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“A Living Faith,” Rev. Melissa St. Clair, 9/6/15

“A Living Faith”

A sermon preached at

Heart of the Rockies Christian Church (Disciples of Christ)

Fort Collins, CO

by the Rev. Melissa St. Clair

September 6, 2015

This week, I met with my newly formed book club for the first time. A friend of mine put out a call over Facebook for strong, intelligent, independent women who love to read books. Check, check, check, check. Our first read was Mending the Sisterhood and Ending Women’s Bullying, written by local author Susan Skog. At the risk of sounding like my book club is better than yours, which seems to be exactly what James is preaching against in this morning’s reading from the Epistle, we had the author with us for the first hour or so.   And then she reminded us that as a new group, we’d need some time to ourselves to discuss group norms, format and function, and, of course, books.

As we dug deeper into what it is we wanted this group to be, the question came up – who would be welcome? Would we welcome men? Would we welcome people with perspectives different than our own? What would it require for this group to be a safe space?

I’ll confess, I wasn’t the most enthused when someone suggested that it would good to have people who would bring a different perspective. She was hopeful that we could be challenged to think outside our own white, progressive, female, middle class existence. To encounter people who might not agree with all our own ideas. That was a really good point. And one that I’d advocate for all day long for the church. But this was a social group. More than that, it was my social group.

James writes to the early church: 

READ JAMES 2:1-17

 Have we not made distinctions among ourselves? Have we not shown partiality? jumped off the page at me as I sat in my office re-reading from James the day after our book club.

Yeah, but how sinful, let alone practical, is it to show no partiality?

I mean, I choose an oatmeal cinnamon raisin bagel over an everything bagel every day.

I vote for a political candidate based on the values that are most important to me.

I root for the Baltimore Orioles because they’ll always be my home team.

Partiality is a part of life. We all have preferences. It’s how we make decisions. It’s an expression of social order.

I don’t know that James would disagree with that.

His concern seems to be a more serious one: that the class distinctions that baptized Christians are making among themselves in the faith community is downright divisive.[1]

James poses it as a hypothetical – what if someone who was clean and fancy and affluent came to worship and then there was someone who was frumpy and dirty and poor who also showed up? How would you treat them?

The reality is, James doesn’t want to talk about this just theoretically. He is challenging the early church to take a look at what is actually happening in their congregations. Faith that lacks consistent action is no faith at all, James reminds them. (Us!)[2]

A colleague posted a photo this week of a vandalized Black Lives Matter sign in front of their church. Someone had taken a thick, black marker and written in next to the statement Black Lives Matter, so support cops. Her church’s response? To post a letter next to the sign that invited the one who vandalized the sign to a face-to-face conversation and then went on to say: 

We believe that our Christian faith and practice teaches us to affirm that life is sacred; all human beings are created in the image of God. When any life ends, particularly early or violently, it is a great sadness. The lives of police officers and others who pledge to protect and serve our communities matter immensely to God and to us. The banner we display here does not read Black Lives Matter because other lives do not matter, but because in the history of our country and, too often, in the history of our Christian churches, black lives have not mattered at all or nearly enough. Because all lives are sacred, our Christian practices call us to attend particularly, publicly, and persistently to those individuals whose lives are shortened, threatened, degraded, or cast aside. That’s what loving our neighbor means to us.[3]

Faith in action, both in the church and in the social sphere. Lately, it seems like everywhere you turn there are conversations happening about issues that matter; they’re happening outside the church, to be sure. And they have a place inside the church, as well.

This summer, at our denomination’s General Assembly in Columbus, Resolution 1518 was Black Lives Matter: A Movement for All. The resolution proposed, in part, that as a denomination we support Black Lives Matter: A Movement for All by joining the cause; sharing awareness; supporting and encouraging our congregations to be safe spaces and sanctuary for peaceful protesters, participate in and host sacred conversations and dialogue on race relations and inclusion, and be spiritual allies in prayer, for God to enable the pursuit of justice through those who take a stand and lift their voices for justice and to not sit idly by and be silent, but give value and credence to Black Lives Matter: A Movement for All.[4]

I’ll be honest: some pushed back hard against this resolution, believing that saying #BlackLivesMatter shows the kind of partiality we are called to avoid.

I think this a misunderstanding of what the #BlackLivesMatter movement is all about. I couldn’t explain any better than this if I tried, so I’m sharing the following with you with only a little additional commentary from me. Caroline Mitchell of the blog Blessed Are the Feet nailed when she explained what #BlackLivesMatter doesn’t mean.

#BlackLivesMatter doesn’t mean that cops are bad people. In fact, quite the opposite. Law enforcement officers at their best are excellent people who do their jobs with hearts full of compassion for the people they have been called to serve – all of us. The challenge is, we ask people who are inherently good to function in a system that is inherently flawed. A system in which injustice toward any is injustice toward us all. And that’s an injustice to the officers who want to pursue excellence in their profession. At the end of the day, cops are people too. They are good people, who, like you and me, can have racist thoughts or at least be made jittery and reactionary by the implicit associations they make based on race. I do this, too.

#BlackLivesMatter doesn’t mean other lives don’t matter. All lives matter. That’s the basis for our faith – that all are created in the image of God. Life matters. All life matters.

#BlackLivesMatter acknowledges that this is a fundamental truth for a particular group of people whom our nation has not done a great job of honoring throughout our history.

#BlackLivesMatter doesn’t mean there are no black people who are criminals. Of course there are. There are white people who are criminals. There are brown people who are criminals. The challenge is we as a society tend to regard the behavior of black people, particularly young, black males, as more likely to be criminal and dangerous than the same behavior in white people. As a result, black people are more likely to suffer death or escalated levels of violence for that behavior.

#BlackLivesMatter doesn’t mean that we know what happens in each individual case that gets reported. There are eye-witness testimonies and jury transcripts and forensic interviews and… Well, as ones who read and take the Bible seriously we know just how many different versions of a story there can be. And that’s precisely why we look at the bigger picture, at the over-arching narrative. In a collective sense, we are a nation who bears the weight of the sin of racism. That doesn’t mean that I’m a racist or that you’re a terrible person. It means we’re part of something bigger than ourselves, and that collectively, we have work to do.

James could’ve just as easily written it this way:

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 lacks equity, and one of you says to them, “Go in peace; be safe and prosper,” and yet you do not advocate for their ­­­humanity, safety and equality, what is the good of that? So faith by itself, if it has no works, is dead.”

[1] Archie Smith, Jr., Feasting on the Word, Year B, Vol. 4, 38.

[2] A.K.M Adam, www.workingpreacher.org. September 6, 2015. Read full post here.

[3] From Ann Kansfield. Used with permission.

[4] Read full resolution here.