September 9, 2018: Live Faith – Do Something

Today in worship at St. Peter Lutheran Church, we celebrated 8 of our third graders receiving new Deep Blue Kids Bibles. My sermon for this 16th Sunday after Pentecost focused on James 2:1-17, continuing our exploration from last week of James calling the church into action.

The opening illustration is adapted from Nicki Gumbel’s talk, Why and How Should I Read the Bible? in the Alpha course. A transcript can be found here. Here’s my sermon for September 9, 2018.

I want to tell you a story about a man I’ll call George. George got a brand-new car, a really nice BMW. He was so excited about his new BMW, and when he got in, he noticed right there in the glove box of his new car was a glossy, full-color owner’s manual.

George started reading the owner’s manual, and he just loved it. He began reading it every day, keeping it on his nightstand next to the bed. He took a highlighter and marked some of his favorite passages.

Then he though, I’ve got to memorize some of this, so he wrote little excerpts on sticky notes to put on his bathroom mirror to see while brushing his teeth. He got a guitar and set the most inspiring parts to music.

Then he thought, “I wonder whether other people like the BMW manual. Perhaps I’ll join the BMW club and go to some meetings.” He even started learning German so he could read the BMW owner’s manual in its original language instead of a translation!

The problem is, George missed the point. The point of the owner’s manual is to help you drive the car!

This weekend, we’re giving Bibles to our third graders and when we meet on Sunday afternoon to talk about how to read the Bible, we’re going to go through things like what the books are and how to look up verses. But I’m also going to tell them that the point of the Bible is to tell us about Jesus. The point of reading the Bible is to learn just how much God loves you.

The Bible is a dangerous book, because when you learn about God’s love, it changes you. It wants you to do something, to live differently. Today’s reading from James is a great example.

James has this radical idea that as Christians, we should do more than just say we believe in Jesus. We should do more than just show up to church and Sunday School, more than just sing a few songs and maybe listen to some prayers and a lecture about Jesus.

James dares to say being a Christian means we have to change our attitudes. Being a Christian means we have to change the way we live.




What’s really annoying about James is that he doesn’t just say something vague about Jesus loving nice people. He’s much more specific. He says Jesus loves you, and that means you need to care for your neighbors.

James says we need to have more than a nice Christian attitude where we say, “Go in peace, feel better. Stay warm. Eat your fill.” Telling someone who is hungry to go eat doesn’t do any good. Instead, James tells us, we need to give the hungry people food. When someone needs clothes, we need to give them some. You and I are supposed to actually do something about the needs of our neighbors. Imagine that!

Now, the challenge comes when we try to figure out the best way to feed the hungry, or fight poverty. That’s where we get into political debates.

Liberals want the government to take care of everybody and not leave anyone out. Conservatives want the government to get out of the way so people can take care of themselves.

James doesn’t really care if you’re liberal or conservative or libertarian or socialist. James wants you to feed your neighbor. James wants you to not just talk about how much faith you have and how much you care, but to actually do something about it.

James wants the church—and by the church he means you and I, Christians assembled as Christ’s body—James wants the church to live up to its calling. The church is supposed to be something unique in our world. We are supposed to be God’s embassy in a sinful world, the one place where everyone is welcomed and included.

We are supposed to be the ones caring for our neighbors, not just the neighbors we like, or who agree with us, but all our neighbors. We are supposed to be the ones seeing and treating everyone as beloved children of God, both sinner and saint.

Through the church God calls every person to repent, to reorient their lives toward God, to follow in Jesus’ footsteps. In the church, the human ways we divide and judge and fight and separate each other don’t apply.

This is an oasis for people in need to come and receive hope and help, a place for all of us to practice praising God like we’ll be doing for all eternity. The church is a window to the kingdom of heaven.

At least, that’s the idea. That’s what the church ought to be.

But that’s not quite the reality, is it? The problem with the church is it’s made up of sinful people like you and me, and so at least in this world, it never fully lives up to its potential.

We bring our judgments and stereotypes with us. We bring our selfishness and greed, our desire to have it our own way, our unwillingness to put others first.

James cautions his community about how when someone dressed well comes into their church, someone with wealth or power, they bend over backwards to welcome them. Yet, when someone poor, someone without status or influence comes in, they get told to sit over there.

That might be a good recruitment strategy for a wealthy country club, but James says that’s not God’s kingdom. That’s just a reflection of the world with all its judgments and temptations. That’s not living faith. And yet, it’s so tempting, isn’t it?

It’s not just a problem in the early church. Lots of older American churches used to have members pay to rent pews so they’d have the right to sit in the most prominent places. Even today, it’s incredibly easy for churches to make decisions based on not offending the people who give the most offering.

It’s so easy for us to put ourselves first instead of doing our job as the hands and feet of Jesus in the world. James is not an easy book to read, because he doesn’t let us off the hook.

Perhaps the most offensive part of James is verse 17, the most familiar line. It’s the last few words of today’s reading. Verse 17: “So faith by itself, if it has no works, is dead.” Lutherans have been uncomfortable with James for a long time, thanks to this verse. We’re pretty attached to the principle that we are saved by grace alone and faith alone, not by anything we do.

And that’s true. God’s love for us always comes first. God doesn’t love us because we do good enough.




James challenges us, though, by calling us to have a living faith, a faith that does something. We’re called to actually follow Jesus, to drive the car, not just read the owner’s manual.

We are saved by God’s grace alone, and that grace always sends us out to love our neighbors. You can’t love God without loving your neighbor.

When God’s Word does what it’s supposed to do, we lose the option of ignoring our neighbors. When you understand God’s love, you have to care about your neighbors who are starving, or lonely, or can’t afford food or rent or health care.

James says living faith requires us to care about people in this world unjustly suffering in prison, being trafficked into sex slavery, living in fear of terrorists or dictators. We have to care about children forced into child labor, and mothers unable to feed their babies, about the over 350 million people in our world surviving on less than $2 a day [source].

James says if you understand what God has done for you, if you grasp the mercy God has shown you, then you owe it to others to show them mercy. When we are forgiven for the sins we’ve committed, whether it’s something like murder or adultery or just not noticing the needs around us, when we receive God’s mercy, we ought to share that same kind of mercy with the people around us.

When you pay attention to God’s Word, it does something to you. The Bible teaches you about Jesus, and when you learn about Jesus, when you put your faith in Jesus, he makes you care about the world around you.

The Holy Spirit gives you a living faith, and when you have a living faith, you can’t help serving your neighbors. Thanks be to God!
Amen