James: What is Faith

James 2:14-26   (CEB) 

My brothers and sisters, what good is it if people say they have faith but do nothing to show it? Claiming to have faith can’t save anyone, can it? Imagine a brother or sister who is naked and never has enough food to eat. What if one of you said, “Go in peace! Stay warm! Have a nice meal!”? What good is it if you don’t actually give them what their body needs? In the same way, faith is dead when it doesn’t result in faithful activity. 

Someone might claim, “You have faith and I have action.” But how can I see your faith apart from your actions? Instead, I’ll show you my faith by putting it into practice in faithful action. It’s good that you believe that God is one. Ha! Even the demons believe this, and they tremble with fear. Are you so slow? Do you need to be shown that faith without actions has no value at all? What about Abraham, our father? Wasn’t he shown to be righteous through his actions when he offered his son Isaac on the altar? See, his faith was at work along with his actions. In fact, his faith was made complete by his faithful actions. So the scripture was fulfilled that says, Abraham believed God, and God regarded him as righteous. What is more, Abraham was called God’s friend. So you see that a person is shown to be righteous through faithful actions and not through faith alone. In the same way, wasn’t Rahab the prostitute shown to be righteous when she received the messengers as her guests and then sent them on by another road? As the lifeless body is dead, so faith without actions is dead. 

In the fall of 2002, Biblical Archeology Review (BAR) shared an announcement with the world. 

          An Ossuary (a bone box) had surfaced in Israel.

Now this in itself is not an uncommon occurrence

For about two hundred years ending when the Romans destroyed Jerusalem and burned the Temple -- there was a widely accepted practice among the Jewish people using what we call ossuaries in their burial practices.

According to BAR what would take place is:

"A corpse would first be laid in a niche carved into the wall of a burial cave; about a year after this primary burial, when the corpse’s flesh had decayed, the bones of the deceased were gathered together and placed in a box or chest, usually made of Jerusalem limestone, called an ossuary. Sometimes the bones of more than one person were placed in the same ossuary. The practice . . . made room for additional primary burials inside the burial cave.

But what made this particular ossuary intriguing was an inscription written in clear Aramaic letters: “James, son of Joseph, brother of Jesus.”

For the past 17 years, there has been a fight over whether or not this inscription is authentic.

In 2012, after a seven-year trial, an Israeli court concluded that the ossuary was not a fake and cleared a number of people who had been under accusation for making a forgery.

Hershel Shanks, then editor of BAR, in an opinion piece concluded:

In all the hubbub and flurry of the verdict last March in the “forgery case of the century,” one question—the central question—seems to have gotten lost: Is the ossuary inscription “James, son of Joseph, brother of Jesus” genuine or not? And if it is, does it refer to Jesus of Nazareth? After all, “Jesus” was a common name at the time.

These are enormously important questions to the world of Christianity, as well as to anyone else interested in the material world as it existed at the time Jesus walked this earth.

As to the authenticity of the inscription, while we should not avoid reasons for doubting the authenticity, neither should we dismiss it simply because it is “too good to be true.”

Is the inscription authentic? The court held only that the prosecution failed to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that the inscription was a forgery. But it surely did not find that the inscription was authentic.

My bottom line is simply this: There is no reason to doubt the authenticity of the inscription on the James Ossuary. Whether it refers to Jesus of Nazareth remains a question.

Since that discovery, I have been fascinated by James, the brother of Jesus in ways that I was not before.

For the next month, Mary and I will share some of the key themes from the letter that James, the brother of Jesus wrote to the Jewish Christian community.

James can be rather uncomfortable for many in the protestant traditions.

Elisa Tamez, professor of theology at the Latin American Biblical University in Costa Rica in her powerful book: The Scandalous Message of James wrote:

If the Letter of James were sent to the Christian Communities of certain countries that suffer from violence and exploitation, it would very possibly be intercepted by government security agencies.  The document would be branded as subversive.

I hope that you have taken the time to read the Letter of James.  If not, I strongly encourage you to do so --- and to read it and compare the ways it has been translated.

Like I often say -- Jesus has been homogenized and pasteurized by the church today --- it is clear that many translators struggled what to do with some of his challenges to us.

James 2:14 in the translation The Message says:

Dear friends, do you think you’ll get anywhere in this if you learn all the right words but never do anything? Does merely talking about faith indicate that a person really has it?

Or as the NRSV has it: "Can faith save you?"

For many of us, we have grown up with the idea of FAITH ALONE --- faith is all we need --- but James, here in this second chapter wants to challenge that idea.

For James, faith alone is never enough

There is no part of the Bible, other than the Letter of James, that better illustrates what Jesus meant when he was asked: What must one do to inherit eternal life.

Do you remember what Jesus answer was?

For years, Evangelical Christianity has argued that the way to eternal life begins with praying what is known as The Sinner's Prayer.

Campus Crusade and Billy Graham may have been its biggest proponents:

Dear Lord Jesus, I know that I am a sinner, and I ask for Your forgiveness. I believe You died for my sins and rose from the dead. I turn from my sins and invite You to come into my heart and life. I want to trust and follow You as my Lord and Savior.

But is that what Jesus said?  Nope!

Jesus said: ‘You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind.’ This is the greatest and first commandment. And a second is like it: ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’

For James, "works" means a life of loving God and loving others,

          and loving others means deeds of compassion toward those in need.

James would go so far as suggesting that you can have all the faith in the world, but if there is no action behind the faith --- then you will not be saved.

He goes on and in an example that would be funny if it were not so tragic and often true says:

"Imagine a brother or sister who is naked and never has enough food to eat. What if one of you said, “Go in peace! Stay warm! Have a nice meal!”? What good is it if you don’t actually give them what their body needs? In the same way, faith is dead when it doesn’t result in faithful activity."

How often have we driven past a needy brother or sister on a winter morning --- maybe even on our way to church.

James doesn't mince words to us.

Scot McKnight in his commentary writes:

The description here is tragic: the messianic community is connected to the Messiah who became poor in order to make others rich and who taught in word and deed to show mercy to those in need; the community is connected to the Scriptures of Israel, which from beginning to end advocate mercy and compassion for those in need; and the community is filled with poor who know the underside of oppression.  Yet --- and this is what perplexes James into strong words --- this group of those who say they have faith in Jesus the Messiah, the glorious one who became poor, does nothing for those who make their needs obvious.

I don't know about you --- but those words hurt!

I have lots of rationalizations and explanations of why I didn't stop --- or a list of the few times that I did help --- but James keeps asking: WHAT GOOD IS THAT?

Suppose I told you about a family that has stayed as our guests here at Meridian Street, they are close to getting back into their own home, but just as they are about to move the only car they have breaks down and needs $500 in repairs, and now they are stuck with a choice of getting the car fixed (so that they can get to work and keep their job) or moving into their own place.

          Do you care about their plight?

                   Of course you do --- many of you are filled with compassion and empathy

But what if I took $100 out of my pocket and said --- I care this much --- how about you?

Faith for James is not simply trust, or the ability to recite creeds --- faith for James always flowers into full blown acts of mercy toward the poor and marginalized --- or it isn't faith.

James then uses two examples from the Hebrew tradition to demonstrate what he means.

          He uses the stories of Abraham and Rahab

When we talk about Abraham we get the argument of Justification by faith, that is developed by Paul particularly in his letter to the Romans.

I could spend another 20 or 30 minutes just on these two little sentences of James, but let me just say that for James: "To be justified is to be brought into a saving relationship with God thought the new birth (1:18), in which one lives out God's will as taught by Jesus, particularly in showing mercy to those in need." (McKnight p247)

James wants to articulate a working faith --- not a faith plus works.

What I mean is faith works itself out in works and faith is completed by works.

Scot McKnight concludes this section of his commentary on James with these words (you may want to grab on to your seat or walk out now):

James has argued that, since faith and works are inseparable, (1) the messianic community's prejudice against the poor and favoritism toward the rich are contrary to faith (2:1-4), (2) experience itself should inform the community's members that God is with the poor, while the rich are oppressing the community (2:5-7), and (3) the royal law to love one's neighbor as oneself demands care for the poor, while the community's disrespect for the poor proves that its members are transgressors. . . . Faith can only be shown to be saving by works (2:18b), creedal faith is not enough because even the demons that have (2:19), and the examples of the unquestioned faith of Abraham and Rahab prove that they had the kind of faith that worked.

McKnight goes on:

faith is confessional and works behavioral, but for James a saving faith is one in which the confession is manifested in works of mercy toward those in need.  Faith alone, by which he means a minimal creedal faith, cannot save.  It is useless, ineffective and dead.

What motivates us?

          What gets you to do good or to do as James would say: Works?

Sure, we’re saved by faith alone, but not by a faith that remains alone.

If we are not changed by our relationship with Jesus, something isn't right.

Joey Prusak began working at his local Minneapolis Dairy Queen at the age of 14. 

          He was now the manager at age 19. 

One of his regular customers, who is visually impaired, dropped a $20 bill on the floor. 

Standing directly behind this man was another customer in line, a woman, who picked up the $20 and put it in her purse. 

When the woman who picked up the $20 came to the counter Joey refused to serve this woman until she returned the money to its rightful owner. 

The woman herself refused and stormed out of the store. 

So Joey took $20 out of his own pocket, found the visually impaired man outside and gave him the money he had lost. 

What motivates you?

          What gets you to do good or to do as James would say: Works?

James demands that we pay attention to the ragged homeless person who stands on the street corner.

He demands that we pay attention to the orphans and widows.

He demands that we pay attention to the alien in our country.

If you’ve really put your faith in Jesus, it’s going to change you.

The Spirit is going to move into your live, and start to make changes.

You won’t be perfect, but you’re sure going to be different.

You’ll move in fits and starts, and sometimes take backward steps, but over time you’ll see real change.

It will change the way you see people.

          It will change your heart for God.

          It will cause you to struggle with sins you used to love.

You won’t be perfect — we never are in this life — but your faith will start to change you.

James says if you don’t see that happening, you may say you believe, but you really don’t.

Real faith is believing and acting.

And it is available to anyone who wants it.

Don’t settle for assent to ideas or even creeds.

Come and encounter the real Jesus.

Receive Jesus' grace in your life, and you’ll never be the same.