One of the classic songs by Frank Sinatra goes like this: “Love and marriage,

love and marriage, go together like a horse and carriage. This I tell ya, brother,

ya can’t have one without the other.” Maybe not quite so poetically, today St

James tells us that faith and works go together like a horse and carriage as

well. This is what we heard a few moments ago:

“Take the case, my brothers, of someone who has never done a single good act

but claims that he has faith Will that faith save him? ... [If] good works do not

go with it, it is quite dead. ... I will prove to you that I have faith by showing

my good deeds – now you prove to me that you have faith without any good

deeds to show.”

Sometimes people walk away from Christ because those who claim to follow

Him don’t seem to put their faith into practice. They talk the talk, but don’t

walk the walk. Hypocrisy is something that we all have to deal with, those

stubborn areas of resistance in our lives where we know what we are supposed

to do, but either don’t want to or find it incredibly difficult to change. And then

there can be the danger of starting to justify ourselves. Someone told me a year

or two ago that he used to work with prisoners, and he was amazed to hear

them justify their conduct. Their argument was that crime creates jobs: you’ve

got the police, the security companies, the people that service burglar alarms,

manufacture locks and safes and so on. Without crime, all those people could

be unemployed! But, of course, without crime, people might spend their

money on other things. And there are things that money can’t buy: a life free

from anxiety, fear and depression, where you can trust people, where

businesses don’t go bust and people become unemployed because crime means

their company is no longer economically viable.

In the Gospel, Peter first demonstrates that God is active in his life by showing

that he realises that Jesus is the Christ, but then shortly afterwards is given a

strong rebuke for still thinking with worldly wisdom. It was part of God’s plan

that the Christ would suffer and be put to death, and rise on the third day.

Without Christ’s saving Death on the Cross, our sins would not have been

forgiven and the gates of heaven would have remained shut. Sin had excluded

the human race from heaven, and us doing a few “good works” on the side

wasn’t going to put things right. Sometimes people think that they can earn

their way into heaven by amassing enough good works, but that’s not how it

works. We can’t save ourselves. We need a saviour. It’s like saying that, if

you just train yourself enough, and jump higher and higher, eventually you’ll

be able to jump into heaven. It’s an impossible task. Not even a helicopter can

take you there, or a spaceship. We need Christ. Being both man and God, He

is able to be the bridge, if you like, between God and humanity. With the

power of God, and as a human being and representative of the human race, He

was able to put things right on our behalf.

That leads to the next part of the Gospel where Our Lord says “If anyone wants

to be a follower of mine, let him renounce himself and take up his cross and

follow me.” We don’t follow Christ just by sitting in an armchair. We have to

roll up our sleeves and do some serious work. It can also mean conflict at

times. Love of Christ and love of the truth mean that sometimes, we have to

speak truth to power. That doesn’t always go down too well. Sometimes,

people lose their jobs doing that. There is the concern that if euthanasia is

legalised, for example, that working as a carer, a nurse or a doctor might

become a no-go area for Catholics and other people opposed to forms of

assisted suicide. In Nazi-occupied Holland, when the euthanasia programme

began, the Dutch doctors handed in their papers to the authorities and said “I

am no longer a doctor. I don’t have a licence to practice medicine.” They

might have quietly helped a few people here and there with their medical skills

and knowledge, but they refused en-masse to go along with the eugenics

programme. They probably didn’t take the decision lightly either, and realised

the hardship it would bring, but they realised they had no choice, and that there

are certain red lines that are not worth crossing.

Faith and good deeds go together, just like love and marriage. And at times

good deeds mean that we also have to challenge the status quo.

Curious about exploring things further?  If you would like to ask further questions about the topics raised in these homilies (or maybe think it wasn’t explained too well!), please feel free to e-mail Fr Michael at stjoseph.thame@rcaob.org.uk