Psalm 146, James 2 (selected verses) 

This has been a tough summer for the FUMC community as far as people moving away! I’ve been here for 12+ years, and I can’t remember a period of time when as many significant families have moved out of the area as there have been in the past 4  - 5 months.  (Just ‘one of those things.’) Something we hear pretty consistently from people who have moved away, and come back for a visit, is that the one thing they have the hardest time with in moving is finding another church like this one. We have quite a few ‘missionaries’ out there – people with high expectations of what a community of faith should be.

One family that moved rather recently had only been with us – or any church for that matter – for a rather brief time.  I just happened to run into the husband in that family a few weeks ago, in the CVS.  I said, “So, when is the big moving day?”

He said, “Tomorrow morning! And I’ll tell you, I’ve really got mixed feelings about this.” (They were moving to the mid-west because of an attractive job offer, and because this is where his roots were.)  He said, “I’m feeling a little depressed about this.”

Well, then he added: “The thing that is really bothering me is that I’m going to miss your church.” (I know it’s not my church, but I’m just being accurate in remembering this conversation!)  He said some nice things about me, which made me wish I had a mini-recorder so I could play it back to myself when I needed a boost, and he said some really nice things about the worship services.

But here’s what made this little ‘chance’ encounter one that I’m not likely to forget. He was telling me about a church that he and his family had visited near their new home.  He was saying, “It’s OK, but it’s not FUMC.”  And he named a couple of reasons for why he felt that way… I told him, “It takes awhile to get to know a church, give them a chance. It sounds like a good church.”

But then he said something that I’ve never heard a person say before: “What bothered me the most about that church was their mission statement.  I just didn’t like their mission statement.”

“Really? What was it?”

“Well, it was something about “making better Christians. And my wife and I looked at each other, and we wondered, ‘what about the hurting world?’  Where’s the part about reaching out to a hurting world?”  And he started naming some of the things we do here – the mission trips, Interfaith Hospitality Network  2 H, H H and others.  And he said, “It’s not just about us, is it?”

…Well, at that point I offered him money if he would just reconsider moving.  (Well, maybe not, but I might have if I thought it would work!) 

I don’t know if there could have been a statement any more encouraging from my perspective as a leader in this church. In fact, I’m not a big ‘co-incidence’ person; to me, that was no ‘chance encounter’.  Because – think about it – he wasn’t saying something about a sentence up on the wall; not really.  And it certainly wasn’t a statement about me, or the leadership team of this church, either.  It was a statement about us, about this church, about our priorities, and our values, about who we are. 

The only reason that our mission statement became so deeply engraved in this family’s mind was that they saw people living it. They saw those words in action. They had opportunities to participate themselves.  So you see what I mean? I can’t think of a better testimony to the thing that God is doing among the people of this congregation than that.  People are noticing.

A couple of weeks ago we hosted IHN, and one of those evenings I was the night host. I sat down in the youth game room and enjoyed watching as a couple of the families played some intensely terrible pool, but had a great time doing it.  We all laughed a lot. It got a little late, and they were still going strong, and I went upstairs to lay down.

But I ran into one of our guests in the kitchen, and I stopped to say ‘Hi!’ She wanted to talk.  She told me that this was her first week in the IHN program, and that she was frankly, a little bit worried when she found out that the first stop was going to be Moorestown. She said that she tried not to pre-judge, but she couldn’t help thinking that people from Moorestown were going to ‘look down their noses at me and my daughter’. 

But, whatever her expectations were, the reality proved quite different. She told me that my church (again, those words!) is “full of wonderful people.” People who sat with her, people who looked her in the eye, who listened to her… people who were “just like me.”  And she said, “Be sure you tell them ‘thank you’ for us.”  So, I am.

And, while I don’t want to parade our ‘righteousness’, especially when Jesus said that in doing this stuff we’re only doing “what we are supposed to do,”[1] but I’d be lying if I told you that I wasn’t just a little bit proud of you, leaning over that kitchen counter at 11:30 at night, and hearing this wonderful testimony of people who really are sharing the love of Jesus Christ with a hurting world. 

Two of the Lectionary readings for this weekend were Psalm 146 and some verses from James chapter 2.  A powerful combination, for sure!  I read these passages this week as I was still thinking about last week’s Scriptures – Deuteronomy 4 and Psalm 15. Those are both passages that remind us that being God’s people is more than ‘just being forgiven’. They tell us that there is not only an expectation, but an opportunity to change who we are. 

You know, the very first believers were called followers of “The Way” – it’s unfortunate that so many today interpret that to simply mean the ‘way to heaven’ (i.e., it’s just about being forgiven), when it actually refered to ‘the way of life. A life that leads to heaven, for sure, but there’s a lot of ‘stuff’ in between! 

Forgiveness is a wonderful gift, the first necessary step in “the Way”, and something that is always available to us.  And we all need it! I don’t even need to get into that, do I? We know! But forgiveness doesn’t define the entirety of a relationship with God.  Part of being a Christian is participation in this wonderful new life – the Way - a life of changed (and changing) priorities, a life of learning to give and receive love (in ways that bring a fulfillment to ourselves that we would never find on our own), a life that matters because of our ‘connection’ with our Creator.

With all that still in mind, I read today’s Scriptures. And a thought came to me that what seems like a contrast – almost a contradiction – between Psalm 146 and James 2 is not really a contrast at all when you consider both of these passages in light of the entire message of the Scripture. 

What I mean is this: look at Psalm 146.  This Psalm is a celebration of what God does, lets say.  That’s hard to miss, actually. It’s a call for people to put their trust in God, because he is the only eternal one.  “Don’t put your trust in powerful people” it says, “there is no help for you there.”  Why stake your life on something that is just going to fade out sooner or later?

People who have God as their ‘helper’, it says, those whose hope is the in the Lord are ‘happy’.  Why? Because “ ⁶ He is the one who made heaven and earth, the sea, and everything in them. He is the one who keeps every promise forever”.

Then it list some specific ‘things’ that the Lord does, promises that God keeps: The Lord
⁷…gives justice to the oppressed and food to the hungry. The Lord frees the prisoners. ⁸ The Lord opens the eyes of the blind. The Lord lifts the burdens of those bent beneath their loads. The Lord loves the righteous.  ⁹The Lord protects the foreigners among us. He cares for the orphans and widows, but he frustrates the plans of the wicked… 

The writer of this Psalm – whoever it was – is what we might say with ‘Church language’ ‘ascribing to the Lord’ these deeds, these acts.  He’s saying, “This is what God does. And you can trust him to continue to do these things.” Now, we’ll come back to this in just a minute.

In our second passage, James once again is firing out his message: ‘Don’t say you have faith unless you are actually doing something to back those words up.”

¹⁷So you see, it isn’t enough just to have faith. Faith that doesn’t show itself by good deeds is no faith at all – it is dead and useless.

In the rest of this chapter, James illustrates that point.  And specifically, he talks about the relationship between the rich and the poor in a faith community.

¹My dear brothers and sisters, how can you claim that you have faith in our glorious Lord Jesus Christ if you favor some people more than others?

Or, verse 8ff -

⁸Yes indeed, it is good when you truly obey our Lord’s royal command found in the Scriptures: “Love your neighbor as yourself.” ⁹But if you pay special attention to the rich, you are committing a sin, for you are guilty of breaking that law.

¹⁵Suppose you see a brother or sister who needs food or clothing, ¹⁶and you say, “Well, good-bye and God bless you; stay warm and eat well”--but then you don’t give that person any food or clothing. What good does that do?

Now, maybe you’ve noticed what I noticed in these passages:  quite a few of the deeds that are ‘ascribed to the Lord’ in Psalm 146, are the same kind of things that James (and other New Testament writers) clearly expect people of faith to do.  So, if we approached the Scriptures in a very literal way, we might ask, “OK, which is it?”  Does God do this or do we?

But, of course, the answer is obvious in the context of the rest of the Scripture…

Last week, we said that the goal of the Christian life is to be ‘conformed to the image of Jesus Christ.’  If we really are followers of Christ, then we shouldn’t be the same people today that we were last year.  We should be growing in love and grace.  It should affect the way we respond to adversity and opposition.

Words like ‘forgiveness’ should be part of not only our vocabulary, but our practice. Other words, too – sacrifice, sharing, grace, truth, justice – for a believer, these are more than great concepts, they are realities that are being woven by the Holy Spirit into the very fabric of our being.  The point is that we day by day, little by little, struggle after struggle, take on the priorities and the characteristics of God himself; following the example of Jesus Christ, “God made flesh”.  Doing what Jesus would do, as best we can.

There are some things in Psalm 146 that we can’t do – only God can do them. But there is quite a bit of that list that God typically accomplishes in the world through the obedience of his people.  People like us.  So, God actually keeps his promises through us!

So, we shouldn’t be surprised when we read that God “gives justice to the oppressed and food to the hungry”, or that God “cares for the orphans and widows”.  Nor should we be surprised to hear that God does these things through his church – the “Body of Christ”.  As that song says, we are his hands, his feet… The Scriptures use all kinds of terms to make this same point – we are Christ’s representatives, his Ambassadors, his Body, his servants, his children… the point is that God’s wonderful plan (the Way) is not just to forgive us, but to use us as a “blessed people of blessing”. 

Not that we always ‘get it’.  Sometimes we’re kind of slow.  We are all works in progress, and thank God for his grace! As if I needed to be reminded of that, I was anyway this past week… 

I’ve often said that the best thing that has happened to my spiritual life in recent years is that we adopted a hyperactive dog! So, for the past three years, at least once a day, rain or shine, 100º or – 10º, this dog needs to be walked. She doesn’t care if I’m busy, or overbooked, she waits patiently, and expects me to show up and spend some time with her.  (A lot like God, isn’t it?)

And that hour – hour and a half each day has become a special time for me, because that is time when I pray – for you, for myself, my family, the church, the world…

I usually walk a loop around Strawbridge Lake by Rt. 38.  It’s about 4 miles.  About a week ago, right near the little parking area on the Rt. 38 side of the lake I came across a woman sitting on the grass.  I said, “Hello” and kept going. (She looked a little wary of Gabby).  But I noticed that there were no cars parked there.

A couple days later, I saw her again, in the same place.  Again, no car.  I thought, “This woman is homeless.”  But, I also thought, “What can I do about that?” And I kept going.

A couple more days later, and I saw her pass by me on Haines Drive, I was in my car, and it was that day when there was so much rain, remember? And – finally – this time I thought, “I have to do something.”  But that’s a one- way road, and by the time I wound all the way back, she was gone.

Then I went to my office to write a sermon, and I read those words from James.  What a sense of timing God has! And, like I said, I’m grateful for grace.  ‘Cause I can be pretty dense at times.

I decided that if I saw her again, I’d do the right thing, or try, anyway.  And sure enough, that afternoon there she was.  I walked over to her and said, “Are you OK?”

She said, “I’m OK.”.

“Are you sure you’re OK?”

“I’m OK!”

“Do you have a place to go?”

“I’m OK…”

“I think I can help you…”

Then she said, “Could you get me a room?”

I said, “I can do that.  But it’s going to take me about 45 minutes to get home from here, and get my car and come back.”  She said “I’ll be here”.

So, I picked up the pace and started home.  I took a shortcut through the play area off of Haines and was walking up Highland Ave.  And I saw a group of little girls at the top of the hill – about six of them, all around 5 – 6 years old, along with a couple ‘moms’.  They had a lemonade stand set up. They watched expectantly as this hot man (as in sweaty hot!) approached with his dog. A sure customer!

But I didn’t have any money! They all just lined up at the curb and silently watched me go by. I’m sure they couldn’t believe it. I felt bad.  And then a car pulled up along side me, and this voice says, “Why didn’t you buy any lemonade?”  It was Marsia Mason.  

I said, “Marsia, I feel bad, but I don’t have any money.”  So, she scooped out all the change in her little compartment, and said, “Here. I don’t know how much it is, but go buy some lemonade!”  And I did. And Gabby laid down, and had six little girls making a big fuss over her.  She was happy, too.

I went home, got the car, picked up a ShopRite gift card and a snack bag that Joan Armstrong had put together for me, and took this young woman to the store and to a local motel. I gave her the phone number to Burlington Co. Social Services as well. 

While all that was going on, I found out later, Karen Murray just ‘happened’ to be in the church office late in the afternoon, and took a phone call from a young, pregnant woman who needed help.  Of all the people on our staff, she is the most knowledgeable about what that woman needed to do, and she took the time to walk her through where she needed to go.

Later, I thought about that whole sequence, just a couple hours in a typical day at the office – the lady in the park, the lemonade, and the book of James, phone calls from desperate people.  There was something there, I just knew it.

We’re not going to solve all the problems in the world.  But we’re not asked to. We do what we can with what we have.  I showed up in this woman’s life in the same kind of way that Marsia showed up in mine.  Karen was there for that call.  We did what we could. 

I know that for that woman in the park, this is a band-aid solution.  She needs long term help – more than I can give her.  But if I see her again… I hope I’m listening.

Psalm 146:10 ^“The Lord will reign forever.

O Jerusalem, your God is King in every generation!

Praise the Lord!”

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