“Faith Without Works”

Rev. Dr. David E. Gray

Bradley Hills Presbyterian Church

September 6, 2009

Ecclesiastes 3: 9-15; James 2: 14-26

In the second chapter of Mark Twain’s classic , Tom Sawyer, Tom is given a chore of whitewashing a fence. On a fine summer's weekend day like today, Tom's friends come by and make fun of him because he has to work while they prepare to go swimming.  Tom says, “What do you call work?....it suits Tom Sawyer.”  His friend, Ben, inquires, "You mean you like it?"  Tom says, 'I don’t see why I shouldn’t like it.  It’s not every day you get to whitewash a fence."  Tom redefines his work as something desirable and then Ben begins begging Tom to give him a turn at whitewashing the fence.

Work is a mixed bag. The qualities and enjoyment we attribute to work are often in the eye of the beholder. Sometimes we love our work but other times it just seems like drudgery. 

In the Biblical story of Adam and Eve, we read that humans have to labor as a punishment for sin. The Book of Genesis, chapter 3 tells us that as a result of the original sin, men would have to “work to eat,” and women have pain in childbirth, called labor.  

I briefly had a German history teacher in college who on the first day of class came out and began by saying, “This course is about a four letter word of Anglo-Saxon origin beginning with W.  Work! If this course is not your primary academic focus for the semester I suggest you leave immediately.” So I did.

But work is not all bad. We get satisfaction out of our work – whether paid, volunteer or our activities. Tomorrow our nation will celebrate Labor Day as it has each year since 1882 to focus on labor and work.  This day has come to symbolize the end of summer and start for a return to the business of the fall. While we may miss summer, several of you have mentioned how excited you are that it’s September and the return of “back to school” and the return to the routines of work and life that fall allows. 

So let’s talk about work this morning. What does the Bible has to say about our work? Can our labors make a difference in the world and in our salvation? And most fundamentally, what should be the relationship between our work and our faith?

In our first lesson that Jack read, the writer of Ecclesiastes asks a question appropriate for Labor Day weekend. “What do the workers gain for their toil?”

And in our second lesson this morning, let’s hear together the well known passage from the author of the Book of James who writes some radical words about the concept of work. Reading now from the second chapter of the Book of James. 

Gracious and loving God, startle us with the truth of your holy word today. Inspire us to take seriously our work in this world and yours. In Christ name we pray. Amen.

We begin this morning discussing a scriptural passage about work from the book of James. The supporters of the Book of James had to work hard to even get this book included in the New Testament. There was great debate about it in the early church. 

During the Reformation, Martin Luther argued that the Book of James didn’t belong in the Bible. Luther’s reasoning was that James, particularly the section I just read, seems to be in opposition from Paul’s writings by describing justification.

Luther certainly has a point. The tradition of the Reformation, the centrality of Christ’s actions, the totality of the New Testament and the primacy of Paul’s letters argue that we are incapable of earning our salvation by our works. The Good News of the New Testament is that we don’t have to earn our salvation; rather God comes to us through Jesus Christ. 

So if our works do not earn us salvation, does that mean we can ignore our works? Does it not matter how we act? How we treat each other? What we do with our gifts?  That was the issue that James was dealing with when writing this book.

While Luther during the Reformation was concerned that the Christian church was teaching a kind of works righteousness, James saw the opposite problem in his day. James looked around and saw many triumphalistic Christians who were so convinced that Jesus was about to return that they discounted how they acted. The downside of salvation by grace through faith might be that since God has already saved us and we can’t earn our salvation, it doesn’t matter how we act.

James saw spiritual freeloaders who didn’t feel the need to step up and work for the good of the church or the community.   People who would rest on the actions of others and not contribute to the common good.

James was attracted to people who walked to walk.

James wrote, “Show me your faith apart from your works and I by my works will show you my faith.”

In other words, for James, faith and works go together. That is the most critical part of James’s writings. I think Luther had it right to emphasize faith but James makes a critical contribution by reminding us that our work in the world, whether paid or volunteer, matters.

After all, both Matthew and Luke record Jesus as saying that we will know about whether something is healthy or not by its fruit. The fruit of our faith is how we act, what we do with our time, how we use our gifts.

Faith and works are not opposites. Faith and work are two parts of God’s work in us. For many of us, it’s hard to articulate our faith. Faith can be personal and private for some. Yet our works are the manifestation and the outside expression of our faith. If we believe that God is active and that history is moving in God’s direction, then our role is to work to live our faith today.  

How do your works reflect your faith? Much as James was concerned about spiritual freeloading, the tendency to rely our faith and ignore one’s actions, and ignore the needs of the church or the world, if we are not involved helping ours, if we are not involved in mission at some level, then we have a spiritual problem. As Jesus mentioned, a barometer for our spiritual health is the fruit of the works we produce.

God has called God’s people, that includes you and me, to be involved in the life of the church. We come to church to express our faith. Church does not work if we only look at church as a place for us to go to enrich our faith and for someone else to do the work. We demonstrate our faith and strengthen our faith by our work in the church.  The act of Christian discipleship is found not only in spiritual piety but in our working through issues together as the body of Christ. It’s found in your accepting the challenges of your nominating committee and of your lay ministries to step up on faith to be parts of different committees. We have a need for people to volunteer to help with our communication programs right now. It’s in how we together build the kind of community at Bradley Hills that we want to be part of. 

There is a story of a minister was approached by a man who said he wanted to join the church. “But,” the man said, “I have a very busy schedule. I can’t be called on for any service, such as committee work, teaching, or singing in the choir.  I just won’t be available for special projects or to help with setting up chairs or things like that. And I’m afraid I’ll never be bale to go on visitation, as my evenings are all tied up.” The minister thought for a moment, and then replied, “I believe you are at the wrong church. The church you are looking for is three blocks down the street, on the right.” The man followed the preacher’s directions and soon came to an abandoned, boarded up, closed church building. It was a dead church – gone out of business.

James concludes, “Faith without works is dead.”   Faith apart from works is barren. 

That is not what I see here at Bradley Hills. I look at the children coming up for the children’s sermon and I see a church’s potential. I listen to the choir practice, attend the mission committee meetings and plan with the Session and I see the church’s potential. I sit and listen to your life stories and I see the potential of people for their work in the church. 

But if you are like me, from time to time you might wonder if our labors make a difference in this world we live in.  Do our actions have an impact given the headwinds of culture and the personal frustrations we face in an imperfect world? What can one person do to change the world?  What can we do in the face of all the issues we face on our planet? 

That is in part what the writer of the book of Ecclesiastes asked in our first lesson, “What good is a person’s toil?” Well, an answer comes from Paul’s writing to the Corinthians that is included in our call to worship. The very Paul whom Luther argued was in opposition to James. He wrote that “those who toil in the Lord, do not work in vain.”

When our actions, work, activities and attitudes are driven by and infused with our faith, we do not work in vain. We are part of God’s greater activities, so no matter how small we might feel from time to time, our work matters, its part of something bigger. 

We don’t start changing the world by deciding we will conquer every global problem. We start with the work right around us. As football season starts this week, I’ll share a story from writer Bob Shank about the lessons he learned on the football field. Shank’s mentor was a coach named Manny Penaflor. Shank writes one day when he was not performing particularly well, Penaflor grabbed him by the face mask and yelled at him, “Bob, you’re a defensive tackle, not the whole team. I don’t want you playing the whole field. Here is your job.”  And he scratched a ten foot by ten foot square around my spot on the line. “You see this square? This square is yours. Anybody from the other team who comes into this square, it’s your job to put them on the ground. You got that?” 

When he finished with Penaflor he went to the next player and then through the whole team so they had their whole areas set. Shank says that now in business when he becomes frustrated with all he has to do, he thinks of high school football and remembers “I am not assigned the whole planet. I’ve only been entrusted with a particular slice of it.”

Our work at times during the week can seem monotonous, tedious and frustrating. But remember what Paul writes, that whatever we do, we can do it for the glory of God. We are part of God’s greater activities, so no matter how small we might feel from time to time, our work matters, its part of something bigger. 

A priest known for his spirituality named Henri Nouwen wrote about a job he had once to wash raisins for raisin bread. At first, Nouwen found his work somewhat interesting but soon he decided that it was mind numbing. But then after a while, Nouwen writes, he realized that his washing raisins could be a form of prayer. He began to look at his washing the raisins as a form of love for people that he would never know. This is a man who wrote more than 40 books and taught at universities across the world. He could have seen that task as below him and tuned out. Instead he saw his faith in his work when he saw that he could impact people in a small way, through each raisin they ate. I’m sure it was frustrating at times, but Nouwen’s work became a point of prayer. He was able to find the sacred within the everyday.  

What good is a person’s toil?   You can only start with where you are. Only you know the ways you need to connect your work, your volunteering and your works with your faith.  

And ultimately, while our works might not save us in terms of the after life, they can help save us in terms of enjoying our life here. For one thing that I have experienced is that when I am involved in good works and connect my labors with my faith, those are the times when I enjoy life the most anyway.  The times when my faith has seen the most tangible to me, and I expect, to others is in when my work and my works are alive with my faith and when my faith shines in my work. So if your life seems to be missing something, think about how you are spending your time and how your works might reflect your faith. Ask who else benefits as a result of my energy? And think about James again. For if faith without works is dead, but perhaps your faith might come alive when you find the sacred in your work. Thanks be to God. Amen.