This Sunday, August 2, 2009, was a different kind of Sunday for us. We had hospitality and small group gatherings before worship. During worship we sang praise songs and Rev. Henley preached a short homily.
In the late first century or early second century, there was a Jewish Christian called James. His relationship to Jesus and to the Apostles cannot be established. Some theologians say he may be one of “the seventy” that Yeshua sent out to share the good news! We do know he was writing to Jews who called themselves followers of Yeshua.
In Chapter 2 verses 14-18
What good is it, dear brothers and sisters, if you say you have faith but don’t show it by your actions? Can that kind of faith save anyone? Suppose you see a brother or a sister who has no food or clothing, and you say, “Good-bye and have a good day; stay warm and eat well”—but then you don’t give that person any food or clothing. What good does that do?
So you see, faith by itself isn’t enough. Unless it produces good deeds, it is dead and useless.
Now someone may argue, “Some people have faith; others have good deeds.” But I say, “How can you show me your faith if you don’t have good deeds? I will show you my faith by my good deeds.”
We thankfully, as Universalists don’t have to get into an argument about—faith versus good deeds leads to salvation. We believe, as we say in our declaration of faith, “all souls will be united in God.”
What I want us to consider today—verse 17…”So you see, faith by itself isn’t enough. Unless it produces good deeds, it is dead and useless.”
What is faith? I’ve talked about it before. Faith, is a subjective word. We can describe our religion in a treatise, we can write on paper our creeds and our beliefs, but we cannot do the same with our “faith.”
Faith, develops within us. It has to do with understanding of the world and our response to our world as we grow. It is our perceptions, our values, our orientations—not our sexual orientation—but all self-orientations. Our orientations provide the process by which we keep ourselves centered in the midst of our lives. Our orientation allows us to embrace or negate change, to be flexible or rigid.
Our perceptions, values, and our orientations are homeostatic and are part of the process of our being. Homeostasis is our balanced self which has the opportunity to change, to respond, when there is tension or a threat to our balance.
See, we cannot take a pencil and write down what our faith is, because it is a part of our being—our being which changes and grows—our whole lives.
James says, faith by itself isn’t enough. Unless it produces good deeds, it is dead and useless.
Let each of us consider for a moment our faith. We come here “one any given Sunday.” We pray, we participate in some way in worship, we sing, and we listen. On any given Sunday we may feel blessed for our coming to church, or we may not. What we try to do here each Sunday is offer a worship experience that facilitates all our relationships with God and each other.
Is there anything missing at UNMC?
Yes, we know there are.
There is a vital connection of interpersonal relationships that are missing. Perhaps it is because of our jobs, our job location, where we live, how far from the church. Perhaps it is because we have been in D.C. so long we have lots of friends, and don’t have room in our lives for anyone here.
There is a vital connection of interpersonal relationships that are missing.
Fellowship Sunday was created to help us to meet each other in a different way on this given Sunday. It is meant for us to reach out to each other. To become more interpersonally connected.
Faith without good deeds is empty. We know that, and I am sure most of us in here do a lot of good deeds for others.
But as a church are we living a larger faith. A community of faith that offers good deeds to the greater community. When we are more closely interpersonally connected, we will be a community that builds the kind of land that Jesus preached about, lived for, loved for, and died for.