Sermon preached by the Rev’d Richard Lampert
The 14th Sunday after Pentecost
James 1.17-27
BE YE HEARERS AND DOERS OF THE WORD
Forty three years ago when I was first in seminary at The Episcopal Theological School in Cambridge, Mass. the biggest and loudest of all the ongoing debates [one of many] was whether one was supposed to be primarily A Hearer or A Doer of God’s Word. These two sides played out to their extreme with “The Liturgical Prayer Gang”[perhaps the hearers] on one side and “The Social Action/Missionary Clan”[they thought the doers] on the other. The entire community was pretty much split over the issue and there were tense battles and standoffs between the two rival groups.
In Biblical terms, of course this is the old struggle between Martha and Mary. To be fair, amidst it all there were a few courageous souls who valiently tried to straddle the “Episcopal mid-dle /The Via Media”. Twelve years ago when I went back to seminary the second time, at Virginia Theological Seminary in Alexandria, Va., to work on my D.Min., the old debate raged on. This time the battle seemed a little less contentious and somehow it all felt smoother perhaps thanks to a few solid swigs of Virginia Southern Comfort. The middle ranks also appeared to have grown. Or may-be it was more that by then my own perspective had changed over the years? I wondered?
Today’s Epistle talks about both hearing and doing the will of The Lord:
“But be doers of the word, and not hearers only, deceiving yourselves. For if any one is a hearer of the word and not a doer, he is like a man who observes his natural face in a mirror; for he observes himself and goes away and at once forgets what he is like. But he who looks into the perfect law, the law of liberty, and perseveres, being no hearer that forgets but rather a doer that acts, he shall be blessed in his doing.” James 1.22-25
In today’s lessons, James is emphatic that among the great obstacles to our faithfully hearing and doing The Word of God are our own destructive angers, the lack of physical and spiri-tual control in our lives and/or an unbridled tongue standing as the greatest barrier of all. This morning Isaiah proclaims a day when the deaf shall hear and and the mute shall sing for joy! In Mark’s Gospel, Jesus opens the deaf man’s ears and he is then able to speak!
Now I’m sure all of you, like me in my own personal Christian life, have fought the good fight and gone back and forth for many years between the importance of listening to and/or doing The Word of God. It is also true that over the years the balance between hearing and doing may change many times, but at all ages & in all times we are called to be both hearers and doers!
Rick Warren is very clear on this topic in his book, The Purpose Driven Church: “Somebody must boldly state the obvious: Prayer alone will not grow a church!” And I will add, neither will Good Works alone! In some parishes today you find Christians who assume total responsibility for any-thing and everything in their own lives and in the life of their church. Then, there are those who ab-dicate all initiative, responsibility and simply think it is their role to sit back on their haunches and wait and watch God do His own thing amongst them. Truth to tell: we need to do both!
There’s a new book out (now in our Gift Shop) entitled God Is Back (subtitle: How The Global Revival of Faith is Changing The World). The two authors are both Oxford educated. One is an Atheist and the other a Roman Catholic. It’s a book about worldwide cultural changes, politics and religion. An underlying theme is, “The battle for modernity and the story about how God has fought His way back into the modern world.” The book is not all easy going, but it is well worth the struggle and I think it connects with our struggle to be hearers and doers of God’s Word. I am told Fr. Fred “devoured” this book on his vacation so when Jay Crouse also gave it to me for my “recuperation time” after my oral surgery I thought I best read it. I want to share one quote from the introduction which I think is very relevant to our conversation this morning:
“The United States provides an even better case study of the revival of faith. For many Evangelicals (and Orthodox Christians- RBL) their faith has become a lifestyle coach. Far from looking backward, American Evangelicals claim they are ahead of the curve in grappling with the question of how you preserve virtue in a consumer society. How do you keep yourself on the straight and narrow when you are constantly beset by temptations? How do you raise your children in a world where an Abercrombie and Fitch clothing catalogue looks like something that ought to be kept on the top shelf? The answer, they argue, is simple: turn to the eternal truths captured in the Bible. For them, far from being a quant relic, religion is the only way that you can navigate the torrents of modernity (The floods of our lives). It is no accident that America’s best-selling religious book is called The Purpose Driven Life: What on Earth Am I here for?”
So here are the 3 Questions: How can we be hearers and doers of the Word? How can we navi-gate, “the torrents of modernity?” How can we survive, better override, the crises of the national church?
The 3 Answers: Stick to the basics of the faith! Be faithful hearers & doers of the Word! Keep on enduring to the end! I like this book! It feels a lot like much of our life at Redeemer!
Finally, in our tradition after a scripture reading the lector says, “The Word of the Lord.” and we respond, “Thanks be to God.” Some churches use the ending: “Hear what The Spirit is saying to the people of God!”
Next month, Fr. Rick and I will introduce a study on The Holy Spirit. In a basic sense this will be a course about trying to listen carefully to God and then with the help of His Spirit seeking to do what it is that He wants us to do. It will be a series of classes and times together with God and one another. It is designed to learn anew how to be faithful hearers and doers of His Word. Registrations will begin today in Gillespie Hall after each Mass!
You and I are called to be both hearers and doers of God’s word! We will not always hear and say or do in the exact same way, but rest assured God wants us all to listen and speak and act. So this morning let us pray together the words often said at the beginning of a sermon: “May the words of our mouths and the meditations of our hearts and the actions of our lives be always acceptable in Thy sight, O Lord, Our Strength and Our Redeemer!” AMEN!