Rev. Tom Lenhart
Sermon September 10, 2006
“Faith and Works—Making A Difference”
James 2:1-10, 14-17 and Mark 7: 24-37

Let us pray.

“Making A Difference”- - sounds like a slogan you might hear or see as we move into the fall election season   --especially  from an incumbent worried about reelection. “Hi, I am Congressman Tom Lenhart and I am running for reelection. My democrat/republican colleagues (take your pick) and I have been making a difference for you in Washington. So send me back! You get the picture. Or it could be a corporate slogan – Empire State Bank -- Making a Difference in Your Community -- or Acme Exterminators -- Making a Difference in Your Home. So you might be curious why I have chosen “Making A Difference” as my theme for the coming months here at the Church. Certainly it is generic and a tad prosaic—indeed, a bit clichéd like Nike’s “Just Do It,” which seems to be just about everywhere at the US Tennis Open. And yet, I believe, if you think about it, you will agree that it captures what we are about in this church. Everything we do is about making a difference. For example, at its best worship stimulates our thinking, restores our spiritual batteries and nourishes us in our times of need. In other words it makes a difference in our lives. Likewise, Christian Education provides us with resources of information and ideas that help us and our children to make hard decisions and to navigate through life’s joys and those inevitable disappointments that touch all of us somewhere on our journey. And, of course, through our Outreach we support those who suffer from economic hardship, from illness and from the sting of oppression and discrimination.  The phrase “Making A difference” captures these things that we do and serves to be a reminder of what we should and must always strive to do. So it is this fall that I will occasionally revisit this subject -- albeit from different directions and in different contexts.

Today I want -- with the guidance of our scripture lessons --to focus on what it means to do good works. Are we here in this faith community any different from the multitude of organizations such as the United Fund and its members or any of the IRS section 503 organizations that receive our contributions in a tax advantaged way to do good work? What do good works really have to do with our faith and the church? Isn’t   our personal connection with God all we need?

This is the question that in many ways propelled the schism in the Christian Church leading to the Reformation. The Protestants -- so we have been told for generations believe that justification --  that is  to be in right relationship with God  --comes through faith alone, while for our Roman Catholic brothers and sisters it comes through works. Paul is seen as the great voice of the Protestant view, while the writer of the book of James is seen as the great articulator of the works approach. Indeed, it is said that Martin Luther, the protestant father of the Reformation, so strongly disliked the book of James that when he translated for the first time the New Testament into German he numbered all of the pages in all of the books except James. He could not jettison it but he could make it as hard as possible for anyone to find it.

Let me be unequivocal -- faith versus works is in my view a false dichotomy. It stems from a misreading of Paul. To the credit of Catholicism and Protestantism over the last several hundred years, each has moved toward a view that to be in right relationship with God requires both. Today I want to talk about why I believe works are inherent in faith and what barriers arise at times to limit the works that we do as individuals and as a church. What are the challenges for us in trying to make a difference?

“So faith by itself, if it has no works, is dead.”  Paul would have little difficulty with that statement. What concerned Paul was where one starts in their relationship with God. For Paul one could not work themselves into right relationship with God by good deeds alone. That does not mean that such deeds were not in some moral sense good and positive but salvation is not meted out based upon some ledger or tote board that adds up our good deeds -- with rockets going off when we hit the right number. No, for Paul justification begins with faith – with that leap of acceptance that there is a God; not a distant God but a loving personal one who came into history in the form of a human being and  changed history and our lives in the process. This is God in the person of Jesus, who chose to lead us and teach us by example and who ultimately died for us.  So it is that we start with faith. But faith alone is dead as James says or I think even more profoundly is not faith at all.

I recently saw a PBS documentary on the life of Frank Lloyd Wright. During this show the narrator described a lengthy period in Wright’s life when -- because of his bohemian personal life style -- he was an outcast from conventional society. He could not get an architectural commission to save his life. It struck me that faith alone is a little like Wright’s odyssey in this professional wilderness. In a sense one does not engage in architecture if no one builds your designs.  A composer is not complete – not truly composing -- if his or her compositions are never played but only cascade through his or her mind. Faith is not faith unless it is completed by works. The great commandment is a platitude if no one lives by it. Thus, faith starts with belief but must end in action – that is works.   Why? Because as Jesus remained us in the Great Commandment faith is about the transformation of us and of our neighbors. For you see love is never truly passive – it is embodied in relationship -- that is between the lover and the loved one. It simply cannot be a game of human solitaire.

M. Scott Peck tells a story in his book The Different Drum: Community Making and Peace[1] which reflects why faith compels works or perhaps is not faith without works.  To paraphrase the story: there was a monastery in Europe, part of a once great religious order.  But the ravages of time and modernism had taken its toll on the Order.  There were only an Abbott and four monks left, living in a sprawling but decaying mountainside monastery. The Abbott and the monks, all well past 70 years in age, worried about the imminent death of the Order.  In the forest that surrounded the monastery lived an aging Rabbi, who served a synagogue in the valley.  One day the Abbott, having exhausted his own ideas and those of his monks about what to do, decided to talk with his friend the Rabbi—perhaps he had some new ideas on how to save the Order.  The Abbott walked down to the Rabbi’s hut.  The Abbott explained the reason for his visit and asked the Rabbi for advice.  Now the Rabbi was sympathetic. He commented on how almost no one came to services at the synagogue anymore.  “People just don’t seem to have the spirit of faith.”  The old friends spoke quietly, prayed together and commiserated.  As the Abbott got up to leave, he asked the Rabbi one last time: “Have you no advice for us?”

            The Rabbi replied, “No, I am sorry.  I have no advice to give.  The only thing I can tell you is that the Messiah is one of you.”

            When the Abbott returned, the monks asked him if he had received any advice.  The Abbott responded, “No, but as I was leaving the Rabbi said something cryptic—something about the Messiah being one of us.  I don’t know what he meant.”

            In the weeks that followed, the old monks and the Abbott pondered the Rabbi’s strange statement.  “The Messiah is one of us—could that possibly have meant one of us?  Perhaps he meant the Abbott—he is the leader here and has been so for years.  On the other hand maybe he meant Brother Thomas—he is certainly a holy man—a man of light.   Certainly the Rabbi couldn’t have meant Brother Elred—he’s crotchety and a thorn in people’s side. But you know he’s usually right.  Surely he couldn’t have meant Brother Philip.  He is so passive; people just walk all over him—but then he does have a gift for being there when he’s needed.  He just appears by your side.  Of course, the Rabbi didn’t mean me,” thought Brother Michael, “I’m just an ordinary person.  Yet suppose he did?  Suppose I’m the Messiah—O God not me—I couldn’t be that much for you, O God, could I?”

            As they thought more and more about the Rabbi’s statement the Abbott and the monks began to treat each other with special respect and kindness on the off chance one of them was the Messiah.  And each monk began to treat himself with greater respect again on the off chance that the Rabbi might be right.

            Because the forest and alpine meadows around the monastery were beautiful—people occasionally came to walk and picnic on the monastery’s small grounds, even stopping to visit the chapel.  As they did they began to notice the sense of great respect and love that now surrounded the Abbot and the four monks and that seemed to permeate the old place. It was strangely compelling.  Without knowing why, people began to return more frequently and to bring with them a friend to show them this special place.  Then it happened; some younger men who had begun to visit started to talk with the old monks and ultimately sought permission to join –first one, then another and so on.  Within a few years the monastery had once again become a thriving order.

What does this story have to do with works? It seems to me it has everything to do with them. For you see as the story points out the essence of good works done out of faith is the love and respect of the other and of self. Here the love of the other manifested itself in acts of kindness and respect by each monk towards the other monks. Now, of course, none was the Messiah but each it became clear was a unique, a creature of God with talents and skills and lovable.    Now the Messiah is not likely to be found in our   area either. But isn’t it true that the divine is here just as it was in each monk though sometimes one has to look hard to find it.. As our story points out when we do good works out of faith – when we make a difference -- not only are others transformed but we are as well. Strange how love and respect of another work like that. 

This sounds so good and right -- as Nike says Just Do It; but it’s not so easy to do. The first section of our text from James -- a polemic to the early church --could be written about our world. The problem in this passage is that the leaders of the synagogue are giving the best seats to the rich and while the poor are relegated to the floor and standing room.  Though it appears that James is decrying wealth here – what is really going on is a condemnation of the preference of those that are similar. In the synagogue the leaders were well established just like the rich they favored. As James rhetorically asks, “Do you with your acts of favoritism really believe in our glorious Lord Jesus Christ?” The point of course is that God has not favored the rich over the poor. 

For me this is one of those lessons that I find easy and yet hard. On an intellectual level it seems so clearly right that my faith demands embrace of the other -- of the different -- and yet it is hard to do in real life. It took me many, many months when I started working with the homeless to move from that person who had stepped around the homeless and avoided eye contact with them for years for fear that I would have to interact with them. Even now there are times when I steel myself before I engage someone who is on the outside different. Trying to make difference is sometimes difficult and makes me and perhaps you uncomfortable. At such moments I am reminded of a story that William Sloane Coffin told in a sermon many years ago about a beggar in 16^th century France.[2] The beggar near death was brought into an operating theater where the surgeons say to each other in Latin, “’Faciamus experimentum in anima vile” (let us experiment on this vile fellow).’”  The beggar though desperately poor is nonetheless --unbeknownst to the surgeons -- a talented scholar. To their shock the beggar replies in Latin from the operating table, ‘”Animan vilem appelas pro qua Christus non dedignatus mori est?’”(“Will you call vile one whom Christ did not disdain to die for?”). The challenge is to see in all that surrounds us that universal divine spark – Christ did -- who are we not to.

            That is also the lesson of the parable of the syrophoenician woman that Mark records in our Gospel text for today.  A mother – a gentile woman from what would today be war –ravaged southern Lebanon – has a desperately ill daughter. One suspects she has tried everything to cure her child. With great courage she travels to see the new Jewish prophet, Jesus, who is reported to cure illness and cast out demons. This trip is not simply one of distance but a courageous journey over a cultural and religious chasm that I am not sure we can fully appreciate.  But finally she comes to Jesus on her knees and asks for help – “cast the demon out of her” she pleads. And in one of the most perplexing scenes in the gospels, Jesus says in essence, No! the Jews (“the children” in our text)  have first call on me not the gentiles (the dogs). Now many have tried to soften this exchange to see it as satirical or ironic. I think not. What we have in Mark is a very human Jesus and for just a moment he acts in a most human way -- he focuses his works – his healing on his kind, not on the other -- the alien. Any then shaken back to his essence --to his love for all --by the mother’s brilliant retort  that “even the dogs under the table eat the children’s crumbs,” Jesus heals the daughter. So it is that faith and works require us to serve not simply our kind but all kinds -- for in God’s eyes there are no preferences -- no favorites

            Now if you look at the back of your bulletin you will see the wonderful statement about this church’s mission; it states, “The mission of the First Congregational Church in Chappaqua is to be a caring community seeking to know and celebrate the love of God joyfully by following Jesus Christ in our worship, fellowship, service and out reach to God’s world.” We have been and are committed to “making a difference” that is clear. Nonetheless, it is useful now and again for us -- as it was even for Jesus -- to be reminded of the breadth of this faith requirement to make a difference. And so you will see in the weeks to come a banner made by our children proclaiming that we are about “Making A Difference.” Stop and take a look when you can. Amen