Good Works / Faith Works

Scripture: James 2:1-17

Inspired by the many miracles of healing and feeding performed by Jesus Christ, the Christians James was writing to had taken to believing in miracles. So if anyone in their community had need - and James here picks on the two easiest needs to identify - the naked and the hungry - if anyone has a need, and you say, "Go in peace, keep warm and eat your fill," but do not give them clothing or food, what good have you done? Do you really believe? Do you really believe that the Lord will provide? Because James, who is well aware of Jesus' teachings, seems to remember him saying something along the lines of, "for I was hungry and you gave me food, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you welcomed me, I was naked and you gave me clothing, I was sick and you took care of me, I was in prison and you visited me.... Truly I tell you, just as you did it to one of the least of these who are members of my family, you did it to me." (Matthew 25:31-40, selected verses).

Sara Miles, an Episcopalian deacon who started a food panty out of her church's sanctuary, writes of her conversion and calling in the book, "Take This Bread." As she explored the issues of hunger in her community of the Mission in San Francisco, she was shocked to learn that the problem really isn't food production. It's food distribution. And so she found ways to provide food to the neighborhood - for free. On Fridays, she and a small team of volunteers, set up food and monitored its distribution right out of the sanctuary, using the very table the community used to distribute the Lord's Supper. And what she found in distribution was just as shocking, "But the harder thing for me was listening to unreconciled difference, without thinking about that as a political problem-truly opening myself to people I would prefer to write off," she writes.

I'm grateful for her sharing of this insight into her own struggle. Because part of my struggle is that I don't often see the poor (that's who James is talking about).

We have to get over all those things that make us feel better about our faith, those things that we tell ourselves so we can sleep at night. In short, we need to stop being consumed by guilt over all the things we do not do, and start putting our faith into action. We need to let our lives be led by our faith.

You can't cover up a lack of faith with good works. "The life of the disciple is an intricate pattern of worship and work. We cannot love God without loving what God has created, and while Jesus showed clear partiality for the poor and marginalized, his grace-full love and salvation was offered for all." The Rev. Sharron Riessinger Blezard, ELCA pastor, who follows with an intriguing notion..., "What if," she says, "we lived as though 1% and 99% together made us 100%? And that's what made us whole?" Because the greater truth offered here in James is that we are all the same.

Good Works/Faith Works; October 2, 2016; Eastridge Presbyterian Church; Rev. Melodie Jones Pointon                    Senior Pastor                          mjonespointon@eastridge.org