September 10, 2000

Pastor David G. Mullen

James 2

St. James wrote to the first churches, "My friends, what good is it to say you have faith, when you don’t do anything to show that you really do have faith? Can that kind of faith save you?"

"Can that kind of faith save you?!" Well, that kind of statement drove Martin Luther crazy! The Great Reformer insisted, faith can save you, in fact, faith is the only thing that will save you! The unchanging and unchangeable Lutheran conviction is that, as St. Paul so clearly and forcefully taught, we are saved only by faith in Christ, and not by confidence in what we have done!

So Luther had huge problems with the letter of James, with its emphasis on Christian conduct. He was of the opinion that James’ little book was so confused and misleading it probably shouldn’t be included in the Bible. Once he even suggested that James was like an epistle of straw, and should be thrown in a fire and burned. But maybe, just maybe, given the extreme situation in his day, Luther overstated the case, and missed that James was addressing the church as the church, a community that St Paul called, the body of Christ. The church was not to be a replay of the Judaism, nor was it to be just anything the first Christians, in their new burst of freedom, felt like being. James was reminding the churches that they had a role to play in the world and that role was Christ.

The reminder is a good one for 21^st century churches as well. Jim Wallis, executive director of the famous social justice and mission-minded Sojourners community, writes:

I think Wallis is right in what he says, and is very close to what James was trying to express. Yes, we love our Christ, and yes, he is our Savior. But isn’t the Jesus also the hero of the church? Well, then, remember the old adage, "The imitation is the sincerest form of flattery." Nothing could be better than for us to make our aim to imitate Christ.

I don’t know if kids still do this, but when I was kid, sometimes on a Saturday afternoon, after our household chores were done, my brothers and I got to go to the movies. Well, to be honest, some Saturday afternoons, our mother, having had quite enough of our irritating foolishness, stuck quarters in our grubby little hands and ordered, "Here, take this and go to the movies–now!" Back then, Western were big. Gene Autry, Roy Rogers and Dale Evans, the Lone Ranger and Tonto, were the heroes. After the movies, we often came home and went up on the hill behind our home and replayed the movie. We earnestly discussed the roles we would play–who was going to be the good guys and the bad guys and how it was going to be played out. The roles had to be done right. If someone decided to veer from their assigned character, the action had to stop while we argued over the issue of staying in character! You couldn’t be Roy Rodgers and act like a bad guy! You couldn’t be the Lone Ranger and run off leave Tonto on the back porch still gobbling up cookies and milk. No, everyone was needed and everyone had to play their assigned role. We were imitating our heroes!

The point I’m making today is that the Christian faith is less about agreeing with certain proper teachings about God, and more like being a kid going to a movie and coming out wanting to imitate the hero playing his part. The church is rather like theater, only not as entertainment, but as real life, as street theater shall we say. Church is playing Christ for real, is acting the way Christ would actually do things.

When I hear James say, If you know someone who doesn't have any clothes or food, you shouldn't just say, "I hope all goes well for you. I hope you will be warm and have plenty to eat." What good is it to say this, unless you do something to help? Faith that doesn't lead us to do good deeds is all alone and dead! (CEV James 2:15-17) I hear echoes of our Lord’s teaching, for example in Matthew 25, "I was hungry and you gave me food to eat, I had nothing to wear and you gave me clothes. I had no where to turn to and you took me in." In his letter James is saying, the truth is, there are certain behaviors appropriate to followers of the glorious and might Lord Jesus Christ. We pattern our lives after our hero, Jesus Christ. We have a role to play and that role is Christ.

Years ago I joined a community theater group. For a couple of shows I worked on lights, safely off stage. But then one day the director talked me into playing Otto Frank in the powerful play, "The Diary of Anne Frank." Well, I learned my lines and recited them without hesitation. I easily memorized all the blocking, as it is called–when and where to move around the stage. But the director knew (and I knew in my heart) that I was only going through the moves. I wasn’t really in the part. So late one night at the end of a rehearsal, she called me aside and told me that she knew I could do better. In strong language she ordered me to go home and figure out how to become Otto Frank. The next day it hit me what she meant and how to do it. I had to let go of my ego concerns in order to enter into my character’s frustration, fear, and finally his sorrow over the loss of his teenage daughter. That day I learned how to die to myself and become Otto Frank. The whole thing was like a revelation to me, it made the show better.

What James wrote in his letter to the churches is the language of a director, a spiritual director. Sure, staunch Lutherans can fault him on doctrinal fine points. But no one can fault James on heart. He knows the drama of the love of God for the world. He burns with a passion for how the play is supposed to be staged, and how it should clearly show the merciful justice of God for a broken world. And he is looking for better from the churches of the Crucified and Risen Christ, from us, I suppose we could say. Since we already know and believe how much God loves us, we are free to die to ourselves and our personal agendas, and become, so to speak, Christ.

Remember again what Jim Wallis wrote: "People should be able to look at the way we live and begin to understand what the gospel is about. Our lives must tell them who Jesus is and what he cares about." We have a role to play and that role is Christ. And James urges us to get into our part not because we need to impress God, but simply because the world so desperately needs to see what Christ is like. They need to know that what Christ cares about most of all is them. And we may be the only Christ that others will ever see. Talk about a role to play! My brothers and sister in Christ, let’s get into our part! Amen.