Heavenly-minded; Earthly-good

The messages in Scripture so often work on two different levels: the practical and the spiritual. As humans, we have our struggles and tasks to handle within each given day. God on the other hand works from the divine realm, and we have little sense of what all that is about. The Prophets of the Hebrew Scriptures were interpreters of God’s plans and messages for people seeking a righteous path.

With the coming of Jesus, everything was in a new framework of God’s involvement in the human realm. One of Jesus’s relatives, James (the Just) of Jerusalem came to be one of the important leaders in the Apostolic age. The Epistle of James is attributed to him. He gives practical messages about how the Christian community should conduct itself. You may have heard the jibe, “Try not to be so heavenly-minded that you are no earthly good.” The practical track of James is that we are heavenly-minded, yet plenty earthly-good to others.

Be patient, therefore, beloved, until the coming of the Lord. The farmer waits for the precious crop from the earth, being patient with it until it receives the early and the late rains. You also must be patient. Strengthen your hearts, for the coming of the Lord is near. Beloved, do not grumble against one another, so that you may not be judged. See, the Judge is standing at the doors! As an example of suffering and patience, beloved, take the prophets who spoke in the name of the Lord. (James 5:7-10)

We have finite minds that operate in the temporal, spatial reality of the world. We often can’t know what God is up to. God is the maker of the cosmos; we are a single species of creatures.  We reside on one tiny bb in a single solar system among countless other systems in one galaxy among countless others. Major shirts are not our call. Ours is to be patient, strengthened, and kind toward one another. God oversees the Grand Scheme. For us, how we conduct ourselves is nearly more than we can handle except with God’s help. We know only bits about the weather and the timing of the rains. We surely can’t know the timing of the Lord’s return.

James reminds us to stay on track, that is, stay in our lane. God generously mixes heavenly, spiritual modalities in with our track as well. It comes about by the divine mystery: that the Son of God came to live among us and sent us the Holy Spirit. We may be tiny creatures living on a tiny blue bb, but God’s love is immense. The Creator values us incalculably. By grace, God greatly loves the minuscule likes of us. We must gladly attend to the practical work of living in harmony, with patient and strong hearts.