Preached at Eno & Oak Grove United Methodist Churches
Dickson, Tennessee
September 9, 2018
James 2:1-17 (NRSV)
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.
14 What good is it, my brothers and sisters,[e] if you say you have faith but do not have works? Can faith save you? 15 If a brother or sister is naked and lacks daily food, 16 and one of you says to them, “Go in peace; keep warm and eat your fill,” and yet you do not supply their bodily needs, what is the good of that? 17 So faith by itself, if it has no works, is dead.
When Jesus was asked about the greatest commandment, he said that a person should love God with their whole being but said that the second commandment was like it in that a person should love their neighbor as they love themselves. So, just to make sure his bases were covered, a person there in the crowd asked Jesus, “Who is my neighbor?” Jesus told him the story of the kind Samaritan that demonstrated that anyone who is in need is our neighbor (Luke 10:25). In another place, Jesus says that loving God and loving others as ourselves is the basis of all of the laws and other teachings of the Bible (Matthew 22:40). That seems to be a fairly strong statement and seems pretty clear that keeping a good relationship with God and others is of fundamental importance. However, just a few years after Jesus’ death and resurrection, James, Jesus’ brother is having to write to Christians outside of Israel to remind them that this teaching was still fundamentally important.
These two commandments that Jesus calls the most important are intimately related. Loving God with our whole being requires us to be completely open with God. We cannot love God with only part of ourselves while holding back another part. We cannot love God with our spirit, but not our body. We cannot love God with our Sundays, but not our Mondays through Saturdays as well and we cannot love God with our heart and not our time or our wallet. We must let the love of God into every part of our lives. God must be able to love and forgive the parts of us that we do not like and that we feel ashamed of and God must be able to love and use our gifts and abilities. We are to love God with our whole being. When we have loved God with our full being, then the love of God fills us to overflowing and we love those around us.
It is important to note that Jesus did not command us to love our neighbor instead of ourselves and he did not command us to love our neighbor more than ourselves, but as much and in the same way that we love ourselves, we should love our neighbor. When we think about what we want or what we need, we must also think about our brother and sister and what they need. We cannot think about taking care of ourselves without also thinking about how our lives connect with others and how our lives impact others. The command that James calls the “Royal Law” does not say that we can never do anything for ourselves, but it does help us keep from being selfish. If we only think about what we want, then we are not thinking about our neighbor. However, it is not just enough to think about our neighbor. If we are caring for ourselves, we must care for our neighbor, but we know that this way of living is not really our nature.
As a general rule, we tend to think too much of ourselves. We don’t like to wait behind other people in line. We get angry when someone cuts us off in traffic because they “obviously think they are more important than us”. We want to be sure we have enough of…well, everything and way too often we are led to believe that having more stuff or having certain things will make our lives better. This car will make you feel powerful or full of life. This kind of beverage will make you feel energized. We are told every day through our media that more is better, and we see that the more money a person has, the more power they have, and we also want to feel important.
When we look at those running for office right now and all of those painful commercials on T.V., we see that all of those candidates are millionaires. The large majority of those who are in political office right now are from the wealthiest class in our society. Since the 1970s the number of extremely wealthy people in the U.S. has gotten smaller, but their share of the wealth in our country has gotten larger. So fewer people own more and more of our nation’s wealth. In the same period of time, those that have been called the middle class has gotten smaller and those who live in poverty has increased. It literally has been true that the rich get richer and the poor get poorer. Based on the research for his recent book, Dr. Bruce Vaughn at Vanderbilt notes that this trend has been true since the 1970s regardless of which political party has been in power. He also notes that in same period of time, we have had an increase in the number of people dealing with depression and anxiety. If we find ourselves in that lower 99% of people, we can often look at that 1% and wish we could be more like them.
I remember the first time that I got to attend a concert at the arena downtown and got to sit in one of those private boxes. I sat with people I knew and liked. I ate the food right there in the box. I didn’t even have to go out of the box to use the restroom. We had a private one right there. I though, “Man, this is the way to go to a concert.” It was nice. If you have the money there are a lot of perks in this world. The very wealthy get the best interest rates, the best mortgage rates, and the lowest fees. If you have the money, you can pay to skip the line at the amusement parks you can get your pizza delivered before anyone else’s. If you have money, you don’t have to worry about things breaking down or healthcare emergencies, you can afford a vacation, you can eat at nice restaurants and people love to have you around because they feel powerful when they are around you and they benefit from your money. Who wouldn’t like that?
The problem is that as Christians, we are called to a different way of thinking and different priorities. The reality is that we do not know exactly who these words in the book of James were written to and we do not know exactly why they had to be written, but apparently, they had to be written… because human nature continues to challenge the nature of God.
James says that if a wealthy person comes into your church and you are tempted to show them favoritism like is shown in other places in our lives – don’t! James reminds us that the economy of the Kingdom of God is not the same as the world’s economy. The world looks at the wealthy and thinks, “What can they do for me?” and the minute we make a distinction between people for whatever reason, we have put ourselves in the place of judgement. When we decide who gets favored treatment, when we decide who is in and who is out, and we make distinctions between ourselves, we often do it for selfish reasons. We may show favoritism to one person because of what we hope to get, or we may reject another person out of fear. James reminds us, however, that in God’s economy, it is the “least of these” that are important. In God’s economy, those that are humbled and lowly will be lifted up.
James is not saying that the wealthy are not welcome in the assembly, but that the distinctions that exist outside the church body should not exist inside the church body. James does seem to suggest that at least some of those who are wealthy have used their power and influence to hurt those who do not have power. James seems to suggest that some who have great wealth have achieved it by taking advantage of those that are poor and who have less power. This seems to have been true not just in time of James’ writing, but throughout history. The fight for the poor and the powerless has been slow and change has been hard-won, if it has come at all. If the world’s economy was like God’s economy, there would have been no need for Moses to help free the Israelites from the Egyptians. There would have been no need for the protestant reformation. If the world’s economy was like God’s economy, we would not have needed the American revolution or the French revolution. We would not have needed the 13th Amendment to the constitution that abolished slavery, the 15th amendment that gave African-American men the right to vote, or the 19th amendment that gave women the right to vote. If some of the rich and powerful did not take advantage of the poor and powerless we would not need the laws that abolished child labor, the laws that established a fair wage for workers, or the fight to end segregation. James is clear on this point, if a person is made wealthy and powerful in the world’s economy by taking advantage of others and by satisfying their own selfish desires that only cares about their own wealth and their bottom line – then in God’s economy, they will be humbled. James says that God favors those who are poor and downtrodden. In God’s economy, those that are used, oppressed, and poor will be made great in faith. If the powerful are humbled and the powerless are lifted up, then in the middle there is equality. In God’s economy, all are equal, and all are welcome in the assembly and at the table of God.
James does not stop there, and it is what he writes next that has created the most controversy over this book of the Bible through history. In talking about how the Christians should not make distinctions among themselves, James certainly talks about how doing so puts us in a place of judgement. And while we might argue, that making such distinctions is not as bad as committing adultery or murdering someone. What James writes is essentially this, “if you think you are not in the wrong because you have not committed one of the ‘big sins’, you better think again.” In the law of God, if you are guilty of judging others and withholding mercy, then you are just as guilty as the adulterer or the murderer. James goes on to say:
What good is it, my brothers and sisters,[e] if you say you have faith but do not have works? Can faith save you? 15 If a brother or sister is naked and lacks daily food, 16 and one of you says to them, “Go in peace; keep warm and eat your fill,” and yet you do not supply their bodily needs, what is the good of that? 17 So faith by itself, if it has no works, is dead.
Through the ages, there have been great debates over the meaning of this passage and others in the book of James. I am aware that these questions apparently resolved in the theology of John Wesley and the tradition of the Methodists but indulge me for a moment. The controversy of this passage has been in the question of what saves a person. Paul writes, “For by grace you have been saved through faith, and this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God— 9 not the result of works, so that no one may boast.” (Ephesians 2:8-9). I do not believe that Paul and James’ perspectives are contradictory and if I know my church history, neither did John Wesley.
It is our faith in Christ that saves us. Our belief about God, the person of Jesus, His saving work on the cross, and his resurrection is what saves us. However, if that faith in Christ is genuine, then it should result in a change in our outlook, attitudes, priorities, and actions. If we truly grasp God’s love for us, then we are humbled by the gift and will desire to share it with others. We will seek out ways to live the gift of God’s love in every part of our life – that is, love God with our whole being. We are not saved by keeping the rules, but a change in how we live results from inner change that occurs through faith. Our personal economy begins to look like God’s economy.
However, there is an additional layer of truth here as well. If in our faith, we do not yet understand what it is to live out our faith. If our transforming faith has not yet transformed our whole being, James gives us some very practical instruction here. I was in a training yesterday that reminded the participants that when it comes to our clients in psychotherapy or to anyone who wants or needs to make a change, it is not enough to simply want to change. If we want to make a change in our life, we have to practice a new way of being. One way people talk about this is like this is to say that if you want to develop new habits or ways of being, you can begin to act “as if” you already have those qualities and you begin to practice those new habits until you have practiced them so much that they become part of who you are. Or as some say, “fake it till you make it”. I do not remember a lot of the Spanish that I used to know, but I did study Spanish in Spain in the summer of 1987. I lived with a family in Spain that spoke no English. I walked every day to a small language school where my teacher spoke no English. Every day was a struggle as I tried to navigate maps, buy food, communicate with my hosts. I had to think about every single word I said and formulate every sentence carefully. I would long to just have the ease of speaking my native English and at night when my roommate and I were in our room, I would love to just talk a while in English. As we would talk, our host “mama” would come by our room and say to us in Spanish, “No Ingles, Espanol solamente” (or No English, Spanish only). It was exhausting, but to learn the language we had to practice. Over the weeks I was in Spain, I began to write in my journal in a combination of English and Spanish. I began to have dreams in Spanish. I got more comfortable in carrying on basic conversations in Spanish.
James is suggesting a similar thing here in verses 16 and 17. Living with another person in mind and loving our neighbor as ourselves can feel as awkward as trying to learn a new language. Thinking of ourselves seems to be our default “language”. However, it was not enough for me in Spain to wish I could speak a new language and it is not enough to wish good for those who are poor and downtrodden. We have to practice. If we are to do what James suggests in actually providing directly to the less fortunate rather than just praying for them or wishing them well, we would have to get to know those who struggle. We would have to meet these people and get to know their names. We would have to learn their story and understand their needs. To do this, we will have to practice generosity and humility. We will have to sacrifice the comfort we have in doing what is familiar and practice what is more difficult and less natural for us. In our faith and through practice, we may find that over time the awkward actions are perfected in a transformation of our heart. And, whether our life is transformed by some faith experience or our life is transformed by our efforts to live out our faith, the bottom line is that having faith is not just an intellectual pursuit; it is something that gets down in the cells of our bodies and changes the way we think, the way we perceive others, the way think about what is important, and how we spend our time and energy.
I loved Eugene Peterson’s paraphrase of this passage in The Message. I will read just a portion of this. It reads this way:
2 1-4 My dear friends, don’t let public opinion influence how you live out our glorious, Christ-originated faith. If a man enters your church wearing an expensive suit, and a street person wearing rags comes in right after him, and you say to the man in the suit, “Sit here, sir; this is the best seat in the house!” and either ignore the street person or say, “Better sit here in the back row,” haven’t you segregated God’s children and proved that you are judges who can’t be trusted?
Listen, dear friends. Isn’t it clear by now that God operates quite differently? He chose the world’s down-and-out as the kingdom’s first citizens, with full rights and privileges. This kingdom is promised to anyone who loves God. And here you are abusing these same citizens!
You do well when you complete the Royal Rule of the Scriptures: “Love others as you love yourself.” But if you play up to these so-called important people, you go against the Rule and stand convicted by it. Talk and act like a person expecting to be judged by the Rule that sets us free. For if you refuse to act kindly, you can hardly expect to be treated kindly. Kind mercy wins over harsh judgment every time.
Dear friends, do you think you’ll get anywhere in this if you learn all the right words but never do anything? Does merely talking about faith indicate that a person really has it? For instance, you come upon an old friend dressed in rags and half-starved and say, “Good morning, friend! Be clothed in Christ! Be filled with the Holy Spirit!” and walk off without providing so much as a coat or a cup of soup—where does that get you?
Isn’t it obvious that God-talk without God-acts is outrageous nonsense?
“Outrageous nonsense”, indeed.
Let us Pray
God, we know that our human nature is to think about ourselves only. Our human nature is to think of ourselves as more important than others. We are tempted so often to desire and seek the things of this world that we believe will set us apart and make us powerful. Thank you for the reminder in the words of James and the life of Jesus that remind us that your ways are not our ways and your economy is not the worlds economy. In your eyes, each of us is already important. To you, every person we will encounter this week is important regardless of what they look like on the outside. God, continue to work in our lives to perfect us that we may see others as you see them, that we may prioritize what you prioritize, and that all that we do will reflect your love that is in us. Amen.
