Saint Margaret’s

Anglican Church

Budapest, Hungary

Deuteronomy 4:1-2, 6-9; Psalm 45; James 1:17-27;

Mark 7:1-8, 14-15, 21-23

Every generous act of giving with every perfect gift is

from above, coming down from the Father of lights…

Martin Luther, the great German Reformation Leader of the sixteenth century, did

not much care for the Letter of James, from which our second Reading this morning

is taken. In fact, in one of his commentaries on the New Testament, written as

early in his career as 1522, Luther famously calls this Letter an “epistle of straw,” an

epithet which has stuck and is still sometimes heard in theological and bible-study

circles. What Luther did not like about this biblical text is probably a bit more

difficult to say. Scholars have generally assumed that, since the Letter of James

emphasises the importance of doing good works, it did not fit in with Luther’s own

theological stress upon faith alone as the path to salvation.

Luther later clarified that he was not questioning the place of this book in

Scripture; only that he did not think it had quite the same impact or significance as

other works of the New Testament, such as the Gospels and certain Letters of Paul.

It was rather, in this sense, of secondary importance in his opinion. It was, after all,

as Luther correctly pointed out, not so much a Letter at all, much less a theological

treatise, but more of a homily or sermon. You will not find in the Letter of James for

instance any of the profound insights of, say, Paul’s Letter to the Romans, no

commentary on the meaning of our Lord’s Incarnation or of the centrality of the

Cross in our redemption.

In fact, in the five chapters which constitute the entire Letter of James, Christ is

mentioned only twice, and in both instances pretty much in passing. Remove

those two verses, and what you have left is seemingly just good solid advice for

living a good life, no matter what your religious tradition; advice such as “care for

orphans and widows in their distress,” as we see in our passage this morning. Or

“be quick to listen; slow to speak.” What person of good will can argue with that…?

Call it common sense theology.

Still, I personally think Luther may have got it wrong in calling the Letter of James

an epistle of straw. But please do not tell our Lutheran friends whose building this

is; upon whose “generous act of giving” we rely Sunday after Sunday. Now,

admittedly we do not know much about the background of this book of the New

Testament, the Letter of James. The scholars are uncertain about who exactlywrote it and when; about the intended audience; and even its original purpose. But

the insight of the Letter is as profound as can be found anywhere in Scripture; and I

think the key to understanding the entire work is found in our passage this morning;

in two short verses it would be easy to overlook or even misunderstand.

“Every generous act of giving with every perfect gift is from above,” writes the

author of the Letter of James, “Every generous act of giving with every perfect gift is

from above coming down from the Father of lights…

” In other words, every impulse

of ours to do good, “every generous act of giving,” is not ours alone, or even at all.

What good we do is but a reflection of the good God is; it comes from “the father of

light.” It is, in other words, much more than common sense; much more than, say,

“do unto others.” When we do good, when we engage in good works, whatever they

may be, helping orphans and widows for instance, we ourselves are being godlike.

We are acting upon the original “generous act of giving” which is creation itself.

Doing good becomes then a profound act of faith as well, an acknowledgement of

just who and what God is.

And, while we as creatures may change in the reflected and alas too often refracted

light of God’s love and creative impulse within us, God does not change. “There is

no variation or shadow due to change, ” the Letter tells us plainly of God’s nature.

So, what we do here on earth, any good deed, no matter how small, has its genesis

in the eternal and ineffable, in the divine. We are “a kind of first fruits of his

creatures,” as James puts it, a metaphor we find elsewhere in Scripture as well, one

meaning in essence that in doing any good thing, in changing this world of constant

flux and variation for the better to any degree for any instant, we are instruments of

the unchangeable, of “the word of truth,

” which does not change.

And so, we must “welcome with meekness the implanted word that has the power

to save,” James tells us, about as Christ-centered an invitation or welcome to the

Christian life we will find anywhere. This Letter, or sermon if you prefer, rather than

being a sort of platitudinous homiletic exhortation to be nice and play well with

others, is in fact a reflection of powerful theological insight. Our Christian life,

indeed, any life lived for others, is not a life of our own making. It is rather a life

lived in the life and love of God and is therefore sacred. And the “perfect gift” of

God bestowed upon each of us has nothing to do with material wealth and

everything to do with the fruits of our faith; has everything to do with faith.

And even Luther, I think, would like that at least. In fact, Martin Luther curiously

had a lifelong obsession, a lifelong love-hate relationship, with this one book of

Scripture, the Letter of James. He kept coming back to it in his writings year after

year, trying to make sense of it. Some days Luther actually praised it; other days he

was ready, he wrote, to throw it into the fire like so much, well, straw. That he never

did so, that he continued to turn to it, as Christians still do today, is a testament

not only to Luther and his faith but to the words and wisdom and truth of the Letter

of James itself, a Letter which is indeed a “perfect gift” from God.

Amen.The Revd Canon Dr Frank Hegedűs