B, Pentecost 16 Proper 18 - James 2:14 "Faith and Works"

What good is it, my brothers (and sisters), if someone says he has faith but does not have works? Can that faith save him? (James 2:14 ESV)

It seems a grenade has been rolled into the mix of sound teaching; words contrary to other scripture where we’re taught we’re justified by faith, as Paul tells us in the letters he wrote to the early church!

But earlier in the text James begins with a warning about being partial or bias towards those dressed in fine clothes believing they are somehow better than the poor wearing shabby attire. He says, “show no partiality as you hold the faith in our Lord Jesus Christ, the Lord of glory.” (James 2:1 ESV)

James goes on to show partiality as sin when we judge others contrary to how God has judged us.  Finding us guilty God vicariously placed his Son, Jesus Christ, in our place and gave us freedom we could not work through the Law.

Therefore he says, “So speak and so act as those who are to be judged under the law of liberty (the law of freedom).  For judgment is without mercy to one who has shown no mercy.  Mercy triumphs over judgment.”  (James 2:12–13 ESV)

So what are we to make of judgment in light of our faith and works!  James even seems to confuse his own argument by saying, “Listen, my beloved brothers, has not God chosen those who are poor in the world to be rich in faith and heirs of the kingdom… (James 2:5 ESV)  God chooses the rich in faith, but on the other hand, those whose faith has no works is dead.

When these texts fill our hearing the old human nature kicks in.  We search ourselves for faith we look for works in our daily lives.  God walks in the garden of our lives and we go scrambling to defend and cover ourselves with our knowledge of good and evil.  It’s been this way since Adam and Eve hid from God in Eden.

It is exactly because of our sin that we confuse faith and works.  We all have faith and we all do works but what this faith is and what works they produce is another thing.  So the question is put: what is my faith and what works do I do to support my faith?  What is happening in us, in you, in me, when God’s word fills our hearing?  Do you act as Adam or as Christ?

Take for instance a few lines from the Old Testament reading today, Isaiah 35:6&7, “For waters break forth in the wilderness, and streams in the desert;  the burning sand shall become a pool, and the thirsty ground springs of water” (Isaiah 35:6b–7a ESV)

Just like Adam we’re tempted to dive into ourselves turning our backs on God in disbelief when our reality seems contrary to God’s word.  Deep down it’s so easy to doubt texts like this when drought seems to be overwhelming our farms and our souls.

In Psalm 146 God delves into our hearts telling us to put no trust in princes; in one who dies as we all will die.  In the spirit of James we are told not to be partial to the finely dressed; the princely types.  What kind of judgment are we making when we deem the finely dressed as “good blokes” and others as “evil blokes”?

Rather in Psalm 146 we are told, “Blessed is he whose help is the God of Jacob, whose hope is in the LORD his God,  who made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that is in them, who keeps faith forever;  who executes justice for the oppressed, who gives food to the hungry.”(Psalm 146:5–7 ESV)

And so we have gathered here in God’s name and testify to each other before God, “Our help is in the name of the Lord. He made heaven and earth.  I said, ‘I will confess my sins to the Lord.’ Then he forgave the guilt of my sin.” Which intentionally are pieces of scripture given to us by God to pray to him from Psalm 124:8 and 32:5.

God shows no partiality.  He judges all; the poorly dressed but rich in faith as well as the richly dressed with hidden poor faith issues, and everyone in between.  We all need the same help and we all need the same forgiveness!

So the question is, “what is faith”?  And, “what is a work”? 

So often sin within takes these questions and turns them in on ourselves and we in turn, cast a judgment on each other that’s far from merciful.  We take the word of God and we make ourselves gods over God’s word.  This is exactly the opposite of what God intends. God’s will is to be merciful to those who call on his name.  His mercy triumphs over judgment.  It’s always been that way, even in Old Testament times when the Law was put in place to atone for sin.

You see many characters in the Old Testament were sinful.  Abraham took Hagar to father a child when God had promised Sarah would have a child, Jacob was ruthless towards his brother Esau and father-in-law Laban.  David committed murder, and adultery.  And even in Jesus’ day Peter sinned by denying Jesus at his trial, yet he was forgiven and Judas was not.  So what is going on?  Sinful men sanctified by God.  Did their good works justify them?  What kind of works were going on when David took another man’s wife into his bed? Or when Abraham took Sarah’s servant Hagar into his bed?  When Jacob stole his brother’s birth right?  When Peter said he did not know Jesus and called down curses upon himself?

Faith, works, judgment, mercy.  Floods, drought, life and death.  What is the will of God?  How do we reconcile the word of God with the very real events of everyday life? So the question still stands, “what is faith”?  And, “what is a work”? 

Our understanding can swing very quickly into perspective when we begin to understand the function of God’s word in the Old and the New Testaments as God’s word that calls us to believe who we are so in turn we trust not in ourselves but look out of ourselves and trust in God. 

Despite my sinful nature God comes to me, first through the Law but now through Jesus.  No one can fulfil the whole Law but God still credited people righteous in Old Testament times.  Why, because even while seeking to fulfil the Law but failing they were looking not to themselves but to God.  They believed they were sinful but despite that trusted God.

In Gospel times, in the early church and today, there’s still the temptation to look to the self so that faith is not trusting in God but a resting on one’s own knowledge of good and evil.  And if we are not trusting in God we’re not going to believe we are sinful nor are we in need of Christ’s vicarious action.  Having made ourselves god of our own lives, refusing Christ’s vicarious action, we stop our heavenly Father from allowing the Holy Spirit to work in us both faith as well as works towards others.

To put it another way Peter, King David, John the Baptist, Moses, Abraham, Jacob, and others, believed they were sinners but allowed God to focus them not on themselves but on him.  Yes they all made mistakes; they stuffed up, but they didn’t allow their sin to separate them from God. And because they faced God their works were not things they conjured up for themselves to do but they did what was necessary while looking to God.

Faith in anything but Jesus’ death and resurrection; faith in anything but my sin that needs this vicarious action, is a dead faith!  Faith that looks out of myself to Jesus, is a faith that lets Jesus in, worked by the Holy Spirit, when we hear the word of God.  It’s Jesus’ promise that he will send a helper.  Our helps is in the name of the Lord who made heaven and earth, and in his name the Holy Spirit enters in and works in us, even without our knowing or feeling it.  The Holy Spirit is a mover and a shaker. 

James Nestingen an American Lutheran theologian has written a commentary on the Small Catechism called “Free to Be”.  It’s a good simple read but I want to direct you to his title on Third Article of the Creed, it’s titled, “God the Verb”. When we look to Jesus, that’s the Holy Spirit acting within. The Holy Spirit is the verb, he is the active word in the sentence of our Christian lives, as it were.

When we look to Jesus, and confess our sin, it’s the Holy Spirit acting within. With the Holy Spirit engendering faith within he also has from within us works to do.  But rarely do we realize we are doing the works because our focus is on Jesus Christ, willed by God the Father, enacted within by the Holy Spirit.

In James chapter one we hear, “Count it all joy, my brothers (and sister), when you meet trials of various kinds, for you know that the testing of your faith produces steadfastness.  And let steadfastness have its full effect, that you may be perfect and complete, lacking in nothing.” (James 1:2–4 ESV)

You too lack nothing in Christ, drought or flood, poor or financial.  Faith produces faith, and in faith you endure trials and continue to hear and receive the Word of God. And as you hear the word of God, the Holy Spirit produces faith, so you lack nothing.  Works produce faith and faith produces works.  It just comes unstuck in us when we stop looking to God and credit ourselves with faith and works while condemning others for their faith and works or lack of.

So look to God continually and ask him for wisdom and endurance; steadfastness or enduring love in our Lord Jesus Christ who through his vicarious action on the cross gives us the freedom to lay our lives down for each other in intercessory prayer, in vicarious action, in ways we don’t even realize or see, as we look out of ourselves to Jesus Christ. Amen.