September 29, 2024 – Nineteenth Sunday after Pentecost

Esther 7.1-10

James 2.14-26

A Faith That Works

Nineteenth Sunday after Pentecost

Who knew the Universe had a sense of humor?  Last week when we were talking about Huckleberry Finn and Banned Books Week, I mentioned in passing that German Reformer Martin Luther had some ideas about banning books, specifically two books in the Bible he did not think belonged.  Luther felt we could do without the Old Testament book of Esther and the New Testament letter of James.  His complaint about Esther is that God never makes an appearance, either directly or by inference, so why is it even there, right?  (And actually the same thing is true about the Song of Songs, or Song of Solomon, which also never mentions God.)  Luther’s argument with James is different:  one of the primary themes of the Protestant Reformation was the means of salvation:  are we saved by our faith, the content of our belief, or are we saved by our works, those things we do for others, motivated by our faith?  Most Reformers, Luther included, sided with salvation by faith alone, sola fidei.  The letter of James is all about works, and Luther would have none of it.

So I thought I was done talking about banned books last week.  But, Who knew the Universe had such a finely-tuned sense of humor?  Because when I turned to the lectionary this week, that list of suggested Bible readings for Sunday preaching, guess which two Bible books are right there at the top of the list?  That’s right, the Old Testament book of Esther and the New Testament letter of James, Martin Luther’s two banned books of the Bible.  Now as most of you know, I don’t often use the lectionary for a variety of reasons, but it felt this week as though someone or something was throwing down a challenge.  Call it the Universe, call it fate, or call it God gently chiding me for giving those two books such short shrift last week, but it was almost as though the Almighty were saying, Look Froggatt, if you can find a sermon in Mark Twain’s Huckleberry Finn, you can certainly find one in these two neglected step-cousins of the scriptures.  Challenge accepted.

A few years ago, I dedicated an entire sermon to the story of Esther, which is why I only traced its outlines today.  And Luther is correct, God never receives even so much as an honorable mention in Esther’s story.  It is all about politics:  about kings and prime ministers and about palace intrigue and an attempted royal coup, and as it is Esther stands as a wonderful story all by itself.  Sidnie White Crawford, a contemporary Old Testament scholar, says this about the book:

“The Hebrew book of Esther is an exciting, fast-paced story that has captured the imagination of Jews over the centuries.  It contains all the elements of a popular romance novel:  a young and beautiful heroine; a wicked, scheming villain; a wise old father figure; and an inept and laughable ruler.  In the story, good triumphs, evil is destroyed, and all ends happily.  Beneath its lighthearted surface however, the book of Esther reveals darker themes:  racial hatred, the threat of genocide, and the evil of overweening pride and vanity.”

Probably the best known passage in the book is when Esther’s uncle Mordecai reveals Haman’s evil plan to her, knowing that as Queen she is the only hope of warning the king of the plot against the Jews.  Mordecai confronted her by saying, “If you keep silence at such a time as this, relief and deliverance will rise from another quarter, but you and your father’s family will perish.  Who knows?  Perhaps you have come to royal dignity for just such a time as this.”  Perhaps you have come to royal dignity for just such a time as this.  It was a pivotal moment in Esther’s life, in Mordecai’s life, in the king’s life, an indeed in the lives of every Jew in the kingdom.  Perhaps you were placed here for just this reason and just this moment, her uncle implores her, which, by the way, is the only hint or whiff of providence in the entire story.  At this point, it has little to do with anyone’s faith or who believes what besides a fundamental sense of right and wrong.  What really matters is that Esther acts.  It all depends on what she does, not on what she believes.  And as we heard this morning, Esther’s decisive act rallied the king, saved the Jews from annihilation, and brought Haman to justice.  “So they hanged Haman on the very gallows that he had prepared for Mordecai.”  It is a satisfying end to a well-told story.  And I think you’ll agree with me, it has a firm and lasting place in the Hebrew scriptures.

Tradition has it that the writer of James’ letter was James the brother of Jesus.  He was the leader of the church in Jerusalem.  But it was also common practice for writers to attribute their own work to well-known leaders of the church, so it could simply be a pseudonym or nom de plume for someone else.  But the letter was considered accepted scripture as early as the third century CE, and I think part of the reason is because it is such a practical counterweight to the denser and more theological letters of the New Testament, particularly some of Pual’s writings.

We heard James’ major theme several times in the passage Deb read this morning.  “What good is it, my brothers and sisters, if you say you have faith but do not have works?…  Faith, by itself, if it has no works, is [a] dead [faith]… Just as the body without the spirit is dead, so faith without works is dead.”  You can’t get much more straightforward than this, right?  Repeatedly James makes the the point in words everybody can understand.  But Luther’s problem with James is that his words appear to fly in the face of Paul’s letters, particularly Ephesians where the apostle wrote, “By grace you have been saved, through faith, and this is not of your own doing; it is the gift of God – not the result of works, so that no one may boast.”  This verse became a fulcrum for the Protestant Reformation, so we can understand Luther’s objections.

But in reality, this is not an either/or, a push and pull between Paul and James, but rather a both/and.  James himself demonstrated this when he wrote, “Show me your faith without works, and I by my works will show you my faith.”

I think this is where Luther was mistaken, at least to the extent where he seemed to think it could only be one or the other.  Our faith can be expressed by what we do, and our works can be rooted in our faith.  In fact I would argue, and I imagine that most if not all of you believe as well, that it takes both.  Sometimes our faith carries us through the difficult places in life, and sometimes our works bring us such gratification that our faith becomes stronger.  We have every reason to believe Esther was a faithful Jewish woman, there is no evidence to believe otherwise, but it was the fact that she seized the moment, that she acted decisively at a critical time, that saved the Jews from Haman’s planned genocide.  For this alone, her story deserves to be told and retold.  You and I know a lot of folks who make a real difference in our world, in our community, and likely even on a personal level, in our lives, who know how to do the right thing regardless of what their faith looks like.  If someone wants to welcome me, or feed me, or save my life, I’m not going to ask them to recite the Apostle’s Creed first to make certain their motivations are orthodox and pure.  On the contrary, I am going to see the God in them even if they do not see it in themesleves.

I admit, there are times when even all the faith in the world leaves me stymied about what works may faith is calling me to do.  How many of watched the devastation wrought by Hurricane Helene this week, how many of us read about the missiles flying in Israel and Palestine and Lebanon, how many of us have watched a loved one slowly decline from an inoperable cancer, how many of us have felt powerless in the face of disaster and war and disease, and wondered what in the world we could possibly do?  What is our work then?  What can we do right now?

James has an answer.  After spending most of his letter reminding us of the importance of putting our faith to work, James concludes his letter with the most powerful act available to the person of faith.  And this work is, very simply, prayer.  Not simplistically, but simply.  “The prayer of the righteous is powerful and effective” he writes.  “Are any of you suffering?  Pray.  Are any of you cheerful?  Pray.  Are any of you sick?  Pray.  Pray for one another.”  Pray for the victims of Hurricane Helene.  Pray for peace in the Middle East.  Pray for healing even when all else fails.  Pray for peace within ourselves, and among ourselves, our neighbors and our family.  Because prayer is work, James insists.  Prayer is good work.  Prayer is effective work.  Prayer is salvific work.  The prayer of faith will save you, and will raise you up, and all who have sinned will be forgiven.

There is so much we can do.  Esther did that one big thing that saved an entire nation.  But it isn’t often we get the chance to be nation-savers or world-savers, except of course in the voting booth.  As James wrote, it is also about all those little things we can do that make a lasting mark.  As Mordecai said to his niece Esther, “Who knows, perhaps you have been placed here for just such a time as this.”  Which means I think the examples of both Esther and James remind us that at the end of the day, a faith that works is a faith that works.