Sermon Text: James 2:14-26
19 Feb 06
Long, long ago, Dave and I took some dancing lessons. We actually took dancing lessons more than once. Ballroom dancing. The trick for me was learning how to let Dave lead. But I learned some things from dancing lessons. Besides how to do the waltz and the tango.
Three things I learned from dancing that apply to the church. If you want to learn to dance, you've got to take some lessons. If you want to get better, dancing takes practice. Most important of all, dancing requires that you work together.
Today's scripture is from a little letter near the back of the Bible -- the Letter of James. It's this short little letter right after Hebrews, which is in the New Testament -- not the old. If you've got your Bibles, go ahead and find it.
I like James. It gets right to the point. It's written in short sentences, using a lot of imperatives, lots of commands. Be doers of the word in 1:22, do not boast in 3:14. Submit yourselves to God in 4:7. Be patient. Do not grumble in 5:7. James also gets right to the point about some hard subjects -- like the way we treat the poor, our attachment to wealth, the conflicts that divide the church, and the destructive power of our words.
I like James, but not everybody has over the centuries. Martin Luther didn't like James; in fact, he called it an epistle of straw. This letter, even though many sources believe it was written by the brother of the Lord, Jesus' brother James, was very late coming into the canon of the Bible. Martin Luther didn't like James because he thought it contradicted Paul. We've got James saying in vs. 2:24 You see that a person is justified by works and not by faith alone. But then you go over to Paul's letter to the Galatians and we read We know that a person is justified not by the works of the law but through faith in Jesus Christ.
But Paul and James really were not in conflict with each over faith and works. In Paul's same letter to the Galatians in 5:6, he says the only thing that counts is faith working through love. Paul and James both knew that faith had to be translated into action or it's dead.
There are a couple of references in today's passage that are worth paying attention to -- Abraham and Rahab. James is using these two stories from the Old Testament to give his readers examples of people willing to act on their faith. In the story of Abraham and Isaac in Gen. 22, what needs to be lifted out of this example in order to understand James is NOT the idea of the sacrifice of Isaac. If you can get past this, and instead focus on the point James was trying to make -- Abraham's faith and trust in God, you'll understand this example. Abraham doesn't just BELIEVE IN God. HE BELIEVES GOD. HE TRUSTS GOD; Abraham trusted that God not only could give Isaac as a gift, but would supply everything he needed, when he needed it, even in what looked like impossible situations.
The second reference comes from Joshua 2, where two men are sent by Joshua to take a look at Jericho, which is in the land promised to the Hebrews. The only trouble is there's this King of Jericho, who doesn't take kindly to spies searching out his land before they take it over. The two Israelites end up in the house of Rahab, a local prostitute, and she hides them from the king. More than once in the Bible, Rahab is used as an example of both hospitality and faith. She is not even Hebrew and she not only saves these guys, but she confesses her faith in God as the one true God.
It's that kind of faith that James is urging his readers to live up to. To live out. To put into practice. It's not faith OR works. It's not either/or. It's both/and. Faith and works.
Now it just so happens, that this kind of faith translated into action goes on all the time around here. Just over a week ago, I sent out an email to the elders mentioning that two of our older couples here -- the Sousas and the Steeles -- could use a visit. That Saturday, 3 of our elders made visits and brought communion. The next day was Sunday, and four women from the Crusaders class organized all this food -- a ham, salads, all sorts of things -- and took it to Millie Rivers so they had enough to eat for all the family who had come in for Marvin's funeral. Monday, I was at the church looking for the bouquet of flowers from worship. They were given by Liz Nunn in honor her anniversary, which would have been on Valentine's day. Well it was the case of the missing bouquet for a while, until I found out that somebody had picked up that bouquet on Sunday and taken it all the way out to Liz Nunn's home on Lake Lanier. On Tuesday, when I came down to the church, there were all these cookies that the women had baked for the Valentine Tea at Campbell Stone, our center for seniors down in Buckhead. And two boxes just stuffed full of little heart candy favors made by the children.
On Wednesday, at our worship planning meeting, Tim expressed how thankful he was for all the contacts people had made with him while he was sick -- he said he had 3 big manila envelopes just stuffed with cards -- 300 or so, and probably at least half from this church.
Thursday, I called an outpatient surgery center where Liz Wilson was scheduled to have surgery on her knee. I talked with her for a few minutes and prayed with her, and then found out that one of our elders was there with and her mom for prayer. And this was just our care for each other in one week -- and just what I had heard about. All these ways are ways we are Christ to each other here in this church. And it is happening every single day.
This church cares for those in need outside the doors of the church too. Today you learned about our Week of Compassion offering, which supports our Disciples disaster relief fund. There is a map out in the gathering area that pinpoints where Week of Compassion is at work all over the world. It is a perfect example of an opportunity we have to witness to the presence of Christ to people outside this church and community. And we have done that here.
You should know that last year, this church gave $3100 to Week of compassion, which was almost twice what we did in 2004 and almost 3 times what we gave in 2003. Not only that, but last year, we gave more than $6000 to the support of two families who were relocating here as a result of Hurricane Katrina.
How did we do all that generous giving? As far as I know, nobody here won the lottery last year. I don't know how we did it, but I want to challenge us to keep it up.
Sometimes it feels more personal to send a card, or bake cookies, or visit someone as part of our ways of being Christ to each other. But money -- your check written out -- is the most important gift you can make if you want to make a difference for people suffering from disasters or poverty. That -- and your prayers -- is what Week of Compassion needs.
Just as a side note -- somebody is watching all this ministry going on by all of you. Somebody that matters. (Besides God.) The children here are watching what we do. I am teaching a baptism class on Wednesday nights and I have four older children in it. We talked on Wednesday about our church.
Do you remember what we promise whenever we dedicate children here at the church? We promise to love and nurture the children of the church, to show them by our examples, to teach the ways of Jesus Christ, to lead them in service to God and neighbor? And we make that promise to all of them whether these kids have been here for 15 months or 15 years. These children are watching you and learning.
I asked them what does the church do and they said: We raise money to help poor people. We care about people. We learn about God. We learn about Jesus. We have dinners together. We do blood drives. We help people connect to God. We worship God. These children are learning their lessons from you.
Right now, we need to recognize that we're at a turning point here in this church. We can just turn inward and wallow in our problems and say "Oh woe is me!" collectively, as a church. Or we can turn to our faith in Jesus Christ, and in turning, see the needs of the world.
What we'll see is that we've got work to do here, folks. The kind of work James is talking about in this letter. Work that flows out of a deep faith that Christ is here among us -- and we are the ones to share that good news with everyone we meet and have yet to meet.
Some of the work needs to go on inside this church. We need to figure out a better way to talk about hard subjects with each other. We need to figure out how to deal straight on with conflicts instead of either appeasing or avoiding. We need to figure out how to disagree but not disengage.
Some of the work has to do with our attitudes. We need to look at our attitudes and start putting the needs of the Body of Christ ahead of our personal desires. Develop an attitude where we do what needs to be done, not necessarily what we want to do. Where we learn to ask, "What's good for the whole church and its overall ministries?" NOT "What's good for me?"
Some of the work has to do with how we can best care for each other. How we equip the saints -- that's us, folks -- to do the work of ministry. That's straight from the Bible in Ephesians 4:12 and that is how Christ intended his church to be. The church was never intended to be the institution it has become -- with some paid Christian at the top, making sure that everyone gets the services and goods they want. That's not church, folks, that's the mall. Every one of us is a minister here, called to use our gifts and to serve in this Body of Christ.
Some of the work needs to go on outside this church. We need to start talking about and start being a stronger witness to this community. Reach out in love and service with the good news of Jesus Christ. Half of the population of Tucker doesn't have a church home. There are people that you know who are searching for a church. Why don't you invite them to worship with you? Invite them to our Week of Compassion fellowship dinner next Sunday. I'm serious. Be bold. When was the last time you invited someone to church?
Some of the work - a great deal of it if you listen to Jesus - has to do with serving the people who are poor, oppressed, on the margins. The people who need somebody to stand up for them. Who are the people in our culture who get pushed aside, who don't have a voice, who seem to have fewer opportunities? Does this church have the courage to stand up for them the way that Jesus did?
We've got work to do here. But we are going to be okay here. We are going to be more than okay because we are the church led by Jesus Christ. Despite everything that's gone on in the last two months, we are still gathering for worship, still teaching children, still planning a youth worship service, still visiting the sick, still having Bible study, still having choir practice, still eating dinners together, still praying together, still having work days. Still collecting money for the Week of Compassion. WE -- that's all of us -- are still being the church. Still being Christ in the world.
That is faith turned into action. The kind that James is talking about in his letter. And it's going on, all around us, right here in this church, every single day.
Being the church takes all of us. And every little part -- no matter how small it might seem -- builds up the whole. The note you send. The call you make. The mess you clean up in the church kitchen. The outreach meeting you attend. The check you write. Because being the church takes ALL of us.
The lessons we need to learn in order to be the church come straight from Jesus Christ. Just like dancing, we've got to practice in order to be the church. And it takes everybody. Nobody is a wallflower in this church. Everyone has something to contribute. Everyone can get in on this dance. Can I have an Amen!
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