NEW TESTAMENT:
James 3:13 - 4:3, 7 - 8a (RCL)
James 3:13 - 18 (Can. BAS)
James 3:16 - 4:3 (Roman Catholic)

Jame 3:13 (NRSV) Who is wise and understanding among you? Show by your good life that your works are done with gentleness born of wisdom. 14 But if you have bitter envy and selfish ambition in your hearts, do not be boastful and false to the truth. 15 Such wisdom does not come down from above, but is earthly, unspiritual, devilish. 16 For where there is envy and selfish ambition, there will also be disorder and wickedness of every kind. 17 But the wisdom from above is first pure, then peaceable, gentle, willing to yield, full of mercy and good fruits, without a trace of partiality or hypocrisy. 18 And a harvest of righteousness is sown in peace for those who make peace. 4:1 Those conflicts and disputes among you, where do they come from? Do they not come from your cravings that are at war within you? 2 You want something and do not have it; so you commit murder. And you covet something and cannot obtain it; so you engage in disputes and conflicts. You do not have, because you do not ask. 3 You ask and do not receive, because you ask wrongly, in order to spend what you get on your pleasures.

7 Submit yourselves therefore to God. Resist the devil, and he will flee from you. 8 Draw near to God, and he will draw near to you.

The gentleness being advocated is not abdication of responsibility. It is an attitude which comes from a different kind of purity (3:17). That purity consists not in pure doctrine nor in pure anger, but in pure love. Notice how the author contrasts the two approaches in 3:15 and 3:17. Wisdom is about purity and purity is about wholeness, singleness, oneness. That oneness is held together by being full of compassion and produces genuine goodness towards others (3:17). There is no phoney-ness. The word righteousness (which also means justice and goodness) rightly belongs here. Rightness or righteousness is about being in right relationship with God and with oneself - and so also with others.

Wisdom comes from above (3:17). It is an echo of that Jewish tradition, first attested in Proverbs 8, that wisdom is like God's companion and makes visits to earth seeking people in whom to dwell. As such this wisdom is sometimes identified also as God's word and as God's Spirit. Christians drew on this image when they identified Jesus as the Word who came down to his own (see John 1:1-14; Colossians 1:15-20 and also Hebrews 1:1-4, which we shall be looking at in two weeks' time). Here in James the image is used as it was in the Jewish tradition: of wisdom. It was a way of speaking of how God comes to people.

Contrary to some popular misconceptions, Christians are not opposed to desire and desires. Scripture manifests a rich vocabulary of desire: "My soul thirsts for God"; "Blessed are those who hunger and thirst after righteousness"; "I press on to grab hold of that for which Christ first grabbed hold of me." Of course, there is also the Song of Songs. No, the problem is not desire but, as James rightly sees, the problem is the objects we desire, how we order our desires, and the motives we have in pursuing them.

Anger toward others comes from an inward passion for material
pleasure (4:1-3). The experience of being without things can provoke the
impulse to covet the worldly goods of others (4:4-5). This tests the believer’s
confidence in a God who promises to resist the arrogant and exalt the pious
poor (4:6-12; cf. 2:5).

h/t http://www.textweek.com/james.htm

GOSPEL: Mark 9: 30 - 37 (all)

Mark 9:30 (NRSV) They went on from there and passed through Galilee. He did not want anyone to know it; 31 for he was teaching his disciples, saying to them, "The Son of Man is to be betrayed into human hands, and they will kill him, and three days after being killed, he will rise again." 32 But they did not understand what he was saying and were afraid to ask him.
33 Then they came to Caper'naum; and when he was in the house he asked them, "What were you arguing about on the way?" 34 But they were silent, for on the way they had argued with one another who was the greatest. 35 He sat down, called the twelve, and said to them, "Whoever wants to be first must be last of all and servant of all." 36 Then he took a little child and put it among them; and taking it in his arms, he said to them, 37 "Whoever welcomes one such child in my name welcomes me, and whoever welcomes me welcomes not me but the one who sent me."


Mark 10:33 brings us already to lower Galilee, to Capernaum, home territory. It also brings us to another low point for the disciples. If in 8:31-33 it was Peter, their spokesperson, here it is the group. They are discussing who is the greatest. We assume they mean the greatest among their number, but the text could also be read more broadly. Certainly Jesus’ answer applies much more broadly than just to the disciples. His journey to Jerusalem embodies his answer. It is the way of Jesus, the way of discipleship which they are to follow.

It is nevertheless interesting that when Mark has Jesus comment, he explicitly mentions ‘the twelve’ (9:35). It certainly applies to leadership. ‘If anyone wants to be first, let them be last of all and servant/slave of all.’ The message will be repeated in 10:41-45, where Jesus contrasts this with leadership styles of the day where people love to flaunt their power and authority. The message is directly subversive of the norms of his day and the norms of ours

Verses 30-32: The parallels are Matthew 17:22-23 and Luke 9:43-45. [NOAB]

Verse 30: “He did not want anyone to know it”: Jesus is notably more concerned about news spreading of who he is in Jewish territory than he is in Gentile territory.

Verses 38-40: There are other ways to ultimate goodness, i.e. God, than being an explicit follower of Jesus.

h/t http://www.textweek.com