Faith, if it has no works, is Dead.

My Mother’s least favorite book of the Bible is the Letter of James. She said he had quit preaching and started meddling. He implies that it is wrong to talk about other people (gossip), that it could damage their reputations. “That the tongue, like the rudder of a ship is small but can turn the ship completely around. A rudder can turn a ship in a positive direction, or if used incorrectly, it can run the ship upon a rock, causing tremendous damage and perhaps the lose of life. James’ says, the tongue can do the same: it can be used for good, or it can cause irreparable damage and even death. 

Reading today’s scripture from James Chapter two, I can see how some churches may feel the same about him as did my mother: “For if a person with gold rings and in fine clothes comes into your assembly, and if a poor person in dirty clothes also comes in, and if you take notice of the one wearing the fine clothes and say, ‘Have a seat here, please,’ while to the one who is poor you say, ‘Stand there,’ or, ‘Sit at my feet,’ have you not made distinctions among yourselves, and become judges with evil thoughts? My brothers and sisters, do you with your acts of favoritism really believe in our glorious Lord Jesus Christ?” 

I am thankful that Christ Church, Albertville, has always welcomed all who want to come and worship God and love their neighbor as they love themselves. I believe we are truly a church that not only sings “Jesus loves the little children, all the children of the world: red and yellow, black and white,” and I would add, rich and poor and everyone in between. When I look around Christ Church I see not “God’s frozen chosen” as we are sometimes called, but God’s sons and daughters of all shapes and sizes and races and incomes and beliefs and political persuasions, gathered together to worship God and to serve one another and the world around us. 

James continues, “God has chosen the poor in the world to be rich in faith and to be heirs of the kingdom that he has promised to those who love him.” I do not believe that God has chosen only the poor, but all of us who love God, or struggle to love God, and that James is reminding us that we all have something to learn from each other as well as a responsibility to one another. He is reminding us that we are to work for justice and peace for all people, rich or poor,  and as God’s people to fight oppression wherever we find it. 

James is reminding us that Christianity is not a Jesus and me, everyone person for him or herself kind of religion, but a community joined together by Christ, called to “love your neighbor as yourself.” Then to make sure we understand, he writes: 

“What good is it, my brothers and sisters, if you say you have faith but do not have works? Can faith save you? If a brother or sister is naked and lacks daily food, 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? So, faith by itself, if it has no works, is dead.” 

I have been so excited to see that Christ Church has added “a little food bank” to its caring and justice ministry: the Beans and Rice Ministry, and the Little Free Library. 

Everything James tells us looks good on paper and I know no churches who in theory would disagree. The challenge comes when we face the “person with fine clothes and rings and the other with rags, “live and joining us for worship. I share one such experience with its challenges, failures, and blessings, and invite you to reflect on your own experiences. 

For twelve years, I was the Pastor of St. George’s Episcopal Church in the middle of New Orleans, Louisiana, a city with a tremendous diversity of people. The church is on St. Charles Avenue, a boulevard with mansions under the trees as for as one can see. Four blocks away we enter neighborhoods with much smaller homes and in some cases very poor families inhabiting them. The church is also just a streetcar ride from the French Quarter and therefore easily reached by street people, beggars, and those who dance in bars and sometimes moonlight as prostitutes. 

For several years we had a wonderful midweek book study held in the homes of various members who lived near the church. The studies were open to all, usually involved a light lunch, and were an important and enjoyable part of our life together. And then they were not. Two of our French Quarter members, a man who sold books on the street and his friend, a bar dancer and sometimes prostitute showed up for the study at the home of one of our wonderful uptown ladies. And she truly was a wonderful person. The two “new” people were also wonderful, if somewhat dirty and smelly and, to say the least, different from most of the people in attendance. This woman, came to me and said that she did not want these two people in her home. I understood, so we moved the book study to church, which I believed would be an acceptable solution for all. As in so many situations in which theory and even scripture become practice, the simple solution was not as simple as we believed it would be 

The woman quit the church, she truly wanted to host the Book Study in her home, but with restrictions. She later returned, remained a friend, thanks be to God (my wife and I have several of her paintings in our home) but it was touchy and ugly for a while. This is what happens when we commit to live a Gospel without favoritism: it is not easy, but worth it. It is what I believe Jesus would do. 

Do Justice, Love Mercy, Walk Humbly with your God