Background: Wednesday, October 23 was the Feast of St. James of Jerusalem, the brother of Jesus. Christ Church Easton‘s weekly Wednesday healing service fell on the feast day, so we used the lectionary readings and I gave a homily on St. James to observe the feast day. Following is the text of the homily.
James, the Brother of Jesus: Get in the Game
We run into a number of Johns and James’s in the New Testament, so it’s helpful to differentiate who is who. Today is the Feast of St. James of Jerusalem. This is not James the Apostle, one of the 12, brother of John, and one of Jesus’s closest friends in the Gospels. This is James, the brother of Jesus, who we learn about primarily in the Book of Acts and in Paul’s letters, though this James is mentioned in the Gospels, as we see in the Matthew reading from this morning.
And this James, the brother of Jesus, is thought to be the author of the letter of James that we find in the epistles, which we’ll talk about a bit today and you would do well to read and spend time with.
Now, the first thing that jumps into my mind when thinking about James is to feel sorry for him. Of all the lines of work he could go into, to go into ministry as the younger brother of the Messiah, who performed miracles, healed the sick, drew huge crowds when he taught and preached, and oh by the way was also resurrected from the dead and ascended into heaven… James was clearly signing on for a supporting role—he wasn’t going to be the main character. He might have considered agriculture, becoming a soldier, tent-maker, or sticking with carpentry like his father.
But that also gives us a feeling for James’s sense of mission, seeing what his brother did, who Jesus became, and knowing how critical it was to continue the work that Jesus began, we can see the selflessness that James had.
Some of the background I am about to relate comes from the website, “The Bible Project,” which if you are not familiar with, is a wonderful resource, with short video summaries of all the books of the Old and New Testaments and many of the themes that run throughout Scripture.
In the Book of Acts, we see that Peter moved on from Jerusalem to go start new churches in other areas. It is then that Jesus’s brother James rose to prominence as a leader in the mother church in Jerusalem, which was mostly messianic or Christian Jews. Some of the new churches and followers of Jesus being started were made up of Gentiles.
The church in Jerusalem was the first Christian community and James was the leader of the community for about 20 years; a pillar of the church and a peacemaker until he was murdered.
The letter that James wrote is a summary of his wisdom sayings. It is not about so much about theology and the philosophical underpinnings, he seems content to leave that to Jesus, James is concerned about what now and what next: how do we live our lives?
Some key influences we find when reading the letter include: Jesus’s life and teachings, particularly the Sermon on the Mount, and the Book of Proverbs, especially the poems in chapters 1-9. James grew up with Jesus and with Proverbs and his language sounds like each of them.
James wants their community to become truly wise by living according to Jesus’s summary of the law: Love God and love your neighbor as yourself.
James is urging his readers and listeners to live complete or whole lives, fully integrated where your actions are always consistent with the values and beliefs you have received from Jesus.
“Works” is a big concept for James—who says we become a new humanity when we don’t just listen to God’s Word, but we also DO WHAT IT SAYS. That may seem like a no-brainer, but 2,000-plus years later, I would say the world probably has a lot more professing and confessing Christians than Christians who live out their faith by doing good works.
James calls us to:
- Speak with love
- Serve the poor
- Be wholly devoted to God
The guys at The Bible Project calls James’s letter: “A beautifully crafted punch in the gut for those who want to follow Jesus.” We’ll see why in short order.
As with the Sermon on the Mount and Proverbs, James has a talent for zingers, one-liners that really stick with you.
Let me throw a few of them at you:
“Let everyone be quick to listen, slow to speak, slow to anger.”
“Be doers of the word and not merely hearers who deceive themselves.”
“Draw near to God and he will draw near to you.”
“Humble yourselves before God and he will exalt you.”
And here is a big one, which James may be most known for:
“What good is it, my brothers and sisters, if someone claims to have faith but does not have works… Faith by itself, if it has no works, is dead.”
James brings this to a point by saying, if a brother or sister is naked and lacks daily food and one of you says, “Go in peace, keep warm and eat your fill,” and yet does nothing to supply their bodily needs, what is the good of that?
He goes on to say it even more pointedly: “Anyone, then, who knows the right thing to do and fails to do it commits sin.”
Can we send James to DC?
We might rather have Jesus’s parables back. Then we don’t feel so called out and we can claim that we are confused and we don’t really know what to do. This James is tough.
This morning let’s ask an easy question then. Is James correct: is faith, without works, dead?
There are folks over the course of church history who haven’t loved James, among the most notable, Martin Luther, for whom the concept of works confuses what justification by faith is all about—faith is what gets us there, not works.
I will forever quote Nicky Gumbel, former vicar of Holy Trinity Brompton in London and pioneer of The Alpha Course, because he put it as succinctly as I have heard:
“We are not saved BY doing good works. We are saved IN ORDER TO do good works.”
If our faith is important to us, if our salvation is important to us, shouldn’t our lives show it? We shouldn’t have to get our membership card out of our wallets to show someone we are Christians. Our lives should proclaim it in some meaningful way.
For me, James is the pragmatist that many of us need. There are plenty of people who find Scripture confusing, too much reading, just tell me what I need to do. You want to live life the way Jesus modeled and told us to do likewise? Read James, he has you covered.
It’s worth pointing out that James was murdered, he became a martyr for the faith, not long after his letter was written. As he wrote, he lived. Creating stability, giving the new church, the first church community a foundation and leadership for 20 years at a time when your faith could mean your death, that’s an incredible legacy.
James doesn’t want armchair Christians. We don’t get to sit in the comfort of our living rooms, profess our beliefs, and complain at the TV about the decisions the coaches (bishops, priests, etc.) are making and how the players (active Christians) keep messing up.
We’ve got to get in the game.
There is a contemporary Christian song by the Newsboys called “We Believe” that Fr. Patrick has our contemporary band at the Saturday service playing and singing the chorus from to give us a kind of creed to hang our hats on. It’s very much like the Nicene Creed in what it professes. There is a line that stands out to me in the song:
“So, let our faith be more than anthems
Greater than the songs we sing.”
Let our faith be more than the songs we sing. Let our faith be more than the prayers we pray. Let our faith be more than the worship services we attend. Let us live out our faith in and with our lives, integrated, whole, and devoted to God.
Let us remember and celebrate the life and example of James, the brother of Jesus.
