Sunday, September 9, 2018

Walking Our Talk


Scriptures:     Deuteronomy 4:1-2, 6-9                    Psalm 15
James 1:17-27                        Mark 7:1-8, 14-23



I’ll start off with an old Sunday School song:
                If you’re happy and you know it, clap your hands
                If you’re happy and you know it, clap your hands
                If you’re happy and you know it, then your life will surely show it
                If you’re happy and you know it, clap your hands
               
“If you’re happy and you know it, then your life will surely show it.”  This song, and this line, may give us an opening into the letter of James, which we’ll be reading this month.  James was one of the brothers of Jesus, and he eventually became leader of the early church in Jerusalem.  While the letter of James covers a number of topics, the main theme is that faith leads to action – that if we’re followers of Jesus, then our lives will surely show it.

This letter that we’ll be reading over the course of the next month is the only writing we have from James – but we have many letters of Paul in the New Testament.  And I think there’s a tendency to give the letter of James a little bit of side-eye, a little bit of suspicion, because it seems to conflict with Paul’s teaching that salvation comes through faith, and not through works.  And this apparent conflict may reflect some differences that Paul and James themselves experienced.   James was the Lord’s brother, and like Jesus himself and most of the early disciples was a Jew.  The church he led in Jerusalem was composed mostly of Jewish converts to the way of Jesus, and many of them still held to the Jewish ceremonial law – rules around eating and sacrifices and such.  Paul was called to faith in Jesus in a vision.  While he was also a Jew, he found his calling in bringing the Gospel to Gentile believers, and did not impose the Jewish ceremonial law on these Gentile converts.  This was a cause for controversy, and at one point Paul and Barnabas, along with Titus, a gentile convert, met with James and some of the other apostles, Peter and John among them, in Jerusalem.  Among Biblical scholars, this is referred to as the Jerusalem council, and was a turning point in the life of the early church.  At this council, it was agreed that the Gentile converts did not have to follow the Jewish ceremonial law in its entirety, though they did impose a few requirements.  This council is described in Acts chapter 15, as well as the 2nd chapter of Galatians.  It’s interesting to read both of these accounts, because they are very different – Acts chapter 15 sounds like minutes from a church meeting, with peace and harmony prevailing, while Paul’s account in Galatians is edgier, with Paul sounding defensive and even a little adversarial.   And so Paul and James represented different constituencies – Paul was apostle to the Gentiles, while James’ place was among the Jewish believers.  While they held the same faith, they communicated their faith in different ways to their respective congregations to whom they ministered.

While there are differences between Paul’s and James’ writings, I don’t want to over-emphasize them.  James certainly lived by his faith – he only insisted that a true and saving faith would inevitably result in action.  And Paul of all people had no problems putting his faith into action, and instructing others to do so – after all, he traveled most of the known world of the time in preaching the Gospel, encountering hardship and persecution at every step of the way.  In fact, as Paul traveled, he took up a collection to support the church in Jerusalem that James led!  So while they had their differences and their followers sometimes clashed, Paul and James fully respected and supported one another.  And both Paul and James were martyred for the faith in Christ that they shared. 

I think part of the reason that the letter of James is undervalued, at least in the Protestant denominations, is because Martin Luther felt that the letter of James undermined his interpretation of Paul’s writings on justification by faith through grace.   The Roman Catholic church of Luther’s time taught that by purchasing indulgences, believers could reduce their time in purgatory – indulgences were sort of a get of out of jail card, though they surely weren’t free.  In preaching against this teaching, Luther taught that justification, rightness with God, came through faith in Jesus Christ, as a free gift.  The letter of James sounded to Luther a bit like trying to earn salvation, and so he looked down on the letter, famously calling it “a right strawy epistle.”  Now, the faith that both Paul and Luther wrote about was a total reliance, total trust, in Jesus, totally throwing oneself on the mercy of Jesus.  And James would agree, only insisting that if we truly trust Jesus, our actions will reflect that trust.  But over the centuries, Protestants in particular have watered down Luther’s teaching to the point of saying that merely holding correct ideas about Jesus in one’s head, merely being able to memorize and recite a creed, was enough to be saved, no matter how one lived – and lots of churches teach this today. 

It’s likely that even some of Paul’s converts were circulating similar notions, centuries before Luther’s reformation.  In fact, some of these notions – that so long as we “believe in Jesus”, it doesn’t matter how we live - show up in Paul’s letters to the Corinthians – and Paul wrote to oppose them.  It’s exactly this notion – faith as head knowledge and nothing more, faith as being able to memorize a creed and nothing more – that James was writing against.  James writes about God’s grace, saying “Every generous act of giving, with every perfect gift, is from above, coming down from the Father of Lights, with whom there is no variation or shadow due to change. In fulfillment of his own purpose he gave us birth by the word of truth, so that we would become a kind of first fruits of his creatures.”   These beautiful words are all about God’s grace.  But then James goes on:  “You must understand this, my beloved: let everyone be quick to listen, slow to speak, slow to anger, for your anger does not produce God’s righteousness.  Therefore rid yourselves of all sordidness and rank growth of wickedness, and welcome with meekness the implanted word that has the power to save your souls.  But be doers of the word, and not merely hearers who deceive themselves.”   Be doers, not just hearers.  Anyone can come to church and hear the word.  But it takes a true believer to act on that word, to take the word outside the church and live it out in our lives. 

Lest we think James is leading us astray, Jesus says much the same in our Gospel reading today.  Jesus’ disciples were eating food with unwashed hands, and the Pharisees were scolding them because that went against their tradition.  Of course, washing our hands before we eat is healthy, and we were al taught as children to wash our hands before we eat…but the Pharisees attached a religious meaning to the washing of hands and utensils beyond whatever health benefits it brought.  While it sounds a bit arcane and archaic to us today, in our context we might think of foodies who chastise others for eating food that’s not organically grown, or that’s not vegan or such….while eating healthy is in itself commendable and good for us, we get into trouble spiritually when we look down on others who eat differently.  And Jesus came right back at them, questioning some of their own traditions that contradicted the plain word of the commandment to honor one’s father and mother.  But then Jesus went on to tell them a parable that was a sort of riddle:  It’s not what goes into a person that defiles him, but what comes out of a person.  The disciples didn’t understand him, and so Jesus told them – what goes into you – what you eat – can’t defile you – it just goes in one end and out the other.  But it is what comes out of a person – not referring to what goes into the toilet, but the evil actions that come out of an evil person’s heart and mind that defile a person, that drag a person down and make them less than what God intended, and Jesus gives us quite a list – fornication, theft, murder, adultery, greed, wickedness, deceit, licentiousness, envy, slander, pride, foolishness.  And so Jesus was very concerned, not only with belief, but with actions – because our actions reveal our true beliefs. 

“Be doers of the word, and not hearers only.”  In connection with this passage, I read a story this week about heaven.  A person died and went to the pearly gates, and St Peter let the person in, and one of the angels gave the person a tour.  As the person was checking out the sights, the angel led him to an enormous chest of drawers.  The angel pulled out one of the drawers, and inside the drawer were a multitude of ears.  Understandably, the man was puzzled and a little taken back.  The angel explained, these are the ears of people who went to church every week and listened to the sermon, but never acted on anything they heard – and so when they died, only their ears went to heaven. 

Bottom line, for James and for Jesus:  we can’t separate our faith from our actions, because our actions reveal what we truly believe in and who or what we truly trust.  I’ve said before and will say now – if you want to know what you truly believe in, look at your checkbook, your credit card statement, and your calendar – because how we spend our money and our time reveals our true priorities.   A person who has built up an enormous investment portfolio but does nothing to help those less fortunate has faith in gold, not in God, no matter how often they attend church.  A person who steals from other people, who lies and gossips about other people, who attacks other people verbally or physically, who uses other people and then throws them away, who feels a need to put themselves first in every situation, trusts only in their own ability to get over on other persons – and thus has no real trust in God, because a person who trusts in God doesn’t feel the need to get over on other people. 

There are two theological words that might help us to put Paul and James in perspective:  justification and sanctification.  Justification is being made right with God, which comes through the saving work of Jesus Christ on the cross.  But sanctification is being set apart for God, being made holy, being made more Christ-like, which also comes through the saving work of God – and is the work of a lifetime.  And what I’m about to say is an oversimplification, but it may help us remember:  Put simply, justification says that through the work of Jesus Christ, God loves us, just as we are.  But sanctification says that, through the saving work of Jesus Christ, God loves us too much to let us stay that way.  Let me repeat that again:  God loves us, just the way we are.  But God loves us too much to let us stay that way.  God loves us, just the way we are.  God loves us too much to let us stay that way.  For me, that’s the bottom line of the letter of James.

“Be doers of the word, and not merely hearers who deceive themselves,” James wrote.  At the beginning of this sermon, I saing, “If you’re happy and you know it, then your life will surely show it.”  And the message of James is like that – ‘If we’re faithful and we know it, then our lives will surely show it.”  May our lives reflect our faith in Christ.  In the words of the old campfire song, may they know we are Christians by our love.  Amen.




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