Good question, Patti, and different people would no doubt give different yet equally considerable answers. I think a lot of the way I would answer has to do with responsibility and priority as well as available resources. Not everything is up to each one of us to do. The main responsibility for the trash would lie with the one who put it there. If you have the time (and rubber gloves?) to pick it up, or a special concern for litter, then by all means go ahead, but I don’t think you are obligated to do so.
As far as dealing with people, I think that if a difficult person wants my time at a particular time but I’ve been having a hard day, it would be wise to ask them to see me another time. As far as greeting the boorish person, that probably doesn’t require too much, but if they persist in rude conversation, then I might excuse myself and move on. I don’t think that avoiding a potentially difficult situation is always bad; it depends on the situation. However, I don’t think a person is obligated to answer a solicitor’s call.
I do struggle at times over right vs. polite too, and may err on the side of being either too polite or not polite enough depending on the situation. I think that we are obliged to be kind, yet kind is not always polite. And polite is not always right.
I think the statement from James has to do with knowing the right thing to do but not doing it, whether from fear, or pride, or whatever. If, when trying to decide what’s right, I fear what someone may think of me, or think of justifying myself in some way, then my judgment will be skewed. If my decision is based on what I really think is right, though, in my deepest of consciences and according to what I know of God and Scripture, then I’m (hopefully) closer to actually doing the right thing.
Hi Pat
I think this passage in James is more about a process then a simple or not so simple right or wrong. None of us live without sin. But as Christians we all grow, learn, and change thus the process. It's not so much if you pick up the trash or not answer the phone as it is about a commitment to God to change our old nature for new. If I remember my Bible history in this verse James was addressing traveling Jewish merchants that were rich and the next chapter of James was directed about how they were living their life in a corrupt fashion. James’ whole book is directed at evaluating works not faith which gives us a sort of road map on improving who we are in God’s Light by doing the right thing because it is right or because it is our nature to do so and not being lead by a guilty conscious.
You Brother in the Word Mitch
