Articles - From the Vicar

Last month I was approached by a friend, who is unconnected with the life of St. Edmund's, with a request. The background to this request was my friend's relationship with a business acquaintance who was an active member of his local Christian community but whose faith commitment did not seem to connect in a consistent way with his business practices. My friend asked me if I could identify some passages from the Bible that might enable him to provide a challenge to his business acquaintance's unwillingness to integrate his faith and his working life. I was happy to do what I could to help.

My friend, although well-disposed to Christianity, is not actively involved in church life. It seemed to me, though, that he had identified an issue of crucial importance for Christians of which we frequently lose sight: our faith has no meaning unless it is rooted in a commitment to practise what we preach. The Letter of James puts it very succinctly: So then, as the body without the spirit is dead, so also faith without action is dead (James 2.26). Another way of expressing this is to say that Christianity should be thought of as a verb rather than a noun: it's something that we do.

The Letter of James teaches us that we cannot separate faith from action. Nor, I believe, can we grow in our faith unless we are committed to measuring all our actions against the exacting standards of the Gospel. Those standards are quite clearly set out for us in Matthew's stern account of the Last Judgement (Matthew 25.31-44). The hungry, the thirsty, the strangers, the naked, the sick and the imprisoned: all these people - and others in need - are our concern and we cannot count ourselves worthy of our calling as Christians unless we show our concern in practical action. All those who claim to be disciples of Christ need to have in mind the words of St. Francis to his followers, quoted by the Archbishop of York when he preached at our centenary Eucharist: Preach the Gospel at all times and when necessary use words.

© St Edmund's Church, Roundhay