There is a billboard posted around the city, maybe you’ve seen it. It claims, “Jesus gave money to people on the streets of Galilee.” When I first saw that sign I thought, “Well, now technically, that’s not true.” Being a seminary student and all, I began to deconstruct the argument and to look for what truth lie within. I continued my line of thinking, “Technically, Jesus never gave money; he didn’t really concern himself with money all that much. Technically, Jesus gave food and water, as well as lots of stories about what the kingdom of God really looks like.” Then I stopped myself and wondered about the campaign behind the billboard. I had had the reaction of deconstructing the sign because whoever came up with the idea was challenging me to think differently about those who are on the streets in this city asking for spare change.

The billboard and many others like it have been put up throughout the city to challenge all of us as the election season begins. In San Francisco the issue of panhandlers and how to help those without homes is once again a key issue. All of the candidates who are running for mayor, if they are to have any chance for election, must define their plan to address what some have called an epidemic. This has been a defining issue for every mayoral race since Jeff and I moved here in 1994 (and it probably was long before we arrived as well). And yet, here it is again, at the center of the debate.

There has been a lot of talk and only a little action; bringing us right back to the beginning each time someone new runs for office. Everyone seems to have an opinion and yet we are stymied in our desires to do something real to change the situation that exists.

Maybe there has been too much talk.

Maybe instead it’s time to be silent.

That is the message from the passage in James for today. James was urging the members of his community to do just that. He said, “Be quick to listen” but “slow to speak.” “Bridle your tongues if you wish to have a pure religion.” All the talk of the people in his community was getting in the way of truly hearing God. Their talk showed that they were only concerned for their own affairs. This included even their talk about religion. Turns out, their talk showed that their religion was nothing more than lip service to a faith in God. All of their words only served to show that their religion went no deeper than the surface. It was only meant to make them look good in the eyes of those who saw them in the community.

But James hoped for more from his community. He called the members to a true religion, a pure religion. A religion that went so deeply into their lives that it would be evident in their very actions. But in order for that to happen the people needed to be silent. The people needed to stop talking long enough so that the word of truth that God offers could be heard and received into their hearts.

The people had talked themselves into believing they were practicing a true religion. Because of this, James had to help the people see that they had, in fact, strayed. To do this, he began with a reminder of who God is. “God is generous. God is the giver of all perfect gifts. God is constant and has a purpose for God’s creation. And God gives the word of truth to creation so that it may know what God’s purpose is.” James began with these basic tenets of the faith in order to get the people to look beyond themselves. They had become too concerned with their own actions. And so James needed to remind them that human efforts will not reveal God’s purpose; only God’s word will.

None of this was new to those James was addressing. I can just see the people nodding their heads with what James was saying. Maybe even saying to themselves, “You know, he has a point.” But all the while feeling secure in their knowledge of what their religion required of them. And then James surprised them. He called them to silence.

“Silence?” “Did James just say ‘silence’?” Can you hear the confused people asking? Why would God call religious people to be silent? Doesn’t the scripture say, “If we are silent then the very rocks will cry out”? Didn’t Jesus tell his disciples to “go into all the world” to spread the Gospel? James’ call to silence went against what the members of the community understood as their duty as followers of Christ.

James was not refuting these calls from the Scriptures; he was telling the people to back up a few steps. They had gotten ahead of themselves. They were going out before they knew what they were to be telling people. They need to be silent first so that they could hear God talking.

God offers the word of truth to all who will receive it. But it can’t be received when those being offered the word continually talk. I’m sure you, like me, have had the experience of trying to tell someone something only to have that person talk over you. It can be very frustrating. Especially if the conversation ends before you can make your point. That is the picture that James is painting here of the human reaction to God’s gift of the word of truth. The people were not letting God get a word in edgewise!

So James, in effect, shouted, “Stop talking!” “Listen!” “Maybe then you will really learn something. Maybe then the word that God offers will actually have a chance of getting into your hearts. And once that happens, your lives will show it and you will act differently towards those whom society tends to ignore.”

That was really James’ concern. The community, called by God to be a caring community, was not responding appropriately to that call. They were not caring for others because they were concerned with meeting the standards of the world; standards that didn’t allow for people who didn’t fit the typical mold of upstanding citizens. James urged the community to put aside those standards and to remember God’s call to love one another.

In making this demand of his community, James echoed the demand that Jesus made of the Pharisees and elders in the story from the Gospel of Mark. In this story, Jesus confronted the religious leaders who came with accusations against him and his followers. The leaders came because of stories that they had heard; stories which made them worry that Jesus was denigrating their religion and leading people away from strict observance of its laws.

As N.T. Wright explains, “Jesus was being heavily criticized by the guardians of the ancestral traditions because he was celebrating the kingdom, not with the righteous and the religious elite, but with all and sundry – with the riff-raff, the no-goods, the down-and-outs. And, in the process, he wasn’t just throwing his own dignity to the winds; he was threatening God’s dignity, and with it, the hope of the whole nation.”

In his answer to their accusations, Jesus showed that the religious leaders were really only concerned about human traditions. The laws that they were trying to enforce were not the commandments given them by God; rather, they were human interpretations developed around the commandments. In their attempt to keep their religion pure, they turned from concentrating on the laws of the Lord to concentrating on their own traditions.

To get their attention and make them realize the error of their ways, Jesus quoted the prophet Isaiah. Jesus knew that he was talking to people who were very knowledgeable about the Scriptures. He knew that they would immediately recognize the passage he quoted. Jesus, like Isaiah before him, accused the people of practicing conventional worship without conviction. Jesus knew this was true because of the lives the leaders lead. Because they were motivated by human tradition, the religious leaders were not in right relationship with God. This breech in relationship was obvious because there was a breech in their relationship with their neighbors, Jesus’ disciples. While their lips moved and said the right things, their hearts did not allow them to act consistently.

Like the talk of the members of James’ community, something was getting in the way of true worship of God. Jesus clarified that that something was human vileness. Because of their focus on human traditions, the religious leaders were allowing vile human behaviors to go unchecked. Jesus wanted the leaders to be more concerned about those things and less about the purity of what was being consumed. To make his point clear, Jesus elaborated what the vileness from within included: sexual immorality, theft, murder, adultery, ruthless greed, malice, deceit, indecency, envy, slander, arrogance, folly. Not surprisingly, the actions included in this list did not shock the religious leaders. Everyone could see that these are not good habits to practice.

Jesus was accusing the leaders of not seeing the forest for the trees. They were so concerned with minutia that they were overlooking the very behaviors that were breaking down the moral fabric of the community. By focusing on enforcing human tradition, they, and those who followed their example, were actually practicing socially destructive behaviors.

Jesus took the accusation of the leaders against him and turned it right back on them. They were angry because they thought he was a bad example to the Jewish people. But Jesus shocked them by showing that it was really they who were the bad examples. He was telling them that instead of being upright examples for the community, they were actually encouraging the dissolution of the covenant that held the people together as a community. It wasn’t so much in what they were saying – calling the Jewish people to keep themselves undefiled by worldly things – it was more in how they were acting. By refusing to interact with those whom they deemed to be unclean, they were alienating their own neighbors.

The fears of the Pharisees and elders were well-founded. Jesus was leading people away from following the strict guidelines that had built up around the commandments of the Torah. He was doing that consciously in an attempt to lead people back to a covenantal life with God. All of their talk had gotten in the way of hearing God’s true commandments: to love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your strength, with all your mind; and love your neighbor as yourself.

Jesus and James are calling us to the same covenantal life as we face the debates that will be a part of the mayoral election. Competing plans and the candidates proposing them will vie for our attention and our support. And whether we agree with the idea of “Care not Cash,” or “San Francisco Cares,” or “Continuum of Care,” or any number of other plans, I believe we are being called to a time of silence and action.

We need silence because we need to examine the state of our hearts.

Are our hearts open to receive God’s word? Or are they already set on what we believe are the right answers?

Are we ready for the possibility that we might change our minds because of something we hear or read? Or are our defenses up, not allowing for that to happen?

Are we ready to welcome someone who is different from what society’s standards dictate? Or have we put up walls to keep them away from us?

We need a time of silence; a time to sit with God’s word of truth; a time to allow God’s commandments to love God and neighbor to take root deeply within us. But this silence must lead to action – action that shows our love for God and for neighbor.

There are no easy answers to the questions concerning panhandling and being without homes. There are no quick solutions. But we cannot walk away and throw up our hands. We cannot give in to fatalistic thinking. God calls us to live lives that bear the fruit of God’s word of truth.

I challenge all of us to study the Bible anew. When reading a passage, put away old ideas and be prepared for something unexpected to come from it. I challenge all of us to talk with someone with whom we might disagree. Be open to hearing their words in a new way. Try to be changed by what you hear. I don’t mean that we must accept their point of view and give up on our own. I mean that we are called to deepen our own understanding of God and the world through the insights of others. And then I challenge all of us to take action. Live out God’s calling and make God’s kingdom real here and now.

Be quick to listen and slow to speak. Be silent and allow God to speak within you so that your life will speak God’s love to others.