The text this morning is from the Epistle of James, the second chapter:
My brothers, show no partiality as you hold the faith in our Lord Jesus Christ, the Lord of glory. For if a man wearing a gold ring and fine clothing comes into your assembly, and a poor man in shabby clothing also comes in, and if you pay attention to the one who wears the fine clothing and say, “You sit here in a good place,” while you say to the poor man, “You stand over there,” or, “Sit down at my feet,” have you not then made distinctions among yourselves and become judges with evil thoughts? Listen, my beloved brothers, has not God chosen those who are poor in the world to be rich in faith and heirs of the kingdom, which he has promised to those who love him? But you have dishonored the poor man. Are not the rich the ones who oppress you, and the ones who drag you into court? Are they not the ones who blaspheme the honorable name by which you were called? If you really fulfill the royal law according to the Scripture, “You shall love your neighbor as yourself,” you are doing well. But if you show partiality, you are committing sin and are convicted by the law as transgressors. For whoever keeps the whole law but fails in one point has become accountable for all of it… What good is it, my brothers, if someone says he has faith but does not have works? Can that faith save him? If a brother or sister is poorly clothed and lacking in daily food, and one of you says to them, “Go in peace, be warmed and filled,” without giving them the things needed for the body, what good is that? So also faith by itself, if it does not have works, is dead. But someone will say, “You have faith and I have works.” Show me your faith apart from your works, and I will show you my faith by my works.
Thus far the text.
My dear friends in Christ,
A man was walking in a forest one day. And as he went, he noticed that all of the plants were dead. Not one thing was alive. The grass had withered, the flowers had drooped, even the trees were reminiscent of old ghostly bones cropping up from the ground. It was not beautiful where he had expected beauty.
Then, as he left the forest he found a field, and realized things were greening up again. But, as he proceeded, he saw that on one side of him, everything was a primary color. All the reds, blues, and yellows that you see were on his left. All the mixes, the greens, browns, purples, oranges… they were all on his right. And as he looked at them, he realized there was no beauty there either.
He had expected to see things the way they should be. The way you look upon a forest and expect to see the deep colors of life, with tracks on the ground, overgrown bushes, the signs that there is something staring back at you from within. Or the way you look out at a prairie field in the sunset, with every color in the world staring back at you, nothing clashes, everything goes together and matches perfectly with the sun and all of its hues. But the man saw death, and he saw division, neither one the way things were supposed to be.
James looks upon the people of Christianity and warns that things should not be this way. He sees death and division all around. He sees both people trying to earn their salvation and people not caring to live as Christians should. These are death and division for God’s people. On the one hand, Christians not caring how they live, living promiscuously, living for their own self-gratification, not caring for their neighbor, not caring at all what they do, how they do it, or who they do it to, that’s death. That’s living according to sin, living for one’s self, and that’s the path that leads to division, for it causes rifts and cracks and craters in the fellowship of believers.
On the other hand, when Christians live as if they have to earn their own salvation, this is the way of death, for the works of legalism, that one must do it the right way, and that you’re the only judge of what and who is right and wrong, leads away from the cross. That’s death, for there is no life to be earned by sinful hands under the Law. And this kills not only the individual, but leads many astray.
So, James spends much of his time in the Epistle talking about the necessity of the Christian to do the right thing. Perhaps this is why Lutherans start to feel a little uncomfortable with this letter: we focus so much on the Gospel, and the good word from God that we are free in Him, that we turn, just a little bit, away from the Law. But that’s not really the right attitude. I mean, Jesus didn’t speak that way. Jesus was a great lawgiver.
Not only was it Jesus who told Moses to write down every word of the Law that He gave to him so that Israel would know right from wrong and would do what the Lord commanded, but the same Jesus gave us the Law when He was incarnate among us, as well. “…Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind,” Jesus said. And He said, “You shall love your neighbor as yourself. On these two commandments depend all the Law and the Prophets.” It wasn’t like Jesus was making it up on the spot. He gave those commandments to Moses, and it follows that He would continue to believe those commandments were good things when He lived among us. It follows that He thinks they’re good things to do now. It follows that He thinks that He will continue to expect our obedience to them in the New Creation.
The Law doesn’t pass away. But, what it does do is afflict and accuse our sinful flesh. It shows us how far we’ve fallen away. That’s why we Lutherans get uncomfortable. Aren’t we forgiven? Aren’t we righteous in Christ? Aren’t we under the Gospel? Of course you are! But, check yourself. Do you have a heartbeat? Are you still breathing? If so, then you still have a sinful flesh, an Old Adam, that hates God’s Word, doesn’t want to obey it, wants to do what it wants to do. This Old Adam in you, who is drowned in Baptism, as Luther says, is a great swimmer. He must be drowned daily and die in Christ. Only then, as it happened to you, does that New Man rise within you to lead you, not only to the justifying power of God, which you certainly do now possess in Christ, but the sanctifying power of God, which sanctified you in your Baptism and continues to sanctify you, to make you holy, to make you more like Christ today.
The Law doesn’t pass away. But, while it accuses the sinful self, it also begins to show the New Man, the one who is in Christ, that which is good to do. We should obey our parents. We should love God. We should help defend our neighbors. We should come to God’s house to receive His gifts. We should always speak well of those around us. We should continually seek after God in prayer. You see? Aren’t these wonderful things? And aren’t they still the Law? You should do this. This is what Christians do.
That may hit you in a couple ways. Perhaps you know you haven’t done these things as well as you should. Perhaps you haven’t done a few of these things at all. The Law is showing you to be a sinner. It’s telling you what it says, and it says you haven’t done it. And perhaps we feel bad. We should.
But, in Christ, by His atoning work for you upon the cross, He grants to you the perfect righteousness of His life. He looks at you as He delivers to you His body and His blood in the Supper, and He says, “You, whom I love, eat this body and drink this blood, and you will receive the wonderful gifts I won for you on the cross. You will be forgiven, you will be strengthened unto everlasting life, and you will be made one in my body, the Church.” With Christ’s statements of love, declared to us through the Holy Scriptures, we then know that we are forgiven. We are made righteous in Christ. So, now when we hear the Law of God, we know, not that we must keep it to be saved, but that we are free to keep it without fear of God’s judgment for our sin.
There is a grand difference between a bad parent who beats his child when he colors outside of the lines, and a parent who is overjoyed at her child’s new desire to stay within the lines. This is our God. He does not stand over us, His adopted children in Christ, in order to beat us when we go astray. He stands over us, watching us lovingly, as we try to obey that which He has given us to do. And as we get closer to the day of our deaths, we do better. We are declared holy, we become more holy in Christ.
Now, this doesn’t mean we become less sinful. Sin we shall always have with us. James says, you break one law you break them all; by the same token, you have a little bit of sin, you are guilty of having a dump-truck-full of sin. Besides that, you will, in this life, always have your sinful flesh to contend with. The amount of sin doesn’t matter, because you’re always going to have that so long as you’re alive in this world. But, we do more things well the more we grow in Christ. We can do rightly for our neighbors. After all, that’s what holiness is all about. Holiness isn’t about you. You may do holy things, but it’s never for your benefit. It never is. You can’t earn your salvation. But, you can be holy towards your neighbor, showing them the great, wonderful, understanding wisdom of God, who is near to you.
And what if you don’t? What if you don’t want to do good towards your neighbor? There, James says this faith, rejecting the good things we should do, is dead. This faith, which is no faith in Christ at all, is dead faith and it will not save. This is our sinful self, desiring its own selfish expression. But, what if you want to, but you don’t know how? What if you know what’s right, but it’s really hard? What if you know you’re doing something wrong, but it’s near impossible to give it up? Know that whatever works you would do still won’t save you. Christ saves you. And when it’s hard to do the right thing, when it’s hard to know what to do, Christ has given to you His gifts so that you might be strengthened in the one true faith, and you receive His works, not your own, which are the only things that will save you.
I’ll encourage you, too, if we think we can judge our holiness, how well we’re doing, by our works, we’re wrong. We never look to our holiness to see if we have faith. What James is saying is look to your faith to see your works. You doubt you have works? I’ll show them to you by faith. That’s really what’s going on. You doubt you have enough good works? Look to faith, a gift given to you by Christ, which gives to you every good work. Look to Christ to see all the good you have done even when you never thought you were doing anything. Never look inside; look outside to Christ and His gifts. That’s where holiness, that’s where your sanctification comes from.
Ultimately, we aren’t ever going to be completely holy in this life by our works. We can’t be. We still struggle with our sinful flesh, don’t we? But the day is soon coming, when the Law you have been trying to obey, the Law that you have been learning all of your life, the Law that you have been trying to discipline yourself in, all by the strength of Christ, the day is coming when you will no longer struggle. That day, the Law will no longer accuse you, but shall be a close companion as we live together, with all the beloved brothers and sisters of Christ, and serve and love one another as we should, as we have been saved, redeemed, resurrected, by Christ Himself. That day, the resurrection from the dead, is the day we long for, when we struggle with this sinful flesh no longer, but have the glorified flesh as our Lord was glorified when He rose from the dead. And we prepare for that day by trying to do what it is right, for we are free in the Gospel to love God and love one another without any condemnation.
You are free from death, which was trying to earn your own way to salvation, and you are free from division, which is only doing that which you desire. Now, we have life, in abundance, as we walk together. Now, all things are joined together in Christ and we see no needless division. Now, you are free to be a servant to all people, all your neighbors. Now, you are free, totally free from that eternal death you deserve. You are forgiven of all your trespasses by our Lord. In Jesus’ name, amen.
Now may the peace of God which passes all human understanding guard your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus, our Lord! Amen.
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