Those Who Are Generous Are Blessed, a sermon based on James 2: 1-17, preached on September 29, 2024

A few years ago, when I was just a newly-graduated seminary student, learning what it means to be a pastor and hoping to strengthen my interview skills, I ran into a well-respected veteran preacher, who had just retired from a large church in Manhattan. I asked him for advice. I asked him: “What should I be doing to improve my skills as a pastor?” and expected him to say something spiritual, like, “Young man, you need to dedicate yourself to the discipline of daily prayer and Bible study,” or maybe something practical, like, “Seminary didn’t teach you everything, so take a class in church administration.” Instead, he looked at the scuffed loafers on my feet and said, “Son, you need to shine your shoes.” That was his suggestion to the young pastor. It wasn’t spiritual advice. It wasn’t practical advice. You might say it was superficial advice, and yet I’ve passed that same advice on to as many people who would listen because if you want to be taken seriously in this world, you had better take seriously your appearance. Clothes makes the man, so the old saying goes. Or have you seen that Tide commercial with the man in a job interview who has a great big stain on his shirt? The stain is shouting so loudly that you can’t understand what this man is saying. Appearance matters. We are always judging each other based on outward appearance. This is the way of the world. Parents wonder why their children want to spend $60 on a water bottle. It’s because it’s not just a water bottle. It’s a status symbol. We are judged by how we dress and by the cars that we drive. We judge our neighbors according to the state of their front lawns or by the signs in their yards. Yet, our second Scripture lesson warns against that kind of behavior. From the book of James, we read: If a person with gold rings and in fine clothes comes into your assembly, and if a poor person in dirty clothes also comes in, and if you take notice of the one wearing the fine clothes and say, “Have a seat here, please,” while to the one who is poor you say, “Stand there,” or, “Sit at my feet,” have you not made distinctions among yourselves and become judges with evil thoughts? My friends, with this real-life example of how superficial we can all be, James prompts us to ask ourselves: Are we living like Christians, or do we just say that we’re Christians? Do we talk about grace, or do we live it? Jesus didn’t judge based on outward appearance, so why do we? Do you remember what the Pharisees said about Him? “Who is this that eats with sinners and outcasts?” That’s what they said because Jesus was different. He could see past the stain on a man’s shirt. He even went to Legion, the man who was chained up out in the graveyard, and saw him as a child of God. He did the same with the hemorrhaging woman who had been bleeding for 12 years. No one would go close to her, and yet Jesus turned and saw her. That’s because Jesus saw beneath their outward appearances, and Jesus has seen beneath our outward appearances, so if we say we are Christians, but we act more like Pharisees, then what good is our faith? That’s the big question that the book of James asks us. James says twice in our second Scripture lesson for today that faith without works is dead. Therefore, I ask you today, if we say we follow Jesus, but we don’t take the time to really love our neighbors equally, are we living our faith? No. If our faith has no flesh and bones then it’s not alive. It’s dead. Our intentions must turn to action. If we say we believe but don’t do what we believe, our faith isn’t worth anything. That’s a strong word, but it’s a good one. What I hear James saying to us today makes me think of “thoughts and prayers.” Do you know what I mean by “thoughts and prayers?” That’s a refrain that people use in the midst of disaster. After a school shooting or a hurricane, people will send their thoughts and prayers, yet a band called the Drive-By Truckers wrote a song about how we all respond with thoughts and prayers, yet if those thoughts and prayers never turn into action or policy change, “then I don’t need your thoughts and prayers”. That’s what James is talking about. Thoughts and prayers must turn to action. Our faith must live or it’s dead. If we don’t share the grace that we’ve received, do we truly know what grace is? Speaking of grace: Almighty God knows who we truly are and loves us anyway. Do you believe that? As a family, we’ve been watching a TV show called Young Sheldon. In an episode we watched last week, Sheldon’s mother, who is often pushed to the brink of sanity by her children, is sitting on a swing set crying and smoking a cigarette. If you saw the episode and if you knew what Sheldon had been up to, you’d understand why she’s crying and smoking that cigarette. If you knew what she had to put up with, you might have lit her cigarette and poured her a drink. That’s what her neighbor does. When the neighbor lady peeps over the fence and catches her smoking, she doesn’t judge her for crying or for smoking. Instead, she says, “Don’t smoke out here in the open where all the neighbors can see. Come on over to our henhouse where not even God can see, and let’s have a wine cooler… and bring those cigarettes.” Now, God can see what we do, even in the henhouse, only God doesn’t look down on us, dolling out condemnation, but grace. Having been loved, accepted, and forgiven by God, we would be hypocrites if we didn’t share the love, acceptance, and forgiveness that we have received with the people around us, regardless of the size of the gold hoops in their ears. Do you hear what I’m saying? Why show preferential treatment to those who are clean and upright, when God has shown love, acceptance, and forgiveness to you when you were neither clean nor upright? If you’ve received generosity, then be generous. If you’ve been forgiven, then forgive. If you know what grace means because you’ve needed it, then don’t be stingy with grace. Share it. Spread it around. Show kindness. Live empathy. I can’t help but do it. People will ask me sometimes, “What’s it like to be the pastor of the church you grew up in?” I tell them that they knew the truth about me and called me to be their pastor anyway. There are people here who remember me when I was 13 years old, sneaking out of confirmation class. There are people here who remember how I drove a car painted checkerboard. There are people here who had reason to judge me, but instead, offered me grace, and even though they knew I wasn’t perfect, they called me to be their pastor anyway. Do you know what that feels like? Do you know what grace feels like? I’m not perfect. I’m far from it. You know that. I know that, and so I would be the king of all hypocrites if I didn’t share the grace that I have received. That’s what James is trying to say. If you know what grace is, if you’ve felt the love of God, if God’s salvation is a gift that you’ve received, if you believe it in your bones, then let it turn into action, for faith without works is dead. It’s not enough just to believe. We also must live what we believe. It’s not enough to stand up and to say the creed and to sing the hymns. We have to give those words some flesh and blood. We have to put our faith into action or it’s empty. Is your faith empty? My friends, this is not just the first sermon from the book of James. This is also the first sermon for the stewardship season, when I’ll be asking all of you to fill out a pledge card and to estimate your financial giving to First Presbyterian Church. If you want to put your faith into action, this is a good way to do it. If you want to take that step in sharing a portion of what you’ve received from God, this is the means to do it. If you’ve received generosity, then be generous. If you’ve been forgiven, then forgive. If you know what grace means because you’ve needed it, then don’t be stingy with grace. Share it. Spread it around. Those who are generous are blessed, and they know it, and so they don’t just talk about it. They live it. My parents and my wife, Sara’s, parents live in the path of that storm that swept through last Thursday. I was on the phone trying to get my parents to come down to stay with us. They’re in Hendersonville, and they don’t have power, but they live in this old cabin with a spring and gas appliances, so they’re having the time of their lives living in that old cabin as though it were the 1800’s. They think it’s great and won’t come down here. I wish they would, though. Sara’s parents have been staying with us since Friday, and I hope they’ll stay until the power is back on where they live. In fact, I’d be glad for them to stay a lot longer than that because it feels good to do something for those who have done so much for us. They could stay with us for the next 10 years, and we still wouldn’t have repaid them for all that they’ve done. C. S. Lewis said that our tithes and offering are something like that. The father gave his son $10 to go to the store so that this son could buy his father a present for Father’s Day. The son spent 9 dollars on himself and $1 on the present for his father. So it is with us. Even when we give God our full 10% pledge, it’s still nothing compared to what God has given us. If you know that you’ve been blessed by God, but you’ve never filled out a pledge card before, then do you really know it? Faith without works is dead. Those who are generous are blessed, and they know it. Amen.