for my Doctor of Ministry degree. This was special because my parents had always dreamed of me getting a doctorate and it took me ten years to get what should have been a four year degree. Plus I would be able to wear the doctoral tam instead of the regular mortarboard cap. It was all very exciting to anticipate. And then I broke my ribs in an ATV accident the day before. I ended up watching the livestream of the ceremony while laying in bed. Definitely not according to plan. How can we cope when life is so uncertain?
I am going to say that we should trust in God. What do I mean by trust? Not necessarily that God is going to fix everything and give us what we want. Not every Christian gets a happy ending. Suffering rather than comfort is the focus of Jesus’ teachings. Even when we are comforted, it is in the midst of suffering. The trust is that God will be with us through the midst of everything that we will face. There are things that have happened to me that I wish God had prevented. Yet I can look back and see how God was there with me. Life is uncertain. We do not know what is around the corner. Make some humble plans but be prepared to pivot when life happens. And always trust in God.
