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13Who is wise and understanding among you? Show by your good life that your works are done with gentleness born of wisdom. 14But if you have bitter envy and selfish ambition in your hearts, do not be boastful and false to the truth. 15Such wisdom does not come down from above, but is earthly, unspiritual, devilish. 16For where there is envy and selfish ambition, there will also be disorder and wickedness of every kind. 17But 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. 18And a harvest of righteousness is sown in peace for those who make peace. –– James 3:13-18
When James opens this text with a question (Who is wise and understanding among you?), it is obvious that he is not looking for us to raise our hands. And yet, in how many rooms, and in how many conversations, have we sought to impress others by making claims we could never back up with evidence and professed knowledge that we do not possess? Remember the governor who laid claim to prowess as a track athlete, boasting of results that were easily found to be false? Or the Notre Dame coach losing his position because of false claims made on his resume? Why do people make claims that are transparently false and easily disproved? Certainly, it is the rare human who survives a life of tests, interviews, first impressions, competition, and conflicts without having embellished the truth. And yet today, bogus braggadocio is so shamelessly frequent and outlandish that it becomes nigh impossible to discern what was from what wasn’t.
Yet, James highlights for us that while online blather-bull-nonsense-phooey-hooey-blarney-piffle-codswallop seems universal and inescapable, it has always been true that a combination of insecurity, envy, and selfish ambition tempt us to boastfulness and the propagation of what we would call today, alternate facts. James warns that this habit inevitably leads to disorder and wickedness, and so he challenges us to seek the ways of wisdom, that which is pure, peaceable, gentle, willing to yield, full of mercy and good fruits without a trace of partiality or hypocrisy.
Dostoyevski said, “The man who lies to himself and listens to his own lie comes to a point that he cannot distinguish the truth within him, or around him, and so loses all respect for himself and for others. And having no respect he ceases to love.” Where there is no love, there can be no peace. When we can speak the truth in humility and with love, James suggests that “a harvest of righteousness is sown in peace for those who make peace.” In the end, it is not our job to impress the world, but to see it through the eyes of Christ, and love it to peace(s).
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