A Lively Faith
(Is.50:4c-9a; Jam.2:14-18; Mk.8:27-35)
Have you ever tried to buy a drink from a vending machine, only to find the can empty?
Or bought another product at a supermarket, only to find the package contained nothing but air?
This is essentially what St James is talking about in our second reading today. He’s talking about people who claim to have faith, but never actually do anything about it. And he asks the question: is faith alone enough to get you into heaven? Or should that faith lead to good works of some kind?
There were huge arguments about this issue at the time of the Protestant Reformation. They called it Sola Fide (‘by faith alone’), and it’s no less relevant today because many people think of themselves as Christian – they might even go to church – but it has no practical effect on the way they live their lives.
Indeed, one man I knew used to loudly and publicly proclaim his Christian faith, while privately he was often callous, and sometimes even cruel, towards others. He thought that just believing in Jesus was enough to earn his salvation.
In 2014, Pope Francis said that understanding God’s commandments and church doctrine is useless if these truths aren’t put into practice. ‘A faith without bearing fruit in life, a faith that doesn’t bear fruit in works is not faith,’ he said.
‘You may know all the commandments, all the prophesies, all the truths of the faith, but if this isn’t put into practice, if it’s not translated into works, it serves nothing.’
As St James says, even the demons know the Creed, but that doesn’t mean they have true faith.
‘Having faith isn’t having knowledge,’ the pope said. Rather, it’s ‘receiving God’s message’ as brought by Christ. For ‘Faith is an encounter with Jesus Christ, with God,’ and it always leads to action of some kind. [i]
In 2008, Pope Benedict XVI described faith as ‘looking at Christ, entrusting oneself to Christ, being united to Christ, conformed to Christ, to his life. And the form, the life of Christ, is love; hence to believe is to conform to Christ and to enter into his love.’ [ii]
True faith, therefore, can never be static, because real love (which is the Spirit of God Himself) is never static. It’s meant to keep flowing, nourishing all around.
Richard Leonard puts it this way: ‘Christian Witness has two component parts, one much more important than the other: what we say and what we do.
‘For all the complexities of philosophy and theology, the Christian message is quite simple: to be a follower of Jesus, we have to love God, love our neighbour, and love ourselves.’ [iii]
Our faith, then, is not something that can be confined to our heads, for love is not just a theory or an idea. Love is a verb, an action that is born of life and that leads to life.
Our Christian faith stems from and is directed towards Jesus who is love itself. Its rightful home is deep in our hearts, and our response must always be an active, lively faith.
As St James says, ‘For just as the body without the spirit is dead, so also faith without works is dead’ (Jas.2:26).
Let’s close with some wisdom from Peter Kreeft, who says that the life of faith is a river that must keep flowing.
‘We are meant to be like the Sea of Galilee, not the Dead Sea,’ he says.
‘The same water, the Jordan River, flows into the Sea of Galilee and the Dead Sea. But the Sea of Galilee is still alive with fish and fishermen today, two thousand years after Jesus was there, while the Dead Sea lives up to its name: it’s dead; no fish can live in it.
‘Why? It’s because the Sea of Galilee not only receives the fresh water of the Jordan River at its inlet, but it also gives it away at its outlet, where it flows south to the Dead Sea. The Dead Sea has an inlet and no outlet (because it’s at the lowest point on earth). That’s why its waters are dead.
‘That’s true of souls as well as rivers.
‘And that’s the difference between spiritual life and spiritual death.’ [iv]
[i] https://www.ncronline.org/blogs/francis-chronicles/pope-professing-faith-without-good-works-just-spouting-hot-air
[ii] https://www.vatican.va/content/benedict-xvi/en/audiences/2008/documents/hf_ben-xvi_aud_20081119.html
[iii] Richard Leonard, What Does it all Mean? Paulist Press, Mahwah NJ, 2017:184.
[iv] Peter Kreeft, Food for the Soul – Year B, Word on Fire, Elk Grove Village IL, 2023:685.