Faith that Works

Faith that Works, a sermon series for the Fall from the book of James, week 1 of 4, preached Sep 8, 2024

Question of the Day

A few weeks ago, we asked the question, "What does faith mean to you?” Today, the question is similar, but different. Today’s question is, “What does it mean to be faithful?” Feel the difference? Let’s group up in 2s or 3s, take a few minutes, and wonder with one another “What does it mean to be faithful?” Ready, Go!

Context

Today, we are starting a new four-week sermon series, “Faith that Works.” Our scripture these four Sundays in September will be from the book of James, in the New Testament. Before we read and preach…

Prayer for Illumination

Let’s pray… God as we open your word, may it open us. As we read your word, may it read us. And may the words of my mouth and our minds and hearts point all things to you. Amen? Amen.

Scripture               James 2:1-18

2 My brothers and sisters, do not claim the faith of our Lord Jesus Christ of glory while showing partiality. 2 For if a person with gold rings and in fine clothes comes into your assembly, and if a poor person in dirty clothes also comes in, 3 and if you take notice of the one wearing the fine clothes and say, “Have a seat here in a good place, please,” while to the one who is poor you say, “Stand (over) there,” or, “Sit (there on the floor),” 4 haven’t you made distinctions among yourselves and become judges with evil thoughts?

5 Listen, my beloved brothers and sisters. Hasn’t God chosen the poor in the world to be rich in faith and to be heirs of the kingdom that God has promised to those who love God? 6 But you have dishonored the poor person(s). Isn’t it the well-off who oppress you? Is it not they who drag you into courts? 7 Is it not they who blaspheme the excellent name that was invoked over you?

8 If you really fulfill the royal law according to the scripture, “You shall love your neighbor as yourself,” you do well. 9 But, if you show partiality, you commit sin and are convicted by the law as transgressors. 10 For whoever keeps the whole law but fails in one point has become accountable for (failing) all of it. 11 The one who said, “You shall not commit adultery,” also said, “You shall not murder.” Now if you do not commit adultery but you (do) murder, you have become a transgressor of[a] the law. 12 So speak and so act as those who are to be judged by the (whole) law of liberty. 13 For judgment will be without mercy to anyone who has shown no mercy; mercy triumphs over judgment.

14 What good is it, my brothers and sisters, if someone claims to have faith but does not have works? Surely that faith cannot save, can it? 15 If a brother or sister is naked and lacks daily food 16 and one of you says to them, “Go in peace; keep warm and eat your fill,” and yet you do not supply their bodily needs, what is the good of that? 17 So faith by itself, if it has no works, is dead.

18 Now someone will say, “You have faith, and I have works.” (Try to) Show me your faith apart from works, and by my works, I will show you faith.

This too is the word of God for the people of God… (Thanks be to God)

Sermon                Faith that Works

James is only one book in the New Testament, and it barely made it. Some heard James as disagreeing with Paul, the author of most of the New Testament, and Martin Luther when he was struggling and studying the Latin and Greek manuscripts resisted James the most, calling it an Epistle of Straw, because he felt it contradicted Paul’s theology on the saving grace of God through faith. But let’s go back a bit, before James, before Paul, before Jesus.

Before Jesus, there was a way to get right with God. The Hebrew scriptures, the law told us the way. The religious professionals read and understood the law, the Torah, and then taught the people what the scriptures said and required, and then they judged whether or not people were obedient enough. This system depended on the scriptures expressing God’s will, and the priest’s judgment of as a reflection of God’s judgment.

Then Jesus begins preaching from those same scriptures, but undermining traditional beliefs and practices. He would say things like, “You have heard it said you shall not murder,” and everyone would nod along, “Yeah, of course.” Then, Jesus would say, “but I say to you, if you attack in anger, or confront with insults, or gossip about someone, you are just as liable as if you murdered them.” They caught him healing on the Sabbath, and eating with tax collectors, so they accuse Jesus of changing scriptures. But he says, “No, I am explaining them and living them for what they have always meant.”

The religious leaders read the scriptures, the law, literally, and missed the spirit, and in so doing, put themselves in a place of power and judgment over others. Jesus was saying do not think or believe that the law, the scriptures, were ever meant to give some power over others, or to draw clean clear lines between in and out people, good and bad people. They were meant to humble everyone and bring everyone back toward God and one another. The killed and buried Jesus, and after he rose again, they hunted and tortured and killed any who continued to follow him.

Now Paul. Paul was once Saul, one of those religious leaders, a staunch enforcer of those distorted laws on the people of the early church. Until, one day, Jesus confronted Saul, and as a result, Saul changed his name to Paul, and he changed his beliefs and his actions. Instead of defending the law, persecuting disobedient Jews, blocking Gentiles, Paul became a defender of Christ’s way and a reconciler of all Jews AND Gentiles. Paul writes this in Romans 3:

“21 …now, apart from the law, the righteousness of God has been disclosed, and is attested (to) by the Law and the Prophets, 22 the righteousness of God through the faithfulness of Jesus Christ for all who believe. Now, there is no distinction, 23 since all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God; 24 they are now justified by God’s grace, as a gift, through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus… 28 (therefore) we hold that a person is justified by faith apart from works prescribed by the law… 31 Are we then overturning the law through this faith? By no means! On the contrary, we are upholding the law.”

Paul spent 20 years saying things like this to Jewish and Gentile communities all around the Mediterranean. Scripture, torah, the law are still important but cannot be fulfilled by our works of the law. They are instead fulfilled for us as a gift of God by Christ’s faith, Christ’s faithfulness.

It was a tough sell. New communities were and Jews who had certain beliefs and rituals around cleanliness, food, marriage, were in the same community with Gentiles who knew nothing of these Jewish beliefs and customs and had their own practices. Paul said Gentiles did not have to conform to Jewish beliefs and customs, that we should somehow defer to one another. Most of Paul’s letters were trying to help these new diverse communities hold fast and stay together.

But some heard what Paul said, and assumed he meant… the only thing that matters is faith, so as long as we believe, we’re good. Paul had always spoken against this kind of misunderstanding, like in Romans 6: “Can we sin because we are not under law but under grace? Certainly NOT!” But people of faith would say they believe, and then go on with their lives, doing or not doing whatever felt right to them, as if only faith matters, not works.

Finally, James. James sees this happening in Christian communities. Wealthy are dividing themselves from the poor, and aren’t sharing with those without enough. People were judging one another by race, class, status and not being one reconciled community anymore. So, James steps forward and says some bold things.

“You aren’t the big beautiful diverse family of God. You are inviting and welcoming well-to-do people, but ignoring or looking down on needy people. Aren’t the wealthier in this world more likely to bend rules, and judge themselves as deserving and others as lazy? That’s not what the way of Jesus. The new way is there shall be NO partiality, no special treatment or excuses for the wealthy and no special judgment or expectations on the poor. Here, we show mercy first, and if we don’t, we are liars, breakers of the whole law. Don’t pretend you agree, then not change anything. If you say you trust God has blessed you with the gift of grace, sprinkled you with the faithfulness of Christ, then show it. Don’t offer thoughts and prayers to someone who is hurting, sick, scared, alone, hungry, cold, confused, and DO nothing. If all you offer is thoughts and prayers without doing something, whatever faith you say you have is dead. I’d rather someone tell me nothing, and let me watch them do something. Then I will see what they believe.”

This week, there was a mass shooting at Apalachee High School in Winder, GA, Barrow County. Jill used to teach at Winder Barrow High School, another high school in that same county. Many of Jill’s former colleagues have transferred to Apalachee. Some of her students may have been rezoned into Apalachee. Two of Jill’s friends that have visited us here the last two years are an assistant principal and a math teacher at Apalachee. Some members at my last church live in Winder, and have children in that school system, and at least one was on campus that day.

When I was a pastor in Georgia, I wrote an article for the local paper opposing a proposed state bill that would allow guns on college campuses, and in churches, and in bars, and would allow teachers to arm themselves in classrooms. I got some thank-yous and support from plenty in my congregation and beyond for resisting the growth of weaponry into vulnerable spaces. I also got some considerable pushback, some of it quite nasty. Online comments and some emails came that expressed people’s unhappiness with me, or disappointment, or even anger. Most of those comments or emails, I didn’t write back to. I had a few conversations with upset members who wanted me to stay in my lane, the lane of faith not “politics.” But isn’t politics sometimes where our faith becomes works?

One person in an online comment had a different issue. He wondered how any Christian pastor wouldn’t want to make sure everyone was safe. I did write back to that one… “if pastors are supposed to be like Jesus and invite everyone to be more like Jesus, well, did Jesus take up weapons himself, or encourage all his followers to arm themselves and defend themselves, or did Jesus do everything in his power to keep himself and his people safe from those with weapons? No he did not, and I believe his way is better.” He wrote back, something like, “we aren’t Jesus” and “we can’t live in that naïve world.” I didn’t engage deeper and tried to let it go, but ten years later, I obviously haven’t, yet.

See, there’re plenty of faithful people who see church as a place of faith, as in beliefs and thoughts, but aren’t sure we should be involved too deeply in the problems and dangers of the world. Some faithful people want church to be a safe place, a sanctuary, a retreat for us from the divisiveness and dangers of the world. So please preacher, don’t talk about those kind of things in here.

I do think church, as Jesus, Paul, and James imagine, is meant to be safe, a sanctuary, but not just for us, not just for some people, but for ALL people and especially for those in greatest need. Church is meant to be a place of faith, where we study and learn and remember what faithfulness really looks like, in Jesus, and we are welcome here to recharge and rest and recuperate and refresh. Yes, healthy faithful church is all of that.

And church is also our launching pad to go back into the world and DO things, faithful works that make the broken divisive dangerous world be more like the naïve world, more like God’s Kingdom. Faith that works takes risks and confronts evil and brings justice, not with swords, not eye for an eye, but with loving kindness and steadfast mercy, until those are again the greatest laws of our land.

There are very faithful people witnessing over and over again this horrendous violence barging into schools, or mosques, or black churches, or outdoor concerts, and because many do not know what to do, people of sincere faith find themselves saying “thoughts and prayers.” The Governor of Georgia used that exact phrase, “Our thoughts and prayers are with this school and community…” It might be faithful to say such a thing. When I hear it, I try to give the benefit of the doubt, that this is being said in good faith.

But I wonder, will the politicians, and parents, and gun manufacturers and 2nd Amendment defenders ever take real faithful action? If I or the governor of Georgia or anyone says “thoughts and prayers” in faith, then doesn’t do something, James, the scripture is saying the faith behind THOSE words and intentions is dead.

A church of Jesus doesn’t need to believe IN Jesus as much as we need to BELIEVE Jesus. His way of doing life together is the better way. His understanding of who God is and what God wants from us IS the better way. Our faith then is not measured by our rituals or traditions, our liturgies and prayers, but by our willingness to put his gift of faith into works, words and actions that make the world more and more like the Kingdom of God he described.

Do we believe there are guns in God’s kingdom? Do we believe there will be metal detectors and door guards in God’s kingdom? Do we believe there will be homeless and hungry in God’s kingdom? Do we believe there will be children, teachers, and parents having nightmares from the trauma of violence in God’s kingdom? As Paul said, certainly not. And as Jame said, if we say we have faith and do nothing our faith is dead.

So, church, will our faith be staunch, proud, and dead, or will our faithfulness be a faith that gets to work making every school, every community more like the Kingdom of God?

Prayer

To God be all glory and honor, now and forever more. Amen? Amen.

Charge

Benediction

Now blessing, laughter, and loving be yours, and may the love of a great God who names you and holds you as the earth turns and the flowers grow be with you this day, this night, this moment, and forever more. Amen? Amen.