Tuesday, August 30, 2011

Faith & Works: Jesus Calls the Whole Person

The Daily Office continues with the Letter of James. Today, James asks us to think about faith and works:

What good is it, my brothers and sisters, if you say you have faith but do not have works? Can faith save you? If a brother or sister is naked and lacks daily food, and one of you says to them, ‘Go in peace; keep warm and eat your fill’, and yet you do not supply their bodily needs, what is the good of that? 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 without works, and I by my works will show you my 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 without works is barren? 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 faith was brought to completion by the works. 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: 14-26).

The Son of God did not appear to us in spirit. He was born of a woman, with a human body, a soul and divinity. And at the Resurrection, Jesus did not just rise in spirit; Jesus rose from the dead body and soul. You and I are a people of the Incarnation. Jesus calls the entire person to follow him. Jesus does not call only the mind, or only the soul to follow him. Rather, Jesus calls you as an entire person: body, mind and soul, to follow him. Discipleship requires your whole being. Faith requires action. James is telling us that we need to walk the talk.

As Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. said: “The Christian gospel is a two-way road. On the one hand, it seeks to change the souls of men, and thereby unite them with God; on the other hand, it seeks to change the environmental conditions of men so the soul will have a chance after it is changed.”

Let us pray: Almighty God, you have given your only-begotten Son to take our nature upon him, and to be born of a pure virgin: Grant that we, who have been born again and made your children by adoption and grace, may daily be renewed by your Holy Spirit to put our faith into action; through our Lord Jesus Christ, to whom with you and the same Spirit be honor and glory, now and for ever. Amen.

TREES FOR GALVESTON

The Galveston Island Tree Conservancy’s 2011/12 NeighborWoods Project has been chosen as one of 20 finalists for Tom’s of Maine 50 States for Good Community Sponsorship. We have the opportunity to win a share of $150,000 to fund next year’s NeighborWoods in Galveston, Texas, but we need your on-line vote to help us win one of five $20,000 sponsorships or one $50,000 sponsorship. To find out more about NeighborWoods please visit www.galvestonislandtreeconservancy.org.

To vote, please go to www.50statesforgood.com, click on Vote Now and vote for The Galveston Island Tree Conservancy. Help us plant 700 trees in Galveston Island Neighborhoods in 2011/12!

Top twenty (20) applications will be posted on www.50statesforgood.com, and the public will be encouraged to vote from Tuesday, 2 August 2011 to Tuesday, 13 September 2011. Visitors can vote once (1) per day. Project voting standings will be displayed on www.50statesforgood.com and will be public until the last week of voting, on or about 6 September 2011. At the completion of the final voting phase, the 6 projects with the highest vote totals will be declared as the selected projects to receive funding, as determined by the consumer vote.

PRAYER MINISTRY

Please remember everyone on our Prayer List, and we especially pray for everyone starting a new school year this week; those addicted to drugs and/or alcohol; shut-ins; anyone suffering from depression of anxiety of any kind; those suffering from the extreme heat, all of those who are traveling; those suffering any kind of adversity; for families; and for all those looking for work. “"The things we really need come to us only as gifts, and in order to receive them as gifts we have to be open. In order to be open we have to renounce ourselves, in a sense we have to die to our image of ourselves, our autonomy, our fixation upon our self-willed identity.” —Thomas Merton


Your servant in Christ,

Fr. Chester J. Makowski+
St. Augustine of Hippo Episcopal Church
Galveston, Texas 77550

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