CHRIST CHURCH
Sept 10th 2006: 8 and 10am
James
2:1-17
James,
the writer of our Epistle reading this morning, has quite a
characteristic style among the New Testament letter-writers. The phrase
which sums up James' approach in general is proabaly summed up in the
phrase "be a doer of the Word, and not just a hearer", words culled
from verse 22 of chapter one, about which Fred spoke to us last week.
It's probably a corrective which not a few of us need. It's so easy as
James had pointed out to listen to God's Word, probably to nod in
assent, and then go on our sweet way. James' whole approach is that
that just will not do, if we would call ourselves a follower of Jesus
Christ.
James had taken it one step further at the end of chapter one. Let's
just remind us of what was said there, for it paves the way on what is
to immediately follow on, and which forms our reading this morning:
If
anyone considers himself to be religious, and yet does not keep a tight
rein on his tongue, he deceives himself and his religion is worthless.
Religion which God our Father accepts as pure and faultless is this: to
look after orphans and widows in their distress and to keep oneself
from being polluted by the world.
James is really saying that their has to be fruit in your Christian
life, and in going about this matter James has a very
straight-to-the-point and blunt manner. He has been called the
"Christian Amos". What James said in that concluding part of
chapter one really set the scene for most of the rest of his short
letter; he picks out three areas which will really test the growth in
our Christain discipleship and indeed whether that discipleship is
worthy the name. And James kicks off with the matter of caring for
other people, as he puts it in verse 8 of this second chapter: if you really keep the
royal law found in Scripture, "Love your neighbour as yourself".
Remember, our Lord himself said this was the second of the great
commandments, like in nature to the command to love God. This isn't an
option, not an added on extra for the keen Christian.
James had said that we were to keep ourselves 'unpolluted' from the
world, and the world's motto is "Look after Number One"; or "If you
don't look after yourself, then no-one will".It's natural to look after
ourselves, we care very much about our own interests: that is very much
the nature of sin, as has been said that little word 'sin' has an 'I'
at the centre. Indeed our natural selves prefer to look after self, not
to surrender to Jesus, to live life his way. And this was James' root
point in saying that such a "religion" is worthless, It's possible to
be extremely religious without the heart of our life having been
challenged or changed. If we have not dealt with what the Bible calls
our "flesh life", our "carnality", this means that almost certainly God
hasn't given us the new birth. The trouble is: even if we have been
born again of God's Spirit, born as James himself puts it by God's
Word, our "flesh life" still tries to rear its ugly head
Now James has some very specific points to make in relation to caring
for others. The first he deals with is the matter of favouritism. God
has no favourites, not should we. The majority of mainstream churches
can be very challenged by this issue. The majority are for the most
part very middle-class. If you were to take a look around just now- no
don't!!- but just think, how many are there who would not fit in that
category. It doesn't end at class boundaries either. The church is
very, far too, respectable. Some years ago there was something of a
mini-revival among the travelling community, and I got invited to go
and give a personal testimony at one of their meetings in the old Saint
Augustine's hut. It was anything but middle-class, anything but
respectable, yet I tell you, there was more spiritual power, more
vitality there than at any 'respectable' church meeting. We have only
to read the Gospels to know that Jesus delighted to mix with those who
were beyond the pale of his contemporary society, the prostitutes, the
tax-collectors.
Then James goes on with the reversal of values which should
characterise our dealings with other people,a nd with our love for and
caring of them. The world will look after its own, after the rich,
after the powerful, those in positions of prestige. That is not to
enter our calculation: no currying favour with the poor, with the
disreputable. I'm glad that a few of our members join the Prison
Fellowship and once a month go and take God's Word and his love into
the prisons at Lincoln and Morton Hall. God chose the poor, the weak,
the outcast to show his grace and his power. Probably the first test of
our faith is just here: Can we embrace all as equal?
I feel I should pause a moment and let us just ponder that question;
not just give a knee-jerk "Of course I do".
[........]
The 'royal law' as we have already noted is to love our neighbour as
ourself. Jesus taught a well-known parable on this- the "Good
Samaritan", and if you were to take that parable apart in its answer
to the question "Who is my neighbour", the answer would be "the person
we come across in need". Anyone in need we are to treat with the same
degree of care as we would ourselves. The Christian, as James has
already noted is under the law
that gives freedom,
but that law is no less demanding, it just does not condemn us in the
same way if we slip up. We care about meeting our own needs;
what about the other person we come across whose need may be greater,
more urgent or more demanding than our own? As James says in verses
15-17:
Suppose a brother or sister is
without
clothes and daily food.
If one of you says to him, "Go, I wish you well; keep warm and well
fed," but does nothing about his physical needs, what good is it?.
In short- it's no use just wishing someone well!
One other point deserves scrutiny hear. We are to speak and act as
those who have been shown mercy. We are to do [if you look into the
grammar at this point] in an on-going way, not just on those days when
we feel like it, we are to show care, love and mercy day in and day
out, when things are going badly, when we are having a "bad hair" day.
Mercy and compassion are to be our hall marks. Here I believe is a
second test of our faith and again maybe we need pause.
[.........]
When we come to the end of this morning's reading I feel we are on the
verge of new and fundamental territory. Why we stop at verse 17 I
puzzle over. It would have been more logical either to end at verse 14
or else go on to the rest of chapter two. James now enters that issue
which caused Luther to call James "an epistle of straw". Are we
justified [counted right with God] solely by faith, as Paul teaches in
Romans (and elsewhere) and which was the touchstone of the Protestant
Reformation, or as James argues, are we justified by our deeds. The
apparent contradiction is around the fact that Paul, former Pharisee,
was speaking about "works" of the Law, at which the Pharisees were past
masters, or "works" of faith, deeds springing from a true, living
faith. Without such works following on from our faith, then our "faith"
is dead and really just a pretence, we are deceiving ourselves. Really
all James' epistle devolves around this issue. As James' words in verse
17 say:
In
the same way, faith by itself, if it is not accompanied by action, is
dead.