"Harvests of Righteousness"

For the last four weeks our epistle readings have come from the Letter of James,

one of the shortest books in the New Testament, and one of the most controversial.

The religious reformer Martin Luther scornfully call ed James “an epistle of straw.” Others have argued that it has no place in scripture.

Why the controversy over five short chapters?

Mostly it is because James shows less concern over what Christians should believe than over how Christians should behave.

James writes about the practical duties of Christian life – the treatment of the poor, the evils of the tongue, the importance of good works, the evils of ambition and material goods.

In fact, Jesus is only mention ed twice in the entire book of James, and then only in passing.

It is not surprising that Martin Luther would have such contempt for James. Luther was a great proponent of the doctrine of the justification through faith alone. That is, we can not earn our way into heaven by good works, but we are sav ed only through our faith in Jesus.

That is in contrast to the most famous lines from James. “What good is it, my brothers and sisters, if you say you have faith, but do not have works? Can faith save you? Faith by itself, if it has no works, is dead.

“Show me your faith apart from your works, and I, by my works, will show you my faith.”

James would probably agree with modern day theologian Verna Dozier, who said, “Don’t tell me what you believe. Tell me what difference it makes that you believe.”

In today’s reading, James is talking about wisdom. Just as true faith for James is not merely assenting to a list of belief statements, but a way of life; so wisdom is more than mere intelligence, or a recitation of facts.

True wisdom, too, is a way of life.

“Who is wise and understanding among you?” James asks. “Show by your good life that your works are done with gentleness born of wisdom.”

True wisdom, he says, is not boastful, envious, or ambitious.

“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. And a harvest of righteousness is sown in peace for those who make peace.”

Wisdom, James is saying, is not primarily about what a person thinks or says, but how a person lives. Those who are truly wise will be recogniz ed by their concrete works.

James’ words came to me this week as I read the obituary of a wise man.

Unless you saw the article in The New York Times, you might not know about Norman Borlaug. The name sounded vaguely familiar to me, then I realized I had heard it years ago in an episode of The West Wing, where fictional president Jed Bartlett sang Borlaug’s praises as a miracle worker.

Miracle worker seems too faint a praise for a man cr edited with saving more than a billion lives.

Borlaug was born 95 years ago in Iowa, and grew up on a farm. During the Depression he witness ed great hunger, something that made a huge impression on him. He studied plant pathology and genetics, receiving a doctorate from the University of Minnesota in 1942.

Borlaug was offer ed a lucrative job at DuPont Chemical Company, but walked away from it to take a position in Mexico helping farmers improve their crops.

“It was not a career choice calculated to lead to fame and honor,” the Times article noted.

When he first arriv ed in Mexico, Borlaug was filled with despair. The soil was depleted, and crops were ravaged by disease. The average Mexican farmers could not even feed their own families, much less produce enough to feed others.

“I don’t know what we can do to help these people, but we’ve got to do something,” Borlaug wrote at the time.

Borlaug’s work was not done in the comfort of an air-condition ed lab. He spent countless hours hunched over in the blazing Mexican sun, manipulating tiny wheat blossoms to cross different strains of the plant.

Eventually, he develop ed a method of shrinking the wheat plants, creating a stubby, compact variety, a dwarf plant that produced the same amount of wheat as a much larger plant.

When fertilizer was applied to the new dwarf plants, “the results were nothing short of astonishing,” the Times said. The same amount of land could produce three or four more times wheat.

By the early 1960s, Mexican wheat output had increas ed six fold from this “strange principle of increasing yields by shrinking plants.”

Also in the 1960s, India and Pakistan fac ed enormous food crises, threatening the starvation of millions of people. Borlaug’s work in Mexico was transferred to India, and by 1968, the wheat crop there was so bountiful that schools were turned into temporary granaries.

Borlaug’s principles were then applied to rice crops in the Philippines, China, and throughout Asia. Once again, the results were astonishing – mass famine was averted, “altering the course of human history,” as the Times put it.

Today about half the world’s population goes to b ed every night after consuming grain descended from one of the high-yield varieties developed by Borlaug.

In 1970, Borlaug was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize. He was at work in a Mexican wheat field when his wife drove up to tell him the news. He refused to believe her, and when she finally convinced him she was telling the truth, he continued working, saying there was always time to celebrate later.

In awarding Borlaug the Peace Prize, the Nobel committee said, “More than any other single person of this age, he has help ed provide bread for a hungry world. We have made this choice in the hope that providing bread will also give the world peace.”

In accepting the prize, Borlaug declar ed that “food is the moral right of all who are born into this world.

“The first essential component of social justice is adequate food for all people,” he said. “You can’t build peace on an empty stomach.”

He end ed his speech with a quote from scripture: “By developing and applying the scientific and technological skills of the 20 th century, we may still see Isaiah’s prophesies come true – ‘And the desert shall rejoice and bloom as the rose… And the parched ground shall become a pool, and the thirsty land springs of water.’

“May these words come true!”

I look ed this week to see if I could find any reference to Borlaug’s religious beliefs, or to what church he might have belonged. The only thing I could find were several Old Testament references in his Nobel acceptance speech.

I was amaz ed and saddened to find a blog conversation about the fact that Borlaug never mentioned Jesus in any of his interviews or writings, a fact that those writing to the blog said meant he lacked faith, and therefore could not be saved.

Perhaps those writers were the spiritual descendants of Martin Luther in his harsher moments.

But Borlaug, I believe, is the spiritual descendant of James.

Surely this man, who alter ed the course of human history by toiling in fields alongside the world’s poorest inhabitants, has produced a “harvest of righteousness, full of mercy and good fruits.”

I don’t know what Norman Borlaug’s religious beliefs were. But I do know that this wise man, who devot ed his life to working for justice and peace, was a servant of God.

Those who would question that I refer to the Book of James.

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Readings

Proverbs 31:10-31

A valiant woman wife who can find? She is far more precious than jewels. The heart of her husband trusts in her, and he will have no lack of gain. She does him good, and not harm, all the days of her life. She seeks wool and flax, and works with willing hands. She is like the ships of the merchant, she brings her food from far away. She rises while it is still night and provides food for her household and tasks for her servant girls. She considers a field and buys it; with the fruit of her hands she plants a vineyard. She girds herself with strength, and makes her arms strong. She perceives that her merchandise is profitable. Her lamp does not go out at night. She puts her hands to the distaff, and her hands hold the spindle. She opens her hand to the poor, and reaches out her hands to the needy. She is not afraid for her household when it snows, for all her household are clothed in crimson. She makes herself coverings; her clothing is fine linen and purple. Her husband is known in the city gates, taking his seat among the elders of the land. She makes linen garments and sells them; she supplies the merchant with sashes. Strength and dignity are her clothing, and she laughs at the time to come. She opens her mouth with wisdom, and the teaching of kindness is on her tongue. She looks well to the ways of her household, and does not eat the bread of idleness. Her children rise up and call her blessed; her husband too, and he praises her: "Many women have done excellently, but you surpass them all." Charm is deceitful, and beauty is vain, but a woman who fears the Lord is to be praised. Give her a share in the fruit of her hands, and let her works praise her in the city gates.

James 3:13 – 4:3, 7-8a

Mark 9:30-37

Jesus and his disciples went on and passed through Galilee. He did not want anyone to know it; 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.” But they did not understand what he was saying and were afraid to ask him. Then they came to Capernaum; and when he was in the house he asked them, “What were you arguing about on the way?” But they were silent, for on the way they had argued with one another who was the greatest. He sat down, called the twelve, and said to them, “Whoever wants to be first must be last of all and servant of all.” Then he took a little child and put it among them; and taking it in his arms, he said to them, “Whoever welcomes one such child in my name welcomes me, and whoever welcomes me welcomes not me but the one who sent me.”

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