Yours: faith & works, and guitars

“Dear friends, do you think you’ll get anywhere in this if you learn all the right words but never do anything? Does merely talking about faith indicate that a person really has it? For instance, you come upon an old friend dressed in rags and half-starved and say, “Good morning, friend! Be clothed in Christ! Be filled with the Holy Spirit!” and walk off without providing so much as a coat or a cup of soup—where does that get you? Isn’t it obvious that God-talk without God-acts is outrageous nonsense?
I can already hear one of you agreeing by saying, “Sounds good. You take care of the faith department, I’ll handle the works department.” Not so fast. You can no more show me your works apart from your faith than I can show you my faith apart from my works. Faith and works, works and faith, fit together hand in glove.”
‭‭James‬ ‭2:14-18‬ ‭MSG‬‬

At the end of November, in Village Kids, we packed bags of food for the local schools to send home with their students who don’t always have enough to eat. We were talking about how Jesus is the Bread of Life, and I asked Mary Carla, “what’s that verse that says something like, ‘it’s not ok to just say “thoughts and prayers!” you have to do something about it.’?” She didn’t know, or at least, she didn’t recognize the bad NIV translation (Nate’s In-the-ballpark Version), and I couldn’t find it either. A couple days later, I got the email asking me to write a devotional on James 2:14-18. Ain’t that just like the Lord.

A while back, I looked up the Latin translation for faith (you know, like you do) and noticed something interesting. Fides, the nominative case of “faith”, can also be translated “lyre, harp, or guitar.” I think there’s a beautiful correlation in that for this passage from James. Go back and look at verse 18 and replace the word “faith” with “guitar” and the word “works” with “music”. That gives me a much better idea of just how crazy James must have felt it was to try to separate the two.

When people fly into the Nashville airport, they are reminded over and over again that they’ve arrived in “Music City!” There are signs and decorations and announcements from the Mayor and other local celebrities, and there are several cases around the terminal displaying some very nice, very pristine, probably very expensive guitars; symbols of our status as Music City. Sometimes I’m tempted to display my faith the same way. I want to show the world a neat, clean, attractive faith. I want a status faith, one that shares in the glory of God, after all I am a co-heir with Christ! (Romans 8:17) “Good morning, friend! Be clothed in Christ! Be filled with the Holy Spirit!”

But Jesus said that if a man asks for my shirt, I should give him my coat too.  That I should seek out the hungry and homeless and hurting. The same verse that tells me I am co-heir says that if I am to share in His glory, then I must also share in His suffering.  If I’m going to follow Jesus, then I need to take my faith out of the display case and try it out.  I need to try to make some music with this guitar.

And if I do that, it’s not going to remain sanitary and spotless. If I put my faith into action, it’s going to get tested and tried and stretched. If I act on the things I say I believe about Jesus, then my faith will grow, and be strengthened, and it will even move mountains. A faith that acts is a faith that changes the world.  

Instead of one of those immaculate display case guitars, I hope someday my faith looks more like Willie Nelson’s guitar, Trigger. In seeing the guitar, you can see the music it’s made. It looks like a guitar that has played “On the Road Again” about a million times (that’s a good and fitting example for a church that has to Go!). It’s a guitar that’s been played in practice, and played in private, and played in front of millions. It’s played songs that no one knows and songs that everyone can sing along to. It’s been used and beaten up, but it’s been loved, it even has a name! It’s not as pretty and shiny as those airport guitars, but it’s done more than those guitars will ever do. It’s famous. It has its own Wikipedia page! Its music has impacted lives, and yeah, even changed the world.

But the guitar hasn’t done that.  Not by itself.  It’s the music that comes from the guitar that reaches people.  So too with our faith.  My prayer today is that I will put my faith into practice, and that the melody I make will be good and pleasing to the Author of the tune.