This morning I was waiting at a railroad crossing that cuts across the route between my home and the church. The bars came down, the red lights flashed, and I knew it was time to stop and wait. It was such a long freight train that I had time to look at all the cars flashing past and notice that much of the load being hauled was construction materials. Some of the cars were tankers with painted graffiti, both pictures and words and fancy spray-painted tags. One line in particular stood out: “Don’t just talk about it. BE about it.” That graffiti philosopher had a lot in common with James, the brother of Jesus and the author of the explicitly direct Book of James.
In this passage, you will see an example of the straight-talking thought of James. “Be doers of the word and not merely hearers” is one of the main points in his book. Perhaps the best-known version of this thought are the words, “Faith without works is dead.” As James shepherds the Jerusalem church, he notices that there are followers of Jesus who listen but then go on their regular way, unchanged by their hearing of the gospel. They are like people who look briefly in a mirror and then immediately forget what they see. They hear the words but don’t do anything about what they have heard. The Word doesn’t sink in below the surface and doesn’t change them in any way. They feel they’ve done all they need to do just by passively listening! But James knows that if you really want to live for Jesus, you must not just listen, not just talk about it. Instead you must BE like Him. In the words of the railroad graffiti artist, “Don’t just talk about it. BE about it.”