No Respect — James 2:1-13
April 10th, 2009 at 9:54 am (2:1-13, James)
I have to admit something to you. When I began studying this section of James in order to teach this lesson, I prayed something like the following: “God, I’m not so sure this text really has much that I or any of the people in our class can really apply to our lives. I don’t think it addresses an issue we grapple with. If I’m wrong, please show us.”
Well, I was wrong and God answered that prayer. You see, James was writing to a church that openly treated rich people and poor people differently. Rich people were given chairs to sit on in prominent places, poor people were told to either stand up or sit on the floor by the feet of the rich people.
No way would we do that in 21st century American churches! We have a certain level of cultural sensitivity built into us, a certain level of etiquette, and for that matter a certain fear of lawsuits! Even the snobbiest American knows that you can’t openly treat someone differently to the extreme that this church was doing based on socioeconomic status.
The truth is, I and probably the rest of our class members truly do not think “rich people are greater, poor people are lesser.” Heck, most of us — myself included – wouldn’t think of ourselves as rich at all. I’d rank myself closer to the “poor” end of the spectrum, not the “rich” end. Furthermore, Orrville Christian Church is a fairly large church is a fairly small town where many of the highest-profile people and many or the poorest people of the community sit together on Sunday.
So, then, does James have a message for me and us in 2:1-13? Oh yes. In fact, as often happens in the Disciples Class, we ran out of time talking through all the insights into our own lives that came out of the study.
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Before we go on, I’d like to make an observation about chapter 1, which we just finished studying.
Chapter 1 briefly discussed the following topics:
- Financial trials – The rich and the poor
- Wisdom from God
- Faith
- Sin
- Anger and other sins of the tongue
- Asking God and lacking nothing
- Worldliness
That chapter sort of serves as an outline or introduction to the rest of James’ letter. In other words, those are the topics that the rest of the letter will discuss in more depth.
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» 2:1 «
So, in 2:1-13 James is concerned about believers not showing favoritism. Notice the reason he gives:
“My brothers, as believers in our glorious Lord Jesus Christ, don’t show favoritism.” (James 2:1)
The charge to not show favoritism comes from our identity as “believers in our glorious Lord Jesus Christ.” Our equal treatment of people shouldn’t be grounded in our society’s norms, fear of lawsuits, or concern for backlash. It should well up in us from the spiritual creations God has grown inside of us – the ones who are continually being made more like Christ.
Motivation to treat others equally should come out of our realizing that the things of this world are insignificant and that what matters are people’s souls, which are equally lost or saved. We fellowship with the saved and cry tears of compassion for the lost as we introduce them to our Lord who loves them.
With that perspective, how could earthly wealth or power affect the way we treat others?
» 2:2-4 «
The situation is plain – someone who is flashy and looks rich and someone who is shabby come into your worship service together…maybe like the Rich Man and Lazarus. You give the rich guy a nice chair to sit in. The poor guy has to either stand up or sit on the floor.
By treating them different, James says, you’ve done two other things (v. 4):
- Discriminated amongst yourselves
- Become judges with evil thoughts
Discriminating amongst ourselves means we have labeled people differently than Jesus does – based on their worldly condition rather than their spiritual condition.
We have become judges because we’ve judged one to be more important than the other, and the evil thoughts are based on what the preferred class can do for us. The motives are selfish.
Side Note: In verse 2, the Greek word that the NIV translates “meeting” actually means “synagogue” – the place you gather for worship. Remember that James was writing this letter to “the twelve tribes scattered among the nations” – that is, to Christian Jews. In the early days of the church there wasn’t such a sharp distinction between Christian and Jew. Christians were Jews with new teachings, and they often met in synagogues with the rest of the Jews.
» 2:5-7 «
James asks in v. 5, “Has not God chosen those who are poor in the eyes of the world to be rich in faith and to inherit the kingdom he promised those who love him?”
Remember the Beatitudes? In Luke’s version, Jesus said:
“Blessed are you who are poor, for yours is the kingdom of God. Blessed are you who hunger now, for you will be satisfied… But woe to you who are rich, for you have already received your comfort” (Luke 6:20-21, 24).
Does that mean that you have to be “worldly poor” if you want to inherit the kingdom?
James only offers one prerequisite for being an heir of the kingdom: It is for “those who love Him.” It certainly wouldn’t make sense for Jesus to discriminate based on wealth any more than we should. James does not say you must be worldly poor to inherit the kingdom, he simply says that God has chosen poor people to inherit it, too. After all, Jesus Himself was “worldly poor.”
James’ message, again, is that wealth is irrelevant.
James goes further for the original readers of his letter, though. In vv. 6-7, he points out to them how ridiculous it was to treat the rich people better. After all, he says, those are the very sort of people who were exploiting these Christians, dragging them into court, and slandering God.
Now what in the world would cause these Christians to treat that sort of person better?
You very well know the answer, don’t you? It’s politics and personal gain. If someone with power is causing you troubles, it is very tempting to butter them up, stroke their egos, and do whatever is necessary to get on their good sides – and sometimes that might mean losing your integrity. Sometimes, if you want to get rid of the pain others inflict on you, if there seems to be no other way, you are very tempted to compromise your values.
That’s what these Christians were doing. They forgot that the power of wealthy people was no match for the power of the One who created those wealthy people from scratch. These Christians’ own focus had become worldly.
Believe it or not, churches struggle with this very frequently. Modern churches need money to operate, money comes from the collection plate, and wealthier citizens are capable of giving more than the less wealthy. Some churches have lost their integrity by reaching out to and pandering to the wealthy citizens of the community in a lopsided fashion.
Don’t get me wrong, rich people need Jesus just like everyone else! I had a friend in seminary who said after graduation that God had called him to be a "minister to the wealthy." You know what? I knew a good bit about this guy’s heart. He was sincere. All joking and teasing with him aside, I can believe God called him to that.
Just realize the struggle that the average church goes through here. And pray for your church leaders, wherever you are.
» 2:8-10 «
James writes in v. 8, “if you really keep the royal law found in Scripture, ‘Love your neighbor as yourself,’ you are doing right."
A “Royal Law” in their day was a law from the King that trumped all other laws and ordinances. If the King said “Yes” when your local law said “No,” the “Yes” would win.
Well, the royal law James mentioned — “Love your neighbor as yourself” — is from the very highest of all authorities, the King of all Kings! Jesus said the good Samaritan obeyed this law when he helped a desperate person in Luke 10:27. Paul applied this law to how we should treat a weaker brother in Galatians 5:14. And Paul applied the same law to everything in Romans 13:9-10:
The commandments, "Do not commit adultery," "Do not murder," "Do not steal," "Do not covet," and whatever other commandment there may be, are summed up in this one rule: "Love your neighbor as yourself." Love does no harm to its neighbor. Therefore love is the fulfillment of the law.
Those verses in Romans are essentially repeated here in James. James says that showing favoritism means you broke the Royal Law and thus you’ve broken the whole law.
9 But if you show favoritism, you sin and are convicted by the law as lawbreakers. 10 For whoever keeps the whole law and yet stumbles at just one point is guilty of breaking all of it. 11 For he who said, "Do not commit adultery," also said, "Do not murder." If you do not commit adultery but do commit murder, you have become a lawbreaker.
The point in context is that these Christians were showing favoritism to the rich over the poor. In so doing, they broke the royal law of loving everyone as they loved themselves. By breaking that one law, they broke every law.
» 2:12-13 «
Finally, James exhorts these Christians to “speak and act as those who are going to be judged by the law that gives freedom,” that is, live as if God will to judge you based on whether you loved your neighbor as you love yourself.
In fact, James says, that is exactly the standard God will use: “Judgment without mercy will be shown to anyone who has not been merciful (v. 13).”
He adds the exclamation point by saying “Mercy triumphs over judgment.”
That one law trumps all others!
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In closing, you may wonder how I discovered that these verses applied to me. Well, you see, I came to realize that there are people in our large church that simply don’t “appeal” to me — they may smell funny, they may have overbearing personalities, they may have annoying ways of communicating, etc. I became embarrassed with myself when I realized that I avoid them more than I realized.
Don’t misunderstand. My ministry has often carried me into prisons, homeless shelters, soup kitchens, and the downtown streets of large cities. I have ministered to people in just about every conceivable situation. I’ve fed, hugged, and truly loved them all. My “favoritism” hasn’t been a lack of concern or compassion or an unwillingness to serve them. But it has been a lack of willingness to make them an integral part of my life.
It’s one thing to go to other people to serve them and then go back home. It’s another thing altogether to bring them to you and then to live out life with them.
I’m just being transparent here — not an easy thing to do when leading a class, and even more difficult on the Internet.
What are your prejudices? Where is your favoritism? What part of your life is God trying to touch and change through this message in James?