Practice What You Preach
Beth Braxton
August 30, 2009
James 1: 17–27
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Introduction to the scripture:
The book of James is known as a book of moral exhortations, the five chapters are a moral discourse for the early Christian community. Out of 108 verses in this small book of the Bible, there are 59 imperatives. These are noted as the moral imperatives of Christian identity, the practical wisdom of right behavior.
Listen to God’s Word and for God’s word: Read James 1: 17-27
“Be doers of the word and not merely hearers.”
Most of you know from going through our New Member Class that a motto I live by is: “practice what you preach.” I am humbled by this task of speaking God’s word to you. And indeed I feel it only has integrity if I am also following the Christ I exhort you to follow. This way of Christian life is a challenge and I know I am a sinner and often fail, But I DO seek to live what I say from the pulpit.
Well, this week on our staff retreat, we listened to a lecture by author theologian, Barbara Brown Taylor. She gave this lecture to about 800 preachers at the Festival of Homiletics. She took my motto–“Practice what you preach” and stood it on its head, even making it more of a challenge! She said you need to “preach what you practice,” or rather she was saying-you already do! Your life and your practices of life speak volumes before you even say a word! Who you are, what you do each day, speaks loudly! Your character shows through to people.
Does your life preach what you practice?
Yes, it sure does! The question is–and what does it preach?
A number of years ago I was on the session visits committee of presbytery. Our job was to make a tri-annual visit to the session of each Presbyterian church in our presbytery to see how they are doing. Is the church basically healthy? What are their joys and concerns?
Well, I will never forget this one visit to a church, which shall remain nameless. My colleague and I walked into the room where the session was meeting and the pastor is sitting in an overstuffed chair pulled way away from the tables where all the elders were sitting. His body language said I do not really want to be here; I have no relationship with this group; at the same time he was a fairly large man and seemed quit intimidating. The session elders spoke timidly. Whereas our other church visits had been full of lively conversation, here it was like pulling teeth to get anyone to participate. The pastor did not speak, but his character did!
Do you remember the movie, Simon Birch, based on the book, A Prayer for Own Meany? The Sunday School teacher in the movie, “Simon Birch” is another good example of a life out of place, talking religion, but her practice in the Sunday School classroom was one of frustration and anger with the children.
Okay we can all probably hear ourselves in an argument with our spouse saying, “I am not angry; no, and I am not yelling at you!” (Been there–done that!) Our lives are preaching!
The story of Rapunzel recounted in Grimes Fairy Tales reveals a practice common to many of us at times in our lives. Rapunzel was a damsel imprisoned by a witch in a tower without a door. The only access to the tower was through a solitary window at the top. When the witch wanted to visit she stood below and called for Rapunzel to let down her long, golden hair from the window. Then the witch scampered up, using Rapunzel’s hair as a ladder. Year after year Rapunzel sat in the tower, singing sad songs and waiting for someone to come along and rescue her.
We too often practice that victim mentality waiting to be rescued. The witch when she finds out that a prince has been visiting her cuts off her hair and throws her into the wilderness–(often wondered–did it not occur to Rapunzel that she could cut off her own hair and make a ladder to escape. The solution to her problem was with her all along!)
“And Then” is the title of a film short that we have shown to our confirmands; now we show it to their parents. It is a Swedish film, but that does not matter because there is little dialogue and one can easily follow the script by what the ten confirmands in the film do with the oversized Bibles they are given as a confirmation gift at the end of their class. One particular scene hit home to me–the young girl came into the church carrying her new Bible and she sees the pastor arguing with a parishioner, and stands there and listens for awhile then and throws her Bible down and walks out!
Has your life been a stumbling block to the Christian faith and life for others? Do you feel the duplicity in your life? (Saying one thing and doing another?) Do you hear and do? Do your actions match your words? Are your actions speaking louder than words? But not the message you want to give!
There are parents whose liquor cabinets are full and who enjoy weekend barbeques and parties at their homes where the booze flows, then they wonder several years later how did their teen become an alcoholic. Our lives are speaking volumes! The practices of our lives are speaking volumes.
Then there are those of us who grew up with one parent as an alcoholic and experienced the constant arguing over drinking so we became the peacemakers and as adult children of alcoholics, we have to be aware that our lives preach co-dependency! or, trying to fix it (relationships).
James words about not just hearing but doing are consistent with the poem “Children Learn What They Live.” By Dorothy Law Notle, it’s a good poem to hear again as school is starting.
- If children live with criticism, they learn to condemn.
- If children live with hostility, they learn to fight.
- If children live with fear, they learn to be apprehensive.
- If children live with pity, they learn to feel sorry for themselves.
- If children live with ridicule, they learn to feel shy.
- If children live with jealousy, they learn to feel envy.
- If children live with shame, they learn to feel guilty.
But the poem continues––
- If children live with encouragement, they learn confidence.
- If children live with tolerance, they learn patience.
- If children live with praise, they learn appreciation.
- If children live with acceptance, they learn to love.
- If children live with approval, they learn to like themselves.
- If children live with recognition, they learn it is good to have a goal.
- If children live with sharing, they learn generosity.
This understanding that we preach what we practice agrees with the hierarchy of learning also. I used it when doing teacher training with my Sunday School teachers in my DCE days.-It is a triangle. At the top is what we learn by what we hear –– only 10%, we learn a little more by what we see, and even more if we can do a simulation, but we learn the most by actually doing. I can tell you, explain how to fly an airplane (not really). I can show you pictures of the flight panels, etc. If we get in a flight simulator you really begin to learn, but you know you’ve learned by the actual experience of flying the airplane itself!
What we do, our practices, is important! How we live our lives day by day is important! Be “doers of the Word, and not hearers only,” says James. Be persons whose lives are a testimony to the story of faith. We are called in this passage to be persons whose lives speak Good News by how we live; how we treat one another! We are to live lives that speak of God’s presence in the world!
Our New mission statement is about practices––It says “Becoming Disciples through Sabbath, Study and Service.” Yes, we become disciples of Jesus Christ through the practices of Sabbath, study and service.
We practice Sabbath: coming in here every Sunday. Your life is a testimony of honoring God every time you bow your head in prayer at the dining table, every time your morning walk praises God for the beauty around you, every moment of soothing a crying child, or rocking a baby to sleep, singing softly the old hymns to an elderly parent, walking the labyrinth, listening in silence to God. These are habits of the heart that show a way of life that speak of the virtues of Sabbath.
We practice Study: with Bibles open on our laps in a Women’s circle, sitting in a living room pondering questions of scripture with a ChristCare group, participating in Sunday school dialogue on faith themes in literature or the position of the prophet Amos, watching Bill Moyers on PBS discussion of Genesis with theologians, attending the year long Disciple Bible study, or during times of personal devotional reading. These are habits of the heart that show a way of life that speak of the virtue of curiosity and learning!
We practice Service when we give of ourselves to help another: drive someone to a doctor’s appointment, teach a rainbow class, walk 26 miles in a marathon for cancer research work with Jr. Highs down at the soup kitchen in D.C., mow the lawn of a handicapped neighbor or for the church, hold a door, lift groceries, make a bed, sort clothes at ECHO, coordinate the hypothermia program, provide shelter for the homeless, spend a month in Kenya distributing food to orphan, teach a child how to work a computer, or write a check for a need or say a prayer. These are habits of the heart that show a way of life that speak of the virtue of compassion, love, and justice!
James is calling us, as he did those first Christians, to be persons of practice, to be doers of the Word and not hearers only. He uses the image of looking in a mirror in verses 23-25 to explain his point. “For if any are hearers of the word and not doers, they are like those who look at themselves in a mirror; for they look at themselves and on going away immediately forget what they were like. But those who look into the perfect law, the law of liberty, and persevere, being not hearers who forget but doers who act–they will be blessed in their doing.”
James is saying for faith to be real it must be translated into deeds. Here he agrees with ancient moralists that theoretical correctness matters little if one’s life does not conform to the ideas one espouses.[i]
Christianity and Church are not just about teaching correct theological thought–God, Jesus, and the Holy Spirit–they are about embodying the Word of God, the words of Jesus. They are about a life lived in the Spirit. Salvation is not just about something you believe or feel, according to James–it is about talking and walking like Jesus.
There is a little chorus we learned in Kenya called “I’m Gonna Shine.” It goes like this:
“I’m gonna shine
I’m gonna shine
I’m gonna shine
I’m gonna shine
So when people see me they see you Jesus,
I’m gonna shine,
I’m gonna shine,
O my Lord, I’m gonna shine!”
That’s what it is all about–letting our lives shine with the presence of Christ.
James mentions “the implanted word” (v.21) as what saves us when we truly receive it. “The moral life of Christians begins, then, with ‘putting aside’ all those qualities of arrogance and desire and rage that oppose ‘God’s righteousness’ (v.20), and ‘putting on’ the qualities of meekness and hearing that will enable them to be reshaped according to ‘the word of truth,’”[ii] into deeds of that word!
The Word became flesh and dwelt among us, full of grace and truth.” (John 1:14) Let us remember that we too are to enflesh the Word. And let us remember that our lives DO preach what we practice! So let’s give good sermons this week!
Amen? Amen!
Thanks to Barbara Brown Taylor for the idea of this sermon.
[i] The New Interpreter’s Bible, Vol XII, (Abingdon Press: Nashville, 1998), p. 189.
[ii] Ibid.
