Human Arrogance

Human Arrogance

James 4:13-17

            How we love to plan for the future!  Sometimes I wake in the middle of the night and can’t get back to sleep because I’m planning what I will do the next day—or the next week, or the next month.  I’m sure many of you have had the same experience.  We can’t help it, I guess.  We don’t like surprises, at least not that kind, and so we organize our lives in advance as best we can.  We know things won’t always go according to our plan, but we want the assurance that at least there is a plan, even if it has to be modified as we go.

            James reminds us how little control we have over our lives.  He’s talking about financial deals—buying and selling and making a profit—but he could be talking about any plan.

            “Tomorrow I’m going to begin painting the house.  I’ll have to get the paint in the morning, make sure my ladder is still safe…”

            “Let’s see; the kids have their swimming lessons after school.  That will leave me time to do the grocery shopping for the weekend.  I’ll have to be at the pool by…”

            “The weather report looks great for Saturday.  I’ll call Jim and Ed and Bob and see if we can make up a foursome for golf.  If we can get an early enough tee time…”

            James says, “Don’t bother.  You don’t have any idea what tomorrow may bring.  Your life is merely a mist, like the morning fog that appears and then is gone—vanished so suddenly that we can barely remember it.”

            Remember the story Luke relates (Luke 12:16-21) about the rich fool?  A man had such a large harvest that his barns wouldn’t hold it all.  Instead of doing something useful with the excess, like giving it away to those who really needed it, he had his servants tear down the barns and build bigger ones.  Then he relaxed, and said to himself, “Now I’m set for life.”  What he hadn’t counted on was that he would die that night, and never get to enjoy all that wealth.

            It is possible that the epistle of James was written by Jesus’ brother.  If so, we can imagine him traveling with Jesus (although not one of the twelve) and hearing the stories Jesus told and the lessons Jesus taught.  Many of James’s lessons sound very much like those of Jesus.  James doesn’t say here, “You fool!” as Jesus did, but he says much the same thing.

            “Don’t say, ‘tomorrow I will do such and such.’  Rather say, “If the Lord wills, then tomorrow I will….” 

            Good advice, don’t you think?  We know from the news reports we see and hear every day how tenuous is our hold on life.  Just recently we heard that Oscar Tavaras, a promising young baseball player for the St. Louis Cardinals, was killed in a car crash in his home country.  He had his whole life ahead of him.  He might well have become a star in the game he loved so passionately and played so well, but his life ended in a moment.

            James says that advanced planning, without giving God the credit for our lives, is supreme arrogance.  Since we have no control over the length of our lives, how can we presume to plan in advance without saying, “If God wills, then…?”

            James ends the passage by saying, “So whoever knows the right thing to do and fails to do it, for him it is sin.”  We show our sinful nature when we fail to acknowledge that all we are, and all we have are gifts from God—gifts that can disappear in a moment.  We owe God the thanks of acknowledging the Father as the source of all good gifts.