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The
Inconvenient Truth About Faith
by Reverend Rich Smith
September 10, 2006
James 2:1-8, 14-18
Welcome to Welcome Sunday, or Welcome Back Sunday, as
the case may be! That is what we have traditionally called this first
Sunday after Labor Day at Westmoreland, , the day when the choir
returns, Sunday School is back in full session, we double the number of
bulletins printed. Welcome back after a summer slowdown, which
hopefully was as restful and restorative for you as it was for me. I
think “welcome” is the right way for us to describe it, especially as
the folks from Briggs become full Westmorelanders, and we become part
of each other. Now, other churches call it other things. Thirty years
ago I went to my first church and they called it “Round-Up Sunday.”
That was before a certain weed-killer by the same name went on the
market. Very appropriate for a church in the old west, the day when all
the strays were lassoed in by the programs. Most churches, if what I
see in the newspaper ads is representative, use sports themes, almost
entirely football related. Kick-off Sunday, or Homecoming Sunday, or
Rally Day. I don’t know why they don’t give other sports their due – I
guess Tip-off Sunday or “On-your-mark-get-set-go Sunday just doesn’t do
it. Personally, I’d like to see a church use a baseball theme, but
“Play Ball Sunday” or “Batter Up Sunday” doesn’t have quite the ring to
it... I did hear of a church that called its Stewardship Campaign “Step
Up to the Plate” - Bob may want to consider that if “Feel the Spirit”
doesn’t take hold.
No, I think “Welcome” Sunday is the right approach for us. It’s a good
word and a good theme, in line with who we are as a church, an Open and
Affirming congregation that seeks to welcome everybody, from committed
followers to Jesus to the searching and seeking, the questioning and
the questing, and even the lost. As the tag line of the God Is Still
Speaking ads says, “No matter who you are, or where you are on life’s
journey, you are welcome here!”
Welcome is also a theme in line with our scripture lesson for the
morning, from the letter of James, who most likely was Jesus’ own
brother, a leader in the Jerusalem branch of the early church. James is
a favorite book of the Bible for many progressive Christians, with its
emphasis on “deeds, not creeds,” even though it was very much disliked
by Martin Luther. He thought it emphasized works too much, to the
exclusion of grace. And while I think it’s true that we generally don’t
make much space for grace in our lives, and have a lot of trouble
extending or seeing grace extended to others – we still believe in
meritocracy – James’ core message, that what you do is the best
expression of your beliefs, is right on target. Faith that does not
show itself in action isn’t faith at all, just empty words. As I said,
we UCC-ers love it, and I don’t know how many funeral sermons I have
preached where I have said about the person, “She never talked about
her faith much, but you could sure see it by the way she cared for
others, by the love that was so evident in her deeds.” Or as James put
it, “I by my works will show you my faith.”
Now that’s all well and good, but it’s not always as simple as it
sounds! That’s where the “inconvenient truth” comes in. The folks to
whom James was writing, it seems, were pretty good at welcoming the
rich folks into their church, setting aside the best seats, the places
of honor for them. Maybe they were having trouble with their own
stewardship campaign, and needs a sure-fire winning theme – “The
wealthy are welcome!” And maybe they wanted to use their money for a
good cause, and they needed to make them happy and comfortable first.
James turns thing around and says, It’s how you welcome the poor that
really counts, for that’s when you really welcome Jesus. Jim Wallis, in
his book GOD’S POLITICS, tells the story of the days when his
organization, Sojourners, ran a feeding program on Saturday mornings,
and before they opened the doors, they prayed. Most often, he said, the
prayer was offered by a black woman named Mary Glover, a woman who
herself needed the food baskets they were handing out. And usually, her
prayer went something like this, “Thank you Lord, for waking us up this
morning! Thank you, Lord, that our walls were not our grave and our bed
was not our cooling board! Thank you, Lord!” And then as a long line of
people waited outside in the rain, cold or heat for a simple bag of
groceries, a mere twenty blocks from the White House, Mary Glover
always prayed, “Lord, we know you’ll be coming through this line today,
so Lord, help us to treat you well.”
So the imperative is there to welcome the poor, as a matter of a faith
commitment. But it’s not always convenient to do so, as it never is
when welcoming anybody who appears to be different. Now I think
Westmoreland has done a pretty good job programmatically of reaching
out to serve those who are poor, Briggs too. From Lincoln-Westmoreland
Housing, to the Volunteer Corps, to Shaw Community Ministries, SOME
casseroles, the beneficiaries of our concert series proceeds, ESL,
Everybody Wins.....we really do a lot. We engage in working for
economic justice as well, at the broader level. But unless you are
intimately involved in one of those programs, the tendency, while being
supportive, is to keep the poor at arm’s length. I wonder, How could we
become more welcoming in our own pews?
A couple of you sent me a recent New York Times article about the
evangelical mega-church, Woodland Hills Church in St. Paul, MN, and how
their pastor Gregory Boyd preached a series of sermons distancing
himself from the religious right. After years of preaching otherwise,
he said the church should steer clear of politics, give up moralizing
on sexual issues, stop claiming the United States as a “Christian
nation” and stop glorifying American military campaigns. Now that’s the
best news I’ve heard since Pat Robertson announced he now believes that
global warming is for real! Not what you usually hear in evangelical
mega-churches. And it has hardly been “convenient” for Rev. Boyd or his
church. In fact, it has been downright inconvenient, in that in short
order they lost a thousand members, one-fifth of their membership. As
the article says, “Those who left tended to be white, middle-class
suburbanites.... In their place, the church has added more members who
live in the surrounding community – African-Americans, Hispanics,
immigrants from Laos. That suits Mr. Boyd. His vision for his church is
an ethnically and economically diverse congregation that exemplifies
Jesus’ teachings by its members actions.” Not convenient, but indeed
faithful!
The inconvenient truth about faith is that it’s not just a matter of
saying you believe something, holding right the opinions, professing
the correct theology, but actually doing something about it. And so
often our faith calls us to action that may be not only inconvenient,
but risky. We can’t get keep going our merry way, but actually have to
love the unlovable, accept the unacceptable, open ourselves to the pain
of the world, and give up some of the comfort and security of our ways
of living.
Yesterday, we had lunch with a former Westmoreland volunteer, Beth
Rogers-Witte. You might recall that last fall she spoke here about
doing relief work in Indonesia, following the tsunami. She spent this
past summer as an intern with Mercy Corps in southern Sudan, living in
a tent, without running water or electricity, far from the civil war
zone but in close proximity to 5 kinds of deadly snakes, training
villagers to organize for development. At the end of the summer they
offered her a year-long position. So she came back here for a couple of
weeks to put her things in storage, put graduate school on hold for a
year, see her friends and family, and arrange to go back, to work among
the poor of the earth. She says she has learned so much from them, and
that it is her faith that motivates her to do this. It’s a faith that
doesn’t really need to be articulated, because it is so evident in the
deed. And as she does it, she will no doubt be transformed herself, and
become more and more the person that God calls her to be.
And that is finally the Good News. Faith may be inconvenient, leading
us to places we had not planned to go, forcing us out of our comfort
zones into risky adventures, but it is also Good News, in that it is
transforming and ultimately life-giving.
We can’t all pick up our lives and move to the other side of the world,
of course, but we can pick them up at least a little bit in the daily
choices we make, in the welcome we give to those who may be different,
in the way we choose to follow Jesus....
In the words of an anonymous benediction found in our hymnal....
Do not pray for easy lives; pray to be stronger women and men.
Do not pray for tasks equal to your powers,
but for power equal to your tasks.
Then, the doing of your work will be no miracle–
you will be the miracle.
Every day you will wonder at yourself and the richness of life
which has come to you by the grace of God.
Last updated Wednesday, Februrary 29, 2008
1
Westmoreland Circle
Bethesda, MD 20816
301-229-7766
Email the church office: churchinfo@westmorelanducc.org
www.westmorelanducc.org
An
Open and Affirming Congregation
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