“What good is it, my brothers and sisters, if someone claims to have faith but does not have works? Surely that faith cannot save, can it? 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.” James 2:14-17
The epistle lesson for this coming Sunday is the familiar “Faith without works is dead” passage from James 2. How often when I pass by a person begging for money on the street do I feel guilty and worry that my faith is dead or dying? Thanks, James. There must be more value to these verses than humbling me if I am dwelling in a glass house of self-righteousness.
But maybe that’s all these verses need to do. Causing you or me to stop and look in the mirror is really quite an important thing for a spiritual encounter to do. To pause from our busy lives for a bit of self-examination is much more helpful than the far more common way this passage is used, namely to put others down by pointing out the hypocrisy of their holier-than-thou rhetoric and lack of empathy or meaningful service to meet the real needs of their neighbors.
One of the bishops I served under had a memorable way of keeping us clergy humble. He was fond of saying that things always worked out well when he was appointing clergy to serve in the churches under his supervision. He said the numbers always came out even because there “are always as many perfect churches as there are perfect pastors.”
James employs a similar tactic earlier in chapter 2. In verses 8-10 we find these words: “If you really fulfill the royal law according to the scripture, ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself,’ you do well. But if you show partiality, you commit sin and are convicted by the law as transgressors. For whoever keeps the whole law but fails in one point has become accountable for all of it.”
Does that mean God doesn’t grade on the curve? That nothing but a perfect score is good enough to live up to God’s standards? No, who could ever stand before such a God? Such a God would never send a Messiah to save us from ourselves. Such a Messiah would never welcome lepers, tax collectors, and all manner of societal outcasts into God’s beloved community.
James is simply warning us that our faith journey is a marathon, not a sprint. James is alerting us to the danger of thinking we’ve got it all figured out or that our work is ever done. I don’t know about you, but I’ve got a long way to go to love my enemies or to turn the other cheek. This side of heaven there will always be more neighbors to love, more poor who are with us always. God’s love is eternal and so are the tasks of discipleship for those who have decided to follow Jesus.
Peacefully Harsh 