" . . . and I will show you my faith by my deeds"

. . . and may there be no moaning of the bar when I put out to sea. (Gros Morne Fjord, Nfld/Lab)

What good is it, my brothers and sisters, if someone claims to have faith but has no deeds? Can such faith save them? Suppose a brother or a sister is without clothes and daily food. If one of you says to them, “Go in peace; keep warm and well fed,” but does nothing about their physical needs, what good is it? In the same way, faith by itself, if it is not accompanied by action, is dead.

But someone will say, “You have faith; I have deeds.”

Show me your faith without deeds, and I will show you my faith by my deeds. You believe that there is one God. Good! Even the demons believe that—and shudder. (James 2:14-18 NIV)

I’ve learned that the James that wrote this Apostolic letter was likely Jesus’ half brother, was a significant actor in the early Jerusalem church along with Peter and others, and that the letter was probably written around 50 A.D. Also, that it probably precedes the letters of Paul, if not by much.

Martin Luther is said to have called it “an epistle of straw” because it implies in numerous passages that it’s not believing on its own that “saves” the Christian, but that charitable deeds make faith come alive. In the above passage, he goes as far as to say that faith that doesn’t generate charitable works is a dead, useless thing.

A proverb I’ve found usefully reflective of this passage in James goes: “Don’t tell me what you believe; tell me what you do and I’ll know what you believe.”

There’s a great deal more in James, of course. He’s adamant that Christians ought to mind their tongues; that idle or malicious speech are immensely destructive. He encourages his fellow believers to keep up hope in difficulty and to strive for the final reward. One would expect this message to be front and centre during times of life-threatening persecution.

I’ve always found James literarily awkward in that it reads a bit like the Book of Proverbs in the Old Testament: short pronouncements briefly and forcefully made before moving on to what may be an unrelated subject. It reads like a list, in other words.

But what James says to me, in part at least, is that we can easily go too far in the emphasis on what we believe as the test of our faithfulness to the core message of the gospels. Our focus is on what we do in response to our trust in Christ’s way; we’re not governed by particular views on homosexuality or the timing of the apocalypse or transubstantiation for instance. Rather, we treat all people with charity as our core principle, we empathize with those who suffer, we don’t excuse ourselves with “he made his bed; let him lie in it,” or “I wash my hands of the whole affair,” or “they only got what they deserved.” What others do or don’t do, what they believe or don’t believe does not—according to James and from the mouth of Christ—govern yours or my behaviours toward them.

This stark reminder can’t be repeated too often. Particularly when we know from Jesus’ prayers at the end of his time on earth that what he wished most for his followers was that they be united, that they be as one. A look at the Christian church as we find it today must fill our mentor and leader with despair; my Mennonite Church, for example, has over time splintered into no fewer than 30 separate denominations that barely speak to each other. I can’t help but think that reading James more might have led them to embrace the doing more and as we all know, it’s in doing together that the bonds of love blossom best and the fruits of the spirit inevitably follow.

What we should be doing, meanwhile, is obvious.

“Pray for the hungry, then go out and feed them.”