2 My brothers and sisters, believers in our glorious Lord Jesus Christ must not show favoritism. 2 Suppose a man comes into your meeting wearing a gold ring and fine clothes, and a poor man in filthy old clothes also comes in. 3 If you show special attention to the man wearing fine clothes and say, “Here’s a good seat for you,” but say to the poor man, “You stand there” or “Sit on the floor by my feet,” 4 have you not discriminated among yourselves and become judges with evil thoughts?
5 Listen, my dear brothers and sisters: Has not God chosen those who are poor in the eyes of the world to be rich in faith and to inherit the kingdom he promised those who love him? 6 But you have dishonored the poor. Is it not the rich who are exploiting you? Are they not the ones who are dragging you into court? 7 Are they not the ones who are blaspheming the noble name of him to whom you belong?
8 If you really keep the royal law found in Scripture, “Love your neighbor as yourself,” you are doing right. 9 But if you show favoritism, you sin and are convicted by the law as lawbreakers. 10 For whoever keeps the whole law and yet stumbles at just one point is guilty of breaking all of it. 11 For he who said, “You shall not commit adultery,” also said, “You shall not murder.” If you do not commit adultery but do commit murder, you have become a lawbreaker.
12 Speak and act as those who are going to be judged by the law that gives freedom, 13 because judgment without mercy will be shown to anyone who has not been merciful. Mercy triumphs over judgment.
14 What good is it, my brothers and sisters, if someone claims to have faith but has no deeds? Can such faith save them? 15 Suppose a brother or a sister is without clothes and daily food. 16 If one of you says to them, “Go in peace; keep warm and well fed,” but does nothing about their physical needs, what good is it? 17 In the same way, faith by itself, if it is not accompanied by action, is dead.The most famous part of James' assertion here is that "faith not accompanied by action is dead". Along with the question in verse 14, "Can such faith save them?" (some translations leaving out the word "such") this drove Martin Luther crazy. Luther rightly asserted that faith is the only thing that saves. We cannot be saved by our good works. If that were possible, why would Jesus have needed to die on the cross for us? We just would have worked our way into heaven. God saves. People don't. So Luther looked at James and said, "Bzzzt! Try again."
(Side Note: This shows that, modern arguments from certain corners aside, not even Luther felt that all words in scripture weighed exactly the same. You can't dismiss any of them. They all have meaning and importance. But some influence us more than others. That's built into the system, as is debate about how central each text should be.)
While Luther was correct and James' wording was perhaps a bit...inelegant, James does have a point here. The danger of the true statement "faith alone saves" is that if you misidentify what "faith" is, you have no corrective. You're up the creek.
Sadly many of us continue to misidentify what faith is.
Remember how we just discussed our objectification of sin and the Law--making both into objects that we tote around with us and bring out when convenient--and how that leads us astray? We do the same thing with faith. We say faith is a "thing" that we "have" or a belief that we "hold". We consider faith an ingredient in the overall recipe of our lives, like a teaspoon of baking soda going in with the flour of our work, home life, and recreation. This leads us astray.
Holding this definition of faith, when we hear "faith alone saves" our response becomes, "OK. I've got it!" We figure we're good there. As long as we keep going to church and believing the right way, we're taken care of.
But look! Now we're not talking about faith anymore. We're back to works. "Going to church" and "believing the right way" are things that we do, choices we make. Making faith a passive object in our active life reduces it, kills it even.
This is exactly where you get the modern church-goers who are so proud of themselves that they go to the "right" church and made the "right" decisions and whose primary concern in regard to Christianity is to go around trying to ascertain whether everybody else has done so as well. "Knock. Knock. Knock. Have you accepted the Lord Jesus into your life?" (As if the person who "accepted Jesus" now carries him around in their pocket. He's on the porch but not in the house.) People run from that kind of Christianity the same way they run from church folks who say that being rich gets you into heaven. And they should run! Attendance and saying you believe the right thing have replaced cash but the system is still just as backwards and unfaithful.
Like the Law, like sin, faith is a relationship. It's not an object that you--"you" being separate from faith--wear like a badge, carry in your pocket, or form in your head. It's not an ingredient alongside all the other things in life, it is life. Or rather life apart from faith is temporary, transient, quickly on its way to death. Faith doesn't sit alongside life. Faith transforms what was once dead into life.
When you understand faith as an active relationship, permeating everything, this question of "faith without works" becomes silly. They become one and the same. Every work becomes a work of faith. Every understanding of faith affects your life and the way you do things. They're two sides of the same coin. You can't have one without the other. If you can even imagine faith without it affecting how you do things then what you're imagining isn't faith.
This is exactly what James is saying. He's not arguing that works are superior to faith. He's arguing that without works, you don't have faith in the first place. The works may not be grand. We may be talking about feeding your kids boxed macaroni and cheese here, or reaching out to take someone's hand from the hospital bed in which you are confined, or simply smiling when you say, "Hello" to a stranger. But big or small, unless your faith propels you to care about the world and your neighbor, what good is it?
If faith is just about us--our thoughts and beliefs, our comfort, our salvation--then it's ultimately a selfish endeavor. Know this: The opposite of faith isn't unbelief. The opposite of faith is selfishness. When you throw that kind of selfishness into the mix, "faith alone saves" becomes a poisonous statement...not because the statement is wrong, but because faith is mis-defined. The only way to make sure the definition is going well is to make sure your faith lives and breathes for others, that it leads you into loving your neighbor as yourself, and that you're following it.
--Pastor Dave (pastordave@geneseelutheranparish.org)
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