Good Work

Text: James 2:1-17

Faith, not works. This is the motto of Protestant Christianity and especially of the Lutheran brand. Martin Luther popularized it. He took a remark made by Paul to the Romans specifically regarding Jewish and pagan Christians and expanded it. He took what was in many ways a political analysis and transformed it into a way of thinking about our personal relationship with God. The fruits of this were many, including the Reformation. And also a welcome emphasis on God’s grace and unconditional love for each person, no matter what.

To know that we are loved by God unconditionally is very comforting. God does not try to persuade us to be good through guilt and shame. God desires that we be joyful and at peace. All this makes us feel good.

But it can also make us a little queasy. As Robin said last week, there is a danger of turning God into what I think he called a kindly uncle. Someone who loves us, and is occasionally amused by us, but who is not really engaged with us or our real lives. Someone who can be easily forgiving because he lives far away. And who has little stake in us or our world. It is an unconditional love that comes from low expectations.

This is not quite what Luther intended. Luther feared that the world—and the church in particular—were depending on their actions to gain God’s favor. People thought—and were taught—that they had to earn God’s love through acts of service and piety. Such a thing was both impossible and unnecessary. And being unable to be perfect meant that God could not love us and we would be cursed.

The tendency to think this way was so strong that Luther had to speak strongly against it. There was no wiggle room here. As soon as there is one thing that you have to do to earn God’s love, the whole thing falls apart. That’s why Lutherans in particular are so adamant about the primacy of God’s grace, which is liberating. It is also why Luther so disliked the letter of James, our second reading today. Luther had a difficult and controversial point to make and didn’t want anyone weakening the argument with subtle details. Sort of like political speeches.

That was good for Luther and for our faith lives. But we know that God does have expectations and hopes for us. We know because God gives us commands. We have lots of hints about what God wants. Jesus tells us, among other ways. We know that there is something about a life a faith that requires or leads to a life of service. We know this in our bones. The motto “faith not works” can make us queasy because we have a deep-seated conviction that James was right. Faith without works is dead.

What good is it, James asks, if we pat someone on the head—“there, there”—and offer them words of blessings and do nothing to supply their physical needs? If they have no home and are hungry and we do nothing, what is the good of that? Some—maybe. Not much.

James is not talking here about our own worth or character. This has nothing to do with our goodness. Or generosity. This has nothing to do with the goodness of the deed. The phrase he uses—what is the good of that—means “how effective is that?” or “what can that accomplish?” Good as in “what good are chopsticks for eating soup?” “What good is a tax credit for someone who has no income?” James is asking not a moral question but a practical one. It is not about currying God’s favor or responding gratefully to God’s good gifts.

Yet it does have to do with our life in faith. Helping others bodily is one sign of our Christianity. Our love for others—friends and enemies both—is a response to the commandments, and example, and teachings, of Jesus. It is one way that people know we follow Jesus. It is how we are taught by Jesus to live out the life we have received through the grace of God. So James’s doubts when he asks his readers whether they “really believe in our gracious Lord Jesus Christ” come from how they treat others.

You shall love your neighbor as yourself. The royal law, as James calls it. Central to Christians and Jews and people of many faiths. The summary of the law according to Jesus, equal to the command to love God. The point of the parable of the Good Samaritan. And illustrated in the life of Christ.

And easily breached, easily violated, in actions both cosmic and trivial.

A person walks into the assembly—a synagogue, it says, but for us, let’s say a church. The person is rich, well-dressed, and everyone is kind and welcoming. Another person arrives. A poor and disheveled person. And everyone is polite (or not so polite) and cautious. “Are you lost? Can I help you?” The rich person is honored, respected, given the benefit of the doubt for no good reason. The poor person is dishonored, disregarded at best, treated with suspicion for no good reason.

James tells this story because it is a good example of a larger problem. The example is good one for the poor—most of his readers were poor—because they can easily recognize the event and the injustice in it. They are those whom the rich have oppressed, as James reminds them, the ones whom the rich have dragged into court. It is good for the rich because they need to be reminded to see the injustice and the suffering. For the rich and the poor, this is business as usual. But for the poor, it is a bad business, as usual.

If the royal law is to love your neighbor as yourself, what is royal evil? Not to hate your neighbor—though that’s not so great either. If the greatest commandment is to love your neighbor, then according to James, the greatest evil is to deny that another is your neighbor. When we make distinctions between those who are our neighbors and therefore call us to be obedient to the royal commandment and those who are not neighbors and therefore let us off the hook, we succumb to evil thoughts. Making distinctions between us and others that God would not make is a sin.

If you show partiality, James says, you commit sin and are convicted by the law as transgressors. Being partial to one group—people like us, mostly—over the other—other disturbing people, for example—is not just a social faux pas, or something to dismiss with snide jokes, and certainly nothing on which to base policy. This is not something to take lightly. Though this is not a matter of our salvation or whether God loves us, it is a very serious deal. It is as OK to do this, James writes, as it is to commit adultery or to murder someone. That is, it is not OK at all.

We think that making distinctions based on all the things we use to make distinctions—wealth, style, education, smarts, race, culture—is scientific. That is, that is is based on observations of physical facts. This person really is wealthier than this other person. This person really is smarter. This person really parties differently. But scales like these are infinite and arbitrary. Everybody really is different from other people in hundreds of ways. But the things we pick to pay attention to are things that we pick. Making distinctions therefore is a moral decision, an act of morality. It is a action of the soul.

The question James asks at the top of these reading: with your acts of favoritism do you really believe in our glorious Lord Jesus Christ? is not a question in the original. It is a command, in the imperative. It says more exactly but more awkwardly: don’t hold your faith in Jesus while being partial to one over the other. That is, in your faith, don’t make those distinctions just as Jesus did not make them. You do not have the authority to pick and choose who you neighbor is. Love your neighbor as you love yourself. Act accordingly. Faith with works is a living faith.