Sermon 13th May 2012 (ALSO St. Paul's AGM)

Today, our Vicar, Cameron Barker, preaches based on the reading from James 2: verses 14-21.

There’s a great story about a reporter interviewing the golfer Jack Nicklaus after he had won his record-creating 18^th Major title. “Jack, you are truly spectacular!” the reporter said. “You really do know your way around a golf course. What is your secret?”

With a dead-straight face Jack Nicklaus allegedly replied: “The holes are numbered.”

Far be it from me to suggest that a life of faith is in any way like playing 18 holes of golf! However, living faith may be far more straightforward than we often think it seems. Yes, of course, as anyone who has ever tried to play golf knows, there is much more to it than going from one hole to the next. It takes skill, selecting the right club, making the right shot-choices – and no little luck – to do well at golf; but hard work, experience, and lots of practice also make a big difference. The same is just as true of a lived-out faith, of course. The Godly way forward is clearly marked out for us all; but there is so much more to it than going from one place to next. Having the right tools, and making right choices is also key in living out faith; hard work, experience and lots of practice make all the difference in faith too – as anyone who has ever tried to live such a life knows only too well!

I’ll quit the golfing analogy there, while I’m possibly scoring at about par I’d hope. The more creative of you may want to develop it, or some other picture, further. Feel free: AGM Sunday is one good day for being creative. It can help us, to think in picture-language about how we have got to where we are now, on the way to where we are going, on this adventurous journey with God. It certainly can help us to cope with this strange fact of reviewing 2011 and goal-setting for 2012 in mid-May! However that is where we are; and, if nothing else, faith is about starting from wherever we are, and inviting God to be integral to the picture.

So, as well as it being the AGM, today we’re also starting the second run-through of the 3 key values underlying our Bishop’s Call to Mission. If you missed that first set, those sermons are all on the blog; if you haven’t had the letter, look for an envelope badged Faith, Hope and Love that’s at the back of church. We’re tackling these 3 key values in the same order as last time, not least because the subject of Faith is perfect for an AGM Sunday. How better could we measure ourselves than against this quality? So: how have we lived out our faith as church in the past year? Then: how might we want, or need, to do that differently this year? How does that apply: to us, personally; and to us, in our life together?

If you’re not sure that faith is the best test to use, then listen to how our reading sounds in The Message version: “Dear friends, do you think you’ll get anywhere in this if you learn all the right words but never do anything? Does merely talking about faith indicate that a person really has it?” As the saying goes, the proof of the pudding is in the eating; and that clearly applies to faith as well. As we can tell from this letter, it always has done. James is probably one of the earliest New Testament letters written, maybe when Paul was on his first missionary journey. There isn’t time to detail how New Testament thinking and theology developed. But Paul wrote his letters much later, when everything was far more settled. By contrast, James started from a very basic point: the core of Old Testament belief. “You believe that there is one God. Good!” James could then write about the living of that out in daily life.

It’s good practical stuff, usually! So “for instance you come upon an old friend dressed in rags and half-starved and say, ‘Good morning, friend! Be clothed in Christ! Be filled with the Holy Spirit!’ and walk off without providing so much as a coat or a cup of soup; where does that get you? Isn’t it obvious that God-talk without God-acts is outrageous nonsense?” Well, yes it is, obviously; which is why it is vital that we use this time to see how our faith has worked out in practice. And not just in this one way either! You noticed that James referred to 2 classic biblical examples of faith here. Again there isn’t time to explain either context now, but we can still get the point. Both Abraham and Rahab put absolutely everything on the line in living out faith.

God promised Abraham he’d have countless descendants: at the time when he only had Isaac, Abraham trusted God enough to be willing to give up his only son. Then, by helping those spies, Rahab committed treason against her own people – because of what she believed God would do. That’s faith! That’s living it! And that is what we all have to do, God says through James. “You can no more show me your works apart from your faith than I can show you my faith apart from my works. Faith and works, works and faith, fit together hand in glove ... Isn’t it obvious that faith and works are yoked partners, that faith expresses itself in works?” as it’s put in The Message.

Here’s a summary of faith that works: help the poor, in practical ways; and live far beyond the limits of what you can see when it comes to trusting God. How did you do with that in 2011, I wonder? How have we done corporately? And, if this really what faith is, then what practical responses are you going to make when this series ends? As James put it here: “Separate faith and works and you get ... a corpse”. So, how will you keep faith alive in how you live, then – in the light of last year, on this road with God into the unknown that lies ahead? That’s the challenge of true faith: what will your response to it be, today and beyond? Let’s pray ...