THE EPISTLE OF STRAW

October 20, 2013

Pentecost 20

World Food Sunday - YH Presbytery

Jeremiah 31:27-34

James 1:1, 19-24

(prayer)

It seems to me that it was a long time ago that I suggested St. David's Church be the host for the fall 2013 meeting of Yellowhead.  The dates were set ahead of time.  So, it was already known that the gathering would run Friday to Sunday - which I knew would mean that (on that Sunday) the congregation would include a number of presbytery members, include a significant number of people who, themselves, plan and lead worship on a regular basis.

Now, these presbyters are kind, open and forgiving folk, so you there is no need to be nervous.  I did expect to feel a bit of 'pressure' preaching among so many other preachers, but it was always far enough down the road that I was fine.

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Then last week, my mind started quoting Jeremiah: "the days are surely coming."

I have been practicing a spiritual discipline of patience this fall - in that I have avoiding making any plans for a particular Sunday service, until the previous Sunday is completed- kind of like organizational fasting.

But when my brain started preaching at me, "the days are surely coming", I was tempted to break my fast and get today's plans done early.

Lead us not into temptation. 

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I did not stumble.  I waited until Monday before I planned out most of the service details early in the week so I could get the hymns to the musicians and info for the church office to prepare the virtual and paper bulletin. 

Although I knew that the week would be busy, I intentionally, left things to the last minute as far as sermon preparation went. 

As the meeting began on Friday, the pressure started to affect me.  No longer were the days surely coming - the day was here.

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Today we heard from the new testament epistle of James (epistle means letter from the greek for ‘upon sending’).  The letter of James is a unique document in our Christian Scriptures - it has a unique author from the other books. 

Old tradition held that it was James the blood brother of Jesus - the leader of the Jerusalem early Christian community).  The text simply says that it is from “James, a servant of God and of the Lord Jesus Christ”.  Most modern scholars think that it was very unlikely that Jesus’ Aramaic-speaking, peasant brother could read or write in Greek (if he could in any language) and that the content of the letter suggests a writing date from the latter first century after James’ lifetime.

James also appears to be a general letter, not one sent to a specific community or group of believers.  It is addressed to the dispersed twelve tribes of Israel.

Now this doesn’t mean that James is writing to all Jewish people; rather he is writing to the Jewish Christians who live outside of Judea and Galilee.  This was not a document trying to evangelize people into the church - it was a letter for people who were already in, but whose faith origins were in the same traditions of Jesus himself - Judaism.

The letter of James is not part of the letter tradition of the Apostle Paul - which was written to non-jewish (or mixed jewish-gentile) communities.  Letters with Paul’s name on them largely focused on the early church members' ability to get along with each other under a common mission.

Paul, and those of his school of thought who later wrote in his name, had a primary focus on a right mindset for faith.  The letters of Paul describe faith as an attitude of mental spirituality.  Paul preached very strongly against the notion of blindly following rituals for the sake of ritual.  For Paul it was a case of faith versus the law.

Using a common modern phrase, the letters of Paul encourage being more 'spiritual than religious'.

That is (of course) an over-simplification, but unfortunately the over-simplification leads some people to assume that faith is just a matter of the mind.  That one's spirit is limited to non-physical faithfulness.  Being faithful is to trump doing faithful things.

This attitude was big during the protestant reformation - one of the mantras espoused by Martin Luther and other protester of the reformation was sola fida - "[By] Faith Alone!"

The context of the protestant reformation was that people like Luther were deeply troubled by the practice of the church of the day that qualified a person's faith based on how stringently they followed certain rituals and practices.  I get it - in that context - a push to the other direction makes sense.  In a 'works-centered theological' context, 'faith alone' makes sense.

But in the broader context, I think extremes are seldom helpful.

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So, thank God for the letter of James: be doers of the word and not merely hearers.

When someone says they are more spiritual than religious, they are referring to a discomfort with empty rituals, with disconnected institutionalism, with a discouragement to open dissent or challenge or 'thinking'.

If that's the what you mean when you say 'spiritual not religious', I agree with you.

However, I would say that the thesis of James is about a very strong religiosity - a call to religious behavior.

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Not everyone thinks so.  Obviously James was a problem for Martin Luther, with the letter’s focus on good works and Luther’s thesis that the true gospel demands faith, not works.  Luther even argues that James did not belong in the bible.  He called it ‘an epistle of straw’.

To mix my metaphors, the letter of James would be no trouble for any ol’ big bad wolf to blow flat.

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With apologies to one of the great church visionaries of the reformation and to our good and kind neighbours across the parking lot to the south, I think James is great and I feel blessed that it has been passed on to us by the early church as Christian Scripture.

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Yes, it is true that faith may well be (in many ways) an activity of the mind.  Certainly, faith grows as we think and reflect about what is important to us: as we delve into the lessons of our Bibles and seek to understand how we fit into this story of a beloved creation which is loved by a deeply loving God.

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Personally, I think that the mind, might be the second step - if these kinds of things are quantifiable at all.

My experience is that faith is rooted in feelings - emotional responses and yearnings.  Yes, that often is made know to us through thought and reflection, but I am sure that you all know that we can feel a certain way, without understanding why.  To put it another way: the brain sometimes has trouble catching up to the heart.

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I would venture to guess that everyone of us here today is longing for something that we hope this whole ‘church community experience’ can support.

We feel that there is something more than the sum of our thoughts or the limits of our knowledge.  And we have ventured through a church’s doors because (at some level) we are interested in (open to) delving a little deeper to see what we can discover.

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I don’t see the Epistle of Straw in opposition to that.  I see it as focusing on yet a further step in the process of faith development.

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If faith is, first, a feeling waiting to be understood; it is, second, an action waiting to be taken based on whatever it is we decide that faith means to us.

Faith is a dance between the

·         heart,

·         head and

·         the feet.

James reminds of the final partner of the dance without expecting an exclusion of the other two.

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In our reading from James this morning, we can see that the author begins by appealing to the minds of the readers: “you must understand this, my beloved…”  What follows are actions to take based on faithful attitudes that are already part of the person:

ÿ    be quick to listen, slow to speak;

ÿ    slow to anger;

ÿ    rid yourself of wickedness;

ÿ    welcome meekness.

The book of James is a primer on how one should act as a believer and follower of Jesus, the Christ in those early decades of the Christian movement - well worth a look, some 2000 years later - most of those lessons have stood the test of time.  It is still a good thing (I would argue) to be slow to speak and quick to listen.

You heard in the passage that was read what could be called the summary verse of the entire letter: chapter 1, verse 22: “Be doers of the word, and not merely hearers.”

Be doers of the word, and not merely hearers.

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That sounds easy.  Of course, we should do that.  Right?

But, it is good for us to realize that this phrase is a challenge for each of us.

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I think that one of the reasons that the words “spiritual but not religious” is so popular is because religion brings to mind the big administrative and institutional aspects of the Christian movement.  And there is no shortage of hypocrisy in that.

A Church that proclaims it wants to follow Jesus’ instruction to serve the poor and welcome the outsiders, is swimming in exorbitant wealth and has built (literally and figuratively) high walls to participation.

“If that’s religious, count me out”, people must say.

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Being doers of the word and not merely hearers is about seeking to be an authentic believer - where words and actions try to match.

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Personally, I don’t care if you call yourself spiritual or religious, my hope for each of us, is the willingness to try and live an authentic faith.

Now, I said ‘authentic’, not perfect.

We all (at times) are quick to speak and slow to listen.  The desire to improve the connection between our words and our actions is the stuff that faith is made of.

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Our God seems to have a greater focus on the future than the past.  Not worrying about what may have not been quite right, but encouraging a new attempt to live faithfully.  In churchy language we would use words like forgiveness and grace.

Even, the doom and gloom messages of the prophet Jeremiah saw the opportunities of a better faithfulness ahead:  The days are surely coming when I will make a new promise with the people.  It will be a new law to guide them, but not a law written in stone or papyrus or paper, it will be so ingrained within them, that it will be as if it is written on their hearts”.

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With God, there is never a final chance to improve on that heart-head-feet dance of faith.  I believe that God calls us to do just that as we live as active followers of Jesus.

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While it is great that we are able (from time to time) gather in places like this (usually on a Sunday morning) to focus on the head and the heart, let us also be people who let this faith move us.  Let us move into the world with our faith.

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On some calendars, you may see that today is World Food Sunday.  It is usually the Sunday after October 16^th (which commemorates the founding of the ‘Food and Agriculture Organization’ of the United Nations).

For folks in the mid-northern parts of our globe, it is harvest time - the time when we gather the food for the year.  And so, people from churches and elsewhere who believe in the dignity of all human life.  Finding ways to participate in the path to the elimination of hunger is one way of being a doer of Jesus’ words.

This past Thursday, on day after the official World Food Day, the Leduc-area field dedicated to support the World Food Grains Bank was harvested.  Amen.

At least once a month, the contents of that box at the back of the church where people can place donations for the local food bank is emptied.  Today, we are fortunate to have a huge display on fair trade items - products that support the living wages of the producers of what we eat and enjoy.

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Beyond food (c’mon, we can do it United Church)… beyond food, having a James-like active, word-doing faith is always about seeing others as kin, as beloved children of God, no matter how similar or different they are to you.  Being a doer of the word means that we treat all with the dignity and respect and compassion that equal children of God deserve.

Call it what you like: spiritual or religious or whatever… it is our mission, it is our ministry, it is our calling. 

The best part of this good news is that God promises to be our companion along the way - even when the dance is less than perfect (which it most certainly always will be).

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The days are surely coming, and they are already here when we can proclaim that “we are not alone, we live in God’s world.  Thanks be to God!”

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Let us pray:

Enduring Spirit, guide us with the lessons of the past to help us move into this time with faithful love and action - in Jesus’ name; following Jesus’ Way.  Amen.

Singing: “Bringing in the Sheaves”