I have a very close, long-time friend by the name of Jim. The problem is that his son is also named Jim. When his son and our son were growing up together, it was simple to identify Jim the son from Jim the father by calling him “Little Jimmy.” But now, “Little Jimmy” is bigger than “Big Jim,” and has a son of his own named Little Jimmy, and so the whole thing gets rather confusing. I have no idea what they do at family reunions. Their family is sort of like that group of Twelve apostles.
I. THERE ARE AT LEAST FIVE MEN NAMED “JAMES” IN THE NEW TESTAMENT.
It would help if the Bible gave them designations, as does my “Interpreter’s Dictionary of the Bible:” James I, II, III, IV, V, sort of like Kings of England! In all four lists of the Twelve in the New Testament, James, the son of Alphaeus, always holds the ninth place. Wouldn’t you like that? Always to come in ninth? Or even second? During a sports event, when the TV camera pans among the players, they are usually shown holding up one finger. “We’re number one!” Nobody holds up two fingers: “We’re number two.” And you can be sure that nobody holds up nine fingers and says, “We’re number nine!” In the history of advertising, Avis Rent-A-Car was the first company to make it seem desirable not to be number one. “We are number two,” they said, “we try harder.” The implication was that because they were number two, we might receive better service from them. I don’t know if that is true or not, but is a fascinating idea. Still, very few people set out in life to come in second. George Bernard Shaw said that the hardest musical instrument to learn how to play is “second fiddle.” It is.
The Revised Standard Version (Mark 15:40) calls our hero of the morning “James the younger.” The Greek word actually means “the little.” He was evidently a man of short stature. Now, a great many of the world’s most outstanding leaders have been people of short stature. John Wesley was around five feet, four inches tall, and he started a religious revival which eventuated in the United Methodist Church. An older minister once said a very wise thing to me: “We are not all the same height, but before the Lord we are all on the same level.” He has always had to put up with people asking, “How’s the weather up there?” or, “Just how tall are you?” He liked to reply that he was five feet, seventeen inches tall. He liked to tell of one dear soul to whom he said that who replied, “I could have sworn you were more than six feet!” At any rate, our hero for this morning’s sermon was probably a man of short stature. “James the little,” he was called.
On the other hand, the phrase may well have had another meaning. The King James version refers to him as “James the less.” Wouldn’t you like to go through life being called “James the less?” This was probably to distinguish him from the more famous James, the son of ebedee, brother of John, who was one of the “Inner circle” of Jesus’ closest friends: Peter, James, and John. Thus he was “James, the less important.” Actually, he is the one apostle about whom we know the least. That is sort of fitting, isn’t it? He was the man whom history passed by. That is intriguing, but it makes it rather difficult to construct a sermon about him. The “inner three”—Peter James and John—we know a lot about. The “other James,” the “more important James,” we know a lot about. He was the Son of Zebedee and Simon Peter’s brother. He was with Jesus when He raised the daughter of Jairus. He ascended the mountain with Jesus and witnessed the Transfiguration. James the Greater went with Jesus into the Garden of Gethsemane. But absolutely nothing whatever is said about this other James, except that sometimes he is called “the son of Alphaeus.” Even that is a curious designation, for “Alphaeus” was a common Jewish name, meaning “substitute.” The name was given to a child who was a substitute for another child, previously deceased. Talk about having two strikes against you from birth!
Down through the centuries, the church has had problems identifying this man named James. The early church “fathers” (as they are called—I am sure there were church “mothers” but until recently they were neglected) identified James the Less with James, the son of Alphaeus. In Mark 15:40 he is referred to as the son of Mary. There are many Marys in the New Testament record, too. “Alphaeus” was identified as being the same as “Clopas” or “Cleopas,” so that he may have been one of the persons who met the risen Christ along the road to Emmaus, although this identification is by no means certain. More intriguing is the idea that this James was, in some way, a blood relative of Jesus. One author says: “The church fathers identified Alphaeus and Clopas and the two Marys of Mark 16:1 and John 1:25, and regarded James the less and Joses of Mark 15:40 as sons of Clopas and Mary. Having done this, they took the new departure of identifying James and Joses with the ‘brothers’ of Jesus bearing the same names.” (Emil G. Kraeling, THE DISCIPLES, Rand McNally & Co., 1966, pp. 190-191) They remembered that when Jesus visited His home town of Nazareth, the people asked, “Is not this the carpenter, the son of Mary and brother of James and Joses and Judas and Simon, and are not his sisters here with us?” (Mark 6:3)
Now, here is where the whole thing really gets muddied. Early in the life of the church, there arose the notion of the “perpetual virginity” of Mary, and thus these half-dozen or so “brothers and sisters” of Jesus could not really have been blood brothers and sisters, but were, instead “cousins,” or perhaps children of Joseph from a previous marriage...he having been a widower when he took Mary to wife. But the Gospels clearly state that they were “brothers and sisters” and that Jesus came from a rather large family. The Christmas account says of Mary: “And she gave birth to her first-born son and wrapped him in swaddling cloths, and laid him in a manger.” (Luke 2:7) A first-born assumes a second-born, and so on. Most Protestants have no problems with accepting the Scripture record which says that Jesus had brothers and sisters. The Gospel also records that the brothers of Jesus, led by James, were evidently embarrassed when Jesus set Himself up as a rabbi without the approval of the official Pharasaic schools. They even tried to get him to cease and desist and return home, believing that he was “beside himself.” (See Mark 3:21)
The fourth Gospel states flatly that Jesus’ “brothers did not believe in him.” We remember that on the cross the dying Jesus asked John, the beloved disciple, to look after His mother (John 19:26-27), indicating that His own brothers and sisters could not be relied upon to do so. Later on, however, the risen Christ appeared to James, the Lord’s brother, (I Cor. 15:7) and it was he, according to the most ancient tradition, who became the first leader (bishop) of the Church in Jerusalem after the death of Simon Peter. Granted, much of this is conjecture, but it is fascinating to speculate that perhaps our friend “Little Jimmy,” or “James the younger” as the RSV calls him, was not merely less than James the “more important” apostle, but may also have been the younger brother of Jesus Himself. Critics argue that he could not possibly have been the brother of Jesus, or the Gospel records would have indicated such. This may be true, but on the other hand, Jesus specifically rejected ties to Himself which were based on blood. He said: “Who are my mother and my brothers?...Whoever does the will of God is my brother, and sister, and mother.” (See Mark 3:31-35) And, as I said, there grew up in the early Church the notion that Mary and Joseph had no other children after Jesus was born, so it is understandable that the Gospel records might make no mention of his relationship to Jesus.
One may imagine that James had to put up with an inferiority complex all of his life. James was called “the less” because he was considered by the Gospel writers as less important than the other James, and he ranked ninth in every list of the Twelve. But he was there among them. Some folks, if they cannot have first place, won’t play the game at all. But not James. He was content to be where he was, content to do what had to be done. And to him, one can imagine Jesus’ words being addressed: “Well done, good and faithful servant, you have been faithful over a little, I will set you over much; enter into the joy of your master.” (Matthew 25:21)
II. JESUS TURNED THE WORLD’S VALUES UPSIDE-DOWN, DIDN’T HE?
Size and stature and outward appearance counted for little with Him. What counted was faithfulness. Remember the time that the other James’ mother came to Jesus with a request for her two sons, James and John? Presbyterian preacher Thomas C. Hilton says, “She did not yet have a clear conception of what the Christian movement was all about. (She) knew where the powerful seats of authority were in the world, but she did not understand the heavenly seating arrangement. Jesus told her that she didn’t know what she was asking. He said something like, ‘You’re a little confused, lady. There are going to be great people in the Christian movement. There are going to be people who are first-class Christians. There are going to be desirable positions, but none of these are according to the world’s values. You want your boys seated in the first chair. It would be better if they played second fiddle....’ In other words, what is great in the world will not automatically be great in the Church, and what is great in the Church will not be great in the world.” (Clergy Journal, August, 1987, p. 31) The standards of the Church will not necessarily be the same as the standards of the world. Those who exalt themselves will be put down, and those who abase themselves will be exalted. Jesus noticed that the rest of the Twelve were listening with great interest. They were probably hostile, wondering who James and John’s mother thought she was, making such a request. So Jesus told them the basic Christian paradox: “Whoever would be great among you must be your servant, and whoever would be first among you must be your slave.” That seemed as strange to them back then as it seems to us here today. Do you imagine that when people today say, “We’re number one,” they mean, “We want to be slaves?” Do you think that an ambitious businessperson striving to be great or a politician striving for high office wants to be servant to anyone? Yet Jesus said that the greatest people will be the best servants. Greater is the one who serves a hundred, than the one who has a hundred servants. Harry S. Truman said that when he stepped down from the Presidency, he was really stepping up. The President works for the people, and therefore, it is the people who are boss. So he was stepping up to the high rank of “citizen”—higher than any other. G. K. Chesterton said every clergyperson should start out as bishop and work his way up to parish priest! The great theologian Karl Barth wrote millions of words and hundreds of volumes, but said that the one who emptied his wastebasket may well be closer to God than he, for “the one who is great must be servant of all.” (Matthew 13:11)
What do servants and slaves do? They obey their master. They wait on other people. They meet other people’s needs. They minister to those in want. They feed the hungry, clothe the naked, heal the sick. They spend their lives in service to others, for life is not given to us to hoard, but to spend—for God and for others. And you cannot separate the two, for “as you did it to one of the least of these...you did it unto me.” (Matthew 25:40) They do not seek first their own comfort, security, or pleasure, but seek the comfort of others. They are not doormats, but neither are they dictators. They know who they are, and Whose they are, and are content with that.
III. AFTER ALL, SIZE IS NOT AN INDICATION OF IMPORTANCE. As we have seen, Jesus came from Nazareth, which was on nobody’s list of “ten most important towns” in Galilee. It was, in fact, a little hick town on the road to nowhere. A common folk saying of the day asked, “Can any good thing come out of Nazareth?” But size is not what counts. Service is. Emerson has a poem in which a squirrel says to a mountain: “If I cannot carry forests on my back/ Neither can you crack a nut.”
The important thing about any of us is not our size or importance in the world’s eyes, but our willingness to be used by God for His purposes in the world. Most of the work of the world is done not by “ten-talent” people who get their names in the newspapers, but by two-talent people who use what talents they have for their Lord. God is far more interested in our availability than in our capability. And so we have the story of “Little Jimmy,” the apostle who always came in ninth in the list of the Twelve, but whose name was written there, and whose name is written down in glory!
In the comic strip “Peanuts,” Charlie Brown held up his hands before Lucy, and proudly said, “These are hands which may someday accomplish great things... These are hands which may someday do marvelous works. They may build mighty bridges, or heal the sick, or hit homeruns, or write soul-stirring novels! These are hands which may someday change the course of human destiny!” To which Lucy replies: “They’ve got jelly on them!” Well, of course they do! We all have jelly on our hands. Nobody’s perfect. Everybody’s got a handicap, an imperfection of one kind or another. But we are called to be God’s children, here and now. There is an old saying: “I am only one; but I am one. I cannot do everything, but I can do something. And what I can do, I ought to do; and what I ought to do, I will do...with the help of God.” James may have been “the little,” or “the less,” and we may not know much about just exactly who he was, but he knew who he was, and Whose he was. He was one of the Twelve, a disciple of the Lord Jesus Christ. And that was all that mattered.
When Christian Herter was running hard for reelection as Governor of Massachusetts, one day he arrived late for a barbecue. He’d had no breakfast or lunch, and he was famished. As he moved down the serving line, he held out his plate and received one piece of chicken. The Governor said to the serving woman, “Excuse me, do you mind if I get another piece of chicken? I am very hungry.” “Sorry, I’m supposed to give one piece to each person,” the woman replied. “But I’m starved,” he repeated, and again she said, “Only one to a customer.” Herter was normally a modest man, but he decided that this was the time to use the weight of his office, and said, “Madam, do you know who I am? I am the governor of this state.” “Do you know who I am?” she answered, “I’m the lady in charge of the chicken. Move along, mister.” There was a person who knew who she was and wasn’t about to be intimidated. May each of us know who we are—and Whose we are. We are Christ’s, and Christ is God’s. Amen.