Sixth Sunday of Easter
Acts 16:9-15
During the night Paul had a vision: there stood a man of Macedonia pleading with him and saying, “Come over to Macedonia and help us.” When he had seen the vision, we immediately tried to cross over to Macedonia, being convinced that God had called us to proclaim the good news to them. We set sail from Troas and took a straight course to Samothrace, the following day to Neapolis, and from there to Philippi, which is a leading city of the district of Macedonia and a Roman colony. We remained in this city for some days. On the sabbath day we went outside the gate by the river, where we supposed there was a place of prayer; and we sat down and spoke to the women who had gathered there. A certain woman named Lydia, a worshiper of God, was listening to us; she was from the city of Thyatira and a dealer in purple cloth. The Lord opened her heart to listen eagerly to what was said by Paul. When she and her household were baptized, she urged us, saying, “If you have judged me to be faithful to the Lord, come and stay at my home.” And she prevailed upon us.
Faith & Works
A few weeks ago, I mentioned how I grew up with a much more conservative theology than what I believe now. One part of that ideology was the belief that people are saved through faith alone, and that being saved means that we will eventually leave this temporary life for our permanent life in heaven. On the surface, these ideas seem like pretty standard Christian ideas, and there are certain aspects of these beliefs that I think could be valid. But, when you take them on their own, and bring them to their logical conclusion, they can lead to some troubling thoughts and behaviors.
As you all know by now, I think that taking care of the Earth is an important part of our spiritual lives, something that I think that God very much wants us to take part in. But, if we focus on the idea that this world is only a temporary home, and that we have a perfect heavenly home to go to after we die, that gives us less incentive to take care of this one. We can start to think of this world as if it were a paper napkin that we use and then crumple into a ball, and throw away. If we focus too much on the idea that this world is temporary, we can forget about the fact that God made it for us, and the fact that there are other people who have to live here, generations of people, billions of people, who will come after us. We forget that the in-breaking of the Kingdom of God is supposed to be happening right here, right now, and that we are supposed to help to facilitate that. Instead of focusing on some unknown future, we should be paying attention to what’s happening right in front of us, right here, right now, with everyone that we interact with every day, our siblings in Christ.
Like I said, my beliefs have shifted over the years, but I did used to believe that we are saved through faith alone, and that this world that we live in was only a temporary home. These beliefs led me to say and do things that I am not proud of. Things that I wish I could take back.
There was this kid in my youth group who had stopped coming to church on Sundays. We were talking about this, and he told me that instead of coming to church, he was spending his time making sandwiches and giving them to people who were living on the streets. He felt that it was a better use of his time. I remember suggesting to him that it might be a better use of his time if he worried more about saving their souls, instead of saving their bodies. I asked him if he was telling them about how Jesus died for them, because it didn’t matter how many sandwiches he gave someone, if at the end of their life, they weren’t going to make it into heaven. I think back to that conversation every once in a while, and I really don’t understand how those words had come out of my mouth. How those thoughts were in my head. It only takes the tiniest shift in your theology to completely change the way that you see the world. It’s so easy to lose perspective when you think that faith is the only thing that matters.
I’m not proud of what I said, and I wish there was some way for me to go back in time and unsay it, but I can’t. All I can do is move forward with a more holistic theology, one that I think better fits with the message of love that Jesus tried to share with us while he walked the earth, a message of sharing and community that was brought to life in the miracle of turning 2 fish and 5 loaves of bread into enough food to feed over 5,000 people.
James writes in the book of James, chapter 2, verses 14-17. “What good is it, my brothers and sisters, if you say you have faith but do not have works? Can faith save you? If a brother or sister is naked and lacks daily food, and one of you says to them, ‘Go in peace; keep warm and eat your fill’, and yet you do not supply their bodily needs, what is the good of that? So, faith by itself, if it has no works, is dead.” Faith without works is dead.
In our Acts reading today, Lydia gives us an example of faith coming to life through works with her invitation to Paul and the other apostles to stay in her home. Lydia is a wealthy business woman, a seller of purple cloth, and when she hears their message of Good News, she doesn’t just leave to think about God and live with faith in her heart without showing it, she offers her home to them, she offers them hospitality, because they needed a place to stay, and she has the means to provide it. It’s an outward display of her inward faith. Her faith is alive as she reaches out and builds community with the people around her.
If you can’t tell by a person’s actions that they are a Christian, are they really a Christian? Faith without works is dead. I’m not explaining this to you because I think you don’t know it. I know that you know it. From collecting food for the hungry to serving as overnight hosts for Family Promise, from raising money to help our Jewish neighbors buy back their historic synagogue here in Helena, to throwing a baby shower for the Afghan refugees, this congregation is alive with good and faithful works. I’m telling you this because there is a good chance that at some point, your beliefs will be challenged. The prevailing Christian belief in the United States is that we are saved through faith alone, and that our true home is waiting for us as a saved people after we leave this world. I want you to have the confidence to say, with biblical authority, that faith without works is dead.
As people of faith, we have to work to save the people who are suffering in the world, right now. As people of faith, we have to work to save the world itself, right now. We can’t afford to sit comfortably and secure in our faith, waiting to be reborn into our next life, while we disregard everything that’s happening around us, right now. There’s too much at stake, and I don’t think that’s how God wants us to live our lives.
I came across this quote by Jim Palmer the other day: “People sometimes wonder why God would allow so much suffering in our world. Maybe instead, we should be wondering why we do.” Why we allow so much suffering in our world. We currently have the capacity as the human race to feed the entire world. We have the capacity as the human race to provide clean water to the entire world, to educate the entire world, to provide medical care to the entire world. We could, right now, end global warming. We simply lack the political will, as the human race, to do all of these things. But, things are changing. Things are always changing. The in-breaking of the kingdom of God is happening all around us, and I know that many of us in this room are taking part in those changes. Because, we know that faith without works is dead. Our faith is very much alive, because we are God’s hands and feet in the world, and we are ambassadors in Christ. So, keep doing God’s work, have faith that things are changing, and that things are getting better, and know that God is with you in this work.
Amen.
~ Rev. Charles Wei
