James & His Camel Knees
As our series on the book of James comes to a close this week, Jason, our Young Adults Pastor, shares his reflections on James and his family-like manner he taught the church.
Family has this unique way of pulling out of us the fragmented pieces of unresolved issues and traumas that we—amongst friends, neighbours, co-workers, in our churches—typically like to keep to ourselves.
James—author, pastor, prayerfully educated, and sibling of Jesus. It’s no wonder that after spending his life in the company and shadow of his brother “Master Jesus'' that James didn’t have much time for illusions or blowing religious hot air. He knew, after a lifetime of playing, sharing, laughing, getting into trouble, and growing up with Jesus that, just like in all families, there’s little space for performance. Things go wrong, tempers flare up, jealousy rages and a wild tongue can set the house ablaze. With and in family you are what you are, the good and the bad all at once, and every part of you even what you try to hide is out in the open, seen, and matters.
This is the family slant James perceives Jesus and the church through. James had no interest in painting a picture of the Jesus community in any other way. It’s not a community for flaunting your religiosity, pretending everything’s okay, or putting on a performance. If Jesus is anything like my brother anytime I try and put on a show or be someone I’m not, he is the first to let me know.
What James seems to be saying is that life with Jesus is a life of uncomfortable vulnerability, honest to the bone. It’s a place where the entirety of our lives, the inside and the out are involved: our tongues and our ears, our flaws and our talents, our love and our faith, our anxieties and our joy, our lies and our truths, our bodies and our spirits, our neighbours and our neighbourhoods, our partialities and our prayers. God is never abstract, always personal. If it’s in you or around you, it matters.
This is an intimidating invitation from James in the digital age of depersonalized consumerism and social media, fear of our neighbours (most of which we do not know), fear of exposing our anxieties and doubts, fear of being known as a sibling. It’s not an easy life and if we are anything like James, it will take a lifetime to figure out how to mature into it.
James’ legend in church tradition leaves us with a clue on how to get in on the family way that he and Jesus were part of together. Rumour through the ages is that the family nickname James carried with him was “Old Camel Knees” because of his thick skinned knees after years of prayer. He seemed to understand that the Jesus way lived in family is kept personal, vulnerable, and free from performance in prayer—where the Father exposes and speaks his loving truth.
—Pr. Jason Normore
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Photo by Naassom Azevedo on Unsplash
