“What good is it, my brothers, if a man claims to have faith but has no deeds? Can such faith save him? Suppose a brother or sister is without clothes and daily food. If one of you says to him, “Go, I wish you well; keep warm and well fed,” but does nothing about his physical needs, what good is it? In the same way, faith by itself, if it is not accompanied by action, is dead.”

While James is referring to the broad and varied forms of righteous action that we are called to practice, it is important to note that this comes directly following his comments on hospitality and equality to the rich & poor in our community.  Again, given that this letter was written broadly to many communities, we must see that it is more than just a narrow contextual example, but hinting that this was a (and remains) a central struggle for Christian communities in general.

The saying, “Be warm & well fed”, when honestly considered, seems a ridiculous thing to say to someone in need.  James is intentionally using this example to demonstrate that our more subtle and rationalized excuses for service and sacrifice are equally silly.  Consider what “reasonable” excuses too often come to mind (and mouth) is response to this.  After all, we are all performing “deeds” all the time.  If they are not the fruit of faith, what are they?  Are there truly any neutral deeds?  We must not get caught in the snare of double-standard, which praises good deeds & denounces evil deeds, but does nothing in the face of empty deeds.  There are only two kinds of deeds- living and dead- each a product of the faith we are called to live.  Here we see that we are called to live distinctly from the world- not apart from it, but in ways that embody the truth of God, which is Christ.

“But someone will say, “You have faith; I have deeds.  “Show me your faith without deeds, and I will show you my faith by what I do.  You believe that there is one God. Good! Even the demons believe that—and shudder.”

We have all sought to demonstrate our faith apart from our deeds.  These demonstrations may have expressed things that were good, worthy and even necessary (such as sound doctrine), but apart from living, active faith bring no more life than the profane, unworthy and meaningless (even false doctrine).  This does not mean that God cannot work in spite of such unfaithfulness, but rather that it is not reckoned as faith to those who bear it.

When James said, “You believe that there is one God.  Good!  Even the demons believe that- and shudder” he was referring to the central prayer and belief of the Jewish people, the Shema Yisrael.  Drawn from Deuteronomy 6:4,5, which says “Hear, O Israel: The LORD our God, the LORD is one. Love the LORD your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength” they would pray, “Shema Yisrael Adonai Eloheinu Adonai Echad”.  Christians today would immediately remember Jesus reference to this prayer in Matthew 22:34-40, summing up all the law (righteousness) and the prophets (justice).  However, He also included Leviticus 19:18 as an equal, indivisible part of that truth, “Love your neighbour as yourself”.  This is what has popularly become known as the Jesus Creed.

For the Jew, belief in the truths of the Shema Yisrael was at the heart of what made them God’s chosen people, set apart from the pagan and godless nations that surrounded them.  They considered themselves righteous on the merits of being His people, demonstrating it through the proclamation of this foundational prayer.  Yet James reminds them clearly that Jesus made the active love of neighbour (understood significantly to mean living justly towards all others) inseparable from the declaration and devotion of the One God.  Our identity in Christ, the very proof of our faith, is demonstrated in our love of God and others.  The standard is set high for all believers, without exception or qualification.

“You foolish man, do you want evidence that faith without deeds is useless? Was not our ancestor Abraham considered righteous for what he did when he offered his son Isaac on the altar? You see that his faith and his actions were working together, and his faith was made complete by what he did. And the scripture was fulfilled that says, “Abraham believed God, and it was credited to him as righteousness,” and he was called God’s friend. You see that a person is justified by what he does and not by faith alone.”

It is when James says, “You see that a person is justified by what he does and not by faith alone” that he landed himself in hot water throughout Church history.  Many believed that he was clearly contradicting Paul’s teaching on justification my faith alone.  For example, doesn’t this verse contradict Romans 3:28 which says, “For we maintain that a man is justified by faith apart from works of the Law”?  In fact, he is not.  While our salvation is absolutely an unmerited grace from Christ alone, one that cannot be earned through any words or actions, we also believe that true faith is an active pursuit of Christ.  It is neither an intellectual nor emotional acknowledgment/acceptance of an idea(s) being right and true.  Neither do we believe that we are saved in spite of ourselves, but rather salvation is chosen freely through the exercise of our will (which is itself a grace from God).  Therefore, so to is obedience a reflection of the work of salvation in our hearts.  (For a brief overview of an Anabaptist view of justification, check out “What do Anabaptists say about justification by faith?”).

Consider it this way.  When we are married, we are bound together by God before His people in a sacred covenant.  Unarguably it is this binding by God that makes the marriage true.  However, after such a binding, if one of the partners is immediately and consistently unfaithful, the quality of that marriage is in question.  We might speculate that there was never faithfulness in the heart of the partner, but does that make the binding invalid?  Is it truly marriage if it remains in this state?  Rather, a true marriage, while made possible only through the power of God’s binding, is proven true by the daily work of faithfulness and service that reflects its intention.  So too with faith and works.

“In the same way, was not even Rahab the prostitute considered righteous for what she did when she gave lodging to the spies and sent them off in a different direction? As the body without the spirit is dead, so faith without deeds is dead.”

Here James makes his most powerful blow to the religious entitlement of the Christian community to which he writes.  Remembering that his readers were primarily Jewish Christians and that he reminded them that their identity as Jews was not enough to merit true faithfulness (i.e Shema Yisrael), he cites an example of true faith (alongside that of Abraham) that was quite radical: Rahab the prostitute.  While Rahab was well known and honoured among Jews, it would have been shocking to use her in this example.  Why?  For three core reasons: First, because she was a prostitute, one who was unclean in one of the most culturally reprehensible ways; second, she was a Gentile, making her example alongside Abraham a direct assault against the claims of Jewish faith-supremacy; and third, because she was a woman (and we can assume that the Jewish Christians were still wrestling with the implications of Jesus’ radical embrace of women into the heart of the community.  Who are the Rahabs in our communities whom we presume our faith surpasses?

What James is teaching here is the very real implications of living the teaching of Christ explicitly as His people.  Faithfulness is costly to all of us, all the time.  We recognize His grace as an undeserved gift, but it is a gift after all.  We must believe that, though it will be hard and costly, such obedience will ultimately bring us true wholeness and happiness.

“My brothers, as believers in our glorious Lord Jesus Christ, don’t show favoritism.  Suppose a man comes into your meeting wearing a gold ring and fine clothes, and a poor man in shabby clothes also comes in. If you show special attention to the man wearing fine clothes and say, “Here’s a good seat for you,” but say to the poor man, “You stand there” or “Sit on the floor by my feet,” have you not discriminated among yourselves and become judges with evil thoughts?”

With this admonition, it becomes clear that James’ concern over treatment of the poor and rich in the church is not a passing issue.  While it can be argued that he was addressing a specific, contextual concern, that the letter is addressed so widely suggests that the writer is confronting a more universal problem facing the all Christian communities.  Is it any surprise that the Book of James has caused such controversy in Church history?

In the NASV, the first line of this section is translated as: “My brethren, do not hold your faith in our glorious Lord Jesus Christ with an attitude of personal favoritism.” It is clear from this that favouring some people in the church according to their financial and/or social capital is not only wrong, but contrary to our submission to the Lordship of Christ.  At stake in this is our very role as disciples.  The word “discriminated” is the same word used in James 1:6, there translated as “doubt”.  This suggests that when we discriminate according wealth in the church, we are choosing to evaluate or question, rather than obey, God’s will.  It is for God alone to judge, and in His eyes, we are all equal (both created in His image & fallen short of His glory through sin).  Faith in our “glorious” Lord is such that we His is the only glory worth favouring.

“Listen, my dear brothers: Has not God chosen those who are poor in the eyes of the world to be rich in faith and to inherit the kingdom he promised those who love him? But you have insulted the poor. Is it not the rich who are exploiting you? Are they not the ones who are dragging you into court? Are they not the ones who are slandering the noble name of him to whom you belong?  If you really keep the royal law found in Scripture, “Love your neighbour as yourself,” you are doing right. But if you show favoritism, you sin and are convicted by the law as lawbreakers. For whoever keeps the whole law and yet stumbles at just one point is guilty of breaking all of it. For he who said, “Do not commit adultery,” also said, “Do not murder.” If you do not commit adultery but do commit murder, you have become a lawbreaker.”

Here we are clearly reminded of the Lucan Beatitude, “Blessed are you who are poor, for yours is the kingdom of God”.  Together, we can clearly see that Matthews “poor in spirit” was not completely unrelated to material poverty.  While God does not wish poverty on anyone, He knows that in it that pretense is lost, exposing our absolute dependency- a dependency hidden by the shallow security and power of material wealth.

James is not suggesting that all rich people are somehow bad (as almost all of us in Western Christianity qualify as rich), but rather that, more often than not, those of us with privilege and power are too easily drawn into lifestyles of injustice, sometimes explicitly, but all too often in subtle, but devastating ways.  Rather, he is reminding us that true freedom, true obedience is through relinquishing all of our selves to God.  It is this commitment, demonstrated in this very clear example, that embodies Jesus call to “love your neighbour as yourself”.

Again, it might be quite easy for us to make light of such favourtism.  No example of this was more clear to me than at the funeral of Mother Teresa, where dignitaries and world leaders were given prime seating while the poor, while present, remained in more manageable areas.  All kinds of good reasons could be given for these decisions, but I believe they were contrary to Christ’s teachings and Mother Teresa’s will.  It is all too easy for us to make similar expressions of favourtism.  Do you rewards those who give more to the church or ministry?  Are you more likely to reorganized to accommodate  the needs of the “haves”?  Does your faith community even have representation of a truly diverse socio-economic group?  These failings breech God’s intention, no less sin than murder and adultery.

“Speak and act as those who are going to be judged by the law that gives freedom, because judgment without mercy will be shown to anyone who has not been merciful. Mercy triumphs over judgment!”

Again, it is not for us to judge.  It is God who will judge us all and, thankfully, it is mercy and grace that will triumph in our judgment, for we all would otherwise perish.  How then can we judge the value of others in the community?  We must radically embrace the equalizing grace and love of Jesus Christ.  To do so is to actively celebrate and incarnate the truth of God’s saving grace for all creation.

In the first half of James 1, we saw how James exhorted his readers to recognize and respond to the trials and temptations that seek to subvert our commitment to living obediently according to the teachings and example of Jesus.  That the example he cites was how we treat the poor and privileged among us, it says a great deal about what he was presupposing about the nature of Christian community.  For us at Little Flowers Community, this will be a very real challenge for us.

“My dear brothers, take note of this: Everyone should be quick to listen, slow to speak and slow to become angry, for man’s anger does not bring about the righteous life that God desires. Therefore, get rid of all moral filth and the evil that is so prevalent and humbly accept the word planted in you, which can save you.”

At first, this can seem like fairly obvious advice.  Yet, when we consider how hard this is to practice in every day life, it becomes clear why we need the wisdom and strength of God to get there.  An old rabbinical saying reminds us that We have two ears to listen, but only one tongue to speak- and it’s walled up behind our teeth”.  The disciplines of self-restraint and silence are essential for all believers as we seek to listen- listen to the truth of God through His Word, His Spirit and His people.

When James reminds us that “anger does not bring about the righteous life”, it could also be translated as the “just life”.  Given the previous reference to injustice in the community, this makes a great deal of sense.  When we are confronted by injustice in the world and/or in our community, it is expected to stir a great deal of emotion.  Yet we are called represent the justice of God- a justice that restores and redeems, but does not seek to judge or avenge.

Two things stand in the way of our ability to hear God’s truth- moral filth and evil.  These words can, at times, lose their meaning in the obscurity and familiarity of religious jargon.  However, when we remember that sin is any deviation from the will of God (both in choosing to do wrong AND in failing to do what is right), it becomes clear that James is remind us of how easy it is to stray from the path and lose touch with the guiding truth of God.  This isn’t about moral purity for it’s own sake, but for the sake of God and His Kingdom.  We all must honestly face (together) any sin that keeps us from the purposes we are called to.

“Do not merely listen to the word, and so deceive yourselves. Do what it says. Anyone who listens to the word but does not do what it says is like a man who looks at his face in a mirror and, after looking at himself, goes away and immediately forgets what he looks like. But the man who looks intently into the perfect law that gives freedom, and continues to do this, not forgetting what he has heard, but doing it—he will be blessed in what he does.”

When we cast off sinful ways and are able to hear and understand the truth of God, James reminds us that we are not nearly finished.  Too often we settle for the right understanding of truth, thus deceiving ourselves as though we are being faithful.  However, just as truth is most fully represented in the incarnation of Jesus Christ, so too is it necessary for us to embody His truth through faithful obedience.  In some translations, it calls us to be “doers of the word”.  This word “doer” is the Greek word “poietes”, the same word from which we get the word “poet”.  In other words, we are called to be public performers of truth.  What a beautiful image!

To hear the truth of God but fail to practice it is like looking in a mirror and, seeing the dirt on our face, be satisfied with the knowledge but do nothing to remedy it.  The mirror of truth can feel like a mirror of judgment, but instead it is a gift of grace.  In it we can not only see the sin which keeps us from the Father, but also the image of the Christ we are meant to reflect.  It is a stunning and humbling privilege.

“If anyone considers himself religious and yet does not keep a tight rein on his tongue, he deceives himself and his religion is worthless. Religion that God our Father accepts as pure and faultless is this: to look after orphans and widows in their distress and to keep oneself from being polluted by the world.”

In the last section of chapter 1, James reminds us again to learn to keep our mouths shut and be “doers” of God’s truth.  He shows us what it means to live truly worshipful lives for God.  Evelyn Underhill defines worship like this:

“The adoring acknowledgment of all that lies beyond us—the glory that fills heaven and earth. It is the response that conscious beings make to their Creator, to the Eternal Reality from which they came forth.”

It is not true worship and devotion to God when we see, acknowledge and proclaim the truth- though these are all essential!  It becomes true worship- true religion- when we live that truth in our own lives together.  James’ emphasis on keeping morally pure and caring for those in need echoes Jesus own calling to love God (righteousness) and love our neighbours (justice).  In this all the Law and the Prophets are summed up- and they do so in a command to be “doers”.  It should be noted here that between helping others and staying pure the word “and” that separates them is not present in the original text, reinforcing the indivisible mandate for Christians to holiness and justice.

Lord, make us doers of Your truth by Your Spirit for Your glory!