A few minutes later, my father and Senator Hatfield came walking through the hallway to the banquet room. Mark, upon seeing my mother, walked up to her, opened his arms wide, hugged her and said, “Alice, it’s so good to see you!”
The hotel employee was standing nearby and if he could have disappeared into the wallpaper he would have. The rest of the evening, he could not do enough for my mother.
That little story has always said a lot to me about how we view other people and how we treat them. It says something about how we treat the seeming “nobodies” of this world. This is something Jesus was very concerned about. He saw everyone as a “somebody” and did not want any of his followers to treat anyone as a “nobody”.
That’s what this next section of James’ letter is all about. Listen for God’s word to you from James 2:1-13…
My brothers and sisters,[a] do you with your acts of favoritism really believe in our glorious Lord Jesus Christ?[b] 2 For if a person with gold rings and in fine clothes comes into your assembly, and if a poor person in dirty clothes also comes in, 3 and if you take notice of the one wearing the fine clothes and say, “Have a seat here, please,” while to the one who is poor you say, “Stand there,” or, “Sit at my feet,”[c] 4 have you not made distinctions among yourselves, and become judges with evil thoughts? 5 Listen, my beloved brothers and sisters.[d] Has not God chosen the poor in the world to be rich in faith and to be heirs of the kingdom that he has promised to those who love him? 6 But you have dishonored the poor. Is it not the rich who oppress you? Is it not they who drag you into court? 7 Is it not they who blaspheme the excellent name that was invoked over you?
8 You do well if you really fulfill the royal law according to the scripture, “You shall love your neighbor as yourself.” 9 But if you show partiality, you commit sin and are convicted by the law as transgressors. 10 For whoever keeps the whole law but fails in one point has become accountable for all of it. 11 For the one who said, “You shall not commit adultery,” also said, “You shall not murder.” Now if you do not commit adultery but if you murder, you have become a transgressor of the law. 12 So speak and so act as those who are to be judged by the law of liberty. 13 For judgment will be without mercy to anyone who has shown no mercy; mercy triumphs over judgment.
I think one of the main applications of this passage for us is this: if we are going to be a church that says it welcomes all people, we need to not play favorites.
The word for favoritism that James uses here means “to lift up the face”. In this context it means to make judgments and distinctions based on external considerations, such as physical appearance, social status or race.[1]
Specifically, James says: don’t show favoritism to the rich. It is James’ fear that snobbery may invade the church.
In its early days the church was predominantly poor; therefore, if a wealthy person became a Christian there was a real temptation to make a fuss about them and treat them as a special trophy. James doesn’t want the Christians to whom he is writing to do that.
The story is told about a small boy who came from a poor home. He was shabbily dressed, and his clothes were patched. Although he liked all of his teachers at school, one of them was a special favorite. When asked why, he simply replied, “She’s so interested in ME, she doesn’t seem to see my PATCHES.”
That’s the way we as Christians ought to be. We ought to be so interested in people that we don’t seem to see whether they are wealthy or poor.
One classic story that illustrates the attitude Jesus wants us to have comes from the early 1970s…
His name was Bill. He was in his early twenties and had wild hair, and he wore a T-shirt with holes in it, blue jeans, and no shoes.
Bill was a very bright college student and he had recently become a Christian. Across the street from his campus was a church with a very well-dressed, very conservative congregation.
One Sunday, Bill decided to go there. He walked in with no shoes, jeans, his T-shirt, and wild hair. The service had already started, and Bill started down the center aisle looking for a seat.
The church was completely packed, and Bill couldn’t find a seat. By then, people were really looking a bit uncomfortable, but no one said anything.
Bill got closer to the pulpit, and when he realized there were no seats, he just squatted down right on the carpet in front of God and everyone.
By then the people were really uptight, and the tension in the air was thick.
About that time, the minister realized that from way at the back of the church, a deacon was slowly making his way toward Bill.
Now the deacon was in his eighties and he had silver-gray hair, and a three-piece suit. A Godly man, very elegant, very dignified.
The deacon walked with a cane. As he started walking toward this young man, everyone was saying to themselves, “You can’t blame him for what he is going to do. How could you expect a man of his age and of his background to understand some hippie college kid sitting on the floor in church?”
It took a long time for the deacon to reach the young man. The church was utterly silent except for the clicking of the deacon’s cane. All eyes were focused on him.
You couldn’t even hear anyone breathing. The minister couldn’t even preach the sermon until the deacon did what he had to do.
And then, what no one expected, happened. The elderly deacon dropped his cane on the floor. With great difficulty, the old man lowered himself and sat down next to Bill and worshiped with him, so that Bill wouldn’t be alone.
When the minister finally stood in the pulpit, he said, “What I’m about to preach—you will never remember. What you have just seen—you will never forget.”[2]
Why should we not show favoritism?James gives us at least four reasons.
First, because God has chosen the poor to be rich in faith.
Abraham Lincoln said, “God must love the common people because he made so many of them.”
It is instructive to note that Jesus was anointed to preach good news to the poor. (Luke 4:18) He did not show favoritism. He spent time with both the rich and the poor, men and women, adults and children, Jews and Gentiles.
As William Barclay has written,
The second reason James gives for not showing favoritism to the rich is because the rich often do much harm. James asks, “Is it not the rich who oppress you? Is it not they who drag you into court? Is it not they who blaspheme the excellent name that was invoked over you?”
William Barclay explains the first century context this way, “If a creditor met a debtor on the street, he could seize him by the neck of his robe, nearly throttling him, and literally drag him to the law-courts… It is not riches that James is condemning; it is the conduct of riches without sympathy.”
For many years we had a family friend named Dave Swanson, who, back in the 60s, owned the bakery that made Thomas’ English Muffins. Dave sold the bakery for 33 million dollars. The day after he sold the bakery, Dave’s young son came to him in tears, “But Daddy, what are you going to do for work?” The little boy obviously had no concept of how wealthy his father had become or what that wealth could do. But the important thing about Dave was that he never allowed his own wealth to insulate him from seeing the needs of others and doing something about it. Dave was a committed Christian who, for many years, would go down to the soup kitchens in New York City and stand in the soup line, serving the poor and the downtrodden in complete anonymity.
It is not a sin to be wealthy. The question is: What are we going to do with our wealth, and what is our wealth going to do to us?
A third reason that James gives for not favoring the rich is because it is against the royal law.
What does James mean by “the royal law”? We saw the answer to this last week. What he calls the royal law is the commandment from Leviticus: “You shall love your neighbor as yourself.” This is a commandment that James’ brother Jesus specifically emphasized. And Jesus was the Messiah, the King. Thus, James calls this the royal law.
The story is told of how Queen Victoria expressed sympathy when she heard that the wife of a common laborer had unexpectedly lost her baby. Having experienced deep sorrow herself, the Queen called on the bereaved woman and stayed with her for some time. After she left, the neighbors asked what the royal visitor had said. “The queen said nothing,” replied the grieving mother. “She simply put her hands on mine, and we silently wept together.” Queen Victoria was obviously one who knew how to practice the royal law of love.
James is not saying that we should not welcome the wealthy to our church. We should do that, but we should do it out of love, not because they are wealthy.
If we show favoritism, then we are breaking the royal law of love. And this is no small thing because if, by some miracle, we keep the rest of God’s law, but fail to love, then we are really guilty of breaking all of God’s law. A broken piece of glass is still a broken piece of glass whether it is chipped in a corner or split down the middle. And the law of God is like one whole piece of glass not like a pile of pebbles from which you can remove one without affecting the others.
The fourth reason James gives for not showing favoritism is because we are going to be judged. We are not going to be judged by all the minute laws of the Hebrew Scriptures. As Christians, we have a new law at work upon our hearts. It is the law of liberty. It is the law that works by the inner compulsion of love.
As Christians we need to remember that if we show mercy to other people, then we will find mercy from God. Douglas Moo writes, “The believer, in himself, will always deserve God’s judgment: our conformity to the ‘royal law’ is never perfect, as it must be (vv. 10-11). But our merciful attitude and actions will count as evidence of the presence of Christ within us. And it is on the basis of this union with the One who perfectly fulfilled the law for us that we can have confidence for vindication at the judgment.”
In other words, it is Christ’s mercy at work through us that will cause God to be merciful to us on judgment day. Have we received Christ’s forgiveness for our sins? If so, then we will want to pass on that forgiveness, that mercy, to others.
In the early 80s, Dr. Seuss wrote a story called The Butter Battle Book. It was the story of the Yooks and the Zooks, two groups of people who lived on opposite sides of a long curving wall. The Yooks wore blue clothes; the Zooks wore orange. The primary dispute between the two cultures was that the Yooks ate their bread with the butter-side up, while the Zooks ate their bread with the butter-side down. The conflict between the two sides led to an escalating arms race, which resulted in the threat of mutual assured destruction.
Like the Yooks and the Zooks, we sometimes avoid—even repel—each other for small, unimportant discrepancies. Age, race, gender, sexual orientation, socioeconomic class, music and worship style preferences, marital status, political persuasion, and many other differences aren’t really any more crucial than “who eats their bread which way.” If Dr. Seuss’ characters had only accepted one another and gone beyond acceptance to welcome and enjoy one another, both the Yooks and the Zooks would have been stronger, freer, safer. Sometimes we need to look beyond our differences, and stop playing favorites, if we are going to be a church that is a strong, free, and safe place where everyone is welcome.
The deacon walked with a cane. As he started walking toward this young man, everyone was saying to themselves, “You can’t blame him for what he is going to do. How could you expect a man of his age and of his background to understand some hippie college kid sitting on the floor in church?”
It took a long time for the deacon to reach the young man. The church was utterly silent except for the clicking of the deacon’s cane. All eyes were focused on him.
You couldn’t even hear anyone breathing. The minister couldn’t even preach the sermon until the deacon did what he had to do.
And then, what no one expected, happened. The elderly deacon dropped his cane on the floor. With great difficulty, the old man lowered himself and sat down next to Bill and worshiped with him, so that Bill wouldn’t be alone.
When the minister finally stood in the pulpit, he said, “What I’m about to preach—you will never remember. What you have just seen—you will never forget.”[2]
Why should we not show favoritism?James gives us at least four reasons.
First, because God has chosen the poor to be rich in faith.
Abraham Lincoln said, “God must love the common people because he made so many of them.”
It is instructive to note that Jesus was anointed to preach good news to the poor. (Luke 4:18) He did not show favoritism. He spent time with both the rich and the poor, men and women, adults and children, Jews and Gentiles.
As William Barclay has written,
It is not that Christ and the Church do not want the great and the rich and the wise and the mighty; we must beware of an inverted snobbery… But it was the simple fact that the gospel offered so much to the poor and demanded so much from the rich, that it was the poor who were swept into the Church. It was, in fact, the common people who heard Jesus gladly and the rich young ruler who went sorrowfully away because he had great possessions.Yes, Jesus focused much of his ministry on the poor. But we also need to remember that when Jesus looked at the rich young ruler, he loved him. (Mark 10)
The second reason James gives for not showing favoritism to the rich is because the rich often do much harm. James asks, “Is it not the rich who oppress you? Is it not they who drag you into court? Is it not they who blaspheme the excellent name that was invoked over you?”
William Barclay explains the first century context this way, “If a creditor met a debtor on the street, he could seize him by the neck of his robe, nearly throttling him, and literally drag him to the law-courts… It is not riches that James is condemning; it is the conduct of riches without sympathy.”
For many years we had a family friend named Dave Swanson, who, back in the 60s, owned the bakery that made Thomas’ English Muffins. Dave sold the bakery for 33 million dollars. The day after he sold the bakery, Dave’s young son came to him in tears, “But Daddy, what are you going to do for work?” The little boy obviously had no concept of how wealthy his father had become or what that wealth could do. But the important thing about Dave was that he never allowed his own wealth to insulate him from seeing the needs of others and doing something about it. Dave was a committed Christian who, for many years, would go down to the soup kitchens in New York City and stand in the soup line, serving the poor and the downtrodden in complete anonymity.
It is not a sin to be wealthy. The question is: What are we going to do with our wealth, and what is our wealth going to do to us?
A third reason that James gives for not favoring the rich is because it is against the royal law.
What does James mean by “the royal law”? We saw the answer to this last week. What he calls the royal law is the commandment from Leviticus: “You shall love your neighbor as yourself.” This is a commandment that James’ brother Jesus specifically emphasized. And Jesus was the Messiah, the King. Thus, James calls this the royal law.
The story is told of how Queen Victoria expressed sympathy when she heard that the wife of a common laborer had unexpectedly lost her baby. Having experienced deep sorrow herself, the Queen called on the bereaved woman and stayed with her for some time. After she left, the neighbors asked what the royal visitor had said. “The queen said nothing,” replied the grieving mother. “She simply put her hands on mine, and we silently wept together.” Queen Victoria was obviously one who knew how to practice the royal law of love.
James is not saying that we should not welcome the wealthy to our church. We should do that, but we should do it out of love, not because they are wealthy.
If we show favoritism, then we are breaking the royal law of love. And this is no small thing because if, by some miracle, we keep the rest of God’s law, but fail to love, then we are really guilty of breaking all of God’s law. A broken piece of glass is still a broken piece of glass whether it is chipped in a corner or split down the middle. And the law of God is like one whole piece of glass not like a pile of pebbles from which you can remove one without affecting the others.
The fourth reason James gives for not showing favoritism is because we are going to be judged. We are not going to be judged by all the minute laws of the Hebrew Scriptures. As Christians, we have a new law at work upon our hearts. It is the law of liberty. It is the law that works by the inner compulsion of love.
As Christians we need to remember that if we show mercy to other people, then we will find mercy from God. Douglas Moo writes, “The believer, in himself, will always deserve God’s judgment: our conformity to the ‘royal law’ is never perfect, as it must be (vv. 10-11). But our merciful attitude and actions will count as evidence of the presence of Christ within us. And it is on the basis of this union with the One who perfectly fulfilled the law for us that we can have confidence for vindication at the judgment.”
In other words, it is Christ’s mercy at work through us that will cause God to be merciful to us on judgment day. Have we received Christ’s forgiveness for our sins? If so, then we will want to pass on that forgiveness, that mercy, to others.
In the early 80s, Dr. Seuss wrote a story called The Butter Battle Book. It was the story of the Yooks and the Zooks, two groups of people who lived on opposite sides of a long curving wall. The Yooks wore blue clothes; the Zooks wore orange. The primary dispute between the two cultures was that the Yooks ate their bread with the butter-side up, while the Zooks ate their bread with the butter-side down. The conflict between the two sides led to an escalating arms race, which resulted in the threat of mutual assured destruction.
Like the Yooks and the Zooks, we sometimes avoid—even repel—each other for small, unimportant discrepancies. Age, race, gender, sexual orientation, socioeconomic class, music and worship style preferences, marital status, political persuasion, and many other differences aren’t really any more crucial than “who eats their bread which way.” If Dr. Seuss’ characters had only accepted one another and gone beyond acceptance to welcome and enjoy one another, both the Yooks and the Zooks would have been stronger, freer, safer. Sometimes we need to look beyond our differences, and stop playing favorites, if we are going to be a church that is a strong, free, and safe place where everyone is welcome.
[1]Douglas J. Moo, The Letter of James: an Introduction and Commentary, Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1986, p. 87.
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