Sermon: 22 September 2024 | 18th after Pentecost
Theme: Be doers of the word, not just hearers
Let us pray:
O Saviour Christ, in whose way of love lies the secret of all life, and the hope of all people, we pray for quiet courage to match this hour. We did not choose to be born or to live in such an age; but let its problems challenge us, its discoveries exhilarate us, its injustices anger us, its possibilities inspire us, and its vigour renew us, for your Kingdom’s sake.
We are smack right in the middle of five weeks where our readings from the New Testament come from the letter of James, starting at verse 17 of chapter 1. This letter has over the centuries come in for some criticism because it seems not like other letters in the New Testament to spell out directly what the gospel message is. Luther in the middle ages called it a epistle of straw, one that we shouldn’t build our lives upon, but I believe this is wrong, because the writer of James presumes an understanding of what the message of the gospel is all about and writes to encourage Christians to live that life.
While we are reading the third chapter this morning with its lesson about taming the tongue, I want to draw us back to one of my favourite verses from the letter of James which occurs right in the first chapter where we are urged from verse 22 to be, “doers of the word, and not merely hearers of the word, who deceive themselves.” The writer goes on to say that hearers of the word only are like those who look at themselves in a mirror and ongoing away forget what they look like. I often carry a little notebook around in my back pocket and if anyone says anything to me, I endeavour to remember to write it down, because I know if I don’t I likely to forget it. Ever heard of the expression, “In one ear, and out the other” – all the truer for me with my brain fog caused by the cancer. To do something is always better than merely hearing something. They say that the best way for people to learn anything is to do the thing themselves.
Maybe you have heard the expression they use in hospitals with doctors, “Watch one, do one, teach one” It is about learning by doing.
Languages are the same; the best way to learn a language is to go and live and immerse yourself in the culture for a while, until it becomes natural for you to speak that language.
In a way that is what the writer of James is on about in this passage, “Be doers of the word, not merely hearers”. But what is the word that we are to be doers of rather than just hearers. The word is Jesus Christ, pure and simple. Christ came to show people how to live life and live it abundantly, in a new and free relationship with himself and the Father through the power of the spirit.
In one sense we hear this gospel every week - Christ is proclaimed faithfully through the scriptures and through the sacraments and we hear the gospel and even partake in the sacraments. One of the mysteries of worship and our liturgies in the church is that they make more and more sense to us; they ring true the more than become part of us; it sinks into our souls, the more we are involved in the life of Christ; and the more that life becomes our life.
Jesus was always urging people to follow him; he was always saying to people “Come, follow me” The classic story is the one of the rich young man, who wanted to know what he could do to be saved. Jesus said to him, “Have you followed the commandments, and the man is able to say that he had from childhood, so Jesus tells him to sell all that he has and come follow him. The man goes away dejected for he is unable to sell his great wealth. The man wanted to be saved, but on his terms. he wasn’t prepared to follow Christ, on the terms of Christ.
To be a doer of the word is to be part of Christ; is to follow Christ, each and every day; not just for an hour on Sunday’s. It is about being on a journey where we are open to being transformed and changed into the likeness of Christ, where we learn in today’s Gospel to become more humble, vulnerable, and of no worldly significance, like a child in the first century Mediterranean world of Jesus. One of my favourite poets is a man named Steve Turner who wrote late last century. I would like to read you one of his poems which expresses something of what I have been saying.
It is titled, “When Jesus Touched the Earth”. It is written after a visit to Jerusalem.
I went to see where Jesus once touched the earth but the Catholics had got there before me and obscured His footprints with arches, buttresses, gold and incense. I went to see where Jesus once touched the earth. I couldn’t see for concrete and collection boxes, for postcards and guide books. So, I looked further down. I looked to the ground. But the ground was thirty feet higher than back in A.D.3. This not where Jesus walked. I looked down, down to my feet, my legs, arms, chest. I looked down to where Jesus touches the earth.
As we travel the journey we are made and transformed, if we are open, into the likeness of Christ. This is about doers of the word rather than merely hearers. We hear lots of things each and every day; so much at times that we are overwhelmed by information, and we have ways of dealing with that information, of coping with the amount of stuff that bombards us - we categorise it, put it into boxes. Sometimes we hear something and act upon it, something we hear something and it washes straight over us. To survive in this technological age of the information super highway we divide things up so we can digest them. What the writer of James was saying all those years ago, and it is so relevant for us today is not to let the word; not to let our knowledge of Christ become like that, just another piece of information that we hear and let wash over us so it is gone, like an image in a mirror. The word we do is the journey we undertake with Christ. It is a journey that begins a fresh each and every day of our lives; it’s not something we can box and recall only on Sunday’s. Christ wants us to follow him. Christ wants us to be part of him. Christ wants us to be transformed into his likeness. I’m not going to presume to tell you what you must do on the journey; that’s up to you, but I can say it is about changing our perspective from ourselves and what we want, to God’s perspective and what God wants. To be first of all – seekers of the Kingdom of God. If you want more than turn to the early disciples in Acts who gathered for prayer, worship, fellowship, and service. It’s not easy, but the joys of the journey are beyond measure.