Sermon

In Search of Church 6: Tenda, Tendo

James 1:17-27

18^th February, 2007

Will Campbell is a well known preacher who was once theologian in residence at Duke University Chapel. It was his last Sunday, and his duty to preach. And even though an ice storm had swept the countryside the night before, the chapel was packed. When it came time for the sermon, he stepped to the pulpit and said, “Had an ice storm last night. Lots of trees are down. Lots of poor people in this town. Electricity is off, they got no heat. I got my pickup outside, my chain-saw and my wood axe. I'm going out to cut some firewood from those trees to help those poor people. Who's going with me?”

The chapel was silent as he strolled out of that great pulpit, clonked down the long aisle, and the big doors clanked shut, leaving the people to face themselves before God.

Well I was tempted to do the same thing this morning. I thought about stepping to the pulpit and reading our text from the book of James:

Be doers of the word, and not merely hearers!

And then just walking out the door. But that's been done.

Still, this is one of those scriptures which needs no explaining and just gets obfuscated by a lot of "sermonizing." In fact, it's so clear it hurts, and we naturally want to dodge what it tells us about ourselves. That's why the full verse says, "Be doers of the word, and not merely hearers who deceive themselves!"

We are exceptionally gifted at deceiving ourselves about our spirituality. We sit in worship and hear music that moves us, maybe a sermon that inspires us, we pray fervently, we feel guilty and sorry for our sins or exalted and beloved of God, and then we go home thinking we've been religious. But we are deceiving ourselves; we haven't been religious. We follow most of the rules of Christian moral conduct and we look down on those who aren't as good and disciplined as we are or as tolerant and accepting as we are, then we go home thinking you've been religious. But we are deceiving ourselves; we haven't been religious. We sit in a committee or board meeting, make plans for what the church might do to grow its ranks, improve its building, or make the experience better for its members and then we go home thinking you've been religious. But we are deceiving ourselves; we haven't been religious.

As important as all those things may be, they are only preparation and not completion. True religion is not in the talking. True religion is not in the feeling. True religion is not in the planning. True religion is not in the not doing. True religion is in the doing! And if we think we are serving God and being spiritual just by showing up at church and talking and attending meetings and feeling strongly about great ideas and not being mean to the people around us, we are fooling ourselves. "Religion that is pure and undefiled before God, the Father, is this:" says James, "to care for orphans and widows in their distress, and to keep oneself unstained by the world" (James 1:27). Being nice is only half the equation, and it doesn't even come first. True religion is in the doing.

This past week I had the privilege of taking our CGIT girls to Moncton for a leadership event put on by World Vision Canada. Their work in raising money to buy a stable for a third world family was noticed and they had been personally invited. Overall the event was excellent, but one thing stood out for me. There were three visitors from Tanzania present who told the tale of the good work World Vision was doing in their village. One young man was asked to speak a few words in his Swahili, his native language. He thought for a moment and then said, “Tenda, tendo.” He repeated it again, “Tenda, tendo.” Then said, “Do you know what that means? It means do action.”

Those two words have been echoing around my mind all week. Tendo, Tenda. Do action. That's what church is for. Church is really a verb not a noun. We are to do action.

James says the same thing. He said that true faith is active in works of love for the orphans, widows and the needy. He says of these works of love, “Now this is true religion.” The word religion, by the way, does not refer to faith or creed. It refers to worship. The Greek word is liturgy. Liturgy literally means the way we worship God. So James is really saying, “Care of the poor, the underprivileged, the forgotten, the sick and the elderly, this is true worship.” Not that you go to church each Sunday morning at 10:30 and bow your head reverently in the appropriate place, or nod knowingly during the sermon, or bellow out the hymns or smile benignly at a newcomer or stranger. None of this is true worship. True liturgy, true worship is this; that we care for others in their suffering. That is the true worship of God. That is the real thing. Tendo, tenda. Do action.

It is interesting to note why James had to say this in the first place. Apparently, there were many wealthy people in his church and this was not a blessing but a problem. In this short book called James, there are five paragraphs that cast these rich believers in entirely negative light. Many of these wealthy members wanted just to believe. They do not want to go and get their hands dirty doing good deeds for the poor. Pound for pound, page for page, paragraph for paragraph there are more statements against wealthy church goers in this little book than any other place in the bible. You see, these wealthy Christians wanted to believe, wanted to say, “Jesus I love you. Jesus I like going to church. Jesus I love the music, the fellowship in the church. I love seeing the children. I love the stained glass windows. I love seeing all my friends. I love how this all makes me feel. I feel good, I feel refreshed. This is true religion and true liturgy for me, to worship you with all my friends. But James would have none of that. As long as there were poor left unfed; as long as there were widows left unprovided for then the happy Christian folk in his church did not have true liturgy. They did not have true worship and they did not have the real thing.

Compared to rest of the world we are a wealthy congregation. Does anyone disagree? Trinity United Church is a wealthy church. We have more people here on Sunday morning than any other United Church in the Maritimes. We have a large and vibrant Sunday School. We have abundant investments at our disposal. We have wonderful facilities. Indeed today we may decided to enlarge and expand our building. We are blessed in a way many other churches are not. But do we have true worship? Are we doing action?

Sunday morning worship. Seniors dinners. Choir practice. Bible studies. Committee meetings. Fellowship groups. They are all good and important and I am glad you come to these. But you also need to visit the shut ins; work at the soup kitchen, tutor a child, sit with someone who is dying. You need to expect your staff to train, equip and encourage you to minister in this community in the name of Christ, not do ministry for you. Of course you also have a right to expect your staff to be modeling a ministry that acts. Point is, you can be a great church member without ever being religious at all! But your spiritual life is incomplete if all you ever do is take care of yourself and the people you love. As Jesus said, "Big deal! Everybody does that!" James is even blunter and says if you are all talk and no action, you aren't religious, you're a fool!

How easily we "religious" folk turn away from true religion and make it all a matter of appearance and show. Externally we appear righteous and good; inside we are full of - ourselves. But Jesus said it isn't about appearance, it's about authenticity, about living inside out, acting from our hearts. That means letting God change our hearts to the good, and then living by the love of God, which comes from deep inside and leads us to acts of charity and sacrifice and compassion and justice. Grace means forgiveness for the evil we do, for the evil that lies within our hearts. But it also means a change of heart which will lead to a change of behavior, and a different way of being in the world. And if we aren't living by that grace and calling, if our religion doesn't make a difference in our relationships, if we aren't working to make this world a good place for all God's children, we aren't really religious, no matter what we think. Why does the world think we're all hypocrites, and lump us all together as if we weren't any different from those mean-spirited attack Christians or those muddle-headed feel-good gurus? Maybe it's because, like them, we talk too much and do too little.

My friends,

Be doers of the word, and not merely hearers!

Tenda, Tendo. Do action!