On Pudding

Feast of St Luke the Evangelist

ALMIGHTY God, who calledst Luke the Physician, whose praise is in the Gospel, to be an Evangelist, and Physician of the soul: May it please thee that, by the wholesome medicines of the doctrine delivered by him, all the diseases of our souls may be healed; through the merits of thy Son Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

The Twentieth Sunday after Trinity

O ALMIGHTY and most merciful God, of thy bountiful goodness keep us, we beseech thee, from all things that may hurt us; that we,being ready both in body and soul, may cheerfully accomplish those things that thou wouldest have done; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

Last month, the lectionary took us through the Epistle of James. James contains a number of verses many Christians are familiar with. One that really strikes me is Jas 2. 17: “So also faith by itself, if it does not have works, is dead.” This verse, and the broader discussion of faith, works and salvation from Jas 2. 14-26, was mentioned in a homily by my priest who suggested the way to view this is that St James is saying, so far as faith is concerned, the proof is in the pudding.

This verse in itself leads to a number of interesting discussion topics on the nature of justification, saving faith or true faith versus the profession of faith and whether works proceed from true faith or play some role in salvation, justification and sanctification.

A perhaps more interesting question is can this verse be applied more generally to the Church or just to the individual? If the proof is in the pudding for the individual, how might that apply to the Church?

To begin, what specifically does St James suggest? “If a brother or sister is poorly clothed and lacking in daily food, and one of you says to them, “Go in peace, be warmed and filled”, without giving them the things needed for the body, what good is that?” (Jas 2. 15, 16). Here St James suggests that our faith and deeds must connect, but to break that down a bit more, what is he saying? The faith is to be rooted in Christ’s teachings.

The fact that you would be concerned for a brother or sister who is lacking in basic necessities is related to the faith imparted by Christ. So it is not enough to have some kind of faith, it must be true faith, rooted in Christ’s teachings. Next, it is insufficient to simply teach or preach Christ’s teachings, they are to be lived out if they are to be truly taught.

The real key is not simply that something should happen based on our faith, but that part of that faith is doing something. If you truly believe in Christ Jesus then you will want to do these things. This is perhaps made clear further on in the chapter, where he writes, “You see that faith was active along with his works, and faith was completed by his works,” (Jas 2. 22). Here he introduces the discussion of Abraham and the sacrifice of Isaac to show the connection between Abraham’s faith in God and his willingness to act on that faith by sacrificing his son Isaac.

So to conclude, there are really three things being discussed here. Christ’s teachings, belief in them, and willingness to act upon them based on that faith.

How might this be seen to apply to the Church?

Christ’s teachings are simple enough. It is clear the Church cannot teach what is contrary to Christ. Article XX of the Thirty-Nine Articles of Religion says, “it is not lawful for the Church to ordain any thing that is contrary to God’s Word written, neither may it so expound one place of Scripture, that it be repugnant to another.” That is simple enough, until you realise that God’s Word written is not always clear.

Just as the term true faith was used previously to describe the type of faith which reflects the teachings of Christ and moves the individual to good works to live out that faith, so to must there be good doctrine.

Luckily, there is a way of deciding whether or not an interpretation of Scripture is good or not and that is to test it against the understanding of the Church Fathers. If you look back and since the patristic age it has been taught that a given verse means A and you suggest it means B, it is likely that your interpretation is somehow in error. While it is true that not all of the fathers were always correct—some fell into error quite often, St Augustine of Hippo even revised many of his early views as he matured in faith—the greater body of their work is an accepted standard by which Christians today can judge the interpretation of Scripture. The Creeds are another great example of something by which we can test interpretation of Scripture. For centuries, the Nicene Creed has been the sufficient Christian statement of faith accepted East and West. If a doctrine similarly runs counter to the Nicene Creed it is incorrect.

It is important to remember this grounding in Scripture. In modern times, arguments for innovation are often presented in the form of “I sense it is the movement of the Spirit that we do X.” This view seeks to ground doctrine not in God’s word, but in personal revelation. For those who have a background in some charismatic protestant denominations, this can actually be a common occurrence leading to discord within a local church community. When you claim authority directly from the Spirit, you are claiming it cannot be tested simply against Scripture because it is a new revelation.  However, Scripture itself points in some cases to this being untrue.

In St John’s Gospel, Christ offers a prayer for the Church: “And I am no longer in the world, but they are in the world, and I am coming to you. Holy Father, keep them in your name, which you have given me, that they may be one, even as we are one,” (St Jn 17. 11). This is Christ’s singular prayer, that the Church be one, be united. Also here, he reaffirms the previous teaching that he and the Father speak as one. It suggests that when the Holy Spirit comes, the helper Christ spoke of when he had just said:

When the Spirit of truth comes, he will guide you into all the truth, for he will not speak on his own authority, but whatever he hears he will speak, and he will declare to you the things that are to come. He will glorify me, for he will take what is mine and declare it to you. All that the Father has is mine; therefore I said that he will take what is mine and declare it to you. (St Jn 16. 13-15)

Here, Christ again says that there will be unity between what he has said and what the Spirit has said. Just as he says in Chapter 17 that he and the Father are one, here he had said that he and the Spirit are one. What the Spirit reveals will not contradict what Christ has taught. Similarly, Christ’s prayer was that the Church would be one, and if that is the case, God would not send the Holy Spirit to grant new revelation only to small subsets of Christians, but to all Christians.

So if doctrine is to be rooted in the teachings of Christ that is held in accord with orthodox faith and understanding of those teachings, what then is works? The work of the Church is found in the liturgy, which encourages and nurtures the body to do good works.

Doctrine of the Church ought to be reflected in the words said each week, and ought to inspire the people to fulfil those doctrines throughout the week. As St Teresa of Avila once said, “Christ has no body on earth but yours, no hands but yours, no feet but yours. Yours are the eyes through which Christ’s compassion is to look out; yours are the feet with which He is to go about doing good; and yours are the hands with which He is to bless us now.” The liturgy is when we gather each week to be nourished in God’s grace and then go forth to do what he teaches. To evangelize, to comfort the sick and afflicted and to care for the poor.

Doctrines of the Church, and our understanding of them, ought to be rooted in the same understanding of our personal faith that sees the need for true faith to give birth to good works. Perhaps the most important consideration here then becomes, if faith without works is dead, what might that imply for the Church if it strays from the model which St James provides with respect to true faith?