23rd Sunday in Ordinary Time – 2024b
Old Testament – Proverbs 22:1-2, 8-9, 22-23
New Testament – James 2:1-10, 14-17
“The Only Sermon Some Persons Will Hear Today”
INTRODUCTION: Around 1180 AD Giovanni di Bernardone was born to wealthy parents in Italy. His father was a prosperous silk merchant, while his mother was a noblewoman from her own well-to-do family.
And so as you might imagine, Giovanni’s life wasn’t too bad. By most accounts he enjoyed fine clothes, elaborate banquets, singing as a troubadour, while also spending his father’s money like it was water. He had, in other words, a pretty cushy and easy existence.
But then, according to tradition, something happened to Giovanni that changed him forever. He had some sort of religious experience (some claim it involved an encounter with a leper, who he decided was actually Jesus Christ in disguise) that led him to give up his plush life in order to spend the rest of it living in poverty and caring for others as a monk. Giovanni even had a special love for animals and was known to reportedly preach to them when in their presence.
Giovanni, as you might have figured out by now, would eventually become Saint Francis of Assisi, and the founder of the Franciscian Order. Frequently portrayed in hieroglyphics wearing a brown habit held closed with a rope around the waist and three knots symbolizing the three Franciscan vows of poverty, chastity, and obedience, Francis’ Order continues even today.
And like a lot of Saints, Francis would also become famous for many of his comments regarding the religious life. “Do few things, but do them well. Simple joys are holy,” he once said. “All the darkness in the world cannot extinguish the light of a single candle,” he said at still another point.
But out of all Assisi’s famous remarks, my favorite has to do with his understanding of what it means to preach: “The deeds you do,” said Assisi, “may be the only sermon some persons will hear today.” It was his way of saying that followers of Jesus should always do more than just talk, right? Instead, they should also be actively working in the world to make it a better, more friendly, and kinder place.
Or as Assisi’s line often gets presented these days, “Preach the good news at all times and in all places. When necessary, use words.”
ONE: Well, old James would have surely given such a remark from Assisi a knowing nod of agreement, right? For James, too, seems to think deeds are just as important as words, if not more so, when it comes to sharing the good news.
“What good is it, my brothers and sisters, if you say you have faith but do not have works? Can faith save you? If a brother or sister is naked and lacks daily food, and one of you says to them, ‘Go in peace; keep warm and eat your fill,’ and yet you do not supply their bodily needs, what is the good of that? So faith by itself, if it has no works, is dead.”
Well, as good Reformed folks who love to claim we are justified, not by works, but by faith, such words from James can sting a little, I think. For all our lives haven’t we been told it’s faith and nothing else that saves us? We’re justified by faith and nothing else is probably all most of us have ever heard - especially if we grew up in one of those assorted Protestant traditions that stake their very identities on such an idea.
From our earliest memories of Sunday school, to the hot and humid nights of those saw dust revivals, to the moment we were confirmed and publicly committed ourselves to be disciples of Christ, we’ve been told over and over again, we’re saved by faith and faith alone.
And it’s not like such a belief on our parts is off the mark. Our Bibles, after all, are full of verse after verse which make that very claim. We say we’re justified by faith and we need only flip through the pages of Scripture to find the supporting texts. Paul provides one of the best examples in his letter to the Galatians when writing: “...we know that a person is justified not by works of the law but through faith…”.
So we’re right to raise an eyebrow over James’ claim that faith without works is dead. For he seems to have missed one of the main points in all of Scripture!
TWO: Or maybe…just maybe James, with his odd words, is simply trying to correct a problem that has (perhaps) always plagued people of faith - especially good Protestant folks like us.
After all, is there anything worse than a freely forgiven person who then just sits around like a bump on a log doing nothing? Yep, truth be told, there are a whole lot of people in this world who, after punching their tickets to heaven, seem more than happy to just sit around and twiddle their thumbs.
One well-known preacher has described the problem this way: “Let’s begin with fact. Religion can get in the way of neighbor love. Strange to say, [but] piety can be perverse. Piety can turn us away from the world where weak folk wonder, hunger, and die…So let’s begin with honesty. Religion, our love of God, can get in the way of neighbors. Fact is, religion can forget the hungry.”
But John Calvin, Martin Luther, and others, well, like James I think, knew that works, good deeds, are actually a byproduct of being saved, rather than something that precedes that momentous event. We do good works, in other words, because we have already been freely forgiven. We don’t perform good works to earn salvation, but as a response to God’s lavish forgiveness so freely showered upon us.
So maybe that’s what James means by “faith without works is dead.” Anytime people don’t actually give expression to their faith in the world, it is lifeless and dormant. Or as James likes to say, it’s dead for all intents and purposes.
THREE: You see, while we tend to think early churches and communities of faith were these idyllic, perfect expressions of the Gospel; truth be told, they were messes just like some churches can be today. Living out the Gospel message, after all, is hardly an easy affair.
And the church in James’ day? Well, apparently people were having a hard time showing hospitality to everyone. Yep, turns out, there were some folks that were being shown preferential treatment during worship services, while others, on the other hand, were being sort of pushed to the fringes of the sanctuary.
You see, it appears there was a sharp distinction being drawn between the well-to-do and the poor. As the well-off and finely dressed arrived for church, there was apparently a whole lot of preening and hand grabbing that went on with them. They were warmly welcomed and shown the best places to sit.
But such hospitality, according to James, seemed to quickly disappear when a poor and disheveled person arrived on the scene. The handshakes suddenly stopped and rather than be shown a seat, the not so well-to-do were told to go stand against the wall.
And for James? Well, such behavior was to be avoided because he believed it violated one of the basic tenets of the faith. That all people, regardless of their station in life, appearance, skin-color, or other such factors, were beloved children of God. “You do well if you fulfill the royal law according to the scripture, ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’ But if you show partiality, you commit sin and are convicted by the law as transgressors.”
For James, God’s unconditional love for all people means we should seek to also do the same in our own lives. In Christ, after all, God was reconciling the world to himself. It wasn’t just brown folk, or white folk, or tan ones, or tall and good looking ones that Christ redeemed. It was everyone.
FOUR: So in 1918, a Franciscan Father named Étienne Benoît had a prayer card made with the image of Saint Francis of Assisi printed on it wearing his brown habit with those three knots tied in that rope around his waist.
And then typical for prayer cards, Benoît had a prayer printed on the other side of it. Known as “the prayer for peace,” the prayer quickly spread in popularity all around the world.
And since it had been put on a prayer card with Assisi’s image printed on the other side, people mistakenly began to assume Assisi had also written it, although those who study Assisi claim the prayer can’t be found anywhere in his writings.
And yet, I like to think Assisi, if he were alive today, would be happy to know the prayer is frequently attributed to him. Perhaps you have heard parts of the prayer (or all of it), which goes this way:
Lord, make me an instrument of your peace:
where there is hatred, let me sow love;
where there is injury, pardon;
where there is doubt, faith;
where there is despair, hope;
where there is darkness, light;
where there is sadness, joy.
O divine Master, grant that I may not so much seek
to be consoled as to console,
to be understood as to understand,
to be loved as to love.
For it is in giving that we receive,
it is in pardoning that we are pardoned,
and it is in dying that we are born to eternal life.
Well, is it any wonder that other luminaries of the faith from Mother Theresa, to Archbishop Desmond Tutu, to Pope John Paul II, all claimed the prayer was a regular feature in their devotional life. Or that assorted 12 step recovery programs have also adopted the prayer. For the prayer does seem to encapsulate both Assisi and James’ notion that faith should also be something active and alive and in the world seeking to making it a better place for all God’s children.
For faith without works might as well be dead, right?
CONCLUSION: And so do you see it now? Do you see how each and every one of us can actually be preachers?
For it turns out when it comes to giving sermons, well, it’s hardly a requirement that we be highly articulate or even well-versed in a lot of big, fancy, flowery words. Nope. For without having to say a single word, each and every one of us can preach the good news just fine.
Through our deeds of love and kindness and charity we can be living, breathing sermons – every single one of us. And who knows, you just might be the only sermon some people will actually hear that day.
And now, may blessing and glory and wisdom and thanksgiving and honor and power and might be to our God forever and ever. Amen!