Faith Versus Works

In today’s second reading, we see what appears to be a simple teaching from St. James. Faith without works is dead. However, it is this principle that is at the center of the Protestant Reformation. To this day, lack of understanding of the principle as it applies in Catholicism separates Catholics and Non-Catholic Christians. What we are talking about is the issue of how we are saved.

Martin Luther, a former Augustinian Monk who became the core figure in the Protestant Reformation taught correctly that we are saved by grace. He took Romans 7 as his core text which says: “Therefore, there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus, because through Christ Jesus the law of the Spirit of life set me free from the law of sin and death.” This means that we are saved exclusively through the action of Jesus on the Cross taking upon himself the sinful nature of the human race. According to Luther, because he did this, we who accept Christ in our lives are now saved. Period. In reality, there is nothing in Catholicism that disagrees with this as long as we see it in light of James. Indeed, most non-Catholic Christians and Catholics believe exactly the same thing on this principle but they don’t know it.

Let us now look at St. James. What he says is that our faith must be reflected in our works, which means our way of living our lives. I am sure no one here would disagree with this. The problem comes in when we say that we are saved or condemned only by the way we live our lives, regardless of Christ’s action on the cross. Now we get into tricky territory. This is where many Catholics and Non-Catholic Christians start to become divided usually unnecessarily.

A priest once told me how when he was a child, he learned that when you die, you will be brought before a big scale. All your good deeds will be put on one side of the scale and your bad deeds on the other. If your good deeds outweigh your bad deeds, you go to Heaven and if your bad deeds outweigh your good deeds you go to Hell. The problem with this teaching, which many Catholics once believed is that it indicates that we are saved by our works not by Jesus’ action on the cross. It also brings us to the door of an angry God who is more like a computer than our merciful Father. It is this angry God who judges us harshly depending on a series of good and bad deeds. It reminds me of computerized bowling that we used in the Navy. The computer knew if you crossed the foul line and immediately would just cancel out your score. That is the rule in bowling, but it was so intense in doing this, it made bowling less human and harsh.

When we consider ourselves always afraid that we may not have enough good deeds to get into Heaven, we turn God into a computer. We put ourselves also in the hand of Jonathan Edwards’s famous sermon, Sinners in the Hand of an Angry God. There he portrays his congregation at the end of a thin thread just ready for God to flick them into the fires of Hell. There is no mercy at all in his words and indeed in the Post Reformation of Early New England, such a merciful God did not really exist. Edwards’ more harsh God did.

Yet, the other extreme is that one commonly found among TV preachers that says that all you have to do is accept Jesus into your life and you are saved no matter what you do. That too is incorrect. The most extreme form is a church that completely rejects God and believes all people are by default saved. It is marked by its rejection of the bible completely and its acceptance of reason alone as the source of wisdom. That may seem ok at first until you realize we are talking exclusively of human reason and lifting human reason to the level of the Divine. This brings me back to that saying I like to use of British Atheists who describe themselves by default as the wisests of beings in the universe. “Show me a universe where the wisest of beings are British Atheists and I will show you Monty Python’s Flying Circus.”

Here in James we see that our faith must guide our actions. If it does not then we really do not believe. If I tell you that I believe in God, but I engage in cheating you out of your life savings, and yes there are people who do exactly that everyday, then do I really believe in God?

It is this to which James is referring. We cannot say we believe and then act as if we don’t. Our actions do not match our beliefs. James says this does not work. So it is not a situation in which we are earning our way to Heaven by our actions, but rather, it is that the sign we live our faith is by our actions. If your actions are more in line with someone who does not believe, then you are demonstrating a lack of faith not a true faith. You don’t believe. However, if your actions reveal the Christ in whom we believe, then you are showing that Christ is alive, and is alive in your heart.

Reflect for yourself how your actions show or do not show your faith. May I give one suggestion?

St. James begins his letter by saying that we should consider it pure joy when we encounter difficulties in our faith. In the world, difficulties are never a source of joy, so why should they be a source of joy in Christianity. The answer is simple: Every difficulty leads us closer to Christ. As the bible teaches, in many places our difficulties are the fire that purify our faith making it like gold. When we are going through tough times, we need to remember that these are the times that are purifying us that we may grow closer to Christ

No one without faith thinks like that. Do we who do have faith think like that? James tells us to.

What difficulties are getting you down? Can you rejoice over them even as an experiment. If you do it will change your attitude and deepen your faith.

May I give another: Msgr. Jonas Abib, founder of Canção Nova, reminds us that we need to be a community in which forgiveness is at the center. God forgives us so we must forgive others. Again, this is the way people of faith are called to live. Do we? Or do we hold grudges forever another in our community?

How we live defines how we believe. Do you believe? How do you live?

Photo Credit:

Top: Rinderart

Middle top: tmcnem

Middle bottom: Laures

Bottom: Lisafx

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