Sunday 1st September – Communion Service led by Martyn Macphee.
In response to David’s welcome, Martyn took the opportunity to thank us in person for the excellent dinner he’d attended as part of our Anniversary Celebration. It had been a lovely evening and he knew that lots of the guests really enjoyed it.
The day’s Old Testament reading from Deuteronomy was about obeying God’s laws, but neither adding nor taking away from them: and in obeying them, attracting the attention of other people. In James 1, the message was not just to listen to the words God plants in our hearts but to put them into practice.
The title of Martyn’s address “Faith, an action verb” was a more succinct summary.
An action verb, but one not always easy to listen to or to follow. It was not easy to be a Christian. Think of the early Christians and the obstacles they had faced. Persecution, a few lions in the Coliseum, crosses along the roadside. We were quite glad that in this country the Government didn’t slay us for being Christians, but we could easily forget those countries where it still went on.
It was not easy, even in a comfortable easy-going society like ours to be a Christian. Being a Christian required commitment, service, sacrifice and living by faith – even when the pathways in other directions looked much more attractive, and the path itself looked dark and uncertain. It required living by principles and ideals even if some labelled us fanatics or simply out of date. There was a whole world out there saying, “Everybody’s doing it. What’s wrong with you? Why aren’t you doing it as well?”
We taught our children to say no, but that required courage and faith, and it got no easier as we grew older. And Jesus didn’t make it easy for us either. We liked to think of Christianity as a comforting faith – and it was – but Jesus also challenged us with words like, “Forgive your enemies. Pray for those who persecute you. Be reconciled to your brother before coming to the altar”. All pretty difficult. And in the 21st century, “Sell all that you have and give it to the poor”. That was really difficult.
Contrast those words of Jesus with the messages that we often heard in our everyday like in the title of some popular books: “Winning through intimidation”, “The virtue of selfishness”, “Power – how to get it and how to use it”. Or perhaps it was 20th century philosophy; “It’s a dog-eat-dog world”, “All is fair and love and war – and business”. “You can’t expect the young to abstain from sex, so we must teach them about safe sex”. Looking at the age of those in front of him, Martyn didn’t think that these were the messages we had grown up with. And a quite nasty one, “Don’t worry about the homeless. It’s all their own fault”. We heard that quite often, even today.
James, said we doers of the Word, are called by God to a high calling, to rise above the ordinary. Why should He expect so much from us – quite ordinary people?
First of all, God expected so much of us because of who we were. His children, created in his image. He called us to look and act like our Father. And that wasn’t easy!
Secondly, God expected so much of us, because our actions made such a difference in the lives of other people. We couldn’t help other people to know Christ unless it was pretty obvious that we knew him ourselves. We had a primary responsibility as Christians to draw people to Christ. Our mission was to make disciples. How could we do that unless we were disciples ourselves?
A century or so ago the idea was captured in the few words. “I’d rather see a sermon than hear one any day. I’d rather one should walk with me than merely tell me the way”. In other words, what we did spoke louder than words. If we wanted to tell people about Christ, we needed to show them about Christ in our lives. If we wanted to tell them what Christ could do in their lives, we needed to be able to show them what Christ had done in our lives.
Finally, God expected so much of us because He provided us with the strength to do what He asked us to do. He also gave us the resources necessary to do that job. That didn’t mean to say that He gave us everything we wanted but He did give us what we needed.
He didn’t give us everything up front. Sometimes he expected us to strike out in faith and to use our faith to get to where we needed to go. An old German proverb said, ”Begin to weave and God will give you the thread”.
James’s book was perhaps the best in the entire Bible for how we should live our lives as Christians. “Everyone be quick to listen and slow to speak, slow to anger”. Martyn guessed that most of us in our lives would have wished we’d remembered that before we said or did something. A great rabbi, who’d lived at the time of Jesus, had cautioned, saying, “Say little, and do much”. The American Indians had a proverb, “Listen, or your tongue will keep you deaf”.
We knew people who were quick to judge, others who complained and griped and carried on. And we knew that some of those people would not be ready to pitch in when there was a real risk of work having to be done.
James was telling us to be hearers of God on earth but more importantly to be doers of those words. He also wrote about those who let their tongues get away from them. “If anyone considers himself or herself to be religious and does not bridle their tongue, their religion is in vain”.
We knew how quickly words could wound and hurt others. The tongue could praise God and tell others the good news of Jesus, could commend and encourage others in their life’s journey. But we could also use our tongue to curse, swear and lie, deceive, and all sorts of other ugly things.
There was a Japanese fable about a man who went to heaven and was surprised when he saw a very long, large shelf covered with human tongues. His heavenly guide tells him that these were the tongues of people who spoke sweet words of virtue, who said what was right but never did anything to follow their words. Their tongues had come to rest in heaven, and the rest of them to somewhere else.
In the 21st century, we needed to focus our priorities and care less about what others thought of us and more about what God thought of us. As doers rather than hearers, we would grow in our faith and knowledge of God’s presence in our lives.
C S Lewis once compared our situation as Christians, trying to live out our faith in our daily life as being like a child trying to make their first letters. Father or mother puts his or her large hand over the child’s small hand and traces the letters with them. Christ comes into our lives and works great miracles. We use our ears to hear God’s message. We use our tongues to glorify and praise God: to tell others of wonderful things that God has done and is doing for us. We use our lives to glorify and praise God and live out our faith in daily life.
And that we hear, and we do.
Amen
Potters Bar United Reformed Church 