Being downright practical
September 3rd
Gary Harder
Texts:
Psalm 15
James 1:17-27
Introduction
On this labour day week-end our lectionary texts happen to be about labouring. About doing good works. About living out our faith. The texts are about being downright practical about our faith.
But before getting to these texts I want to set up a debate – an argument – between two sides.
Listen to Romans 1:17 “For the righteousness of God is revealed through faith for faith; as it is written, ‘The one who is righteous will live by faith'”.
Now listen to James 1:22 “But be doers of the word, and not merely hearers who deceive themselves…be doers who act.”
Martin Luther championed Romans 1:17. It was the rallying cry for the Protestant Reformation in the sixteenth century. “We are saved by grace alone, not by works.”
Menno Simons championed James 1:22. Faith without works is useless.
So lets listen in on a debate between Luther and Simons. Martin and Menno did have letter exchange debates in the 1530’s, but certainly not the words I will use today. I am putting my words into their mouths, and no doubt will do great injustice to both of their positions. But it will make the point, I hope.
Luther: “You know, Menno, you’re as bad as the Catholics. You and your Anabaptists want to earn your salvation just like the Catholics do. You insist that faith, to be valid, has to be lived out. You’re just trying to win brownie points with God. Won’t work. You can’t earn your own salvation.”
Simons: “We are doing nothing of the sort. We are saved by grace just like you are, Martin, but didn’t Jesus tell us to follow him, to live like he taught us. That is not earning God’s love, that is responding to God’s love.”
Luther: “Sure, and then you are trying to be so pure in your following that you excommunicate and shun anyone who doesn’t follow in exactly the same way that you do. You can’t have a pure church Menno. We are sinners all.”
Simons: “Of course we’re all sinners. But we don’t burn people at the stake like you do just because they believe a bit differently than you do. We just ban people who aren’t living out their faith commitments made to the church. But we only ban them so that they will repent and return to the true path. You can’t repent if your burned at the stake.”
Luther: “You Anabaptists are the scourge of the proper church, Menno. You re saying that infant baptism is no proper baptism and that baptism doesn’t make you a Christian and that the church should be made up only of adults who have been baptized upon confession of faith – a pure believers church. That church doesn’t exits, Menno. You will destroy the church. And that is why you need to be stopped.”
Simons: “The church is already destroyed from within, Martin. There is no real church when there are no signs that church members re trying to live a Christian life. Everyone just says “I believe in Jesus. I believe. I am safe. I have been baptized. I’ll go to heaven when I die’. God will judge them and the church for not following in the way of Jesus.”
Luther: “There you go again with your works righteousness, Menno, trying to earn your salvation. You really are as bad as the Catholics. They buy indulgences trying to get our of purgatory. They think good works will get them into heaven. All just dead rules and dead works and dead faith. Romans 1 says it so clearly. ‘The righteous will live by faith.’ By faith Menno, not by works.”
Simons: “I agree with you, Martin, about how important Paul’s words are. The righteous will live by faith. They will live by faith. They will live out their faith. That’s what James says so clearly, “Be doers of the Word, not merely hearers who deceive themselves. Be doers of the Word”.
Luther: “Ha, don’t quote James to me. James is a book of straw. I don’t even think it should be in the Bible. It deceives people like you into trying to earn your salvation.”
Simons: “We are not trying to earn our salvation. Our salvation was earned by Jesus who shed his blood for us. And if our salvation cost Jesus so much, surely it should cost us something too – our obedience, our following this Jesus, our very life.”
Luther: “But the grace of God is free. It’s a gift of love to u
s. All we have to do is joyfully accept it. We shouldn’t dirty it by putting conditions on it – conditions like needing to do good works.”
Simons: “It is a cheap grace if it doesn’t impact our lives, Martin. As you said, we are sinners all, and that is why our lives need to be transformed more and more into the likeness of Jesus. It just isn’t good enough to say that we believe in Jesus, and then to make no effort to follow this Jesus in how we live our lives.”
Luther: “Of course we should follow Jesus. But you Anabaptists always take it to extremes. You won’t even fulfill your civic duties, let’s say by being magistrates or police officers or soldiers, because you say that will compromise your faith and your pacifism. We live in a real world with real and evil enemies that have to be dealt with. Where would our society be without good Christians upholding our laws and our state?”
Simons: “Maybe if all Christians in all your churches lived as Christ teaches us to live – if they were in the process of transforming their lives by the love of Christ, then we wouldn’t need violent ways to make them behave. The problem is that you have such a pile of unchristian church members in your church that there is absolutely no difference between your church and the society around you. They are church members because they were baptised as infants, not because they have committed their lives to Christ. Most of your church members don’t live like Christians.”
Luther: “That’s why you are so dangerous, Menno. You would destroy the church and along with it our civil society. You should instead be grateful that ours is a Christian society because everyone within it has been baptised into Christ.”
Simons: “And you are dangerous, Martin, because you can’t acknowledge that the true church of Jesus Christ is made up of Christians whose lives are being transformed by the love of Christ – not by people who say they believe in Jesus but show no evidence of that belief in how they live.”
Luther: “You need to listen to the Apostle Paul, Menno. “The righteous will live by faith”. We are saved by grace alone, not by works.”
Simons: “And you, Luther, need to heed Jesus and James. “Be doers of the word, not merely hearers who deceive themselves.”
Ending the debate and turning to the texts
I need to end the debate and turn to our texts. By now I have done extreme violence to both Martin Luther and Menno Simons. Their positions are far more nuanced than I have given them credit for. But I have tried to frame two extreme positions that were much argued and debated during the reformation, thanks to the Anabaptists. And I think it frames a debate that continues today. Do we emphasize primarily the grace of God – free gift, God’s unconditional love – , or do we emphasize primarily our living out of our faith – letting our lives be transformed by that unconditional love of God? There will always be a tension between these two poles.
Our texts for today emphasize living out our faith. They are texts for doers.
Psalm 15
Psalm 15 asks the question of who can come to the holy hill – who can come to worship God in the Holy sanctuary? Who can come into God’s presence to worship?
In some ways the answer the Psalmist gives offends me. If I am really honest with myself it would exclude me. In the eyes of the Psalmist, I am not blameless enough or pure enough to worship God.
Listen again to the criteria for those coming to worship.
“Those who walk blamelessly, and do what is right”. I try to walk blamelessly, but don’t succeed.
“Those who speak the truth from their heart; who do not slander with their tongue.” I’m all for speaking the truth and not slandering anyone. But I am not always fully truthful. I sometimes shade the truth, at least a little bit.
“Those who do no evil to their friends, nor take up a reproach against their neighbours.” I was very happy when our last neighbours next door moved away. Didn’t take care of their yard. Their massive weeds kept infesting our yard. I complained.
‘Those in whose eyes the wicked are despised, but who honour those who fear the Lord” Despising the wicked? I don’t want to despise anyone.
“Those who stand by their oath even to their hurt”. Keep your promises even when it costs you. All your promises. Don’t renege, ever. I have broken promises.
“Those who don’t lend money at interest and do not take a bribe against the innocent.” Well, I don’t take bribes against the innocent. But I do lend money at interest. I guess none of us can worship. Let’s all go home.
I want to stop here just a bit. What strikes me is how often the Old Testament rails against charging interest. Ezekiel in fact says that charging interest is evil enough to warra
nt the death penalty (18:8-17; 22:12). Charging interest is forbidden in Leviticus (25:36-37), Deuteronomy (23:19-20) and Nehemiah (5:6-13). Charging interest is what kept poor people poor. And that was evil. Even today, the issue of charging interest – an essential part of our capitalist system, effects millions and millions of people in our world – keeping poor people and poor nations in perpetual poverty. I acknowledge that there is an issue here, even as I want interest on my investments to secure my future financially.
The point is made, I think, by Psalm 15. True worship means living your life in a God pleasing way. Then we can come into God’s presence. And I say yes to this even as I realize that often that would exclude me. The Psalmist is very, very practical. And I like that even as I say that I need to worship especially when my own life is not pure, not in order, not righteous. It is worship that may cleanse me. Maybe I especially need worship when my life is falling apart in chaos.
James
I turn to James, another very practical text – a book so practical that Luther really did call it an epistle of straw. Commentators say that James was reacting to, and challenging, those early Christians who listened to Paul’s teaching on love and faith and grace, and his rejection of legalism, and thought that it meant it didn’t matter how you lived your life. All that mattered was saying yes to God’s love. What didn’t matter was how you then lived. So James tells them that this is a pretense faith, a sham faith, not what Paul had in mind at all. So James is very practical.
“You must understand this, my beloved: let everyone be quick to listen, slow to speak, slow to anger; for your anger does not produce God’s righteousness. Therefore rid yourselves of all sordidness and rank growth of wickedness, and welcome with meekness the implanted word that has the power to save your souls.”
James does have a way with words. Sordidness? Rank growth of wickedness? What did he specifically mean by this?
“But be doers of the word, and not merely hearers who deceive themselves. For if any are hearers of the word and not doers, they are like those who look at themselves in a mirror; for they look at themselves and, on going away, immediately forget what they were like. But those who look into the perfect law, the law of liberty, and persevere, being not hearers who forget but doers who act – they will be blessed in their doing.”
That is about as direct and blunt as you can be. The perfect law, the law of liberty, the law of love which Paul has so eloquently proclaimed, has to be lived out, acted upon, expressed in life. It’s useless to just hearers of this Gospel, and then to walk away without doing anything. What should we then do? James will tell us in the next paragraph.
“If any think they are religious, and do not bridle their tongues but deceive their hearts, their religion is worthless. Religion that is pure and undefiled before God, the Father, is this: to care for orphans and widows in their distress, and to keep oneself unstained by the world.”
There you have it, pure and simple. Religion that is pure is to do deeds that express love, and to keep oneself unstained by the world. Care for orphans and widows in distress. And don’t let the values of the world around you penetrate your soul. Those values have to do with living only for yourself and abandoning your neighbours who might be in need. True religion is to live out, to express, the love of God. True religion is very, very practical.
Conclusion
So for today we will embrace James, and Menno Simons, and Mennonite Central Committee, and all those things that we can do to express in our lives the love of God. On another Sunday we might embrace Martin Luther’s warnings not to think thereby that we can earn God’s love and win brownie points for heaven.
I do think Paul and James belong nicely together in the same Bible, and are in fact good companions in expressing the faith of Jesus Christ.
On this labour day week-end I challenge us all to be downright practical about our faith.