“Everyday Christianity” Text: James 2:14-26
Elpis Christian Church
May 3, 2009
Well some of us got our hands dirty yesterday. We got our “Seeds of Faith” garden project going – and one thing is clear. I’ve got A LOT to learn about growing vegetables. The good news is that here at Elpis we have one or two people who have forgotten more about gardening than this city boy will ever know. So I’m looking forward to learning. And let the deer be officially put on notice – this food is for PEOPLE in need not WILDLIFE in need, though we’ll have to wait and see how closely they pay attention to pastoral proclamations. And just in case – I’m pretty sure there are plans for constructing a fence.
The main thing that I’m excited about is that this small garden project is going to give us an opportunity to “put our money where our mouth is” – so to speak. First – we’re going to be using a $350 grant from District 10 of the Christian Churches in Virginia – to get things up and running. Second – we’re going to be using volunteer time and labor to keep things growing. And – with help from God and lots of faith – we are going to one day be showing our community that Elpis Christian Church doesn’t just talk about loving others – when needed it puts food on their plates too – free of charge. James would be proud of us.
The James, that is, that wrote today’s compelling scripture passage. With one question he cuts right to the heart of the matter. “What good is it, brothers and sisters, if you say you have faith but do not have works?” Ever since those words were penned – and actually before they were – people of faith have been arguing about the issue. In the context of our series of sermons on the Christian life – we might phrase it this way. “If you want to live the virtuous life – how can you do that – while people are starving – right in your own back yard? If you want to live the holy life – how can you do that – while people right next door need clothing, or housing, or a decent job, or medicine?”
Now in response – there has always been two strong answers. One says – you can’t. Faith and compassionate works go hand in hand – otherwise your faith truly is dead. The other says, “Hold on! What about responsibility? What do hand outs have to do with Christian love? Isn’t it just breeding dependency – or, at best, isn’t it just putting a Band-Aid on the real problem?”
If you ask me – both voices need to be heard there. Breeding dependency and irresponsibility IS a major problem in our society. And churches can get caught up in just giving a bag of groceries here, a little cash there, and forget that these problems are much bigger than that.
But for me that only challenges us, as the body of Christ, to do MORE not less. Do it with responsibility and with good stewardship? You bet. Do it in such a way that it is only the truly needy –and not the moochers of the world – that receive our help? Absolutely. To do any less is to be very poor stewards of God’s abundant grace. But, as the modern day slogan says so well, when all the dust settles, we still need to “just do it.” We need to find the starving, find the naked, find the brothers and sisters with the holes in their roofs and the dirt floors in their homes, find the children and adults who can’t read the instructions that the local clinic or school gives them to read, find those who tonight will eat processed noodles, again, for supper – and put some real vegetables on their table. And most important of all – as we do it – we need to do it to the glory of God.
And when they ask us why we care – we need to answer loud and clear – because we’re trying to love them the way God loves them – simple as that.
So often we complicate things. So often we debate the fine points about the nature of the Christian life. I think more often we need to just stop talking and plant a few beans – and let God take over from there. That’s what we did yesterday. And if you missed a chance to be a part of it – I hope you’ll get on board soon. If you can’t physically participate in the garden itself – then we’ll find some other way for you to get involved. Maybe you can help us publicize the project to the local paper or where you work. Or maybe you can help package the food once it’s grown. I don’t know – but God knows where you can be used. Just do it. Live the virtuous life – the holy life – by getting your hands a little dirty.
William Law was a devout Anglican priest in the seventeenth century. His practical work was as a spiritual director, offering guidance to people who sought a closer, deeper relationship with God. His best-known written work is a book called A SERIOUS CALL TO A DEVOUT AND HOLY LIFE. It’s a classic among historic Christian literature.
Law has a lot to say about a word you don’t hear too often this day – piety. He writes of devotion and prayer and all the things you would expect a good Anglican priest to write about. But it’s striking to me that for Law the pious life – what we might call the virtuous or holy life – can’t be separated from a life that is spent daily living out God’s love in a thousand practical ways. Here’s what he has to say about that:
“The simple point is this: either Christianity prescribes rules to live by in our daily lives, or it does not. If it does, then we must govern all of our actions by those rules if we are to worship God. For if Christianity teaches anything about eating or drinking, spending our time and money, how we are to live in the world, what attitudes we are to have in daily life, how we are to be disposed toward all people, how we are to behave toward the sick, the poor, the old, the destitute, whom we are to treat with particular love, whom we are to regard with particular esteem, how we are treat our enemies, and how we are to deny ourselves, we would be foolish to think that these teachings are not to observed with the same strictness as those teachings that relate to prayer.”
“It is very observable that there is not one command in all the gospel for public worship. One could say that it is the duty that is least insisted upon in Scripture. Frequent church attendance is never so much as mentioned in all of the New Testament. But the command to have faith which governs the ordinary actions of our lives is to be found in almost every verse of scripture. Our blessed Savior and his Apostles were very intent on giving us teachings that relate to daily life. They teach us: to renounce the world and be different in our attitudes and ways of life; to renounce all its goods; to fear none of its evils; to be as newborn babes who are born into a new state of things; to live as pilgrims in spiritual watching, in holy fear, and heavenly aspiring to another life; to take up our cross daily, to deny ourselves, to profess the blessedness of mourning, to seek the blessedness of poverty of spirit; to forsake the pride and vanity of riches, to take no thought for the morrow, to live in the profoundest state of humility, to rejoice in worldly sufferings; to reject the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life; to bear injuries, to forgive and bless our enemies, and to love all people as God loves them; to give up our whole hearts and affections to God, and to strive to enter through the straight gate into a life of eternal glory.”
And then Law concludes with this one, pointed, question that rings down through the ages into the lives of believers everywhere:
“Isn’t it strange that people place so much emphasis upon going to church when there is not one command from Jesus to do so and yet neglect the basic duties of ordinary life which are commanded in every page of the Gospels?”
Wow. Those are strong words coming from an Anglican clergyman of the seventeenth century. Hundreds of years later – a much shorter version of what he had to say was made popular by the modern church – especially among young people. It said, “When it comes to day to day living, when you are faced with some very tough decisions, just ask this: WHAT WOULD JESUS DO?”
There are some you say that is a naïve question to ask in these modern and complicated times. But I think it’s a good one. While it may be simplistic, in some ways, to put ourselves in the sandals of Jesus – that doesn’t mean it isn’t worth trying.
James would say it’s simple really. People of hurting, they are hungry, and thirsty, and they need some real help. How can we sit on church on Sunday – and not do something about their need on Monday? WHAT WOULD JESUS DO? I don’t know what Jesus would do about some things. But I think it’s a fair guess he’d be happy about our humble little effort called the “Seeds of Faith” garden project. He’d smile at Oscar or Lewellyn or Clarence showing Kaitlyn or Libby or Coleman or Paul about how beans are supposed to be planted right. And I know God is pleased whenever one of his children is just a little less hungry because another one of his children put his or her faith to work in a simple, practical way.
“Everyday Christianity” is Christianity where when we leave this church on Sunday we go out into a mission field and show we really mean what we profess here each time we gather. And, hand in hand with the “Closet Christianity” of dedicated prayer life, we do great and important things in Christ’s name.
Some of us got our hands dirty yesterday. I hope in the coming days and weeks all of us will get our hands dirty, literally or figuratively speaking. It’s the way to holiness. It’s the way to a virtuous life. It’s what Jesus would do.
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