James 1:17-27
DO THE DO THAT’S DUE
© Kevin C. Stainton
8/30/15
Martin Luther called James “an epistle of straw.” He didn’t like James because doing good deeds had not brought salvation to him: He could never be perfect. Only
God’s gracious acceptance of us through Jesus Christ can restore us to God. We are
“saved by grace through faith,” says Luther’s favorite verse in Ephesians.
So when James says “Faith without works is dead,” in chapter 2, Luther was offended.
At the time of the Reformation, it was a good thing to emphasize grace and faith.
Too much was mechanistic about Christian practice so that hearts and lives were not really touched and transformed by the Gospel. Luther and the other Reformers pointed the Church back to a faith that was grounded in the Word and lived out in the world.
But it may be that the pendulum has swung the other way. Today the emphasis is perhaps a little too strong on faith and not enough on the fruit that faith bears, the changes that should happen in believer’s lives. Jesus says in Matthew, “Why do you call me
Lord, Lord and do not the things that I ask?”
Why? Because it is easy to say, “Lord, Lord” and not so easy to do. Doing the do is not easy. It constrains our desires and requires that we overcome our own inertia and fight the gravity of the easier way.
It is easy to stand up. hear and recite the baptismal vows on behalf of your child.
It is harder to live those vows in front of your child. But, every parent knows that their children will not act the way they are instructed unless they see their parents doing it.
“Do as I say, not as I do,” is not a successful parenting strategy.
The grace that enables us to say that we trust Jesus is brought by the Holy Spirit who also enables us to not only say that we trust Jesus and want to follow Him, but to actually follow him.
James says all our generous actions have their root in God. God first gave us life and all that is necessary for it and Jesus who brings us to life in His Kingdom. These acts of generosity are the source of all our actions for others.
Friday was the Tenth anniversary of Hurricane Katrina hitting New Orleans.
Today might be the anniversary of the levies breaking which produced horrible flooding and loss of life. You remember how horrified we were, all first at the collapse of infrastructure that takes care of electricity, water and sewage and then at the collapse of order. 1,833 people died unnecessarily in hospitals at the hands of overwhelmed staff, in the Superdome, from lack of rescue coordination, and violence and looting. We didn’t think this kind of chaos could happen in America. We saw some of the worst of human nature.
We can also remember some humans at their best. The whole country sprang to give aid so that by one year after Katrina over $4 billion had been given by individuals and corporations. Heritage joined that outpouring of generosity.
We also joined the thousands of persons who went to New Orleans to help with clean-up and reconstruction. We sent at least three crews over the course of five years and other members went with presbytery expeditions.
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Some in our congregation also welcomed into their homes refugees from New
Orleans. They were supported in this mercy by others members who supplied things like clothes and job leads.
That kind of giving- of time, material and money - is costly. Many of us were thankful for the opportunity to give in the ways that we could. Sacrifice for strangers is the kind of thing that our faith leads us to do. It is the do that is due because of God’s generosity to us. Because God has given us life and life in Jesus Christ, we share life with those in need – the widows and orphans, as James says.
The Word which calls us, calls us to sacrificial acts. Some of these acts are physical, some are financial. Out of whatever we have been given, God calls us to do sacrificially for God’s work in the world. God’s purpose is a world of abundance that meets the needs of all for full, whole life. God’s purpose is fulfilled when hearers of the word are doers.
Christian faith is not about making believers feel better, live longer or be safe from bad things. Christian faith is about following Jesus who lived an authentic, full, human life by his sacrificial giving. It is about being shaped by God’s implanted word into the persons God created us to be. It is about participating in God’s purpose for creation. It’s about doing.
We live in a world that claims scarcity and propagates fear. So we fear that we will not have enough. Specifically, we fear that we will not have enough time or money or health or stuff or experiences. That fear competes with the word implanted in us which calls us toward generosity.
Many of us are paying a high toll for our fear. We work too much and with too much emotional investment so that we are too worn to share ourselves with our families and friends or to enjoy life. We are so busy accumulating and consuming that we lose who we really are and pass-by opportunities to make life meaningful. Our health suffers because we don’t eat right or exercise enough. Our relationships break. We are exhausted and still fearful.
God’s generosity to us is a promise against our fears and opens us to generosity.
God gives us life and promises us eternal life in Jesus Christ. Jesus promises to never leave us or forsake us. Again and again God provides His people with what they need.
God’s generosity pours over us and his abundance rains down on us; our fears founder on
God’s grace so trust rises and we are able to act sacrificially to join God’s mission in the world.
Every week in worship, we have the opportunity to break free of our fear and follow Jesus. We respond to the Word read and preached with acts of commitment. Last week that act was Baptism when a couple commited to follow Jesus and to raise their child in the faith. This week a commitment will be made by three persons who have responded to God’s call to coordinate Heritage’s participation in IHN. We also have the opportunity to give sacrificially of our time through the ministry of this congregation.
Finally, in worship we lay before to God our money. By putting our money in the offering plate, we break our fear of scarcity and our obsession with accumulation to give something for someone else. “In doing so, our daily work is redeemed and our lives are transformed from the mere making of a living to the living of a life. Whatever we do for a living, we now do to the glory of God and for giving to others.”
[William Willimon, “Gifted
Givers,”
Pulpit Resource, Vol 37,no.3, 2009, p39.]
At the offering we are being our best selves.
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I want to tell you this story because it moved me. I’m hesitant to do so though because the immense wealth of the giver may tempt you to excuse yourself from giving similarly.
I’ll tell the story anyway. It is from a 2014 biography by Jeff Hobbs,
The Short and Tragic Life of Robert Pease.
Rob grew up in the Eighties and Nineties in Newark,
New Jersey. His dad went to jail when Rob was 7. His mom worked several low-wage jobs to send her son to St Benedict’s Preparatory High School in the heart of Newark. It was 100% African-American and almost every boy was poor and without a father at home. Rob excelled as an athlete, scholar and leader.
In the spring of his senior year, Rob was accepted on a full scholarship to a local college, Montclair State. Penn, Yale and Johns Hopkins also accepted him, but without sufficient financial aid for him to attend.
At the senior banquet, Colin Powell spoke, and, then-FBI Director Louis Freeh attended – the headmaster was connected. Rob had received the top award “The
Presidential Award, so he gave a speech.
After the speech, board member and benefactor Charles Cawley, a graduate of St.
Benedict’s the CEO of MNBA bank, came up to Rob. Cawley supported Benedict’s to the tune of $3 million per year and had a dozen boys to his Maine estate each spring to encourage them to make the most of St. Benedict’s. He understood that St. B’s had given him much and he wanted to give to the next generation of students.
Charles Cawley gave Rob a napkin with a phone number on it and told him,
“You can go to any college you want to attend.” Rob, not knowing what was happening said, simply, “Thank you.”
The next day Rob’s mother called the number to hear that Mr. Cawley was issuing a blank check for Rob to attend college. He went to Yale.
None of us are as wealthy as Charles Cawley, but all of us can be as generous.
We can recognize God’s generosity to us and can then sacrifice to share that generosity by participating in God’s work in the world, by caring for the widows and orphans. That is when we are at our best, when we are our truest humanity, the humanity for which God made us. When we sacrifice for the glory of God and the care of his people we are living the fullest, most abundant life. Our acts of generosity change lives. Our participation in what God is doing in the world remakes the world and makes us whole.
Be not hearers of the word only, but doers also. Do the do that’s due. And change the world.
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