YOU, TOO, ARE GOD'S BELOVED
We continue the journey through the NT Letter of James. The Wikipedia entry on James, while not particularly noteworthy as food for prayer, does offer some historical insight into who the writer(s) of the letter may have been.
In today's first liturgical reading there is the invitation to consider two realities: temptation and desires. Again we should recall that James is trying to teach the Christian Jewish community in Jerusalem the message Jesus had taught his apostles and disciples.
Who among us does not feel the attack of temptation? Who does not have to deal with desires that are not good for us ... and there is more than moral issues we have to confront today? There are many temptation and desires that populate our days, each day in fact. James' writing encourages his audience to preserve in temptation. Whoever is strong enough to resist is blessed, whoever is "proven" will wear "the crown of life."
James is direct. Temptation does not come from God: "he tempts no one." We cannot blame our failure on God's failure to help us. The truth of the matter is that temptation is the product of our own desires' needs to be fulfilled. Sometimes the desires "conceive and bring forth sin." God would have us be "a kind of firstfruits of his creatures" rather than damage us with sin and the death of our souls.
Fr. Henri Nouwen often stressed that our vocation is to be the "Beloved" of our God. Once we accept that particular vocation for ourselves, once we truly believe that we are the Beloved of God, "We are are faced with the call to become who we are." That is what some philosophers and theologians name the terminus ad quem: the goal of our spiritual journey. So, we overcome the desires, the temptations when we try to become God's Beloved --- when we open ourselves to letting our awareness of God's love for us become a part of all we do, of all we say, and of all we think. And this is no easy task! Fr. Nouwen believed that "the greatest trap in our life is not success, popularity or power, but self-rejection."
James' teaching is to bring his audience to know the love of God, to understand Nouwen's "sacred voice that calls us the Beloved." This is his firstfruits that he invites his audience to become. It is the invitation that is ours today and every day. Know you are the Beloved of God!
