James and Paul Through Luther, and a Little Bonhoeffer
Preparing for the Seventeenth Sunday after Pentecost: Two Days before Sunday (Year B)
Scripture
Semi-continuous: Psalm 19; Proverbs 19:24-29; James 2:17-26
Complementary: Psalm 116:1-9; Joshua 2:15-24; James 2:17-26
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Prayer
Life-giving God, heal our lives, that we may acknowledge your wonderful deeds and offer you thanks from generation to generation through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen. (Revised Common Lectionary)
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Reflection
So faith by itself, if it has no works, is dead.
But someone will say, “You have faith, and I have works.” Show me your faith apart from works, and I by my works will show you faith. You believe that God is one; you do well. Even the demons believe—and shudder. Do you want to be shown, you senseless person, that faith apart from works is worthless? Was not our ancestor Abraham justified by works when he offered his son Isaac on the altar? You see that faith was active along with his works, and by works faith was brought to completion. Thus the scripture was fulfilled that says, “Abraham believed God, and it was reckoned to him as righteousness,” and he was called the friend of God. You see that a person is justified by works and not by faith alone. Likewise, was not Rahab the prostitute also justified by works when she welcomed the messengers and sent them out by another road? For just as the body without the spirit is dead, so faith without works is also dead (James 2:17-26).
James tells us that an individual is justified by works and not faith alone. The Apostle Paul says that we are justified by faith apart from the works of the law. How do we understand this seeming contradiction?
Martin Luther, who recovered the doctrine of justification by faith from his reading of Paul, particularly Paul’s letter to the Romans, did not like the letter of James. In fact, he called it an epistle of straw. He believed that James contradicted Paul, and therefore had very little use for the book.
But did Martin get it right? Did he misunderstand, James, Paul, or perhaps both? Sometimes we treat words as if they are always used in the same way by different people. A little reflection reveals this is simply not the case. When I tell my wife I love her that means something different from what it means when I tell my children. There are shades of meaning in the words that we use.
For Paul, the word faith is a large, encompassing term. He uses it in a very Jewish way. For the apostle, faith and faithfulness are intertwined together. One cannot be had without the other. When Paul uses the phrase “works of the law,” he does not mean, as Luther erroneously thought, good works. Rather, he isreferring to those those outward practices of Judaism that gave first century Jews their covenant identity—circumcision, food laws, dietary regulations, and Sabbath observance. So Paul’s argument is that Gentiles are justified by their faith and also faithfulness to Jesus Christ, not by taking up Jewish practices that in effect make them Jews.
On the other hand, James has a more narrow definition of faith, due no doubt to the circumstances he is addressing in his letter. When James refers to faith, he is thinking only of notional assent, that is the doctrines, the beliefs one has—what we believe with our heads, if you will. Therefore, James wants to say faith is not enough. Faith matters because what we believe is important, but such faith is of no account if it does not lead to the kinds of good deeds that our faith should reflect. A works free faith is a dead faith.
So Paul the Apostle and James, the leader of the Jerusalem Church are not fundamentally in disagreement with one another. In fact, I think if Paul would have read James and James would have read Paul, they would agree with each other. The circumstances of their letters, and the way they use the same terms are different, but remain complimentary.
For Paul and James, what we believe and how we act go together. In fact, one cannot be had without the other. It is reminiscent of the words of Dietrich Bonhoeffer in his book, The Cost of Discipleship, “The one who believes obeys. The one who does not obey cannot believe.”
Had Martin Luther read Paul and James through the lens of Dietrich Bonhoeffer, he would have understood more clearly what each man was saying.
PRAYER: Loving God, open our ears to hear your word and draw us closer to you, that the whole world may be one with you as you are one with us in Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen. (Revised Common Lectionary)
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Read more Luther. Be careful to not misrepresent him.