Week 5 – Tuesday 5 April

“What good is it, my brothers and sisters, if you say you have faith but do not have works? Can faith save you? If a brother or sister is naked and lacks daily food, and one of you says to them, ‘Go in peace; keep warm and eat your fill’, and yet you do not supply their bodily needs, what is the good of that? So faith by itself, if it has no works, is dead.”

Reading

James 2.1-17

Warning against Partiality

My brothers and sisters, do you with your acts of favouritism really believe in our glorious Lord Jesus Christ? For if a person with gold rings and in fine clothes comes into your assembly, and if a poor person in dirty clothes also comes in, and if you take notice of the one wearing the fine clothes and say, ‘Have a seat here, please’, while to the one who is poor you say, ‘Stand there’, or, ‘Sit at my feet’, have you not made distinctions among yourselves, and become judges with evil thoughts? Listen, my beloved brothers and sisters. Has not God chosen the poor in the world to be rich in faith and to be heirs of the kingdom that he has promised to those who love him? But you have dishonoured the poor. Is it not the rich who oppress you? Is it not they who drag you into court? Is it not they who blaspheme the excellent name that was invoked over you?

You do well if you really fulfil the royal law according to the scripture, ‘You shall love your neighbour as yourself.’ But if you show partiality, you commit sin and are convicted by the law as transgressors. For whoever keeps the whole law but fails in one point has become accountable for all of it. For the one who said, ‘You shall not commit adultery’, also said, ‘You shall not murder.’ Now if you do not commit adultery but if you murder, you have become a transgressor of the law. So speak and so act as those who are to be judged by the law of liberty. For judgement will be without mercy to anyone who has shown no mercy; mercy triumphs over judgement.

Faith without Works Is Dead

What good is it, my brothers and sisters, if you say you have faith but do not have works? Can faith save you? If a brother or sister is naked and lacks daily food, and one of you says to them, ‘Go in peace; keep warm and eat your fill’, and yet you do not supply their bodily needs, what is the good of that? So faith by itself, if it has no works, is dead.

Reflection

The most obvious thing about Holy Communion – yet perhaps something we rarely reflect on – is how physical it is. It invites us to partake in bread and wine. Both are symbols of life – bread as a staple, wine as safe hydration in places with poor sanitation. Their absence is almost always a sign of inequality, and hoarding them forms the beginning of injustice. To have bread and wine at the centre of worship proclaims that bodies matter, and feeding bodies matters. We cannot be a just or holy community unless we examine what we do with our material resources, and how this affects those around us.

In addition, Communion requires us to share bread and wine: justice can never be served in isolation, it is always relational. In Communion, we respond to the call of equality and justice in our practical, economic relationships. The question is, how is that reflected beyond our worship?

Prayer

Righteous God, we pray that every time we eat this bread and drink this cup, we would commit ourselves to your vision of justice and care for all humanity. Amen.

Today’s family challenge

Find out what your church (or your school) does to help those in need

Could you do or give something to help as a family or as a class?