“For I was hungry and you gave me something to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you invited me in, I needed clothes and you clothed me, I was sick and you looked after me, I was in prison and you visited me.”
Such familiar words, hey? Maybe they offer you a sense of comfort, maybe they give you a sense of purpose, maybe they elicit a wee bit of good ol’ protestant guilt. But how many of you are unsettled by them? Unsettled? You see, Jesus isn’t talking about what people believed or how they professed their theological opinions or even how often folk showed up for worship at the temple. He very simply points out to the listeners what these people did.
They fed
They welcomed
They visited
They showed up
Yeah, yeah, yeah… there’s nothing really unsettling about that. That’s what good people of faith do, right? But here’s the kicker in all of this – in this midst of the praise, these folk are genuinely surprised – when did we see you hungry, thirsty, a stranger, sick, in prison? These folk, the ones who Jesus was lifting up as example, had simply gone about living their faith – not performing it – living it in the best way they knew how. They reached out to help without seeking acknowledgement or praise. It was simply something they did.
This is what James is trying to get at in the second passage we heard this morning. It’s important to know that James doesn’t really mince words – he is blunt and a little abrasive, but he certainly gets his point across. He asks point blank: What good is it, my siblings, if you say you have faith but do not have works? Faith by itself, if it has no works, is dead.”
James really isn’t trying to shame anyone here in saying this. In reality he’s asking a very practical question: What does faith look like once it leaves our mouths and enters the world?
Here are Westworth, we offer one answer to James’ question in our values:
We reach out – by actively offering our time, talents and resource; advocating for social justice and ecological justice; demonstrating compassion and living our commitment to service in all our relationships. This isn’t about being busy for busy’s sake. It’s about alignment. It’s about whether the faith we profess shapes the way we live.
When we talk about reaching out, we are not focused solely on charity. We look at underlying issues of systemic justice, relationships and solidarity with those we serve. We don’t only reach out to make ourselves feel better, to get that little endorphin rush when we’ve done something good – it’s deeper than that. It’s about recognizing that each person we cross paths with, each living creature we share community with, is one of God’s beloved.
Worship and service must be one. Jesus doesn’t separate it – he doesn’t say “you loved me in prayer but managed to ignore me in the world.” When he is lifting up those who fed and clothed the other, he emphasizes the fact that these folk encountered him in the world without realizing it. They encountered Jesus in the world without realizing it… and they are surprised by Jesus’ comment. They didn’t know that Christ was in the hungry, the thirsty, the stranger, the sick, the prisoner. They didn’t know that they were serving Christ, literally. Each person that they reached out to embodied the Spirit of Christ, and so served Christ as they served these people.
Which means that reaching out is one of the ways we encounter Christ in the world. Not in flashy, transfiguration moments, but in the ordinary humans, who may be struggling, Years ago, Rev. Saunders named this clearly when he wrote that being a Christian congregation means valuing the spiritual dimension in all our relationships – not just those within the church but those beyond it as well. Faith doesn’t start and stop at the sanctuary doors – it goes out into the world with you.
Reaching out doesn’t always have be dramatic and coordinated. Often it looks like offering what we already have – time, skills, listening ears, financial resources, presence. It might look like tidying up the narthex, or serving coffee after service, or attending a SAEJ meeting. It could be greeting new folks, volunteering at an event….
Sometimes it’s a bit more organized – through sub sandwiches for West Broadway, turkeys for Rossbrook house, ministry connections in Cuba, refugee sponsorships for folks from Vietnam, Syria and other places, earth day workshops, helping to make a residential school memorial a reality… partnerships, advocacy and service. And sometimes outreach is quieter – how we meet the renters that use our space, how we respond to our neighbours, how we show up for one another in good times and in bad, in phone calls, in soup and casseroles, in cups of tea.
James reminds us that good intentions, without action don’t do much good to someone who is cold or hungry… “if one of you says to them: “Go in peace; keep warm and well fed,” but does nothing about their physical needs, what good is it?” Compassion has to take shape, it has to be embodied and that embodiment will look different for each of us. Everyone can’t do everything but everyone can do something.
Reaching out means paying attention to and learning about the systems of the world – not just the symptoms. Westworth has long held that social and ecological justice seeking are not distractions from the gospel – they are expressions of it. If we simply feed the hungry without drawing attention to the broken systems that keep people hungry, our work is incomplete. If we care for creation in word but not action, we are out of alignment with our values.
Will we always agree on what the best path forward is for any of these issues? No. But it does mean that we refuse to separate our faith from the real conditions of our neighbours lives and the wellbeing of the planet we share.
Then we come to the very last line of our statement: living our commitment to service in all our relationships.” This means our commitment isn’t just for the organized, official, visible relationships… it is for all the relationships we hold. It’s manifest in how we listen, how we speak, when we speak, how we disagree, how we forgive. Reaching out, just like inclusion, gratitude, welcome – it is more than just something we DO, it is something we practice. And we won’t get it right all the time. Rev. Saunders wrote honestly about how the church tries hard – and sometimes succeeds and sometimes doesn’t. Honesty matters. This isn’t about perfection but intention, along with humility and a willingness to adapt and learn.
So where does that leave us? As Matthew tells us Christ is already present in the world, waiting to be encountered. James reminds us that faith shows its self in the way we live our lives. And our values remind us that reaching out is central to who we are. The question is not WHETHER we reach out – but HOW, and WHERE< and WITH WHAT SPIRIT.
As we remember where we have been, and as we look forward to where we are going, there are a few questions to keep at heart:
Are we attentive to the needs around us?
Are we offering what we can?
Are we willing to be changed by the encounters we have?
Reaching out in compassionate response to a need finds us participating in the reign of God in our time and place. This is the kind of community I believe you aim to be. A church whose faith shows up, by reaching out not to save but to serve, not to impress but to love. A church that offers what we have, advocating where we can all the while living our commitment to service in all our relationships. And trusting that when we do, we encounter Jesus who is out there, waiting for us. May it be so. Amen.
