Faith That Works

There is a knock at the door. Outside stands a girl, shivering, in a thin dress, hungry. The family inside smiles kindly. Go in peace, they say. Keep warm. Eat well. And they close the door.

The man who tells this little story is James. He grew up in Nazareth, in the same house as Jesus. He was one of Jesus' brothers. During Jesus' ministry, James did not believe in him. But after the resurrection, the risen Jesus appeared to James, and everything changed. James became a leader of the church in Jerusalem. Now he writes a letter to believers scattered far and wide. It is a very practical letter, full of short, sharp sayings, a bit like the book of Proverbs. And in chapter two, he asks a question that gets right to the heart of things.

What good is it, my brothers and sisters, if someone says they have faith, but they do not have works? Can that kind of faith save them? Then James tells the story of the shivering girl at the door. If a brother or sister has no clothes and no food for the day, and one of you says, depart in peace, be ye warmed and filled, but you do not give them what their body needs, what good is that? The words are kind. The smile is warm. But the girl is still cold, and still hungry. Even so, James says, faith, if it hath not works, is dead, being alone. Faith that never does anything is like a body with no breath in it.

James imagines someone arguing with him. One person has faith, another has works. James answers: Show me your faith without your works, and I will show you my faith by my works. You cannot see faith on its own. But you can see what it does. You believe there is one God, James says. Good! But even the demons believe that, and they shudder. Simply knowing true facts about God is not the same as trusting him, the kind of trust that changes how you live.

Then James reaches back into the scriptures for two examples. The first is Abraham, the father of the nation. Abraham trusted God, and his trust was seen in what he did when God tested him, when he was willing to offer his son Isaac on the altar. His faith and his actions were working together, James says, and his faith was made complete by what he did. That is why the scripture says, Abraham believed God, and it was counted to him as righteousness, and he was called the friend of God. The second example could not be more different. Rahab, a woman of Jericho, an outsider with a past. She hid the Israelite spies and sent them safely away by another road. Her faith in Israel's God was shown by her actions, at great risk to herself. A father of the nation, and a foreign woman. Both showed their faith by what they did. For as the body without the spirit is dead, James finishes, so faith without works is dead also.

James was so respected in Jerusalem that he became known as James the Just. The Jewish historian Josephus, writing near the end of the first century, records his death. He calls him the brother of Jesus who was called Christ, and says that in the year sixty-two, during a gap between Roman governors, the high priest had James condemned and stoned.

Faith that works. You'll find James's words in James chapter two, verses fourteen to twenty-six. Real faith in God reaches out its hands, and feeds and clothes and helps. So here is a question to carry with you. What is one thing you could do this week that would show your faith, not just say it?