September 9, 2012
The 15th Sunday after Pentecost, Year B, Proper 18
The Rev. Dr. Brent Was
“So, Faith by itself, if it has no works,
is dead.”
The Epistle of James is short, powerful
and unequivocal. This letter may have
actually been written by St. James, the brother of Our Lord, who at the time of
its writing was the leader of the church in Jerusalem. It is probably based on a sermon, written in
the mid-60’s, just months prior to James’ martyrdom. This sermon was recorded, and then sometime
after the fall of the Temple, in the 80’s or 90’s, was edited, expanded and
circulated to the churches around Jerusalem.
This and Jude were the final letters testifying a Jewish Christianity,
that is a religion of Jews following a Jewish Messiah into new understandings
of God and the Law, the Torah. This epistle has been characterized as “ ‘the
second voice of Jesus,’ reminding Christians that a faith that fails to bear
fruit in the moral life cannot save.”
James does not mince words.
This passage from James is a fitting lesson
for today, what with the start of Sunday School, the breakfast ministry happening
this morning, and the ministry fair directly following Mass. As we launch into
another busy program year here at Resurrection, another busy school year,
another “the summer’s over” season, we need to get clear on what and how we are
church, together. James, I think, will
help us in this.
A big, big question about church is, “Does
what we do matter?” This has two sort of
angles. First, does the church stuff,
the religious activity we do, worship, prayer, intercessory prayer all of that,
does that matter to the world, and how?
And from another angle, the question is: do the things we do in the
world somehow matter to God, can finite actions have infinite
consequences? So, does our religious
conduct affect the world and does our worldly conduct affect our life in
God? These are the questions at hand.
This question brings up two themes from
the Protestant side of our Anglican family. The first is, “We are justified by
faith not works” Who said that? Martin Luther. And the second? It is a Calvinist or Reform saying. “Works Righteousness.” Not as famous, but it is a critical concept
in the lives of some Christians.
“We are justified by faith not works.” What does this mean? Very basically, it means
that we are saved by faith, and faith is a gift of God by God’s grace alone.
Salvation is underserved, unearned and unearnable. We cannot earn salvation though our actions,
not by doing good in the world nor being observant in our religious
practices. Martin Luther’s protest against
Rome came to him as he read Paul’s letter to the Romans. In that letter, Paul
critiques Judaism for being too concerned with adhering to the letter of the
law and not concerned enough with God.
He felt that they were too concerned with works, with things they did or
abstained from doing religiously. In
Luther’s time, the Church had a lucrative business called plenary indulgences. You could buy absolution. And the wealthy did, in droves. Luther was disgusted by this legalistic
practice, and equated it with the same category of sin Paul was critiquing.
There are not many funny stories about
plenary indulgences, but I have one. I
don’t know if anyone remembers 10, 11 years ago, there was labor unrest at
Harvard. The custodial workers were
unionizing much to the chagrin of Larry Summers, the eventually fired president
of Harvard, and overall real piece of work.
Even with his bonafide liberal credentials, he was virulently anti-union
and fought the custodian’s efforts to earn a living wage tooth and nail. Yuck.
Well over at the divinity school, we were
organizing with SEIU’s Jobs with Justice campaign and we had a fabulous
idea. We planned an action to have
people at all of the gates to Harvard Yard carrying collection cans and asking
for donations to buy Larry Summers a plenary indulgence for his obvious and
egregious sins. We were going to give the money to the strike fund. For the life of me I can’t remember why we
did not do it, but it was pretty funny.
In any case, justification by faith, not works.
Then there is works
righteousness. It is our effort to act in the world, do good in the world in
order to follow God’s standards, meet God’s expectations. It does not so much imply that if you do good
you can earn your way into Heaven, but rather if you don’t do good, or enough
good, well, you could get a transfer from the ladders to the chutes, if you
know what I mean. Works Righteousness
ties our fate and life in relation to God to meeting expectations of conduct in
the temporal realm, in the here and now.
And who determines what is enough, how much good work is needed… very
hard to tell.
These two ideas seem to be
coming from opposite directions. Our
works don’t matter on one side, they do on the other. The key here, though, is “matter.” To whom does it matter what we do or don’t
do, and how?
We do lots here at Resurrection. What do we do? ______
We give charity, helping people in all sorts of ways. We relieve suffering. We care for one another. Our money goes out to help those in
need. We teach children. We witness justice in the world and amplify
and encourage the witness of others.
What else do we do? ______
We keep the sacraments. We pray together and alone. We study the Bible and other religious books. We are formed for God and ministry.
The former, the works of
mercy in the world, the good of these works is clear. The reduction of suffering is a moral imperative
of the Christian life. We learn this from
the Great Commandment’s admonition to love your neighbor as yourself; to Jesus
recalling that when I was hungry you fed me, thirsty you gave me water, a
stranger and you welcomed me, a prisoner me and you visited me; and back to
James writing, “…you did not supply their bodily needs, what is the good of
that? So, faith by itself, if it has no works, is dead.” We have a moral and
religious obligation to serve the needful world. “A faith that fails to bear fruit in the
moral life cannot save.” This work is not guided by a “works
righteousness” ethic because the call to action is not some quid pro quo
formula of meeting God’s expectations, it is following a moral path that the
practice of our faith in God leads us to, both individually and collectively.
How then does our religious life
matter? Do our religious works, the
saying of the prayers, the Mass and our study… do we slip into Paul or Luther’s
zone of suspicion of trying to be saved by works? I don’t think so. Here’s why:
A sacramental practice of religion is critical to the world for two
reasons. First, great is the mystery of
faith. We don’t know why, but it does
matter. I love the logic of
theology. I don’t know exactly why or
how some Carmelite nuns pray 15 hours a day, year after year, but I am grateful
that they keep that prayer wheel turning.
How does the eternal and actual presence of God arrived at in the
sacramental act help, save, change the world?
Why does the ministry of Word and Sacrament, the keeping of the prayers
and study of scripture matter to God? I
do not know but I have faith that it does.
Immersion in the sacramental mystery of God is a Good in and of itself. That’s all I have to say about that.
But second, it matters because it puts us
in a position to become closer to God, more receptive to God, in closer,
deeper, more intimate relationship with God, more able to hold up the first
half of the Great Commandment: to love God with all of our heart, all of our
mind, all of our soul and all of our body.
The religious life is practice, practice putting ourselves in the
postures that we need to be in to be fully formed people. Religious practice helps us practice being
kind when know that that miserable jerk doesn’t deserve kindness, merciful when
the world says “You were already warned.”
Humble when we are successful.
Religious practice trains our souls to be to be like weebles, we wobble
but don’t fall down, or when we do, our inner being, our core, our
Christ-nature knows because it has been
trained, to follow the bubbles up to the surface. It is simple conditioning of ourselves to be
the people God made us to be, the community God means us to be, the people, the
species the part of the creation that God created us to be. The religious life matters, the religious
life of this place, matters. Your own
religious life, your practice in relation to God in Christ with the Holy Spirit
matters. It matters to you, to the
world, and to God. As our year begins, let us keep up the good works, that our
faith and our world may live. AMEN.
Posts
No comments:
Post a Comment