Sermon:” Be Hearers and Doers.”

Studying Theology at Aarhus University in Denmark, part of the dogmatic classes was one of the very renowned theologians, Karl Barth. Swiss Theologian Karl Barth 1886 – 1968 had an impressive Theological authorship. Especially his five column Church Dogmatic is widely regarded as his pinnacle achievement. It runs to over 6 million words and 9000 pages in of the longest works of systematic theology ever written.

SLIDE 24 Karl Barth was indeed a learned man, a scholar, a professor, and a pastor. So, Karl Barth did surround himself with words, to listen to, to study and to read. But his faith also manifested itself in actions: in 1934 Barth wrote the Barmen Declaration that rejected the influence of Nazism on German Christianity by arguing that the church allegiance was to God and not to the German Fuhrer Hitler. Barth mailed this declaration to Hitler personally.

Barth was later forced to resign being a professor at the German University of Bonn, as he refused to swear an oath to Hitler, and he returned from Bonn to Basel University in Swiss. He openly declared that soldiers who fought against the Nazis were serving a Christian cause.

He was not just a hearer, a professor, a word’s man, he was indeed a doer, a writer, a resistance fighter and a civil servant.

Once at a service in a parish church, where this esteemed and learned theologian Karl Barth had been preaching one Sunday, he was met at the door by a man who greeted him with these words:

“Professor Barth, thank you for your sermon. I am an astronomer, you know, and as far as I am concerned, the whole of Christianity can be summed up by saying” Do unto others as you would have others do to you.”

Karl Barth replied:” Well, I am just a humble theologian, and as far as I am concerned, the whole of astronomy can be summed up by saying: “Twinkle, twinkle, little star, how I wonder what you are!”

While being a funny story, it also says that we often tend to make what we don’t understand smaller for us to understand or even to ridicule it as less that what we believe to be true or know.

Astronomy most certainly is not just summed up by Twinkle Twinkle little star…. and Christianity is most certainly not simply to be summed up by the Golden Rule. A very important part of Christian faith is the universal human teachings of the Golden Rule, but it is not all there is to say about Christianity. In fact, there is much much more complicated things to say and believe…. which also the impressive Church Dogmatic of 6 million words states.

Christianity and faith are to be found in that crossing between words and actions, between hearing and doing. Because what was a faith without actions, acts of love, compassion and courage, - and what was actions without teachings, words, ethics and calling?

Jesus summed up faith in the double commandment: Love God with all your heart, soul, mind and heart and love your neighbor as yourself. This tells us that faith is relational and responsive. We would be merely hearers if we only listen to the bible and had great faith in God, and if that faith didn’t make us to be doers.

We would be merely doers, if we only adhered to the Golden Rule and did not reflect on our actions as responsive actions to the call of God, the will of God, the goodness of God that we are called to imitate.

“Be doers of the word and not merely hearers,” we read in the Books of James. Christianity is both being hearers and doers.

On the pulpit of the old church, I used to serve at in Denmark, it was written: “Those who have ears, listen….” and listening to today’s Gospel and even more the profound reading from James, one could ad: “Those who have hands, act, those who have hearts, feel.”

An old favorite Kenyan proverb says: “When you pray, always remember to move your feet!” When we are hearers and doers who exhibit faith through works, the words and teachings move us to be moved and to be moving feet in the world.

And if there is a book of the bible that truly embodies this, it is the Book of James.

The Book of James focuses on moral action and attention to social justices of its day. In today’s reading from James, we are continuously called to be doers of the word and not just holy but inactive hearers of the word.

Today we are encouraged to be generous, be quick to listen, slow to speak, slow to anger. Be doers of the word and not merely hearers who deceive ourselves.

For, as it is written, if any of us are hearers of the word but not doers, we are like those who look at themselves in a mirror: for then we look at ourselves for a short moment, and when we turn away from the mirrors reflection we immediately forget, what we saw or recognized. Or as Jesus quotes the prophet Isaiah in the gospel saying: “This people honor me with their lips, but their hearts are far from me; in vain they worship me.”

If we are only “holy hearers” of the word and not doers, we are like those who look at themselves in a mirror. A short reflection, coming back to me, but only showing the outer clothing, and we are not looking deeper to see how we really are. In the mirror we can see our own reflection, but we truly need a deeper look and a more honest look to see who we really are our own constitution and faith. Our true intentions? Our feelings? Misconceptions? Lies? Flaws?

One of my favorite songs by the singer and songwriter Michael Jackson is: The Man in the Mirror. Michael Jackson was a complicated human being, a flawed human being, a sad troubled soul who through his life literary changed the outer image of himself and the man he saw in the mirror. And all the accusations and disclosures after his death, have shown a man in the mirror that truly had so many layers: a gifted songwriter, a fantastic singer, a philanthropic man, but also a disturbed lonely man who looked for love in what many would characterize as disturbing ways or at least unconventional ways.

SLIDE 26 In his song, “The man in the mirror” he sang:

I'm starting with the man in the mirror

I'm asking him to change his ways

And no message could've been any clearer

If they wanna make the world a better place

Take a Look at yourself and then make a change

So, when we look at the man or the woman in the mirror, we should not just look selfishly at our own image with eyes of vanity, at our beauty or fading beauty, our clothing, but we should look deeper and clearer: to accept who we are and what we are, and then make changes to make this world a better place…. For others and me.

Be doers of the world, not just hearers.

Or as today’s reading from James is translated into new clothing in the words or Eugene Peterson and The Message:

Act on What You Hear

19-21 Post this at all the intersections, dear friends: Lead with your ears, follow up with your tongue, and let anger straggle along in the rear. God’s righteousness doesn’t grow from human anger.

So, throw all spoiled virtue and cancerous evil in the garbage. In simple humility, let our gardener, God, landscape you with the Word, making a salvation-garden of your life.

22-24 Don’t fool yourself into thinking that you are a listener when you are anything but, letting the Word go in one ear and out the other. Act on what you hear! Those who hear and don’t act are like those who glance in the mirror, walk away, and two minutes later have no idea who they are, what they look like.

25 But whoever catches a glimpse of the revealed counsel of God—the free life! —even out of the corner of his eye, and sticks with it, is no distracted scatterbrain but a man or woman of action. That person will find delight and affirmation in the action.

26-27 Anyone who sets himself up as “religious” by talking a good game is self-deceived. This kind of religion is hot air and only hot air. Real religion, the kind that passes muster before God the Father, is this: Reach out to the homeless and loveless in their plight, and guard against corruption from the godless world.

It is always good to hear words in new clothing too. I am often surprised by Eugene Peterson translations, as they create new images and understandings. They give more words to reflect our lives in: they mirror our faith with words that encourage us to be hearers and doers:

“Act on what you hear! And post this at all intersections of your life: lead with your ears, follow up with your tongue and in simple humility let our gardener, God, landscape you with the word. “

The astronomer visiting the church and approaching Karl Barth with a very limited understanding of Christianity, was with Karl Barth’s quick answer, invited to take a deeper look at the man in the mirror to try to understand the complexity of himself, the complexity of creation, the complexity of Christianity and faith.

There is a relationship between hearing God’s word and then doing what the Lord commands. Hearers and doers are not opposites, but they constitute each other. Complement each other and fulfills faith.

As good Lutherans we have been taught that “The justification by Grace through faith” is the heart of the Gospel, and it was stated clearly in the Augsburg Confession when it was called “the article by which the church stands or falls.”

Martin Luther insisted that faith was key. His understanding of faith wasn’t primarily intellectual or emotional. Faith is first and foremost relational: it is trust. We are justified through faith because we believe in Gods’ promise of forgiveness and grace. We are not saved by our own faith, but by the one we believe in. Only faith in Christ who restored our relationship to God, to become trust, that can save us and set us free to be, to serve, to love and to live.

Justification by faith alone is not the last word that Luther or the Confessions have for us. It is only the beginning. Faith in Christ isn’t just about what we hear and confess, - it is about how we live. It is about how we live not just for ourselves but for and with others. Because works arises as a natural outgrowth of faith.

Hearing and doing are part of having faith.

We listen to the gospel, and all the dogmatic, ethics and teachings gathered in many wise books, but we also listen by doing and being a faithful servant in the world.

Are we listening? Are we doing? Listen once again to the reading from James in the translation of Eugene Peterson. And be hearers and doers.

Amen.