Trinity Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.)
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“Faith by itself, if it has no works, is dead.”
That’s rather a hard saying, isn’t it:
Jesus himself never said anything quite like that …
or at least, the gospels don’t record anything like it.
But then, Jesus was addressing
a different group of people and a different situation
during his ministry
than James was facing with this letter.
Jesus had to argue mostly with the Pharisees,
and with people taught by the Pharisees,
and whose religious life was mostly controlled by
the beliefs and rules of the Pharisees.
And they believed,
the main thing that mattered was whether you kept the Law.
The most important thing
was to keep the commandments.
Not just the ten commandments we all know about,
but the hundreds of others in the Old Testament,
governing everything from what you can eat
to who you can associate with
to how many steps you can walk on the Sabbath,
For the Pharisee,
relationships with other human being were not all that important;
growing into a close relationship with God wasn’t particularly important.
As long as you obeyed the law,
you could know that you were on God’s good side.
So Jesus had to stop the Pharisees,
and say, wait a minute,
you’re getting this all backwards.
The Law was made for people,
not people for the Law.
God gave the Law to help people,
but you are using it to oppress them.
There is nothing wrong with keeping the law, Jesus said,
but the important thing is, faith in God.
And that faith is defined in terms of relationship:
to have faith in God is to place your trust in God,
to love God.
Somehow, many of the Jews of Jesus’ day
had lost sight of this.
And Jesus, in his teaching,
tries to steer them back onto the right course.
It appears, though, that James
was facing almost the exact opposite situation.
He seems to have been writing to people
who had faith, had a relationship with God,
but had perhaps grown a little bit smug about it.
People whose faith had somehow had the effect
of distancing them from other people.
James describes how they have “made distinctions among [them]selves,”
and ”shown favoritism.”
Some of them have apparently even taken it so far
that when they see someone who is cold and hungry,
their response is to say,
“Go in peace;
keep warm and eat your fill,”
and leave it at that.
It’s clear from James’ words
that he is shocked by this behavior.
How can you say that you have faith, he asks them,
when there are no works coming forth from you?
You may genuinely believe that you have faith,
but if it hasn’t led you to do good works,
then it is dead.
A hard saying indeed.
For them, and… for us as well.
We all have faith, at least to some degree,
or we wouldn’t be here.
And our faith leads us to many good intentions …
but, we all know how hard it truly is
to take those good intentions
and turn them into action.
We know the old saying about
which road it is that’s paved with good intentions!
For us, as for the readers or hearers of James’s letter,
the faith we profess must somehow be borne out
in our deeds, our actions, our works.
We must make the connection between
our mouths and our bodies.
I think this is one thing
that’s so terribly difficult about teaching,
especially in the church.
It’s not enough just to know and to talk about the faith …
a teacher also has to live his or her faith.
And we have to do it right there in front of
that class of children or adults we have been called to teach.
And that is many times more difficult.
If I’m teaching a class of children that “God loves us,”
but every time they misbehave I yell at them …
my actions have completely drowned out my words.
If I prepare a lesson for a group of adults on God’s forgiveness,
and how that frees us to forgive others,
but everyone in the room knows that I’m mad at someone else in the room
for a terrible thing they said or did,
then my mouth and my body have become disconnected,
and need a little divine repair work.
Teachers want to be, and need to be,
the very best they can be, all the time …
but they are no less human than the rest of us!
There is no question that it is very, very hard
always to practice what you teach … or preach.
And yet, we can’t be excused from it
simply because it’s not easy.
There is too much at stake.
Living out and acting out our faith
is of primary importance for every Christian person,
not only those who teach and preach.
If our faith is real,
it must be demonstrated.
But not, perhaps, for the reasons we sometimes think.
We talk about this frequently, but it bears repeating,
because it is so contrary to the way of the world.
The good works we do are not somehow for God’s benefit.
We don’t have to prove to God
whether we do or don’t have faith.
We cannot earn our way into God’s grace
no matter how many wonderful works we do,
or how great and influential any one of those works might be.
God knows what is in each of our hearts,
and God will relate to us on that basis.
But other people, who can’t see into our hearts in the same way God can …
the faith we proclaim and the good works we do
are for their benefit.
At a very obvious level, our works benefit
the people for whom we do them.
As James points out,
it doesn’t do any good for someone who is hungry and cold
if we simply say,
“Go in peace; keep warm and eat your fill.”
But we can begin to get our mouth and body connected,
if we give the person a blanket,
and/or take them to Oak Cliff Churches for Emergency Aid
to get some groceries.
And we’re really starting to be connected
if we invite the person into our house,
and feed them a hearty dinner,
and put ‘em up in the guest room,
and in the morning, take them to the Employment Commission,
or the Day Resource Center,
and help them arrange some ongoing care.
Sounds like that could be a bit risky, doesn’t it?!
It is …
Putting our faith into action in any way
involves a degree of risk.
And this particular risk may be one you’re not ready to take.
But, as anyone can tell you who has tried it,
the rewards of putting your faith into action
outweigh the risk.
Now, here’s a tricky aspect of our faith and works to watch out for.
Sometimes, prayer is a very good way
of putting our faith into action.
There are times and there are situations
where all we can do is pray for the people involved,
and for a happy outcome.
But it often happens that praying about a matter
becomes a substitute for getting involved.
We chuckle at images like,
a student spending time praying to pass a test,
when the time might be better spent studying for the test!
Praying for those who are hungry
is certainly a step above just saying,
“Go in peace; be warm and eat your fill,”
but it’s still a far cry from
feeding someone whose stomach is growling.
I remember a cartoon that I saw long ago
that brought this home to me:
Two friends are sitting, talking to one another,
and the first one says, “You know,
I’ve been doing a lot of thinking lately,
and there’s something I’d really like to ask God.”
“What’s that?” says his friend.
“Well,” says the first one,
“I’ve noticed that all over the world and even right here,
there are people who are starving, and people who have no home,
and people who are victims of injustice and war and disaster,
and I just wanted to ask God,
‘Why don’t you do something about it?’”
The friend says,
“That’s a really good question; why don’t you ask it?”
“Because,” the first one says,
“I’m afraid God might ask me the same question.”
Enough said.
Now, in addition to our good works
benefiting people who are in need,
they also have an effect on other people,
the ones who see us do the good deed.
Unfortunately, it always makes the news when
Christianity, or Christians, get discovered
doing some things we have preached against!
The Christian faith and message have lost credibility in some quarters,
and we have gained something of an unfortunate reputation as hypocrites.
Some people have decided that we must not believe
a whole lot of the things we say,
since we never actually do anything about them.
And at some times,
that’s a valid criticism.
There have been times when we as Christian people,
individually and corporately,
have not done what we believe and say.
It is an important part of our witness to the world
that we let others see us doing good works.
That we connect our bodies’ actions
to what our mouths are saying,
and so let our light shine.
And last, but certainly not least,
doing good works benefits us.
That’s a mysterious kind of thing,
because you find that when you give of yourself,
instead of having less, you have more.
That makes no sense at all,
but I hear it over and over again,
from people who volunteer at the hospital,
with Boy Scouts and Girl Scouts,
serving lunch at the Stewpot,
and so on, and so on.
It’s true that we give our time, and our skills,
and our energy, and also often our own money and resources as well …
But we find that we receive even more in return,
things we can’t even describe.
When our mouths and bodies are connected,
we benefit,
we learn and we grow,
we are blessed.
And, those who see us and learn are blessed.
And, those whom we help are blessed.
And God is glorified by our works.
Did you know that you could have that much influence?
By the grace of God, you can.
Just as Abraham, thousands of years ago,
was called to be a blessing to the nations …
so are we, the descendants of Abraham, also called.
Our faith lives … through our works.
Amen.