Dead Faith

A Fox, running before the hounds, came across a Woodcutter felling an oak tree, and begged him to show him a safe hiding-place. The Woodcutter advised him to take shelter in his own hut. The Fox crept in and hid himself in a corner. In a few minutes a Huntsman came up with his hounds and inquired of the Woodcutter if he had seen the Fox.

He declared that he had not seen him, and yet pointed, all the time he was speaking, to the hut where the Fox lay hid. The huntsman took no notice of the signs and quickly continued his chase. 

As soon as they were well away, the Fox left the hut and began to leave; whereupon the Woodcutter angrily called to him and reproached him, saying, “You ungrateful fellow, you owe your life to me, and yet you are leaving me without a word of thanks.” 

The Fox replied: “Indeed, I would have thanked you had your deeds been as good as your words.”

This Aesop fable shows that words are meaningless without the deed – the action. We can learn from the fox because it knew the woodcutter’s actions didn’t match his words. Aesop uses the fox to show us humans that we should follow through with what we say; we often don’t.

Our second reading from the letter of James is a bit like this Aesop fable. James stated: “What good is it, my brothers and sisters, if someone says he has faith but does not have works?” Our actions – our works – when consistent with Jesus’s commands and following his way, speak larger than our spoken words of faith. This means some of us claim to have faith, but we don’t put that faith into action.  

Some of us feel that receiving the Eucharist is enough, but there is more. We members of the Body of Christ must know that by now. For example, truth-telling, loving, forgiving, asking to be forgiven, and aggressively opposing Satan and all his works are some ways in which we put our faith into action.

James wrote his letter after Mark but before Matthew, perhaps in the 70s or 80s. Much of James is early tradition. James is all about lifestyle. It’s not about what we believe; he makes no theological statements. The whole letter is about how we should live our lives. Many people believe all the right things, but they don’t care about the poor. Moreover, they promote violence and are all for war.     

After reading James, we should have a much better appreciation for acting on our faith because as he said: "faith without works is dead." His examples of works focused on compassion, such as clothing the naked and feeding the hungry.

He contrasted wisdom from above against earthly so-called wisdom marked by envy and selfish ambition all leading to disorder and wickedness of every kind. He indicted the humanly created world and accurately highlighted that we humans tend to be violent both through words and actions. Today’s social media laced with hypocrisy, cruelty, unkindness, gossip, anger, bullying and hate helps make his point.

Very seldom is James preached in Church because it’s scandalous to much of today’s Christians.  For example, he famously said: “Come now, you rich, weep and wail over your impending miseries. Your wealth has rotted away, your clothes have become moth-eaten, your gold and silver have corroded, and that corrosion will be a testimony against you; it will devour your flesh like a fire.” His blunt words reflected the oppression of the poor by the rich in his day. They still strike a nerve today.

James is controversial because many of us believe that works are not necessary – just faith. In fact, St. Paul’s message was “justification by grace through faith.” Martin Luther felt pretty much the same way. He believed faith is all that is needed for salvation. Luther wanted James to be removed from the New Testament. What’s important for us to realize, however, is James echoes more sayings of Jesus than any other part of the New Testament, other than the gospels themselves. James' fiery passion for works reflects the passion of Jesus himself.

Today’s Gospel from Mark (8:34-9:1) demonstrates this passion: “Jesus summoned the crowd with his disciples and said to them, ‘Whoever wishes to come after me must deny himself, take up his cross, and follow me. For whoever wishes to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for my sake and that of the Gospel will save it...”  Jesus demanded action.  His followers knew that.  We know it.

I end with this story that makes Jesus’s point.  On a cold, rainy day a group of boys were making fun of a ragged, barefoot boy. 

“You’re a Christian,” they taunted him. “If God loves you, why doesn’t he take better care of you?  Why doesn’t he tell someone to give you a pair of shoes?”  

The boy seemed puzzled for a moment. Then, with tears in his eyes, he replied, “I think he does tell people.  But they are not listening.”

Here at Christ the King we do listen.  We hear "Ephaphatha!"  We feel Jesus’s fingers and spit.  

Our ears are opened though the actions of our Parish organizations and ministries. There’s our Food Pantry we intend to expand making it even more effective and to feed more families. 

Many parishioners have been and continue to be generous with their time and money to help those in need. Our mouths speak against divisive politics, war, suffering, racism, hypocrisy, bullying, and hate.

Our faith is alive at Christ the King. It’s up to all of us to ensure it stays alive and is as fiery and passionate as the one we worship and try to follow every day by taking up his cross. When we do so, we will never hear Jesus say to us: "Get behind me, Satan. You are thinking not as God does, but as human beings do."

Deacon David Pierce