The Fifth Sunday after Epiphany (NTA)

James 4:1-12

What causes quarrels and what causes fights among you? Is it not this, that your passions are at war within you? ² You desire and do not have, so you murder. You covet and cannot obtain, so you fight and quarrel. You do not have, because you do not ask. ³ You ask and do not receive, because you ask wrongly, to spend it on your passions. ⁴ You adulterous people! Do you not know that friendship with the world is enmity with God? Therefore whoever wishes to be a friend of the world makes himself an enemy of God. ⁵ Or do you suppose it is to no purpose that the Scripture says, “He yearns jealously over the spirit that he has made to dwell in us”? ⁶ But he gives more grace. Therefore it says, “God opposes the proud, but gives grace to the humble.” 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. Cleanse your hands, you sinners, and purify your hearts, you double-minded. ⁹ Be wretched and mourn and weep. Let your laughter be turned to mourning and your joy to gloom. ¹⁰ Humble yourselves before the Lord, and he will exalt you. 

¹¹ Do not speak evil against one another, brothers. The one who speaks against a brother or judges his brother, speaks evil against the law and judges the law. But if you judge the law, you are not a doer of the law but a judge. ¹² There is only one lawgiver and judge, he who is able to save and to destroy. But who are you to judge your neighbor? 

Do you not know that friendship with the world is enmity with God? It is not the job of a Christian to be a friend of the world. It is not our job to play nice. The Church and likewise all Christians have the responsibility to speaks God's word to the world. It is our duty to say what God says.

There are many reasons for quarreling. There even times when quarreling is necessary, as St Paul would describe divisions. There are other times when quarreling is more about selfishness. Pride leads us to desire people to agree with us, accept us, tolerance is not the reality.

The Church should not bend the word of God to society. The Church should not bend its confession to abortion. The church should accept homosexuality as sexual immorality, as the Scripture says. Likewise the Church should not shy away from God as creator, nor Christ as our Savior who was crucified under Pontus Pilate, and bodily raised from the dead on the Third day.

It is this confession the Bereans searched out. It is this confession for which the true prophets suffered. Woe to those who do not trust this confession. Blessed are those who trust in Christ crucified for the forgiveness of your sin.