The Faith that is Brought to Completion by Action

James 2:1-10, 14-17

The Faith that is Brought to Completion by Action

1My brothers and sisters, do you with your acts of favoritism really believe in our glorious Lord Jesus Christ? 2For if a person with gold rings and in fine clothes comes into your assembly, and if a poor person in dirty clothes also comes in, 3and if you take notice of the one wearing the fine clothes and say, “Have a seat here, please,” while to the one who is poor you say, “Stand there,” or, “Sit at my feet,” 4have you not made distinctions among yourselves, and become judges with evil thoughts? 5Listen, my beloved brothers and sisters. Has not God chosen the poor in the world to be rich in faith and to be heirs of the kingdom that he has promised to those who love him? 6But you have dishonored the poor. Is it not the rich who oppress you? Is it not they who drag you into court? 7Is it not they who blaspheme the excellent name that was invoked over you?

8You do well if you really fulfill the royal law according to the scripture, “You shall love your neighbor as yourself.” 9But if you show partiality, you commit sin and are convicted by the law as transgressors. 10For whoever keeps the whole law but fails in one point has become accountable for all of it.

14What good is it, my brothers and sisters, if you say you have faith but do not have works? Can faith save you? 15If a brother or sister is naked and lacks daily food, 16and one of you says to them, “Go in peace; keep warm and eat your fill,” and yet you do not supply their bodily needs, what is the good of that? 17So faith by itself, if it has no works, is dead. -NRSV

9/9/18 | Trinity Lutheran Church, Sunset Park, Brooklyn |

Min. Michael Vanacore

In recent services, we have been discussing the old church debate between faith and works. Particularly, whether we are saved by our faith alone or whether we need to take action in this world in order to gain that salvation. A simplistic reading of the New Testament and church history would have us believe that on one side of this debate stand the Apostle Paul and the fathers of the Reformation, who rejected any notion that we can somehow, through our feeble efforts work our way into the saving grace of God. And on the other side of the debate stand the Apostle James and the Catholic tradition, who remind us over and over again that faith without works is dead.

But my own experience and understanding of Scripture leads me to believe that this dichotomy is a false one. For I believe that true faith does not exist independently of action. True faith to me is that decision that leads us to act, to radically transform ourselves and our realities in response to God’s call. Such action is impossible without faith, and true faith is always incomplete without action. That is, as the Apostle James puts it, the faith that is brought to completion perfección through action.

I came to this understanding of faith by studying the great scripture that both Paul and James invoke to make their respective arguments: “And Abraham believed the Lord; and the Lord reckoned it to him as righteousness” (Gen 15:6). This passage arises from Abraham’s crisis of faith as recounted in the fifteenth chapter of Genesis. I believe that when we look at this example, we see the whole argument in a different light.

In the first verse of the twelfth chapter of Genesis, God says to Abraham, “Go from your country and your kindred and your father’s house to the land that I will show you. I will make of you a great nation, and I will bless you, and make your name great, so that you will be a blessing...and in you all the families of the earth shall be blessed” (Gen 12:1-3)

Abraham demonstrates his faithfulness not only by believing God’s word to be true, but also by following through with what he has heard. He gathers his family together, and they leave their home in Haran and head for the land of Canaan, where God has promised him he will find prosperity and success. On their way, they pass through many strange lands and survive many perilous encounters. Finally, they make it to their destination, and seek to establish a new life there amongst the people Canaan.

In this way, Abraham and his family are like so many today who leave their homes in Africa or Central America or China in search of a better life in cities across Europe and North America. For the call that Abraham heard, the belief he and his family clung to, is also the promise so many so many of us cling to: that at the end of our journey our world will be better and our lives transformed.

But unfortunately, the reality that Abraham and Sarah encounter in Canaan is far different from the vision of joy and prosperity that God had set before them months before. Like many who arrive in our city from other countries, Abraham and Sarah find themselves living as strangers in a strange land, fighting off hostile enemies left and right. And, their greatest hope, the promise of having children and building a prosperous household, remains as yet unfulfilled.

But God intervenes at this point in their journey to renew their faith. On one particular day in which the old man Abraham is feeling particularly down, God appears to him in a vision and says, “Do not be afraid, Abraham, I am your shield, your reward shall be great.” But Abraham replies out of his frustration: “O Lord God, what will you give me, for I continue childless...you have given me no offspring.” At that moment, God leads Abraham outside into the night and says, “Look toward heaven and count the stars, if you are able to count them.” And then he says to him, “So shall your descendants be.” And the Scripture tells us that he “believed the Lord; and the Lord reckoned it to him as righteousness” (Gen 15:1-6).

Now, I ask you, returning to the great question posed by the Apostles Paul and James, was it Abraham’s faith that saved him, or his works?

And I would respond, if we look back at the story we have just reviewed, that it is both! It was faith that enabled Abraham and Sarah to believe that the impossible was really possible. To envision prosperity and for themselves and their future generations. To believe that such abundance could be found amongst strange people in a strange land.

But it was it was not enough for them to believe; they had to act. They had to pick up and leave behind everything behind in search of a new home. They had to move and keep moving throughout many grave and perilous dangers. And, in the midst of a crisis of faith, they had to choose not to abandon hope.

They had to choose not to believe that everything they had come through was for naught. To believe that God had not abandoned them, and that God would help them move forward, no matter what obstacles they faced. And they had to choose to look up at the stars and believe that they and their children, and their children’s children, would prosper and see and end to their suffering.

This is the great gift that God offers to each of us: the chance to go out under the night sky and look up at the stars, too many to count. To look up at the mighty promise of abundance and blessing that God has prepared for each of us. To look up, and to believe.

In Abraham’s vision as recounted in the fifteenth chapter of Genesis, God continues: “Know this for certain, that your offspring shall be aliens in a land not theirs, and shall be slaves there, and they shall be oppressed for four hundred years; but I will bring judgment on the nation that they serve, and afterward they shall come out with great possessions. As for yourself, you shall go to your ancestors in peace, you shall be buried in a good old age” (Gen 15:13-15).

I believe that it is not just any kind of belief that will be credited to us as righteousness. Rather, it is the kind of faith that God gave Abraham on that day when he looked up at the stars and believed. It is a faith that takes into account the injustice and suffering that afflicts ourselves, our offspring, and above all those who are most marginalized by this cruel world. It is a belief that envisions an end to that suffering, and which drives us to abandon everything we have in pursuit of that holy vision.

That is the faith which is brought to completion by our works, and which is always done in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. -Amen