Grace to you and peace...
In my last congregation we read this text -- or a text similar to it (see, there are lots of texts that call us to take care of the poor) -- and someone had the idea to invite back a bunch of the high schoolers and ask them to mess up their hair, and wear smelly old clothes, and basically pretend to be homeless people for the morning. One of them was sleeping out in the bushes when people arrived. One of them was walking around muttering to himself. One of them was actually in the kitchen, eating a breakfast that he had brought. And one of them was curled up and covered up by a blanket on the back pew of the church.
Right after this lesson (or one of many others like it) was read, each of these “homeless” actors were invited forward to be interviewed about how they were treated. All of them were treated with disdain. Two were asked to leave. One was spoken to harshly and even called a few names. And the one sleeping on the pew was just totally ignored. And I remember he talked about what he heard, and there was lots of laughing and people just catching up, talking about their week, as if he wasn’t even there. Just walked past him.
I always thought that was kind of a “gotcha-in-your-face” sort of exercise, pretty much shaming people into the bible lesson. If/when a downtrodden person shows up here at church, I’ll tell you now that it’s not a stunt I’m pulling. They won’t be a prop. But it certainly made the point, and I don’t think that church is uniquely ignorant of and even cruel to the poor.
James is concerned about churches, and how they treat the poor...and James is only reiterating a deep concern of Jesus’.
James lived in a time when the gap between rich and poor wasn’t even close to as great as it is today. We are in a very wealthy nation.
And yet, what percentage of our national budget is for taking care of the poor? 2%, I heard...but I
In this election season, especially when it comes to domestic policy issues, I want to encourage you as Christians to keep that question -- “What would Jesus do?” -- at the fore. As the candidates on all sides talk about immigration, entitlement programs, education, health care, etc. And as we think about these issues, keep asking yourself, “I wonder how Jesus would answer that question/respond to that issue?”
We are called, sisters and brothers in Christ, to take care of the poor. And there was a time when the church actually measured itself on how well they did this. [pause] I’m supposed to turn in our figures and facts about our numbers each year. How many new members, how many were baptized, confirmed, deceased, has our giving increased or decreased, etc. Not once, however, am I asked to record how many homeless or working poor did Shepherd of the Valley come alongside this year.
And I’m actually glad for that -- not because we don’t help the poor here -- but because there’s a way in which that would start to look/feel like we were recording our good works. And here’s where we take a turn...
We don’t do these things to get credit for them. We don’t clothe the naked, visit the sick, feed the hungry, protect the vulnerable, house the homeless because any front office or even God is watching and keeping score on a scorecard. Right? We do it... [slow] because we can’t help ourselves; it is simply a response to God’s grace and mercy and love and giving to us.
Everything we have is from God. Everything we have is from God. And because we are truly thankful for what we have, we can’t help but let God’s grace and generosity flow through us.
God’s grace and generosity is the antidote for the church’s pitfall of just looking out for themselves and especially for ignoring the poor among us. We don’t do it because we have to or because we’ll get punished if we don’t, we don’t live under the thumb of the law -- we go in peace and serve the Lord because we can’t help ourselves!
I think the first line of our reading today can slip past us:
“Brothers and sisters, do you with your acts of favoritism really believe in our glorious Lord Jesus Christ?” The example is vivid -- poor person comes in vs. rich person (Nate raising $$ for LRCC). We get that. What slips past us is that first line.
To show favoritism/partiality and to disdain the poor, is actually to put our belief into question. When we don’t share, it’s because we don’t trust that God’s going to take care of us. If I give my sandwich to the man on the corner, there is one of two postures that could be running through my head: 1) posture of fear -- well, I’m going to hungry now. Or 2) posture of trust/belief and thanksgiving -- I’ve been fed enough up to this point, somehow God will provide a way for me to get another sandwich...after all look at all the ways God had taken care of (even) me up until now. I’ll be ok. Here you go.
Faith without works is dead.
Last week I talked about Martin Luther’s opinion of James. He called it the “epistle of straw”, in other words, non-essential to the bible. It could be thrown out...and it wasn’t because James comes down so hard on us, and Luther thought we didn’t need to pay attention to the poor so much.
It was because he didn’t want his people to get the idea that doing good works, taking care of the poor, was something that we keep lists of, that we make sure God and everyone else sees us doing. Luther saw our good works flowing from God’s love and mercy.
I really think its two sides of the same coin -- faith (music) and good works (dance) -- and I think Luther agreed with James actually. When we encounter the radical, gracious, boundary-less love of God in Jesus Christ, when we come in contact with God’s generosity and beauty, when we experience even just a moment of grace [pause], then we can’t help but turn outward and care for someone else.
If we’re not turning outward and caring for others, then we haven’t experienced God’s grace -- Luther and James would agree on that. Faith and good works happening together is the litmus test.
Good works -- care for the poor, the immigrant, the outcast, the homeless, the stranger, the vulnerable, even the earth itself -- good works flow from God’s grace. Not from the law.
And God’s grace showers down on you today, in so many ways, in so many colors, through so many people, with all of our senses -- taste and smell and sight and feel and sound. God’s grace comes rolling down like a mighty stream, washing us, renewing us, filling us (faith). And so we can’t help but be swept up by God’s good grace, swept up and carried out into the world to love and care, to share our good works with others.
This is the God’s work, and it is amazing in our eyes. AMEN.
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