May only truth be spoken and only truth received. Amen.
Last week we began our
time of sitting with the Letter of James, a letter written not to a specific
community, but to the church at large. What I hope you took away from last week’s
sermon was that to hear the Word but to not do the Word was to do a disservice
to God. To show your true faith in God means to put action to your prayers, going
out into your neighbourhoods and declaring your faith by loving your neighbours
each and every day.
Today, we move into the
second chapter of James as he goes even further into the question of whether or
not his faith community is truly loving their neighbours, unconditionally and
without question.
The second chapter of
James opens with an illustration that is as relevant in the contemporary church
as it must have been to James’s first readers. Two men walk into the assembly,
one impeccably dressed in fine clothes and gold jewelry, and the other in dirty,
shabby clothes. Which one do you think got the better treatment?
We all have biases. There’s
no denying it. We can only see the world from our point of view based on our history,
our gender, our race, and from our point of privilege. We all have biases and
it’s important to acknowledge them but to not limit ourselves to them. There are
things we like, things we don’t like. And that’s ok. But when we play
favorites, writes James, we "discriminate and become judges." And
when we judge, we've put ourselves in the place of God, which is idolatry.
We judge, discriminate,
and play favorites for many reasons – race, religion, gender, intelligence,
politics, and nationality all come to mind. James uses the example of
Christians who favored the rich over the poor. The irony is not lost on him:
"Is it not the rich who are exploiting you? Are they not the ones who drag
you into court? Are they not the ones who are slandering the noble name of him
to whom you belong?"
This group that James
introduces us to seems to be the equivalent of our modern middle class. They are not the rich – the rich are those
whose attention they are trying to get. They are not the poor – the poor are
those they are ignoring. They are somewhere in between, a kind of bell-curve
group that represents the broad middle. In other words, they are people like
most of us.
So, these in-between
people are gathering for worship, and they're giving special attention to the
wealthy members of their congregation. James doesn't tell us why they are
showing favoritism, but we can guess. (Dressed in silk and gold, this guy must
have money, and we need a new roof.) Attention to social class was part of the
world in which the epistle of James was written. Wealth and influence typically
went together, and those who had wealth expected to be welcomed and to receive
certain privileges. It was widely understood that lower class people did not
deserve the same respect.
Now while James is certainly
challenging his community to remember God’s preference for the poor, he doesn’t
condemn the rich, either. Rich versus poor isn’t James’ primary issue. The
problem was with favoritism: James' challenge is to those who choose to
associate with the rich at the expense of the poor. For James, you can’t claim
to be a follower of Jesus and yet favour the rich while dishonouring the poor!
In fact, how can we be a community of faith while excluding anyone for any
reason?
The world determines a
person’s worth via social and economic status (as well as race, gender
identification, sexual orientation, ableness, etc.) But that is not the way of
faith. Discrimination of any kind against people is incompatible with the faith
of Jesus Christ. James is chastising his faith community for allowing this to
happen within the assembly. James is telling his community that this is not the
way followers of Jesus ought to behave. And we should really listen, because while
we would love to say that discrimination in the church is a thing of the past, that
just isn’t the case, unfortunately.
James paints us a vivid
picture of discrimination, an example of such atrocious behaviour that we all
must concur that this is not the way a faith community should behave as followers
of Jesus. And we may know in our minds that God loves everyone, especially the
marginalized. But actions speak louder than words. An overarching theme of James
letter is that faith and partiality do not mix, especially when partiality is a
reflection of the world’s way of playing favorites. To seek out the
"beautiful" people in our congregation and give them honour because
of wealth, status in society, looks, youthfulness, race, education, success.....
is an ugly way to develop a Christian fellowship. Favoritism is rife in
society, let it not exist in our church.
James brings us back
once again to “love they neighbour as thyself.” The issue before us is one
which is not very complex. We are "all one in Christ" and we are
bound to "love one another." The is one of the great commandments. James
insists that a community guided by this commandment can’t discriminate, for if
they do, they are breaking Jesus’ command to love one another.
Returning to James’ parable,
his argument is that if the congregation fails by showing partiality towards
the rich visitor over the poor one, it has really failed in respect to the law.
As I mentioned in the beginning, we all have biases and showing partiality is
inevitable in human affairs. Political elections come to mind. But James’ real
concern here is that partiality has no place within a faith community. He doesn’t
want church to turn into some hoity toity religious club.
So where do we go from
here? Can we be saved from our biases, our partialities?
In an ideal world,
unconditional love and acceptance would trump conditional love and partiality. And
not just acceptance, but the inclusion of what and who society has deemed to be
“uncool”.
So the next time someone new walks through the doors, greet them with open arms. Not to formally receive them as members, or to fill a vacancy on a committee. Greet them with the intention of stitching them into the social fabric of your faith community. And remember these words from James, “If you truly believe in Jesus Christ, if you follow the commandment of Jesus Christ to love your neighbor as yourself, you would treat all human beings equally, the way God would care for them.” James wants the good news to be experienced by each believer and through each believer to the many others who need a tangible expression of grace. This is the gospel of the Lord.
Amen.
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