Continuing on from previous weeks and the problem of faith and works or Luther's conundrum which appears to do away with works. Last week we saw the need to listen carefully and fully, rather than just hear the words, so that we are led to do what God requires. The letter of James makes clear that faith and works are two sides of the same coin and work in tandem, the one cannot exist to its fullest without the other (James 2:14-17). There is a danger here from both sides of the equation or coin. the one danger is the one that Luther pointed out and that is that works on their own cannot achieve anything. The second danger is the opposite that faith on its own whilst good will also not achieve anything in the end. Let me explain this a bit more.
Everyone will be up in arms about faith not achieving everything on its own. This path is the path of the mystic or the path of the spiritualist. All their energy goes into showing their piety and their faith in worship and prayer. The ascetic is a good example of this as they bring all their thought and energy into the exercise of achieving oneness with God and Christ. In doing so the person forgets that first and foremost Christ was as human as you who reads and I who writes. The Gospel passages are full of the deeds of Christ. They are not full of his withdrawal from the world into a spiritual paradise of praise and worship. In fact, he sometimes criticised the leaders of society for their improper worship and rules without understanding the practice. If we are to become the body of Christ in the world then we must be incarnate in this world and not patting ourselves on our backs for our piety and the way we worship. All that Christ did in the world were works, healing, doing, feeding, etc. Only after doing and working did Christ try to get away and pray, commune and understand what God wanted.
The other, which most people agree with, is the over abundance of works. Christ did not do his working outside of the presence of God. We have a tendency to do only that which we think is right and "looks good" to others in the community. Unless we actively participate in bringing God into what we do we are only doing what we think is best. This is what Luther railed against and it is what is easily done by all of us. We jump on the bandwagon of doing good works thinking that this is all that God wants. We are after all doing those things which are good but the old proverb that giving something only feeds the poor for a day is right. We are only alleviating the misery by a day we are no seeking to instil God's love and justice but to alleviate it to fill our own minds with the thought that we are doing good. At some point it becomes obvious that what we are doing is no more than an appeasement effort on our own part to relieve our consciences and feel good.
There must be a way around this dilemma if Christ points the way and he is out and about doing good. Yes, there is and that is doing it Christ's way not our way which is what the writer of James is attempting to point out. Only when we start doing the things that bring justice into the world, not for ourselves and not for our benefit, for those who are forsaken do we begin to do works to the glory and presence of God. We allow our faith to guide and direct us in our doing just as Christ allowed God's presence to guide and direct his doings. When he healed the deaf man who had trouble speaking and he healed him Christ deliberately tells them not to speak of the work (Mk 7:36) for he did this to the glory of God not for his own glory. Typically, of course, they spread the word to give him glory and not God (Mk. 7:37). In other places to Christ does not want his works publicised and often tells the receivers of his works to go and give praise to God. Christ puts his faith in God to lead him to do that which is needed in works within the community to bring the community to see truth and justice as the way forward, not just doing good deeds as was the norm then and today.
The wisdom contained in Proverbs tells the same thing especially in chapter 22 verse 8-9. The cheerful giver may be blessed but God ensures that his vanity about the giving is destroyed in the end whilst the person who gives without regard for reward has his own reward from God by not being left out in the cold. In verses 22-23 the writer of Proverbs just reinforces this by suggesting that when we imprint God's requirements on our hearts we will be blessed and act in accord with God not for ourselves but for the other. Let us then remind ourselves that it is both faith and works that are important not one or the other but both acting in accord with each other for the good of the other not just for ourselves and our own wants.
No comments:
Post a Comment