Sermons from St Faith's
Does Religion 'Work'?
Fred Nye, September 9th, 2012
Does religion actually work? Believe it or not, a number of
experiments have been designed to test this question, going back as
far as 1872. Francis Galton, a Victorian scientist, thought that if
prayer was effective, members of the Royal Family should live
significantly longer than average, seeing that thousands of loyal
Anglicans prayed for their well-being at Matins and Evensong every
Sunday. Sadly, he found no evidence that this was so. Wikipedia
gives the results of 17 controlled clinical trials of prayer. They
even include a study of praying for patients after they had come out
of hospital, to see if prayer could speed their recovery even if
administered after the event. At best, the results of all of these
17 trials were inconclusive, and at least one of them was marred by
irregularities and probable fraud. So what about sermons? Do they
work? Do they help congregations to love Our Lord more dearly, or to
follow him more nearly? And how in any case could we measure these
desirable outcomes?
I doubt whether all of this would have worried the writer of today’s
epistle, even though it reads less like a letter, and more like a
little sermon. James isn’t much into spirituality, or deep theology;
he is much more concerned with how we should behave towards one
another. Traditionally St. James is believed to have been James, the
brother of Our Lord, and that he was writing only a decade or so
after the Resurrection. His letter is full of echoes of Jesus’
teaching, and you can feel the legacy of Our Lord’s love for human
beings, alive on every page.
This morning’s ‘homily’ from St. James is about the ministry of
welcome. He reminds us that our care for others should not be
influenced by their social status. We shouldn’t of course look
for exact parallels – a time traveller from James’ synagogue
visiting our church might reach the conclusion that the reserved
seat for the best dressed church member is up there by the altar!
What James is stressing in his letter is the Christian duty to love
our neighbour as ourselves, and to seek out as neighbour, not the
rich and influential, but the poor, the powerless, and the
overlooked. James is surely remembering the way in which Jesus
welcomed poor fishermen into his inner circle, how he welcomed tax
gatherers and sinners to his table, how he ministered to Samaritans
and Romans, to the sick and the deranged, how he gathered little
children into his arms to bless them.
The principle of giving welcome and hospitality, especially to the
stranger, goes back thousands of years, to Old Testament times and
beyond. In an interdependent nomadic culture it was in everybody’s
interest to avoid unnecessary misunderstanding and conflict.
Meeting, greeting, and getting to know your guests, and learning to
understand their intentions and motives, were invaluable in ensuring
a harmonious sharing of resources. And times were hard and
dangerous: a host’s concern for the safety and protection of
the traveller was important, because he himself might be the one in
need of shelter the next time round!
And there was always the possibility that your guest might be
someone really remarkable, whom it would be as well not to overlook.
I’m sure all of us have embarrassing stories to tell of how we have
totally misjudged someone on first impressions, of how we have
totally under-estimated them because of their age or colour, of how
they spoke or behaved, or how they were dressed. I remember going to
a lecture at the Liverpool Astronomical Society and coming
across someone I took, dismissively, to be just another new
member; an anorak clad Liverpudlian with an accent as thick as a
good dish of scouse. But during question time after the lecture, he
revealed a breathtaking depth of knowledge, way above my head: he
was of course, a first class academic astrophysicist!
The best Old Testament example of the hidden quality of strangers is
the story from Genesis of Abraham and the three travellers. In this
passage Abraham is visited by three unknown men. Sensing that,
despite appearances, there is something very special about them, he
gives them hospitality, washes their tired feet, and offers them
food, water and rest. In return they promise that his infertile wife
will conceive and give birth to a son. Had it not been for his
hospitality, Abraham would have remained childless. He would not
have become the father of a great nation, and the rest would not
have been history. As the writer of the epistle to the Hebrews put
it ‘Let brotherly love continue. Do not neglect to show hospitality
to strangers, for thereby some have entertained angels unawares’.
We are so often strangers to one another. If only we could always
meet and greet both those we think we know well, and those we may
not know at all, without preconceptions, or prejudices, or
favouritism, or misunderstandings. If only we could always offer
them the time and the confidence to share with us a little of their
needs, their feelings, their view of the world. If only we had the
humility to acknowledge that we can never ‘sum people up’, that the
depth and richness of the human personality is a constant surprise
and delight. If we did all of this, what would the world look like?
Would it, could it, begin to resemble the Kingdom of Heaven?
Perhaps what matters most in religion is not so much piety, or even
spirituality, but a deeply ingrained Christian hospitality and
generosity, and a highly valued Christian courtesy. I said just now
that James wasn’t much into theology, but that was misleading. At
the beginning of this morning’s reading he links Christian
behaviour very firmly with faith in the risen and glorified
Christ. If we are prepared to follow Our Lord, then all the fruits
of his spirit; the generosity, the kindness, the patience, the self
control, will be our harvest. And we all recognise and know members
of our Christian family who have these gifts in abundance: yes even
here, at St. Faith’s and St. Mary’s, we can entertain angels
unawares. Christians with these Christ-like graces are living proof
that our faith ‘works’. With angels like them among us, who needs
clinical trials?
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