[i] James 2:17-18
September 14, 2003; Proper 19, Year B
The Rev. Harold "Skip" Comer, Rector
During my vacation I did two of my favorite things. The first week of our vacation we spent fishing in the Upper Peninsula. During the second week I worked on the addition of a closet and alcove to our bedroom. Fishing and carpentry, two gifts from my grandfather, who got me interested and taught me the basics of both of them. Yet I have graduated far beyond those early years when all I had for fishing was a metal rod and simple bait casting reel, and all of the tools that I used were hand tools. Whether it be fishing or building, I have learned by watching and working with others, or by venturing out on my own in a trial and error method.
Whether it be a hobby like fishing, golf, painting, gardening, reading, … whatever your hobbies are: or practical things like driving, cooking, building, teaching, … all the things that we do every day; we can only learn so much from others. Sooner or later we must do for ourselves if we are truly going to become a golfer, painter, fisherman, reader, cook, builder, teacher, … I believe you get the idea. The same is true of faith. We can only learn so much from other people and from reading the Bible, sooner or later if we are really going to have faith we must venture out on our own, seeking a relationship with God through Jesus Christ.
Peter and the other disciples were at this point in their journey with Jesus. They had listened and watched as he taught, healed, and reached out to people. He, Jesus, was not a Messiah that sought fame and fortune, he was the humble Messiah who pointed beyond himself to God, his Father. Yes, he was wise and he performed great miracles, but most of all he was a man of faith, attested to by the constant mentioning in the Gospels of him retreating to a quite place for prayer.
As a test of how much the disciples had learned, he questioned them about who others, and even themselves, thought that he really was. We have heard the responses before. Peter as we know gets the answer right, Jesus is the Messiah. But what kind of Messiah? As Jesus told them more about the kind of Messiah he was, Peter could hardly hold his tongue. He “rebuked” Jesus, or in other words, Peter told Jesus that he had it all wrong. We know from scripture that the expectation was that the Messiah of God would be someone like King David, a powerful warrior king, who would reestablish Israel as a great nation. He would parade into Jerusalem to ascend the throne amidst the joyful cries of the people. Jesus turned around and rebuked Peter for buying into the popularly held expectation of the Messiah as one who would reestablish the golden age of Israel’s prominence among the nations of the world. Jesus then lays down the basics of what it means to be a Christian: denial of oneself, taking up your cross, losing our life for Jesus, and not being ashamed of Jesus or the fact that we are one of his followers.
When I was learning carpentry from my grandfather, I would first watch what he did. He would often then explain the right way to do it. Then I had to do it, like learning to hammer a nail. Anyone can swing a hammer at a nail, but they will not always hit it or pound it in right. It’s not so much the in power of the swing, but how you hit the nail. That’s the trick. You can take all of the swings you want to at the nail, but if you don’t hit it, it’s not going anywhere. The trick is to place the hammer on the nail and then draw the hammer back and bring it down on the nail in the same path that you drew the hammer away from the nail. It may take a few extra swings to pound the nail in, but you won’t end up with hammer marks all over the wood.
There is the right way to be a Christian and the wrong way. The right way is one of humbleness and sacrifice; the wrong way is that of seeking prestige, power, and fortune. Now I am not advocating that we have to go around beating our breast and wearing sackcloth. I believe that being a Christian is joyful and exciting. We have all read and heard how Jesus lived. He sets the example for us. We are called to be imitators of the life of Christ, that is what it means to follow him.
About six or seven years ago the initials W.W.J.D. began to appear in Christian bookstores and on the wrist of youth. I must admit that at first I did not know what the initials W.W.J.D. stood for. I still remember the Sunday that a teenager came up to me and showed me her cloth wrist band with those initials on it and asked me if I knew what they stood for. Dumbfounded, I guessed, Walk With Jesus Daily. Buzz, wrong. She acted as though I was out of touch with reality as she responded, “No, it’s What Would Jesus Do.” You know, that is a pretty good slogan to carry around with us. In the decisions that we make and the way that we treat others, we should always, as Christians, be seeking to decide and treat others the way that Christ did.
Several years later a bishop wrote a letter of warning to the clergy about the fundamentalist agenda or movement behind W.W.J.D. Between the lines was the message that living the Christian life was not as simple as that. I have thought about that off and on over the past several years, and I must say that sometimes we make being a Christian too complicated, or seek exceptions to the guiding principles that Jesus put forth so that we can do or have something for ourselves.
This is where James is coming from in the reading that we heard this morning. He has witnessed favoritism among the early Christians in how they are treating each other and he comes down rather hard on those who show favoritism to people with status. James goes on to say in his now famous passages about faith and works, “So faith by itself, if it has no works, is dead. … Show me your faith apart from your works, and I by my works will show you my faith.”[i]
We need to be careful as we read the Letter of James. James is not implying that all people who do good works are Christians. Good works do not make a Christian. What James is saying is that if we have faith, if we are Christian, then we will do good works. Good works can be done for a variety of reasons, like the one that James mentions; doing something good in hope or anticipation of the favor being returned. For James this is inappropriate behavior or motivation. Christians do good works because that is what Jesus did, and that is what it means to follow Jesus.
Part of the attractiveness of Jesus is that he practiced what he preached. His was a living faith, visible for everyone to see. For James, true faith is a faith that is lived out in a Christian’s life. It is a faith that has substance, it is faith in action. It is a faith that applies What Would Jesus Do to every situation.
[i] James 2:17-18