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Isaiah 50:4-9, James 2:-5, 8-10, 14-18, Mark 8:27-38
St. Stephen's Episcopal Church, West Valley City, UT
The Rev'd W. Lee Shaw
Our Scriptures provide a continual challenge and opportunity for us “to read, mark, learn and inwardly digest” them, in the words of the collect for Proper 28. They were written in cultures and languages very foreign to us in a time and place very different from our world. Yet, they have the power to speak to us through the ages in profound ways which see through our human frailties and pretensions, our pride and our sloth. One cannot read the Letter of James with out being confronted with the demands and expectations of being a Christian.
In baptism we talk about being re-born in Christ. In a very real way, however, Christians are not so much born as they are made. We are shaped and made every day of our life as we live into the faith handed down to us. Even though our Scriptures were written thousands of years ago, they have the power to speak to our lives this very minute, in this place, in this life.
This past week I was drawn over and over again to one particular passage from James: “...have you not made distinctions among yourselves, and become judges with evil thoughts?” I know we—you and I—make distinctions and judgments every day about situations and people. So, let's just be honest for a bit and look at some of those judgments on others: those Mormons, blacks, Moslems, Latinos, rich people, Asians, fundamentalists, Republicans, Democrats, Utah legislators, Californians, welfare recipients, gays and lesbians, Catholics/Protestants (take your pick), liberal Episcopalians, conservative Episcopalians, people who drink to much, smokers, fat people, skinny people, street people, drivers from Idaho. OK, the last one I own as mine.
We are continually tempted to judge others by labels and characterizations. It is one of the greatest temptations and downfalls of all of us. I believe that deep down each of us have biases that we harbor in private and sometimes show. The Letter of James hits us over and over again with the demands of our baptism, the demands of the Gospel of Christ. We are to love one another as Christ loved us. This love is not an abstract theory, it is down to earth and real. We are to show our love in how we respond to the needs of others, how we respond to the presence of others, how we are to respond in public and in private. James, despite Martin Luther's reservations, remains a strong and pointed epistle to the church, reminding us of our need to live into our faith, not just talk about our faith. As they used to say, to walk the talk.
There is a difference between loving the Christ and talking about the Christ. There is a difference between talking about liturgy and theology and living our faith in relationship to others. Our Baptismal Covenant requires, demands, of us an active life of living into the promise and the work of being a Christian. Listen to the verbs in our Baptismal Covenant: continue, persevere, proclaim, seek, serve, strive, respect. These are active, demanding verbs.
In our Gospel reading we see part of the responsibility in proclaiming Jesus as the Christ. Jesus has brought the disciples into new territory and asks them a new question: “Who do people say that I am?” He gets the polite and expected answers from them. But when he asks the second question, “But who do you say that I am?” it is different. I imagine there was a period of silence and uncertainty. The stakes are much higher now about their relationship with him. This is not theoretical, this is real. They are called to live into their walk with him in real time. I imagine a time of awkward silence and staring at the ground until Peter jumps in: “You are the Messiah.”
The power of Peter's confessions comes from his willingness to put his faith forward and claim the mystery: You are the Messiah. As with each of the disciples, we are offered the question and given the opportunity to put our faith forward and claim the mystery: the mystery of the Incarnation given for us, the mystery of God moving in us, the mystery of grace offered to us. We claim the mystery. We cannot intellectually comprehend it, yet by faith we claim it. We cannot by experimentation prove it, yet by faith we claim it. We cannot by our senses hold it up for examination, yet by faith we claim it.
And when we have claimed it, the mystery of God with us, then we are called to live into that claim. We can no longer do “business as usual.” We cannot just claim it as theory; we are called to live it in real time. We promise to do that in baptism. We promise to seek and serve Christ in all persons, loving our neighbor as our selves. We promise to respect the dignity of every human being. In other words, we are called to repudiate the accusation of James that we make distinctions between people, yes, even drivers from Idaho.
It is not easy to be a Christian. As one writer noted: “Christianity has not been tried and found wanting, it has been found difficult, and left untried,” (G.K. Chesterton). It takes work and repentance. It takes patience and will to live into the promises of our baptism; into being made a Christian. May God grant us the faith to pursue it and the grace to accomplish it.