Friends
prelude
Prayer of Preparation Solomon asked God to make provisions for the people when they sinned. God answered with four conditions for forgiveness: (1) Humble yourself by admitting your sins, (2) pray to God, asking for forgiveness, (3) seek God continually, and (4) turn from sinful behavior. True repentance is more than talk—it is changed behavior. Whether we sin individually, as a group, or as a nation, following these steps will lead to forgiveness.
welcome, announcements, joys and concerns
*Hymn # 28 Great Is Thy Faithfulness
*Call to Worship
L. What is salt without its flavor? What is light you cannot see?
P. What's a ship without a rudder? Without fruit, what is a tree?
L. Jesus said they're good for nothing, and he gave this warning call:
P. If we speak and then do nothing, we do not have faith at all.
L. We believe our true salvation comes by grace through faith alone;
All. But true faith results in action, by our deeds we make love known.
*Invocation / Lord’s Prayer We desire your presence with us, O God. Still our restless spirits, that with quiet minds and reverent hearts we may hear your voice and worthily worship you. /Our Father, who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name, thy kingdom come, thy will be done, on earth, at it is in heaven. Give us this day our daily bread, and forgive us our sins, as we forgive those who sin against us. And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil. For thine is the kingdom, and the power, and the glory for ever.Amen
*Gloria Patri
Young’s Peoples Moment Divide the children into two equal groups, and show them all a jar of jelly beans. Say to the group on your left, I want you all to be my friends. Here, each of you take a jelly bean. Then say to the group on your right, I want you to be my friends, too. Have a nice day. (But don't give them any jelly beans.) Ask the children if they all feel like they are now your friends. The group on the right will, of course, say No! Quiz them on why they feel they haven't been treated as friends. Explore whether it is enough to SAY you are friends, or if these words need to be backed up with ACTIONS. Conclude by saying that God wants us all to back up our words with deeds, and to show the world our Christian faith by doing good works (James 2:17). Also let them know that God does not want us to play favorites in the church (vv. 1-7) - and demonstrate this by giving every child in the whole group a jelly bean.
Call to Prayer 2 Chronicles 7:14 If my people who are called by my name will humble themselves and pray and seek my face and turn from their wicked ways, I will hear from heaven and will forgive their sins and heal their land. 15I will listen to every prayer made in this place, 16for I have chosen this Temple and set it apart to be my home forever. My eyes and my heart will always be here.
Prayer Hymn # 402 Take Time to be Holy v. 1
Pastoral Prayer Eternal God, by your love you have made us, through your love you have kept us, and in your love you would make us to be wholly in accordance with your holy will. We humbly confess that we have not loved you with all our heart and soul and mind and strength, and that we have not loved our neighbors as Christ loves them and us. We have resisted your Spirit and gone our own ways. Forgive what we have been and help us to change what we are. By your Spirit direct what we shall be, that your image may come into full glory in us and in all people. AMEN
Musical response
Offertory sentence “So if you are standing before the altar in the Temple, offering a sacrifice to God, and you suddenly remember that someone has something against you, 24leave your sacrifice there beside the altar. Go and be reconciled to that person. Then come and offer your sacrifice to God.
offering Doxology
offertory prayer Gracious God, help us to be cheerful givers, that in giving we may find joy, and having found joy, go out to spread it abroad, that the world might become a more joyful place in which to live. AMEN.
Hymn # 397 Search Me, O God
Scripture Text James 2: 1-17
Sermon Friends
We may shift our earthly friends at different points in our lives, but a strong, active and deep faith-friendship with God is a non-shifting necessity.
Friends. Who needs 'em?
Some argue that friends are the latest casualty of the lifestyle wars as we struggle to balance the full-time demands of career and family. With spouse, mortgage, kids, schedules, work and travel, there doesn't seem to be room for anything else. Something's gotta give. Friends seem expendable, so friends are the first to go.
Like Jim Hoffman. About twice a year, when he can't handle the guilt anymore, he sits down and answers neglected e-mails from a half-dozen pals he hasn't seen in ages: "Sorry I stink as a friend," he begins.
The New York Internet executive, 42, says he's too busy, and friends are a luxury he can no longer afford. With a wife, a young daughter and a busy job, "I'm already at 120 percent, there really is no room for anyone else." No big deal.
Or ... maybe it is. Recent research tells us what we've long suspected: friends are important. That's why so many organizations use the word "friend" in their name: Friends of the Sea Otter, Friends of Libraries, Friends of Israel, Friends of Freedom, Friends of the Environment, Friends of the Earth, Friends of the Ocean and Friends of Japan.
There are friends of gardens, parks, countries, cities and states. There's even a group that calls itself Friends of Tobacco, headquartered in North Carolina! You need a friend? You can find one at FriendFinder (www.eFriend.com).
When the medical community chimes in, the value of friendships is dramatically underscored. Fewer friends lead to higher stress and a shorter life. In a study of 2,800 men and women over the age of 65, those with more friends had a lower risk of health problems, and they recovered faster when they did develop them. A Yale University study of 10,000 seniors showed that having friends reduced the risk of death by about 50 percent over a five-year period. Friends can help you reduce stress, improve the quality of your life, live longer, get a better job, expand your business, improve your marriage and derive more joy from your life.
So there you have it. There is value to having friends over the long term. No surprise.
What is intriguing is the notion that our friends will come and go throughout life, and that this is absolutely normal. Dr. Jan Yager, in her book, FriendShifts, argues that it is very rare for a person to have a friend for a lifetime. Instead, we tend to shift our friends as our own needs and circumstances themselves shift.
Typically, adults today have one or two "best" friends, four to six "close" friends, and 10 to 20 "casual" friends. But let's be honest: Even these numbers seem high. Healthy friendships take time just to get going, up to three years according to some experts. Then they require nurturing and attentive planning.
But just when the friendships are in place, they vanish, victims of some new component in the social equation: new job, new school, new baby, new spouse, whatever.
The bottom line is that we not only don't have as many friends as we used to, but we're going to lose the ones we have. But that's okay. We will pick up new friends in a cyclical pattern of friend shifting that will continue for the rest of our lives. /////
James takes the discussion to another level. Christians tend to exaggerate their claims of friendship. We've got the friendliest church in the world, but we'll walk right by the stranger in the narthex. We love one another, but we're just as likely as the next guy to badmouth a brother, or scandalize a sister.
We say we'd never stoop to the behavior of the nearsighted usher in today's text, but we forget that the church has a shady past. For example, the church must never forget its complicity in promoting slavery and segregation and in resisting their termination. Have we forgotten that there were plenty of Christians who had their hands on the ropes when they were stringing up a black man, leaving him swaying in the wind from an oak tree during the 1930s?
But that was then; this is now, we say. True. But James argues that it is not enough to assert love and friendship. There must be signs of this friendship or else both the friendship and the faith are dead. Partiality (2:2-3) is not a sign. Withholding forgiveness is not a sign (2:13). Refusing to feed and clothe the hungry and homeless is not a sign (2:15-16).
Moreover, James makes it clear that we can't be an enemy to our friends (read: neighbors) and still be a friend of God. To be a Faithful Friend of God, we've got to keep faith with our friends.
And therein lies the lesson. We must keep faith with our friends. If we don't, we have neither faith nor friends. James is adamant. There must be signs. // Friendship - whether with our neighbor or with God - requires faith which requires work and results in worship.
So who is our friend? Our friend is our neighbor. Who is our neighbor? See the Parable of the Good Samaritan. What does it mean to keep faith with our neighbor? Consider this:
Shifra Penzias, a rabbinic student, tells of her great-aunt, Sussie, who rode a bus home on a snowy evening in Munich of Nazi Germany. Suddenly, SS storm troopers stopped the coach and began examining the identification papers of the passengers. Most were annoyed but a few were terrified. Jews were being told to leave the bus and get into the truck around the corner.
Sussie watched from her seat in the rear as the soldiers systematically worked their way down the aisle. She began to tremble, tears streaming down her face. When the man next to her noticed that she was crying, he politely asked her why.
"I don't have the papers you have. I am a Jew. They're going to take me."
The man exploded with disgust. He began to curse and scream at her. "You stupid (expletive deleted)," he roared. "I can't stand being near you!"
The SS men asked what all the yelling was about.
"Damn her," the man shouted angrily. "My wife has forgotten her papers again! I'm so fed up. She always does this!"
The soldiers laughed and moved on.
Sussie never saw the man again. She never even knew his name.
If we must keep faith with our friends, we must also keep faith with God. This is one friendship that need not shift. If it does, it is not God who is doing the shifting. James describes our fidelity to God as a faith that is "active" (2:22). It was characteristic, he says, of Abraham the patriarch, and Rahab the prostitute (2:23, 25). They both, when push came to shove, kept faith with God.
The result: Abraham was called a "friend of God" (2:23).
God may be om ni po tent and transcendent. Wholly Other. Beyond Knowing. The I AM THAT I AM. But God values the friendship of his creatures. It's what he was after in the Garden of Eden, it's what he sought in Abraham. It's what he wants in us.
God wants - requires - friends who will keep faith with him.
No shifting allowed.
Sources: Jeffrey, Nancy Ann. "Whatever happened to friendship?" The Wall Street Journal, March 3, 2000, W1-W12. Kushner, Lawrence. Invisible Lines of Connection. Woodstock, Vt.: Jewish Lights Publishing, 1996 [Shiftra's story, 81]. Yager, Jan. FriendShifts: The Power of Friendship and How It Shapes Our Lives. Stamford, Conn.: Hannacroix Creek Books, Inc., 1999.
Hymn # 525 Face to Face With Christ My Savior
communion Luke 22: 14-20
Benediction Romans 15:5 May God, who gives patience and encouragement, help you live in complete harmony with each other—each with the attitude of Christ Jesus toward the other. 6Then all of you can join together with one voice, giving praise and glory to God, the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. 7So accept each other just as Christ has accepted you; then God will be glorified.
Commentary
James 2:1-10, 11-13, 14-17
That the author of James stresses that "faith without works is dead" seems pointedly contrary to Paul's insistence that one is "justified ... through faith in Christ ... [and] not by the works of the law" (Galatians 2:16).
James, however, did not need Paul to speak his own word to the widespread social reality in which many of the "new" Christians were living out the "old" lifestyle maintaining the social norms of a highly socially-stratified culture. The description that James provides of the flattering greeting of a rich person and the dismissive welcome of the poor person in verse 3 reflects the social customs of the age. Clearly, the situation in the community to which James writes is similar to the context of Paul's Corinthian correspondence: Believers are dividing themselves according to the criteria of wealth, status and power. To this egregious situation, both Paul and James have direct and pointed advice: In God's eyes there is no distinction among people - in fact, God's priority is for the poor.
This is a countercultural message, for the insistence in the New Testament that God shows no partiality according to rank or status is rare in non-Christian writings. Indeed, the priority of the poor is a unique and powerful witness of the radical preaching of James and the rest of the early Christian gospel. The poor are "heirs of the kingdom" (v. 5) says James.
James then presses his point with even more particularity. Apparently, wealthy non-Christians in the secular world had oppressed believers and dragged them into courts, using the advantages of their social status to win their cases. The rich secularists "blaspheme the excellent name that was invoked" (one supposes scoffing at the name "Christ" or "Jesus") in court. However, James finds it far worse that Christians are, in action if not word, blaspheming Christ in how they treat one another.
The law that James is concerned about in his epistle is not the law that describes cultic regulations such as Sabbath observation and circumcision, but it is the law which demands merciful and loving acts toward the poor. James and Paul would not disagree on this point either.
--A careful reading of this passage in James suggests that the author is warning his readers precisely not to be "caught up" in trying to fulfill every commandment, for it cannot be done. If one stumbles in one law it means that the entire law has not been kept (v. 10). His example of keeping the adultery law but tripping over the law about murder is purposely overstated to underline the point made in verses 8 and 9: Don't be self-righteous! Rather, the believer is to be judged by "the law of liberty" (2:12) which has been stated simply: "You shall love your neighbor as yourself" (v. 8). The purpose of the "law of liberty" is to set people free to live in community and welcome everyone, having particular concern for the poor, the widow and the orphan (1:27).
To James, there cannot be a separation of faith from works - to divide them is to render both null and void. Rather, giving food to the hungry and supplying the bodily needs of the one who is without should be a natural and reflexive response of faith. James makes faith and works part of a complementary package.
Tradition holds that the author of the letter was the actual brother of Jesus - and whether or not this is fact, there can be no doubt that James has been influenced by the actual teaching of Jesus: "Truly I tell you, just as you did it to one of the least of these who are members of my family, you did it to me" (Matthew 25:40). And yet, while practical, James is so thoroughly theological as well. For James, God is the center and source of every good gift, and Christ is both revealed and made present in the midst of the body of believers, recognized most clearly in the faces of those on the fringe.
Animating Illustrations
Friendship is unnecessary, like philosophy, like art .... It has no survival value; rather it is one of those things that gives value to survival.
-C. S. Lewis
In clinical psychology when you study the high incidence of serious abuses in drugs, when you study the high incidences of why young people are doing violence to themselves in the form of crimes or suicide, certain behavioral patterns appear and reappear. And one that seems to be a common denominator in all of these areas is that basically these persons are loners - they seek out the same type - they have never known what it is to have a solid friendship. ...
Parents can help and teach "friendship," not just for the purpose of avoiding the abnormal, but for the purpose of giving your child the opportunity of a lifetime, a solid friendship. ...
Every friendship enriches your personality. It gives you insight into the life of another who has been led by the Holy Spirit. A solid friendship enables you to realize that in the presence of your friend your secrets as well as your sins are sacred. Friendship is an antidote for boredom and loneliness, but also a quality that enables you to grow up in the friendship of God and in the sight of your neighbor.
-Mark Connolly, "The Value of Friendship," Spirituality for Today, February 2000.
Political scientist John Dilulio followed the data to see what would save America's urban youth. He believes with all his social-scientist heart that the path to urban change runs through gospel-centered churches and faith-based ministries.
The spiritual outreach approach is "like a martial arts approach," he observes. "It takes all the negative force that you bring and flips it around. How? It says to the kid, 'It may be true that you had nobody, but let me tell you something, God loved you, even when you didn't know. When the world hated you, God loved you. And I'm going to tell you something, I love you, and I'm there for you. And I'm going to be there for you. And where am I? Right over there. Right in that basement over there. Right through that door, 24/7/365, that's where you'll find me.'"
-Tim Stafford, "The Criminologist Who Discovered Churches," Christianity Today, June 14, 1999, 35-38.
Birth gives us our relatives, but choice gives us our friends. Fate will not let us pick our relatives, but we are allowed to select our friends. So if we don't have the right friends, it is because we made the wrong choices or pursued the wrong courses. No one to blame but ourselves. Thus we should be slow in choosing a friend and much slower in changing.
- Leroy Brownlow, Flowers of Friendship (Fort Worth, Texas: Brownlow Publishing Company, 1974), 27.
