The Royal Law
The Royal Law
James 2:1-10
“My brothers, as believers in our glorious Lord Jesus Christ, don’t show favoritism.
Introduction…
Ted Keckler is a friend of mine who is an ordained Disciples minister. He reminds me of the prophet, not the priest and as such has little use for the organized church or even for organized religion. People like Ted are good for us – they help to keep us honest. He tells the story about going to a staff party one Christmas as the Chaplain for one of the State of Maryland’s youth institutions and introducing himself to people who were doctors, lawyers, administrators, all important people. They held their little glasses of wine, dined on the pretty cuts of cheese from the silver trays and chatted nicely. They assumed he was “one of them”. Sooner or later, they would ask him what he did for a living and when he said “I fix cars”; they looked the other way and politely distanced themselves from him. When they thought he was “somebody” like they were “some bodies” they graced him with their presence – but when they thought he was a “nobody” they had little interest in or time for him.
It was terrible – their acceptance of him, their interest in him, their engaging him as a fellow human being was all based on their perception of what he did – or didn’t do in his job – in other words – it was all about social status.
Biblical Reference…
This is just the point the New Testament makes the same point for us today.
“My brothers, as believers in our glorious Lord Jesus Christ, don’t show favoritism. Suppose a man comes into your meeting wearing a gold ring and fine clothes, and a poor man in shabby clothes also comes in. If you show special attention to the man wearing fine clothes and say, “Here’s a good seat for you,” but say to the poor man, “You stand there” or “Sit on the floor by my fee,” have you not discriminated among yourselves and become judges with evil thoughts?
Treating people equally - nothing wrong with that, I suppose – sounds like a virtue to me. But James is talking about something far more daring than just treating everyone the same – that’s way too politically correct for me.
James thus considers it a bitter irony that some early Christians favored the rich and discriminated against the poor. He pictures an early church where believers favored rich people who were dressed in nice clothes and expensive jewelry. They offered them the best seats in church, and then patronized the poor and the poorly dressed by seating them where they would not offend anyone.
Yes, he condemns partiality, but he is not really advocating for neutral impartiality; in fact, he is trying his best to get the church to display partiality, but of a different kind—the kind of partiality that God expresses.
Our image of justice may be a blindfolded woman holding balance scales but the biblical image is instead a God who sees everything and sets things right. God is not impartial;
* God chooses the weak and establishes justice.
* God sees good and evil and chooses good.
* God sees law and grace and wants grace.
* God sees people living in sin, lying, cheating, stealing, killing – and calls us to live in truth, righteousness, love.
The church’s problem, as James describes it, is that the way it seats people for worship expresses the world’s form of partiality instead of God’s: where God has chosen the poor and dishonored the rich, the church has done the opposite.
James indicates that fawning over the rich in worship is not only stupid but also a denial of the true wealth of baptism, in which the poor, the weak and the lowly are transformed into the royal children of God.
I Too often we, like all the important people at the State Hospital story treat people differently, based on their position, their wealth, their influence, their money or any one of other things that are just plain wrong.
• If a lawyer comes in and is we throw our arms around him and “pursue” him with all our heart and soul and energy. This is wrong.
• If a person off the street or one with humble clothes or obviously not well off comes in and we basically ignore them.
• If a doctor comes in and we chase after them while ignoring a person of less status it is wrong.
• Thomas Long (clergyman) writes…
“Years ago, a friend of mine decided to put this passage to the test. A well-respected leader in her congregation, she chose to appear at church one Sunday in the guise of a homeless person. (This was in a time when the presence of the homeless in worship, even in urban congregations, was less common than it is now.) Now my friend is by no means a “minks and gold rings” kind of woman, but it nevertheless took a great deal of effort, theatrical makeup and thrift-store clothing to transform her into a person whose appearance showed the ravages of the streets.
Her experience at church was remarkable, transforming. Church friends who would normally have greeted her cheerily in the hallway turned their heads and would not make eye contact. When she was not being ignored, she was glared at, and, as she made her way toward the worship space, she could sense the ushers tensing for a possible confrontation. They seated her as far away from others as possible.
There was an anxious moment when my friend stood up to speak during the joys and concerns. When she revealed who she was, this turned rapidly to astonishment, then embarrassment, and finally to many apologies after the service. As James says, this kind of partiality is sin, pure and simple.”
II Jesus teaches us to treat people with equality and to show interest in them based on they are as people – not their position or their wealth.
• Jesus teaches us to love all people
• Jesus teaches us to open the door wide.
• Jesus teaches us to welcome everyone.
• Jesus teaches us to reach out to all.
• Jesus teaches us to treat everyone the same, whether they are “doctors, or lawyers or mechanics or waitresses.
• “What James is telling us,” people will say to themselves, “is that we should treat people fairly and equally—whether they are rich or poor, it should not make a difference. All people are equal in the sight of God.”
III It’s worth remembering that it was the poor, the disadvantaged, the down and out by this world’s standards who were and still are often the most receptive, the most open and the quickest to embrace Jesus and to follow him.
• It was the poor who embraced the Lord, not the rich.
• It was the ‘everyday’ man, not the high priest and rich doctor.
• It was the people on the outskirts of society not the blue bloods who embraced Jesus’ and his radical message.
• It was the down and outers – not the up and comers who followed Jesus.
• It was the common man – not the educated man who listened intently and turned his life around.
It is so often among the poor, the needy, and the dis-enfranchised that the seeds of Jesus’ gospel are most productively sown and take root.
It is those who are without who are often most receptive to hearing and responding to the call of the Lord in their lives.
Sages and prophets like Woody Guthrie have long recognized and put to tune this simple gospel truth – it is in the everyday man who has little that Jesus’ words of new life find place.
Jesus Christ
Jesus Christ was a man who traveled through the land
A hard-working man and brave
He said to the rich, “Give your money to the poor,”
But they laid Jesus Christ in His grave
Jesus was a man, a carpenter by hand
His followers true and brave
One dirty little coward called Judas Iscariot
Has laid Jesus Christ in His Grave
He went to the preacher, He went to the sheriff
He told them all the same
“Sell all of your jewelry and give it to the poor,”
And they laid Jesus Christ in His grave.
When Jesus come to town, all the working folks around
Believed what he did say
But the bankers and the preachers, they nailed Him on the cross,
And they laid Jesus Christ in his grave.
And the people held their breath when they heard about his death
Everybody wondered why
It was the big landlord and the soldiers that they hired
To nail Jesus Christ in the sky
This song was written in New York City
Of rich man, preacher, and slave
If Jesus was to preach what He preached in Galilee,
They would lay poor Jesus in His grave.
So, we should welcome all …
• All who come in the name of the Lord and genuinely seek Him.
• All who love the Lord or want to love the Lord or are open to the Lord.
• All who seek the Lord, who hunger and thirst for him.
• All who are hungry or thirsty for truth and righteousness.
Yes, we do have prejudices – but not the prejudices of the world.
The prejudice of the world welcomes the rich and the wealthy, the influential and powerful. This is not the prejudice Jesus wants to see in the church.
The prejudice of the Lord welcomes the rich and the poor, the wealthy and the impoverished, the influential and the not so influential, the powerful and the weak – who hunger and seek after righteousness.
Closing…
I knew a church once, a great little church. The people in it were, for the most part, loving and kind. They weren’t perfect, but they tried. The only trouble was that in the to the people outside of the church in the community in which the beautiful little church was located felt that the church was “high and mighty” and looked down on the ordinary people who weren’t members of the church. It wasn’t an altogether fair accusation but it was one that enough outsiders leveled against the little church that its reputation had come to be known as a place were not everyone was equally welcome.
It’s not a reputation we want. It’s not a reputation the Lord wants. We have to work hard and honestly to not have such a reputation hung around our necks. God wants us to welcome all – just like Jesus welcomed all. God wants us to seat the poor just as well and nicely as we seat the rich. God wants us to throw our opens wide open to everyone who comes in name– equally. We’re all sinners. We’re all hungry. We’re all thirsty. We’re all in need of the best seats in the house.
The church is called not to even-handedness but instead to let the light of Christ disclose a person’s genuine worth. James’s point is not to encourage the greeters to smile with equal warmth toward all who come to worship but instead to remind the church that in the economy of God’s grace, the very ones for whom the world has little regard have become the guests of honor in the household of God.
Confession: I haven’t, you haven’t, and we haven’t always been faithful in this respect. I’m not excusing us with the convenient “we’re just human” but we try. We fail and we try harder. We fail and we do better. We fail and hold ourselves accountable to the standard. It’s important for us to be sure that people are equally welcomed in the house of the Lord. It’s more than important – it’s required.
This is the Royal Law!
D. Robert Chance
September 6, 2009