on WV Day of Hope

• Fifteenth Sunday after Pentecost

with James 1:12-27

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A video of this sermon can be viewed at https://youtu.be/_zTmOtAW8Mk

Today is the 3rd Annual West Virginia Council of Churches Day of Hope, a Celebration of prevention and recovery for substance use disorder in WV. Apportionment offerings are used in our Annual Conference to fund substance recovery ministries throughout WV. When congregations neglect not to pay apportionments in full, actual ministries actually go underfunded.

• Alcoholics Anonymous is one of the oldest recovery programs, and a template for many other recovery programs. Founded 250 miles from Bville in Akron OH in 1935.

One of my previous churches hosted an AA meeting. I didn’t know a thing about AA. No actual knowledge about it and I never asked anybody. I vaguely knew there were 12 steps.

The word “alcohol” is mentioned once in the 12 steps. Also the word alcoholics once. First and twelfth step. I was surprised when I discovered that.

The 12 steps are not about alcohol,
not about not drinking.

AA considers alcoholism a spiritual malady (p. 64), the fruit of resentment and anger and fear. Things happen in life, some people respond with resentment anger or fear, unhealthy ways, and also some people reach out for alcohol to help soothe the resentment and anger and fear.

Also since alcoholism is a spiritual malady,
it is NOT a problem of willpower.
A spiritual problem requires spiritual solution.

• Romans 7:15, 18-21, 24-25 I do not understand my own actions. For I do not do what I want, but I do the very thing I hate. I can will what is right, but I cannot do it. ¹⁹ For I do not do the good I want, but the evil I do not want is what I do. ²⁰ Now if I do what I do not want, it is no longer I that do it, but sin that dwells within me. ²¹ So I find it to be a law that when I want to do what is good, evil lies close at hand.  ²⁴ Wretched man that I am! Who will rescue me from this body of death? ²⁵ Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord!

• AA’s solution (or rather suggestion) is to turn life over to God, to turn resentments and anger and fear over to God, who is able and willing to save.

• because God is good, God is giver of good gifts (James 1:17)

And because sin – literally “missing the mark” – comes not from God but from the fruit of our own desires. (James 1:13-15).

• So questions for you:
Who plants seeds in you,
What kinds of seeds,
and who would you have tend your garden?

• Prayer for God to grow in me and be gardener of me.

• Hymn  114 Many Gifts One Spirit

James 1:12-27 (CEB)

¹² Those who stand firm during testing are blessed. They are tried and true. They will receive the life God has promised to those who love him as their reward.

¹³ No one who is tested should say, “God is tempting me!” This is because God is not tempted by any form of evil, nor does he tempt anyone. ¹⁴ Everyone is tempted by their own cravings; they are lured away and enticed by them. ¹⁵ Once those cravings conceive, they give birth to sin; and when sin grows up, it gives birth to death.

¹⁶ Don’t be misled, my dear brothers and sisters. ¹⁷ Every good gift, every perfect gift, comes from above. These gifts come down from the Father, the creator of the heavenly lights, in whose character there is no change at all. ¹⁸ He chose to give us birth by his true word, and here is the result: we are like the first crop from the harvest of everything he created.

¹⁹ Know this, my dear brothers and sisters: everyone should be quick to listen, slow to speak, and slow to grow angry. ²⁰ This is because an angry person doesn’t produce God’s righteousness. ²¹ Therefore, with humility, set aside all moral filth and the growth of wickedness, and welcome the word planted deep inside you—the very word that is able to save you.

²² You must be doers of the word and not only hearers who mislead themselves. ²³ Those who hear but don’t do the word are like those who look at their faces in a mirror. ²⁴ They look at themselves, walk away, and immediately forget what they were like. ²⁵ But there are those who study the perfect law, the law of freedom, and continue to do it. They don’t listen and then forget, but they put it into practice in their lives. They will be blessed in whatever they do.

²⁶ If those who claim devotion to God don’t control what they say, they mislead themselves. Their devotion is worthless. ²⁷ True devotion, the kind that is pure and faultless before God the Father, is this: to care for orphans and widows in their difficulties and to keep the world from contaminating us. ò