CAN FAITH SAVE YOU?

James 2:1-17; Mark 7:24-37

2nd Sunday of the Season of Creation, September 8, 2024

Rev. Dr. Ritva  H. Williams

Welcome to session two the letter of James. In session one we learned:

• God puts evil in no one’s way which means that none of the challenging, frustrating, or awful things that occur in life are part of God’s plan for you. 

• God, the Father of Lights, gives birth to us through the word of truth which means that our  origin is in God, whose plan is for us to become the first fruits of all creation. 

• Truly “religious” people bridle their tongues, care for the orphan and widow in need, and remain "unstained by the world.”

This morning’s reading from James shows us a faith community stained by the world. Its leaders humiliate and shame the poor while currying favor with the rich and powerful who oppress them, take them to court, and blaspheme Christ’s holy name. James urges Christ-followers to follow the royal law, “you shall love your neighbor as yourself” without showing favor or partiality for one neighbor over another.

Remember when a scribe asked Jesus what the most important commandment was? Jesus answered, “you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, mind, and strength,” and  “you shall love your neighbor as yourself ”(Mark 12:28-31). Neighbor love was, is, and ever shall be a core value for God’s people.

Our reading from James is bracketed by three rhetorical questions. The first is, “do you with your acts of favoritism really believe in our glorious Lord Jesus Christ?” The answer is “NO!” 

Remember that in Greek, the word for believe is pisteuo which means to have faith, to trust in, to rely on. Lutheran tradition teaches that whomever or whatever we have faith in, trust in, and rely on for life, security, healing, happiness, and wholeness — that thing or person is our god. If that thing or person is not Christ, then we are putting our faith in false gods. Our misplaced faith and trust in anything that is not Christ has real world consequences, as  Professor Sam Giere explains: 

Trust in power for power’s sake yields a world fixated on achieving and maintaining power while disregarding those without power … Trust in wealth for wealth’s sake yields a world that worships accumulation and too easily identifies … those that are disposable. Trust in death for death’s sake yields a world that [produces] a host of immortality projects that deny death and … disregard resurrection. Trust in culture for culture’s sake yields a world that values cultural conformity and shuns cultural diversity. Trust in ideology for ideology’s sake yields a world … [where] people are defined by their assent to a line of thinking. Dare I say, that trust in weapons of war yields a world of violence where children die in mass shootings that we are told to regard as tragic facts of life.

Acts of favoritism, partiality and discrimination manifest the ways we have entrusted our lives, safety, healing and wholeness to power, wealth, immortality projects, cultural conformity, ideology, or guns.. None of us escapes these stains from the world.

James’s second rhetorical question asks: What good does it do to send a hungry, cold, sick or injured neighbor away with only a word of peace, or thoughts and prayers? It does no good at all. 

Contrast the attitude of those who offer only thoughts, words or prayers to the actions of Jesus in our gospel reading. A desperate mother crosses cultural boundaries around gender, ethnicity, and religion to beg Jesus to heal her daughter. She manifests her faith by entrusting her child to Jesus, a foreign healer. Jesus’ initial resistance to healing the child is overcome by the mother’s persistence. An anonymous “they” cross the boundaries of nationality and religion to seek healing for a man who is deaf and mute. They too manifest faith by entrusting their neighbor to this foreign healer. This time Jesus does not resist but recognizes their acts of faith and responds by sharing God’s gifts of healing without favoritism. 

James’ final rhetorical question in this section is, “Can faith save you?” 

Some Christians insist that “as soon as you believe in your heart Jesus died for your sins and rose again, you are saved, forgiven, and granted eternal life.” No works are needed before or after, although sometimes reciting the Sinner’s Prayer is required. Other Christians, including almost half of us ELCA Lutherans, think that to be saved you must do good works, live a good life, and be a good human being. James insists that “faith without works is dead.” 

So, is it faith, or is it works, or is it faith and works together that saves us? Yes. But it is not your faith or your works that saves you. Let me introduce you to a passage from Ephesians that curiously is always left out of the Sunday readings. Here is my own translation. 

God who is rich in mercy, out of the great love with which God loved us, made us alive together with Christ even though we were dead in our sins — by grace you have been saved” (Ephesians 2:4-5). 

Here we learn that God saves us sinners while we are still sinners (stained by the world), not on account of anything we believe, think, or do, but because God is gracious, merciful and abounding in great love for us. The writer of Ephesians expands on this a few verses later:

For by grace you have been saved through/because of faith. But this [faith] is not from you, it is God’s gift. Nor from [your] works, so that no one may boast. For we are what God made us, created in Christ Jesus for good works which God prepared beforehand to be our way of life. (Ephesians 2:9-10)

We are saved by God’s grace on account of a faith which is not ours. The apostle Paul consistently teaches (in the original Greek) that God saves us because of the faith of Christ Jesus (Romans 3:22, 26; Galatians 2:16-17). We are saved on account of Christ’s faithfulness to God and to us. 

Our faith in Christ is a gift from God. As Luther’s Small Catechism teaches, “by my own understanding or strength I cannot believe [have faith/trust] in Jesus Christ my Lord or come to him, but instead the Holy Spirit calls me through the gospel, enlightens me, makes me holy, and keeps me in faith …”

According to Ephesians, good works follow faith. Gradually over time as our faith, trust, and reliance on Christ grows, the Holy Spirit transforms our thoughts, words, and actions to conform more and more to the image of Christ embedded in our souls — good works manifest this process in our lives.  Hence the ELCA’s tag line, “God’s work, our hands."

The bottom line is this: you and I are not saved because of our faith or our works, or even because of our faith and works together. The good news is so much better than that. You and I are saved by God’s grace on account of the faithfulness of Christ, because Christ believes in you and in me, and has done all the work that is necessary to secure our salvation. What then is there left for you and me to do? Just this … to accept the invitation to walk the path of faith … (Steve Garnaas-Holmes) - excerpts

The path of faith is not just to believe in God but to live as if you do: to love the loveless; 

to pour yourself out as light; … to listen deeply; to be humble, 

knowing you are held in the highest regard in the halls of heaven …

It is to trust God in the awfullest times …

knowing when you step into the darkness the light will come with you …

The path of faith is not just to believe in God… It is to entrust yourself to the One who believes in you, and who loves the whole world, and to become that One, who is already one with you. 

The path of faith is to become the love God has for you which is for all the world. 
May it be so.