Faith in the Flesh

Today we reach part three of our study on James’s epistle, and I’m going to be honest this is probably the passage of the New Testament that I’ve always most struggled with.

Because it’s about the importance of works. And as protestants, we tend not to like that discussion. After all we believe in salvation by grace alone through faith alone in Christ alone, and there’s not a lot of room for works in that. And here comes James to talk about faith and works. And sometimes it’s definitely easier to try and just ignore this conversation. Or try to excuse it away.

But over the years I’ve come to realise that if we really take the time to read what James is saying, and really grapple with it, what he has to say really is vital to our Christian life.

As we’ve been working through James, we’ve learned a lot about faith. We’ve learned about how our faith helps us to withstand trials and temptations, and been challenged to align our actions with our faith. This week as we continue chapter 2 we see James building on that concept even further: “What good is it,” he asks, “if you say you have no faith but do not have works? Faith by itself, if it has no works, is dead!”

Faith, if it has no works, is dead. But what does that mean?

Before we dive into James, let’s turn to the gospel of Matthew, and see what the saviour tells us.

The New Revised Standard Version A Tree and Its Fruit

“Either make the tree good, and its fruit good; or make the tree bad, and its fruit bad; for the tree is known by its fruit.

If you’ve ever eaten fruit straight from a tree, or indeed from a vine or a bush, this metaphor might be very familiar. Because it’s very true that you can tell straight away when you eat that fruit whether the tree is a good, healthy tree, or whether there’s something very wrong with it. Does the fruit taste good? Good tree. Does the fruit taste awful, and wrong? You know there’s something wrong with that tree. And Christ says, just like a bad tree cannot bear good fruit how can you speak good things when you are evil?

Now, Christ is talking specifically about speech here. About words, and here’s what we need to take from that.

We need to understand a general concept here: that our words are expressions of our attitudes. Now think about this, have you ever had a conversation about another person? Prrobably more than once, let’s be honest that’s the type of conversation most of us have all the time. Let’s say that’s a person that you’re especially fond of. Most likely, you’re going to have a lot of good things to say about them. If they’ve done something wrong, likely you’ll be more willing to forgive or to offer them leniency than you otherwise would. You’ll probably be ready to defend them if the person they’re talking to has a negative opinion.

But if it’s someone you don’t like? You’ll probably not have many compliments, and you might downplay their achievments even if they deserve to have them eacknowledged. Maybe you’ll be less ready to forgive and more ready to find fault in the tiniest thing, and to believe negative rumours.

Our attitude towards people reflects how we speak of them.

SImilarly, let’s say you’re having a great day. Everything’s going right. And you get into a conversation. You’re likely to be quite positive about things. But if everything’s going wrong and you’re in a terrible mood then yeah you’re maybe not going to be the best conversationist. We’ve all had those days. Our mood, our attitude, is reflected in our speech.

And there’s a spiritual element there too. Is our attitude towards God one of worship and reverence and obedience? Then we should expect our speech to reflect that. We should expect our conversation to reflect grace and charity. And love for our neighbours. And if we find ourselves pushing contention and unneccessary division and dehumanising those who for whatever reason we see as lesser to ourselves or as underserving of what we have? Well bad fruit doesn’t come from a good tree. There’s a sign there that something isn’t right spritually. That we need to recognise that and identify what we need to change.

Back to James.

The New Revised Standard Version Faith without Works Is Dead

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?

Now this is where it gets complicated. Because there are words that can seem on the face of it to be good. They’re words of compassion. They seem to be words of love. But there’s no action to back them up! They’re just words! They have no meaning. Just…empty words. Because sometimes words need actions to back them up. To give them meaning, to cause them to be taken seriously.

Our attitude is reflected in our words. But our actions reveal those words for what they are: empty, or true and meaningful.

And James says that in the same way faith without works is dead.

Faith without works is dead.

And James goes on,

The New Revised Standard Version Faith without Works Is Dead

18 But someone will say, “You have faith and I have works.” Show me your faith apart from your works, and I by my works will show you my faith. 19 You believe that God is one; you do well. Even the demons believe—and shudder

James is telling us that our works are what demonstrate our faith! That shows whether that faith is a good faith or a bad faith. Whether it’s healthy or whether it’s rotten! He says, it’s not enough to simply believe God is one because even the demons believe that. Youu have to have the belief that demonstrates good healthy fruit!

So what does it mean to show your faith by your works? Verse 21

The New Revised Standard Version Faith without Works Is Dead

Was not our ancestor Abraham justified by works when he offered his son Isaac on the altar? 22 You see that faith was active along with his works, and faith was brought to completion by the works

Works complete faith. James here points to the book of Genesis. God had promised Abraham that through Isaac he would be the father of a great nation, and then God asks Abraham to sacrifice Isaac on the altar. And Abraham had faith that God would carry out His promise and so he did as God asked because he believed that despite the apparent contradicition in the instruction Isaac’s line would somehoiw continue. And his works demonstrated his faith. Because if he had refused, his lack of works would have shown that that faith just…wasn’t a true and healthy faith. It would have shown that ultimately Abraham doubted God.

Verse 25

The New Revised Standard Version Faith without Works Is Dead

Likewise, was not Rahab the prostitute also justified by works when she welcomed the messengers and sent them out by another road?

Rahab encountered two Israelite spies in Jericho. And she risked her life to give them shelter and to help them to escape, because she had a faith that in doing so she would be spared when the Israelites attacked. If she had simply wished them luck, told them she supported their victory, but done nothing to assist, what worth would there have been in that supposed faith? Her actions, or lack thereof, would have demonstrated it to be meaningless.

We see then that we show our faith through out works when those works align with that faith. And that means two things.

First, it means acts of mercy: Verse sixteen, if you don’t supply their bodily needs what good is that? Works of mercy are when we aim to supply the needs of others, both in our church community and outside of it. And what that looks like is going to depend on your circumstances and abilities. Maybe it means going and helping cook or serve meals at a community dinner. Maybe volounteering at a food pantry or a shelter. Or maybe it’s less direct than that: maybe it’s donating clothes or food or money - earning, saving, and giving all that you can, and doing that sacrifically so that you can bless others just as you’ve been blessed. Maybe it’s visiting those who are for whatever reason unable to easily leave their homes. Bringing them friendship and comfort and a reminder that this community has not forgotten them simply because they aren’t physically present. Or even visiting those in prison, showing them that their crimes don’t place them outside of the love of Christ and His church.

But second and just as importantly it means act of piety. Verse nineteen: you believe that God is one; you do well. And if acts of mercy are how our faith manifests itself to others, acts of piety are how we strengthen it and confirm it to ourselves, and they’re how we grow in our Christian journey. They’re the things that let us focus on Christ: prayer. Reading the scriptures. Communion. Attending worship on Sundays, and not just coming in right as the service starts and leaving as soon as it ends but actively taking the opportunity to be part of the Christian community here at First UCC. Knowing who the people sitting around us are, and getting to know each other and our joys and our concerns and our victories and our struggles . And supporting each other in our faith!

And both these works, acts of mercy and acts of piety, are equally important. It isn’t that we can focus on one over the other. Look at verse 19 James says that simply believing, simply focussing on acts of piety, is not enough! And in the same way we can’t say “well I worship God by helping at the soup kitchen” because on their own acts of piety are not enough!

A healthy fruit has a balanced flavour. If it’s all sweet or all sour or all tart, it’s not going to taste good. It’s a bad fruit.

So in the same way, acts of mercy and piety are all works. And if we focus on one to the expense of the other we’re out of balance. Our fruit isn’t reflecting a healthy faith.

So we need to look at our works and ask, do I have works of mercy? Do I have works of piety? Am I focussing on one at the expense of neglecting the other? Through my works I show my faith, but what does that faith look like? Do those works show a faith that is healthy?

Now there’s another risk here, and that’s that by talking this way we see faith and works as seperate things. We have faith, we have works, they just sort of interact. And that’s not quite it.

Friends, take a look at your hands for a moment. Open them. Close them. Now, without thinking about it, pick up your bulletin. Did you tell your fingers, “grip”, or your wrist, “rotate”? No - your whole being just flowed into that simple act.

So here’s the thing. Our bodies are made up of many parts with distinct functions. We have hands for grasping, eyes for seeing, ears for hearing. And from a sciientific perspective we might categorise them by what they do. Sensory organs, appendages. And those categories are useful because they help us to understand the complexity of our bodies but they’re not how we experience our everyday actions and behaviours. We just naturally carry them out. And similarly when we look at the Christian life we can see these distinct functions of its elements - acts of piety that face inward and acts of mercy that face outward. Those categories are valuable in appreciating the full scope of faith but they aren’t that full scope.

“I by my works will show you my faith.” When Abraham offered Isaac, and when Rahaab hid the spies, it wasn’t faith plus works - as if faith was in their hearts and works in their hands. No, like a body in fluid motion their whole being flowed into those acts!

Let’s look at this another way. You’re making a loaf of bread, so you take all the ingredients and you put them in a bowl and you mix them together, then you put it into a breadpan and put the breadpan in the oven. But a few hours later when you go to take it out you realise you forgot the yeast! Now you don’t have bread, you’ve got a biscuit! And not a very good biscuit! So you put it on the bird table. And you starty again, and this time you make sure you’ve added the yeast. And the bread rises in the oven and it comes out fluffy and delicious just like the Warburtons make it.

Now if you take that loaf of bread, can you point to the yeast? Or to any other ingredient? It’s certainly present. The bread having properly come out of the oven demonstrates that. But it’s all come together as a singular loaf, more than the sum of its parts.

Think about it. When you bow your head and lift your hands in prayer, it isn’t just your head and your hands doing an “act of piety”. Your entire self flows into that single act as you focus your words to God and feel his presence and surrender yourself to God. When you volounteer to help the less fortunate, it isn’t simply your hands doing an “act of mercy”. Your whole being flows into that act of service as you emulate Christ and as you see the image of God in those you serve.

And so faith and works become indistinguishable. There is no line where the one ends and the other begins. Faith is works and works are faith in one beautiful reality of Christian life.

So where does that leave us? It leaves us with a clear call to self-examination. To ask, “is my faith a living faith, or is it a dead faith?” To see if our works align with our faith, showing through out acts of piety that yes, we truly love and worship our saviour and do our best to walk ever closer with him. Showing through our acts of mercy that yes, we truly do love our neighbours as ourselves and show compassion to our enemies and that we love one another just as Christ has loved us!

It leaves us to examine those works, and to ask what the faith they show us is. To see those places where we’re failing, and to make the active effort to improve in those areas, that we may show the world our faith, the faith alone through which we are saved, by our works.