Ordinary Time Week 14

Psalm: Psalm 45:1-2, 6-9 or Psalm 15
Old Testament: Song of Solomon 2:8-13
  or Deuteronomy 4:1-2, 6-9
Gospel: Mark 7:1-8, 14-15, 21-23
Epistle: James 1:17-27

There are many challenging passages in the New Testament, and the write of James is guilty of writing a few of them. His words from chapter 1 are a challenge to all those who confess to be followers of Christ. Christianity has never been about purely believes: being able to consent to a few propositional phrases. There are other religions where this is the case, and indeed the Early Church struggled with this view in their debates with the Gnostic Christians. James is unequivocal in his argument that if we only believe in Jesus, but that this doesn't stir us to action, then perhaps we have wrong beliefs or have not yet come to understand who Jesus truly is. He exhorts his readers to be "doers of the word, and not merely hearers who delude themselves." (vs. 22) Later on in his letter James writes, "faith, if this has no works, is dead, being by itself." (17) One of the classic debates in Christianity, which reached its breaking point in the Protestant Reformation, is between faith and works, law and grace. Paul repeatedly deals with these ideas in his letters, but here in James the author just cuts through all the polemics and says the two can never be separated. Faith and belief may come first, and we are saved purely through faith in Christ alone, but salvation always produces works.

I think this is where the call of Jesus to "follow him" is so crucial in the life of the Church Universal and in the individual believer. Jesus didn't deliver us a massive tome to understand, nor did he give us a "10 Easy Ways to Find the Father" pamphlet. In fact, as far as we know, Jesus never wrote anything except for a few words in the dust. Rather, Jesus gathered a few men and women around him and modeled a life lived in obedience, love, and perfect humanity for them for roughly 3 years. And after his death Jesus gave them his Spirit to guide and direct them as they continued to try to "follow him" after his death, resurrection, and Ascension. Jesus left his legacy and work to just a hand full of laborers in the back waters of the Roman Empire. I think that is significant, because again Christianity isn't about memorizing the text, it is always about how the life is lived. Mary, Peter, James and John, and the rest took what they learned and Jesus' example and taught it to the next generation of followers, and through the help of the Holy Spirit the line of faithful Christ-followers continues to this day. Each generation is called to discover just what it means to follow Christ in their time and culture. Because we follow a person, not a set of rules, our faith can always remain relevant and fresh for each generation. There is always a need to figure out what, where, and how God is working in each generation.

Real briefly, this is a little bit at what Jesus is getting at in his teaching in Mark 7. He says, "There is nothing outside the man which can defile him if it goes into him; but the things which proceed out of the man [his actions/works] are what defile the man." (15) Whereas James was taking the positive angle saying our faith spurs us to good works, here Jesus is saying the negative version of that: our bad works defile us, and may show that we weren't really following Christ to begin with.

Both of these passages today, and indeed many others, such as Jesus' words that we will know false prophets by their fruit, remind us that how we act is crucial to how we follow Christ. Christ's love spurs us to acts of love, mercy, and compassion. In contrast, the world pushes us to selfishness and sin. To bring it back to what I said earlier, the call to acts of love and mercy never changes, but those who follow Christ must figure out in their own contexts how that looks. God's Spirit is still at work today as we try to discern how that looks and to remain faithful to Jesus' call to "follow him." May we trust God and remain in his Spirit as we go about this task.

Grace and Peace.