Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] Speaker A: Good morning.
[00:00:01] Speaker B: The reading is from the first chapter of the book of James, verses 1 through 16. It's in your pew bibles on page 980.
Pray with me, O God. Tell us what we need to hear and show us what we ought to do to obey Jesus Christ.
Amen.
James, a servant of God and of the Lord Jesus Christ. To the twelve tribes in the dispersion. Greetings, my brothers and sisters. Whenever you face trials of any kind, consider it nothing but joy.
Because you know that the testing of your faith produces endurance.
And let endurance have its full effect, so that you may mature and complete, lacking in nothing.
If any of you is lacking in wisdom, ask God, who gives to all generously and ungrudgingly, and it will be given you. But ask in faith, never doubting. For the one who doubts is like a wave of the sea driven and tossed by the wind.
For the doubter, being double minded and unstable in every way, must not expect to receive anything from the Lord.
Let the believer who is lowly boast in being raised up, and let the rich in being low, because the rich will disappear like a flower in the field.
For the sun rises with its scorching heat and withers the field.
Its flower falls and the beauty perishes. It is the same way with the rich.
In the midst of a busy life, they will wither away.
Blessed is anyone who endures temptation.
Such a one has stood the test and will receive the crown of life that the Lord has promised to those who love him. No one, when tempted, should say, I am being tempted by God, for God cannot be tempted by anything. And God tempts no one.
But one is tempted by one's own desire, being lured and enticed by it.
Then, when the desire has conceived, it gives birth to sin, and that sin, when it is fully grown, gives birth to death.
Do not be deceived, my beloved.
This is the word of the Lord.
[00:02:48] Speaker A: If the book of James were a symphony, the opening motif might be a single word. As this motif recurs later, that word would be pe razo or peramos in Greek as a noun and then as a verb or paras mos. It's a word that shows up often in the Scriptures. And in today's passage, it actually shows up twice, and it's translated as two different English words. In verse three, it's translated as trial. When we read. My sisters and brothers, whenever you face trials of any kind, consider it nothing but joy. The word for trial is then later when we read in verse 12. Blessed is anyone who Endures temptation, the word translated as trial or temptation. There is parasmos again, trial or temptation, which is it? And I feel for translators trying to render this Greek word into English because there's not a one to one equivalent. It's like in German or words like sobremeso or madrugar in Spanish. There's not a precise English word for it. Peresmos can mean trial, test or temptation all looped into one.
You might think of pesmos as a broad term for adversity. And this adversity can represent a test or a trial or a temptation or all of that combined. And here's just one example of a parasmos.
Some years back, I went on a fishing trip with Jeanne Riddell's son Jeff. Our goal was to spend the better part of one day backpacking to a remote camping site and be able to fish on the Kern River. This would take the better part of a day, but once we reached that remote site, the fishing would be great. There wouldn't be other people around because cars couldn't access it. You had to hike there. So we put all our gear in backpacks, tents, sleeping bags, air mattresses, food, everything. And once we'd gotten about 2/3 of the way there, taken the better part of a day to get there, a perras moss emerged right in front of the trail we were taking.
And that obstacle, that difficulty, that adversity was the Kern River. That is, we had to cross a section of the Kern river to stay on this particular trail and reach that point. Point we wanted to. Well, we took off our shoes and started to cross. But I will tell you, I'm not the most sure footed when it comes to crossing rivers. I've done a lot of fly fishing and even with that, I'm just not the greatest. And I hadn't tried to navigate a river in a long time. So as we're walking across this particular river, I had that feeling I do sometimes in high waters or when water is really rough and saying, oh my Lord, I'm going to fall in.
And this is bad news ordinarily, but it's really bad news when you're carrying a backpack full of your stuff for the next several days because were I to fall in, that would be disastrous. So was that a trial?
Was it a temptation? Certainly I was tempted to just say, forget it, we are turning back, or let's get off this trail and take another trail. You know, of course, that the very definition of sin is missing the mark or going off the path that God intends for you. It was a temptation, it was a trial, it was a struggle. That is all associated with parasmos.
Now, of course, had I navigated these kind of rivers a lot, even that experience of trying to navigate a bit of that river does help build this thing called endurance. It prepares us for future times when we will have to face difficulty. It helps us to build endurance. I get better at navigating rivers the more I do that. The book of James makes this point today how adversity like pelosmos can actually build endurance. It can have a positive impact on us. I recently watched Isaiah Givens race at the collegiate level over at Azusa Pacific University, and I ran cross country in college, but not like Isaiah. Lord have mercy. He's competing at such a high level, and all I could think about is the pain, the challenge, the adversity he had to overcome on a daily basis, weekly basis, monthly basis, to train and get to compete at that level. And yet, as the book of James notes, if you can build endurance, then that leads toward the state that we read in today's chapter is described as maturity or completion or wholeness.
That's what is promised at the end when you face endurance time or face these endurance tests time and again.
So with this positive connotation perishmos can carry of helping us build endurance and grow towards wholeness. Did God send the perishmos? Does God send the difficulties that plague us, the adversities? And today's passage from James may offer the most clear and concise response to that question in all of Scripture. No one we read when faced with Paris Mose, when faced with this testing or temptation, should say, this parasmos is being sent to me by God.
Instead, the book of James argues it is the sinful desires of the heart to which we should look to the source of that temptation or trial. Or in the Synoptic gospels we read that it was the devil that threw peresmos after parasmos at Jesus.
Now God may allow the parasmos to come and even send people into situations where parasmos after parasmos is sure to befall them. But the ultimate source of the parasmos we read in James is not God, but the devil or sinful desires in us. Now, this doesn't mean God never tests us, right?
We have only to look to the story of Abraham and remember how God tested Abraham with regard to his son Isaac. But when it comes to the specific adversity associated with Paris most, this trial, temptation, testing, all wrapped into one that the book of James argues, has its ultimate source not in, not in God, but in either the sinful desires of our heart or forces outside us, like the devil.
And yet, as we face that, as we face those kinds of challenges, we read time and again, we can grow in faith. First Corinthians 10 puts it like this. God is faithful, and God will not let you face a perishmos beyond your strength.
And as you face a perishmos, God will also provide a way out so you may be able to endure it.
I love that verse from First Corinthians.
The sense of God's presence or aid or support or accompaniment in the midst of perish mos. It's placed front and center. In today's passage from James, we read, if any of you is lacking in wisdom, or you could say, if any of you is lacking in any, you need ask God.
Ask God, who gives to all generously and ungrudgingly.
We read of how the lowly are lifted up by God and the rich brought low. And one way to understand that working out is that the rich are tempted, of course, to rely on wealth to hold them up. And wealth, today's passage proclaims, is as ephemeral as a flower doomed to decay. And when the rich put their weight on it, well, it will fall away and they'll be left standing.
Nothing. The poor with no wealth to rely on can lean on God. And when they do, they're lifted up.
The experience of such support is how the book of James can make this otherwise bizarre and paradoxical statement. My brothers and sisters, whenever you face a parasmos, consider it nothing but joy.
Consider it nothing but joy. Now, on the one hand, a reader might wonder, how can you possibly connect those two paras Mosques, which means difficulty, hardship, trials, temptations, and joy, which I associate with delight, wonder, goodness. How do you link those two?
Some of you were recently told at your workplace, sorry, but we're letting you go.
And suddenly, right in front of you, on your path, you had a Paris mose you weren't anticipating. You've now got to navigate the rough waters of unemployment and of searching for a new job.
Does such a time feel like joy to you? It hasn't to me in such times, at least not that experience of not knowing what my next job might be.
Some of us in this congregation have lost our homes and belongings to the Eaton or Palisades fires. Others have faced long periods of displacement, and some are still not able to re enter homes. Some of you have had to navigate a health crisis, a cancer diagnosis or the loss of a loved one.
Certainly that doesn't seem like the stuff of joy, does it?
Maybe the Paris most that most plagues you today is some bigger issue in the world that affects not just you, but your community, your nation, your world. Maybe it's feeling the weight of. Of rejection that many feel by so many in North America of Christian faith and community.
Maybe the weight, the obstacle, the pass, most you see in your path is some other threat, some huge threat like nuclear war, another pandemic, environmental destruction, or for some of us in recent days, the threat of ice raids and their impact on neighbors and community.
Where is joy to be found in such trials?
Well, by connecting perishmos or adversity with joy in verse three, I don't believe the author of James is saying the adversity itself brings joy. In my experience at least, it doesn't. The adversity brings great harm and loss and struggle, and much to bemoan.
But the author is pointing to something we often only discover in times of adversity. And discovering it is a joy.
When I was crossing the Kern river, my feet freezing, feeling deeply off balance, my heart beating with fear that I would soon fall in, I was not experiencing joy. Let me be clear, that was not a joyful time. But.
But you can guess what happened, right?
My fishing companion, Jeff, who little more sure footed than I, even though he too was worried about navigating that river a little further on than I was, reached out a hand and said, hey, you want a hand? Matt sure grabbed his hand.
And it was just enough stability, just enough to hold onto that I could then gingerly put one foot in front of the other, make it to the other side, reaching out and feeling the hand of a friend that not the river, not the cold, but that hand, that was a joy.
And I celebrated it.
The theologian Paul Tillich wrote that what suffering and adversity do is they carve through what you thought was the floor or basement of your soul, and it carves through that, revealing a cavity below.
And it carves through that, revealing a cavity below, you realize there are depths of yourself you never anticipated. And only spiritual or relational food will fill those depths. Only spiritual or relational food will fill those depths. And when you reach out and find such food, a hand to hold strong enough for you to depend on, it is cause for joy. It's like your soul is filled even in the worst of times.
Each one of you has faced a parasmos after parosmos in the past, each one of you, and I guarantee there is many A parasmos yet ahead for you.
And some of you are navigating one big parasmos right now.
So often we have no control over what will come before us in the path. What new obstacle or hardship will land right there in front of us. And we've got to deal with it. Lord have mercy.
We can't control that, but we can control how we look at that Paris most. And in today's passage from James, the emphasis is on how to see it, how to understand it, how to frame it in our minds. And we can make a choice. We, we can see that trial, that temptation, that difficulty as a chance to grow in faith, to learn again the hard lessons that we cannot, cannot navigate the path alone. We need God. We need one another. We need community. And we can make that joyful rediscovery in the midst of the hardest of times.
God, is there community? Is there. Life has a richness to it in relationship. I had forgotten until this parasmos pushed me to remember.
There it is.
And what a joy to know it's there.
As I have dealt with significant loss this year of 2025, one aid for me has been wise souls surrounding me who have known even greater loss than I have and whose path through those adversities offers guidance as I try to make my way.
At the very first meeting of Knox's session, after I lost my house to the Eaton fire, I recognized one of those wise souls sitting at the table with me, and I gave thanks for it. She was also grieving the loss of her house and belongings, and yet holding a kind of centeredness and faith and wisdom and wholeness that made me think, you know, there are some things I want to learn from her in this journey ahead.
I'm speaking of one of Knox's current ruling elders, Tammy Millard.
Back In January of 2020, we would so often see Tammy with her husband Kyron, and their daughter Anya, here at Knox for worship, sitting together.
Anya was part of our confirmation program at that time, and Kyron was one of the adult sponsors for our confirmance.
And then on February 2nd of that year, 2020, at the age of 50, Kyron was out mountain biking one day, and we think he suffered a cardiac arrest.
And that day he was gonna. As I sat down with Tammy and Anya to plan Chiron's memorial service, I could only imagine what it was like to face that kind of trial in your life and to wonder, where do I now get my footing now that this pillar, this pillar is gone?
Where do I stand? How do I get my equilibrium.
At Kyron's memorial service, I heard Tammy answer that question. When she stood up to speak, she talked about Chiron in a way that she was entering fully into the grief of that loss, but was also holding the joy of having known life with him.
She was grieving and recognizing with eyes wide open the hardness of the world and of the losses we face. And she was giving thanks to God for the joy of life with him, of life with God, and of life with a community that was so big and so much wanted to surround her that we couldn't even all fit in here. We had to have it over at Pasadena Presbyterian Church because they have a bigger sanctuary.
That's the level of support she had.
Well, Tammy not only remained active in her faith, but bravely took on the role of elder here at Knox in January of 2023 and in so many of the devotionals in she would share with our board. Clearly this was someone who had known simply loss, but joy too. Joy of rich life with God, church and community, and honesty with the difficulties.
And then about a month later she posted this on her Facebook page and was kind enough to give me permission to share it with you.
Last February, she wrote, I was really contending with my deep longing for companionship. My friends kept telling me to go on the dating apps for which I thought was a terrible idea, so I quietly signed up for one and gave myself permission to give it a solid try only so I could tell those well meaning friends that it didn't work and make them shut up.
Two weeks in I was matched with Carl.
My first and only meeting with someone from that app was him and we decided on a coffee shop a few miles from where I was living at the time. Carl was was wonderful from the start. He was warm, authentic and curious.
The woman sitting next to us acted as if she was working diligently on her laptop and she was eavesdropping the whole time. We knew it and why wouldn't she? We were clearly vibing and connecting in a deep way.
Oh my, how the heart has this mysterious capacity to expand and love more.
I held on to joy with shaky hands, knowing that sometimes the most precious things to hold feel fragile in my grasp.
On January 7, she goes on to write, the Santa Ana winds began to blow and I said to Carl, I hate these bad things happen when they come.
But no one expected the war zone like destruction of our homes and our town. I often mentally scan each room, nook and cranny of my former house and recall everything that burned down to nothing.
The butterfly pictures, the oak bench that were from my grandparents home, the dining room table Kyron built for us.
I could go on.
I know that I'm stronger than the first time I had to rebuild my life in 2020. I have more skills and know how for this and I am no longer alone.
But I've had moments when I thought this is the thing that's going to take me down for good. I can't do this again.
How does the heart hold the memory and loss of the past and the present, of new love, new partnership and the building of a new future?
Carl and I have both wondered about how we could navigate this.
An event like this can create deep fissures and a bond, but we are finding that we are becoming stronger together.
There is still laughing and dancing and dreaming happening in the space of unimaginable disruption, chaos and loss.
As many of you know, just a few weeks ago those two were married.
And Tammy would be here today, but she's off with Carl on a wonderful trip to Europe.
Friends, when Paris most come your way, may you see not only the suffering and loss and difficulty, real as those are, may you also see the hand that's holding you. May you see the hands that are there for you. And with that, may you find strength for love and mercy, justice and compassion. May you even find joy.
In the name of the Father, Son and Holy Ghost, Amen.
