Faith in Action

Video of worship from the 16th Sunday after Pentecost at Holy Apostles, Hoover, AL

 

This sermon was preached on the 16^th Sunday after Pentecost (Proper 18B) at the Episcopal Church of the Holy Apostles. You may watch the video of this sermon by clicking here. The readings which inspired the sermon were the following: 

 

Proverbs 22:1-2, 8-9, 22-23
Psalm 125
James 2:1-10, [11-13], 14-17
Mark 7:24-37

 

Holy God, let my words be your words and when my words are not your words, let your people be wise enough to know the same. Amen.

Beloved friends, this passage from the Letter of James confronts us with a powerful challenge: Can faith without action truly save us? By this I mean, will an inactive faith bring us into the fullness of Life in Christ? In our lives, it can be easy to speak of faith, to talk about love and mercy, but as James reminds us today, words alone will not reveal the kingdom of God in our midst. This is not a comfortable teaching, as it calls us to account for our actions—or, as James suggests, for our inactions.

We see in James's vivid imagery the practice of favoritism that has, sadly, plagued humanity for centuries. James was the half-brother of Jesus and was tasked with leading the nascent Church in Jerusalem after Christ ascended to the right hand of the Father. James led this community of the Way through challenging times, like the Romans’ destruction of the Temple. As a pastor, James saw first-hand the social distinctions of his day.

The one with gold rings and fine clothes is invited to sit at the place of honor, while the one in rags was told to sit at our feet or to stand in the back. Do we not see this same behavior today? We may be subtler about it; however, in our assemblies, in our workplaces, even in our churches—do we not sometimes give deference to those who appear more powerful or more well-off while overlooking those whom we deem less significant?

I think about the countless ways our society divides us. Wealth, race, education, and social status all play into this ugly game. Almost thoughtlessly we comply with the competitive nature of our society. We buy into a myth, a lie that says scarcity is the way, that life is all or nothing, you either win or you lose. But James holds up a mirror to us: “Have you not made distinctions among yourselves and become judges with evil thoughts?” God shows no partiality, and neither should we. In truth, James reminds us that God has chosen the poor to be rich in faith, heirs of the kingdom. If we dishonor them, we dishonor God’s own heart. This does not have to be our way. Instead of following the rulers of this world we may choose to follow Christ the King.

James urges us to fulfill Christ’s royal law. What’s the royal law? According to Christ Jesus: “You shall love your neighbor as yourself.” We already know this, but there’s something that may be harder to know or at least harder to admit: It’s easy to love the neighbor who looks like us, thinks like us, or lives like us. The real challenge, as James points out, is loving the neighbor who might make us uncomfortable—the one who calls us out of our bubbles of security and forces us to reckon with the brokenness in the world. This love requires us to go beyond sentiment; it calls us to action.

Fortunately for us in our hurting and broken world, there is a lot of action for us apostles to complete. And, today, right after this service you’ll have a host of ways to participate in apostolic action. Stick around today to participate in the Ministry Fair. There you can learn about and sign up for ways to grow your faith, to live out your faith, and to connect your faith with works that have the power to move us collectively from the feeling of love to the action of love.

James certainly knew about this need to have a living faith. Perhaps, that is why James was insistent that faith without works is dead. Now, make no mistake, he’s not saying that we earn our way into God’s grace through good deeds. No, our faith is a gift. But if we have received the gift of faith, how can we not respond by living it out in the world? How can we look at a person in need and simply say, ‘Go in peace; keep warm and eat your fill,’ without providing for their needs? And yet, even when we miss the mark here God’s grace abounds.

For at the heart of this passage stands the transformative power of mercy. James says, 'Judgment will be without mercy to anyone who has shown no mercy; mercy triumphs over judgment.' What a radical idea! We live in a world that often values judgment—whether in the legal sense, in social media, or in our day-to-day interactions. We can even become judgmental of those who do not serve others or help those in need. But God’s law of liberty calls us to show mercy to all, to meet others where they are with compassion, to offer not condemnation but healing.

This is not easy. Showing mercy can be exhausting and uncomfortable, especially when it challenges our preconceived notions of who deserves help and who does not. However, if we are truly living into our faith, then mercy will rightly reside at the center of our actions.

Alongside mercy, we are called to embody our faith through works of justice and love. When we see someone in need, our response cannot be limited to mere words of well-wishing. If we have the means, we are called to act. If we do not have the means, we are called to find ways to support others in the work of mercy. This is how the world sees the Body of Christ alive and at work in the world—through our collective efforts to heal, feed, clothe, and love. They will know we are Christians by our love. I think there’s even a song about that.

This passage from James is as relevant today as it was when it was written. The gap between rich and poor, the divisions of class and status—these are still with us. But in Christ, we are called to a different way of being. We are called to tear down the barriers that divide us, to lift up the poor, and to live out our faith with integrity. Faith without works is dead because faith, at its heart, is about transforming the world in love. Not a love of sentimentality, but a love of sacrifice, of self-giving, and of service, especially to the least, the lost, and the unloved.

So, my beloveds, let us not be content with empty words. Let us not fall into the trap of favoritism, judging others by their appearances or status. Instead, let us live out Christ’s royal law of love. Let us be doers of the word, and not hearers only. Let our faith shine brightly, not only in what we believe but in what we do—how we love, how we serve, how we welcome all into the fold of God’s grace. May our faith be alive with the works of mercy, justice, and love that reflect the heart of God.

Welcome, Welcome, Welcome

Yesterday, I overheard a parishioner who pays very close attention to the weather saying, “We got four inches of rain last week. That was more than we did all last summer.” Over the weekend tropical storm Cindy brought significant rain and serious winds through the Tennessee Valley, as well as most of the Southeast. What I noticed more than usual in regards to weather was how this storm, which made landfall in Texas, brought with it the climate of the humid coastline there. I walked outside on Friday and thought I was in muggy Houston, then hurriedly ran back inside. Welcoming the climate of somewhere else felt hard.

On the other hand, waking up this morning—after storms had all passed by the Decatur area—and taking a walk I could not help but smile. The weather could not be better, as the weekend's storm pushed both heat and humidity away for a couple days. Quite easily I accepted how it felt outside. Isn’t it strange that even with forces like the weather that are neutral—I mean apolitical, amoral, and without opinion—we can deem some of it good, while we call some of it bad? Imagine what we do with things that we do view as political, moralistic, opinionated, or religious! In other words, we are bad at welcoming almost all change in life, even though change is the substance of life.

The Gospel text for this coming Sunday stands out as surprisingly shorter than many in this Season after Pentecost in Year A. It is only two verses long! Perhaps the framers of the Revised Common Lectionary did this so we would focus on the word that is repeated over and over again: welcome. Welcome appears six times in two verses, and really the idea of welcoming pervades every word within this teaching. Jesus cannot seem to stress enough his desire for the hearer to welcome!

In Matthew 10:40-42 Jesus challenges us to welcome one another, him, the one who sent him, prophets, righteous people, and disciples. Truly, this was a starting point, as Jesus want us to expand that welcome even more. Unsurprisingly when I hear the word welcome I cannot help but recall a prayer attributed to Fr. Thomas Keating called—you guessed it—“The Welcoming Prayer.”

The prayer reads as follows:

“Welcome, welcome, welcome. I welcome everything that comes to me today because I know it’s for my healing. I welcome all thoughts, feelings, emotions, persons, situations, and conditions. I let go of my desire for power and control. I let go of my desire for affection, esteem, approval, and pleasure. I let go of my desire for survival or security. I let go of my desire to change any situation, condition, person, or myself. I open to the love and presence of God and His healing action within.”

This prayer is radical. No, I do not mean this in the Ninja Turtle sense, like bodacious or awesome! I mean that what Keating proposes requires us to radically shift our priorities, our vision, and our lives. If I say the above words and mean them, then I believe something different as I welcome even those difficult changes that come my way. The challenge is hearing this prayer not as a self-help mantra, but as the invitation that it is to allow God to be present within us, to heal us, and to act in our lives.

When we open up to and welcome what is happening by the hand of God we discover something far beyond our own desires and even our imaginations. Our lives at this very moment are woven intricately together in a vast web with each of our strands coming together to form the quilt that is Life. While we may think that we have control over a vast swath of what is happening, the truth is that this Life is brought together by the force within, between, and beyond, which we often call God. Before believing that we are merely bystanders to our own life let me add one more element.

The Welcoming Prayer coupled with Jesus’ teaching on welcoming pushes me to believe that what God yearns for is a co-creative dance that opens us up to Life flowing within, between, and among us. This is not easy. We are taught especially in American culture to be independent, in control, and in charge of our lives. We take on the mantra of Frank Sinatra, as we want to say, “I did it my way.” And yet, that is not how life in Christ and this welcoming of God’s weaving works. A final helpful analogy comes to mind.

We may not have control over all things in our lives. Instead we may just be like a hand. For a hand to receive something it must be open. For a hand to give something it must be open. Often though what we want is to hold onto something—a moment, a time in life, a prized possession, how we see the world, the way we have always done things, etc.—and so we close the hand thinking this will stop life from continuing or change from happening. Perhaps, for a time things keep on going as they have, but nothing new comes in and we cannot pass along those things that we hold so valuable. Eventually the hand becomes a clinched fist that is ready to fight, as it feels the fearful myth of scarcity. Those gifts clinched within the fist are not passed on to others and so others find them strange and antiquated. Without the openness to both give and receive the hand is nearly useless.

This week I invite us to let the clinched fists go. Hear Jesus’ words of welcoming. Live into the radical nature of the welcoming prayer. Open our hands in love to serve others and receive from those with whom we serve. Allow our lives to become a co-created tapestry in which God weaves together all of Life.