Doers of the Word

August 30, 2009

James 1:17-27 and Mark 7:1-8

A few weeks ago, I drove to Cincinnati to see our old pals, Kent and Deb W. They moved three or four years ago, but still send warm greetings. Their biggest regret, I think, is that they couldn’t pack the whole church and take it with them when they left. They miss us.

We were on their deck, enjoying wine before dinner. For reasons I can’t recall, I began prattling on about preaching … and whether or not it makes any real difference.

“Fairly often,” I said, “people walk out at the end of worship, shake my hand, and say, ‘Good sermon.’ I’m glad when that happens.

I know I’ve made people mad with my preaching too, though I usually don’t hear it until days later.

But for all the feedback I’ve ever gotten, I don’t think anyone has ever said, ‘That sermon changed my life.’

“Isn’t that what preaching is supposed to do – change our lives? Transform us as the People of God?”

My monologue was over. I quit talking. Kent stood up to flip the chicken on the grill. Deb swirled the contents of her glass. I began wondering to myself if one sermon ever could change a person. Maybe it takes dozens or hundreds ofencounters with scripture and God in sermons (and other ways) for that to occur.

Even if one sermon did the trick, would we know it that day? Probably not. The change would have to be tested and proved and reinforced over time.

Deb set down her glass and interrupted my silent meditation:

“I had a sermon change my life.”

“Oh?” I asked.

“It wasn’t one of yours. [Ouch!] Sorry. It was before we knew you. We were in Iowa. I don’t even remember the scripture that day or theme of the sermon.”

“Okay …” I offered, urging her on.

“All I remember is the minister saying that he thought everyone should do 3 things in church. It doesn’t even matter what. But three things for each person.

“He could have picked two or five or ten. But he said ‘three.’ And I liked it. It sounded biblical. And it was a goal I could reach. I taught Sunday School and joined the mission committee and did other things at Wauwatosa because of that sermon. I still think about what he said.

“That sermon changed my life.”

* *

That sermon has worked on and in her for a couple decades, I guess. It’s been working on me for the last month too. Some unknown preacher said it so long ago he may not remember it himself. But it continues to rub off and make a difference.

It does for me, anyway. What about you?

What might happen – to you and the whole church – if each of us committed to doing three things? Maybe some couldn’t. But a lot could.

* *

Deb can’t recall the scripture for that long-ago sermon; but if I were to guess, I’d say it was Letter of James … and the passage we heard today, where it says:

“Be doers of the word, and not hearers only.”

By the same token, it could have come from Mark 7, where Jesus complains about people who honor God only with their lips and calls them “hypocrites.”

Together, James and Jesus challenge us not to faith of the feel-good, do-nothing variety, but faith that is active and alive. Not “passive bystander, detached observer” faith, but “eager participant” faith.

It’s one thing to sit in a pew, sing a few songs, and maybe preach a sermon … or listen to one. It’s another thing to connect what you say or hear with what you then go and do.

As the letter of James says in the next chapter, “Faith without works is dead.” It’s useless.

* *

Martin Luther, the great Protestant Reformer, did as much for the Christian Church as anyone. He was a tireless and courageous worker for what he believed. But when it came to James’ letter, he disagreed. Vehemently.

In fact, he thought James didn’t deserve a place in the Bible. In his view, the letter was unfit for human consumption. Mere filler. Suitable for cows and horses, maybe, but not people. So he called the Letter of James “an epistle of straw.”

The idea of working for one’s faith appalled him. His mantra was “salvation by grace, through faith.” In other words, he declared that we are saved by God’s good work for us in the life, death and resurrection of Jesus Christ. Not by our own work, no matter how good.

Who can blame him for thinking that way? That was the early 1500s, when church life was altogether different. In his era, the church was awash in a sea of bad theology and the sale of indulgences.

If you wanted your dear, departed loved one to go to heaven, you were told that you had to contribute to building St. Peter’s Cathedral in Rome. You had to do other things too that Jesus and the prophets before him never would have asked for.

Luther was right to condemn that kind of religion.

Religion that says you have to earn God’s love by working for it isn’t Christian. But religion that offers itself in glad response to grace already given is spot on.

It’s the kind of faith James and Jesus encouraged. And, I might add: that Martin Luther practiced. Not to earn salvation, but as a joyful response to it.

* *

There’s a time for work, and a time for rest. Ecclesiastes says so. Jesus knew it too; and he said so – when Mary sat at the feet of Jesus, and sister Martha was distracted by much serving in the kitchen, getting ready for her guests. “Mary,” he said of the woman seated near him, “has chosen the better portion.”

But not the “only” portion.

Exactly four hundred years after Martin Luther, the pendulum had swung to the other extreme. Luther had succeeded too well in getting any idea of work out of the church. Early in the 20th century, Christian faith had become a watered-down Sunday morning only affair. It was passive, requiring no exertion and no response from the believer, except a casual nod of the head from properly dressed church-goers.

From the pre-Luther mood of salvation by works, the needle had swung to the opposite side of the dial, to salvation by cheap grace that required no commitment at all.

The result was a church that had nothing to say to the robber barons of the early 20th century, no comment on the extreme wealth of some and complete poverty of others. “Widows and orphans,” a phrase used by the Letter of James as shorthand for anyone at risk, were overlooked. Factories were rife with child labor. The church lost its spine. Health care for workers, job safety and other social ills were completely ignored …

… Until Walter Rauschenbusch began proclaiming what is now known as the social gospel.

He drew a direct link between belief and behavior, saying that “no [one] shares life with God whose religion does not flow out naturally … into all relations of his [or her] life.” Without surrendering the saving grace of Christ, he declared that “whoever uncouples the religious and the social life has not understood Jesus.”

* *

One of the things that drives me crazy and grates on my nerves is a saying I hear all the time these days. People who don’t want to come to church, but want to feel safe with God, tell me, “I’m spiritual. I’m just not religious.”

One reason it bugs me, I think, is that it’s a perfect excuse for do-nothing faith. When you’re spiritual but not religious, you don’t have to get your hands dirty. Don’t have to take responsibility. Don’t have to give anything of yourself. Don’t have to do even three things in church. And don’t have to raise a moral voice against the immoral realities in the world.

Would Jesus have gone to the cross if he were “spiritual but not religious”? Would he have been seen as a threat to the secular authorities of his day? Would we remember him and pray to him and praise him 2000 years later?

I can’t imagine.

As long as faith is internal and esoteric, it’s no threat to anyone – including the person who settles for that kind of mild-mannered milk substitute of what God offers.

* *

For years, this church has tried to practice what we call “worshipful work.” That is, we try to see that whatever we do as the people of God is a response to the grace we received in Jesus Christ. And for more years than that, we understood this church to be a place “Where Each Person Is Called to Ministry.”

We no longer highlight that language. But we hold to the concept. It’s not on our lips, but it is part of our life … as the people of God.

We work and minister together not to save ourselves, but to create and celebrate the world God intends us to have, by the grace and love of Jesus Christ.

* *

Maybe my words and thoughts on the deck of my friends’ home were right. Preaching alone can’t and won’t change our lives. We need to be doers of the word, not hearers only. Faith lives in our actions, not merely on our lips. To a great extent, we don’t believe first in order to do. Rather, in the process of doing and responding to God’s grace, we come to know that God’s ways are true.

Emily R has already told us this morning what happened to her over the past two summers. In church and beyond, faith comes alive when we live it. Our eyes and hearts are opened, and we ourselves are made new.

I don’t expect sermon to change your life, more than any other. No need to tell me if it does. That’s not what I’m after.

But it might spur you to try.

I can just about see that church from here – rejoicing, reaching out, taking risks … learning and laughing together … bubbling up and spilling over … shedding Christ’s light on the world.

Oo-ee, it looks good!

To the glory of God.