Daily Worship

Working Feet

Dan Harper September 28, 2021 0 0
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James 3: 13-18 (NRSVA)

13 Who is wise and understanding among you? Show by your good life that your works are done with gentleness born of wisdom. 14 But if you have bitter envy and selfish ambition in your hearts, do not be boastful and false to the truth. 15 Such wisdom does not come down from above, but is earthly, unspiritual, devilish. 16 For where there is envy and selfish ambition, there will also be disorder and wickedness of every kind. 17 But 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. 18 And a harvest of righteousness is sown in peace for those who make peace.

When was the last time you had sore feet? You know the sort of ache you get from a day of hard work spent on your feet. It’s the kind of ache that is simultaneously annoying and pleasurable.

When your feet hurt from a day of using them, you know you have been doing something. It is the same with hands calloused from work or shoulders stiff from lifting things all day. In physical jobs it is more obvious that work has been done, but in desk jobs it can be seen too: in the eyes red and tired or fingers and wrists sore form typing and writing all day.

These are the signs of a day’s work, possible outward signals of something we have been doing. In the Letter of James we hear the same, the life and work of faith is something that has outward signs. It is both a work of the soul and the body. We don’t just think thoughts of Christ, we live in the world and do the work of God, shown in the life of Christ and guided by the Holy Sprit.

God gave us hands to use and feet to walk, so let us pull our working boots on and get to doing the work of Christ.

 

PRAYER:

 

God,

As we wiggle our toes and feel the ground under our feet,

Guide us as we work for you,

As we pull on socks of compassion and shoes of hope,

Ready to spread your love in the world.

 

Amen.