Works Without Faith is Dead

I am by nature a teacher. It is what I do. And between my gigs as a Roman and now an Episcopal priest I worked at Youth Villages. I was promoted to Director of Training which forever changed me. Trainers are teachers, in a way. I always said we were the lowest form of teacher. Trainers are big on gimmicks and tricks and little things which entertain and make things stick in people's heads.

One thing we do is "paradoxical brainstorming." This is when you gather a group and ask them to think up ways to be awful. Some days ago I did a sermon and blog on "5 ways to make a bad marriage." That is paradoxical brainstorming. It is a way to come at something old and familiar in a new and inventive way.

Today's blog title is another example of the training goal. Give something a twist so it can be viewed afresh. Everyone knows James' dicum, but what happens when we shift the two nouns in order? Does it lend clarity?

Some things are interchangeable. A head without a body is dead. A body without a head is dead. But it is a different emphasis. Campy 1950's horror movies included one where a head was kept alive in a glass jar. Then, of course, there is the legend of the headless horeseman.

By switching two words, faith and works, one can perhaps get a feel for what James is saying without the accompanying weight of  the theological debates of different times and places. Those debates, for some of us, are potent and powerful. They cloud our thinking because we are defending home turf. The blood of the martyrs and all that, not things we can easily dismiss.

Work without faith is dead. It is empty and meaningless. It is a performance drained of the needed source. Much like a faithful husband who does not love his wife, the acts of marital fidelity pale in comparison to the missing love and affection. He is nice and all that, but there is no life, simply the absence of adultery. Likewise, our activity can be done for a variety of reasons. Herein lies the main point of Christian faith. It is an ordering of life and a giving of one's heart. It is saying, to God (Who by the way remains generally invisible and somewhat inaccessible to all of us on some level), "I am yours and what I do is done for you."

Kindness to the poor may be done out of guilt, out of a desire to feel good, out of a twisted sense of personal power, or in response to God (and even there with a variety of motives). Whatever the behavior, the cause, i.e., love of God, gives new meaning to the acts. And do not doubt there are all manner of folks offended and disgusted that that is a motivation. They say you should help the needy because it is right and leave God out of it. I have much to say in response, sadly none of that here. Time & space constraints have their control! But I can say that the infinitely important is the infinite and only God fits that position description,

Once I see my works are meaningless without faith (and I agree with any critic who says I am more declaring it than laying down a formal argument to prove it) then it makes it easier to see how the reverse is true. We can linguistically slice and dice reality. We can talk about thoughts, emotions and will. But real life is interconnected and there is no clear differentiation between beliefs, trust, choices, actions.... They interpentrate. Like a thread, once you start pulling the whole sweater unravels.

To believe, to trust, to entrust, are all layers of the same fruit. And to trust is to obey. Hence the question, "Do you trust me? then do what I told you to do." Therein lies some of the answer to the dilemma. I cannot believe in a vacuum. It entails a life. A human life. And that is a complex thing. SO faith without works is dead, just as the reverse is true. They are two parts of a sacred whole. And it is better to see it as a mystery to understand and live faithfully rather than a dictum to argue about and bash heads over.