Faith and Action

This Sunday is the first in September and, therefore, the first Sunday since most children have gone back to school and the summer holidays are deemed to be over. The theme for this Sunday certainly presents us with a challenge and demands rigorous engagement. It feels like back to school for us as well! Even the beautiful images of healing and renewal in the passage from Isaiah begin with a rousing call from the prophet: ‘Be strong and don’t be afraid!’ We are being called to action, to prepare ourselves for what God will be doing in our midst.

Taking the reading from the Epistle of James, we are given an unambiguous warning against showing favouritism, against being prejudiced against anyone just because they may be less well off or less well dressed than others. It’s a sharply relevant passage in the week of the publication of the report of the tragedy at Grenfell Tower, which found callous disregard for the inhabitants of Grenfell Tower and shocking lack of respect also for the survivors of the fire – a fire which we discovered, could have and should have been prevented. A spokesperson for the residents said they had been treated like ‘second class citizens’. One certainly cannot imagine a block of luxury flats being constructed or maintained in the way Grenfell Tower had been, nor the residents being treated the way Grenfell’s residents had been treated.

James is explaining that behaving like this is not an option for a Christian and asks his readers outright, ‘what good is it for people to say they have faith if their actions do not show it?’ What good is it saying, ‘God bless you. Keep warm and well,’ if you don’t give them the necessities of life? He goes on to say that faith without action is dead. The wonderful conviction that it is by faith alone that we are saved, must be put side by side with the understanding that action will accompany our faith if we are true believers.

In the passage in Mark, we see Jesus in a strange mood. In his encounter with the Gentile Syro-Phoenician woman, Jesus is downright rude. He responds to her desperate plea for him to heal her daughter by implying that she and her daughter are ‘dogs’ – a term used by the Jews for Gentiles. What’s the matter with Jesus? Is he exhausted and just can’t face another healing? Or is he pushing the woman in order to test her faith in his ability to heal? Her courageous reply results in Jesus telling her that when she returns home, she will find that her daughter is well.

We then have a story of Jesus healing a deaf man who also could hardly speak. It is a very physical, down to earth healing, with Jesus putting his fingers in the man’s ears and spitting on his hands before touching the man’s tongue. This man was brought to Jesus by his friends and Jesus always commended the faith of the people who came to him for healing and he responded with powerful, healing action.

 We need to realise that whatever we believe should be seen in how we behave.

Christina Rees