24th Sunday in Ordinary Time (Year B)
James 2:14-18
Take the case, my brothers, of someone who has never done a single good act but claims that he has faith. Will that faith save him? If one of the brothers or one of the sisters is in need of clothes and has not enough food to live on, and one of you says to them, ‘I wish you well; keep yourself warm and eat plenty’, without giving them these bare necessities of life, then what good is that? Faith is like that: if good works do not go with it, it is quite dead.
This is the way to talk to people of that kind: ‘You say you have faith and I have good deeds; I will prove to you that I have faith by showing you my good deeds – now you prove to me that you have faith without any good deeds to show.
There is a lot said – and much ink, and indeed blood, spilled – over the role of ‘Good Works’ in salvation. Many of our Protestant brothers and sisters proclaim that we are saved by ‘Faith Alone’ (or sola fide). The Church has always taught that Faith is necassary for salvation – we cannot simply ‘buy our way’ into heaven if we deny Christ as Lord.
So why, then, are good works necassary? If We believe Christ is Lord, and he died for us as the climax of God’s Plan for Salvation – how can what we do change that? Well, we can’t. The Church doesn’t think that we will somehow change God’s mind – but we must listen to the line at the heart of this Sunday’s 2nd Reading: Faith is like that: if good works do not go with it, it is quite dead.
It is easy for us to say that we believe Jesus is God and we have faith in Him. That is easy – but if we really believe that that is true then it follows that we would do as he commands us. We cannot as Christians of ‘Faith’ look at an injustice and walk on by – otherwise the priest in the parable would be held in as high esteem as the titular Samaritan.. We would feed the hungry and clothe the naked whenever the oppurtunity presented itself. But as James writes: If one of the brothers or one of the sisters is in need of clothes and has not enough food to live on, and one of you says to them, ‘I wish you well; keep yourself warm and eat plenty’, without giving them these bare necessities of life, then what good is that?
To think of ‘Faith’ v ‘Good Works’ is to create a false division – both work to support each other. Our Faith in Jesus (which saves us) should lead us to act in accordance with His commandements; and they way we act we demonstrate out love of Christ, leads us to develop our personal relationship to him. it is easy to talk the talk, but putting the theory into practice is another thin entitrely: I will prove to you that I have faith by showing you my good deeds – now you prove to me that you have faith without any good deeds to show.
If you want to read more on this topic – then a good place to start would be Pope Franci’s recent Papal Encyclical ‘Fratelli Tutti’, which you can access here or access the PDF of here.
