Text: James 2:1-10, 14-18
In
the name of Jesus. Amen.
As
human beings, we naturally admire certain people more than others. To a certain extent this is alright. For example, it is o.k. to show favoritism
and preference towards a spouse or a child or a close family member like a mom
or dad. There is nothing wrong with this
because it is a part of your vocation as a parent, spouse, and/or child. There
is also nothing wrong with having certain friends that are closer than
others. Logically, people with similar
vocations in the workforce are going to tend to bond together more than
others. Farmers are going to connect
with other farmers, white collar people are going to connect with white collar
people. Moms will connect with other
moms, and so forth. In your vocations—whether
at church or downtown or at work—you will naturally rub shoulders with
different individuals of similar callings.
However, where things go tragically wrong is when we purposefully
exclude others, look down on them, rank them, categorize their worth, and show
favoritism in our acts of love based on external appearances and manmade criteria.
This
is what we hear about in today’s Epistle reading from the Apostle James. The Apostle James is talking about a faith,
which unlike God Himself, is partial. He
is talking about a so-called faith—which really is no faith at all—that makes
social distinctions among people where there ought not to be. As already stated, this kind of faith really
does not exist, but the people that James is addressing apparently were calling
it faith nonetheless. Otherwise stated, James
is calling attention to those who go on and on and on about faith, yet at the
same time honor certain people while knifing others in the back on the basis of
their manmade standards. James is calling
out the fact that faith in the Lord Jesus Christ and the partiality described
in our Epistle reading are totally inconsistent. They do not go together. They are not complimentary.
Tragically
though, as human beings, we often do not recognize contradictions like this,
for we spend countless hours of our lives trying to affirm our insecure egos,
rather than living by faith. As implied
from our Epistle reading, one of the ways we do this is to form small
‘exclusive’ groups (i.e., cliques) that will give us kudos, affirmation, and
support. We are not talking about small
support groups or family gatherings, but rather, unhealthy clusters that evolve
into exclusivity. The reason why these
clusters become exclusive is because these groups usually fuel the ego, which to
our sinful nature is worth protecting.
Furthermore, what makes these exclusive cliquey groups unhealthy is that
individuals can become guarded because they do not want anyone to upset the
balance and chemistry of the group.
These
cliques become a much more serious problem when they spill over and/or are
conceived in the local church. The reason being, churches can become a private
country club where individuals are excluded on the basis of appearance, money,
and status.
You
see, the problem with all of this is that the idea of giving love to one
another in the church can become contingent on a person’s possessions, gifts,
abilities, personality, group identification, etc… This though is not compatible with the
Christian faith. This kind of
selectiveness is the mark of the unbeliever, not the baptized Christian; it is
a mark of the sinful nature, not the new man in Christ.
My
friends, a person’s worth does not come from their possessions or lack of
possessions; it does not come from their status in the community, their appearance,
and their last name. The reason being,
in God’s eyes no one is inherently inferior compared to someone else,
‘everyone’ that has been born has been created in the image of God. The old Christian apologist Francis Schaeffer
once said that no matter how fallen or messed up a person is, we can never
forget that they were created in the image of God. In other words, James is confronting the sin
of looking down upon any group or person based on appearance, status, or
wealth.
What
this means is that there no such thing as inferior or non-inferior people in
God’s eyes, because scripture categorizes everyone into the same category. We all are created people, people who were
knit together in our mother’s womb. All
having value: from the preborn to the old.
We are all created in the image of God.
And, yes, we have all fallen into sin and guilt; marred by sin. It is true, just look around and consider
this church. All of us in this church
stand and confess our sins together in the Confession of Sins and we all hear
the same absolution of our sins in the Gospel.
We are the same: sinners forgiven in Christ.
What
does all of this mean though in light of the predicament that the Epistle of
James is addressing?
Very
bluntly put, you and I sin when we believe that there is something inherently
better about ourselves, that we have something in ourselves that makes us
better before God or not as sinful in God’s eyes compared to other people. To think of others as inferior to yourself is
sinful because you are essentially basing their worth and your worth on worldly
criteria and possibly your own measuring stick.
The end result is that you and I will try to justify ‘ourselves’ by
snubbing others and then comparing ourselves to them, all while distancing
ourselves from the Gospel. This is not
the Christian faith: it is not of the faith, from the faith, or for the faith. This kind of mentality—these kind of actions
and works—are worldly. The Christian
faith—real faith—does not yield this kind of evil.
So,
with all this said, is James calling for this idea of tolerance in the church? Is He advocating for some equal protection
clause? Is James basically saying that
we are not to call out sin and that we are to become saturated with love so
that we are a bowel of moral mush? No,
of course not! What James is confronting
is the idea of you and me basing a person’s worth or non-worth upon ‘our’
criteria and convincing ourselves that this is morally o.k. or that this is a
part of the Christian faith. James is
showing us that we sin when we exclude and withhold love on the basis of our
so-called faith and favoritism. In other
words, you and I have no right to call something sin that God hasn’t called sin
from His Word. We have no right to
withhold love based on our favoritism, for this violates the royal law of love.
When we look down on someone in our heart and when we do not love them as
ourselves, we sin; this perversion of love is not of the Christian faith.
In a
nutshell, James is showing us that when we convince ourselves that this sinful
favoritism is righteous, it is because we have delusions about faith. When you and I yield heartless, selective,
superficial, and childish clique tactics with people, we are not yielding true
good works, but sin. This is not of the
faith. Jesus Christ is not the author of
sin. Grace is not a license to sin. The faith that you are given does not smile
on such garbage. To indulge, welcome,
support, and encourage acts of sin is not a byproduct of faith, but the result
of a phoney faith, which is no faith at all, but basically the old Adam
masquerading around.
Repent
dear friends of this favoritism, of this phoney faith.
Hear
the good news of the Gospel. Hear the
great news. That great news is that the
Lord did not look with partiality upon you and me. Indeed, even though you and I were inferior
in every way, full of sin, stained by sin, and even enemies of the Lord, it was
the Lord’s desire to die for you. Even
though you and I are completely unworthy, it was the Lord’s yearning to make
you worthy by His shed blood. Even
though you and I wrongly base people’s value on superficial things, God covered
you with the image of His Son in Baptism because He values you.
Truly,
the Lord Jesus Christ was crowned with thorns to rule over redeemed sinner,
dying with the weight of your sin upon Him so that you would not be crushed by that
weight. He filled you with His Holy
Spirit. Now Christ is not ashamed to
call you His brothers and sisters. For
God creates objects worthy of His love and does so without sinful favoritism.
The
reality of this my friends is that in Christ there is neither Jew, nor Greek,
slave or free, there is neither male or female… for you are all one in Christ
Jesus. You are the church of God located
here in Gwinner, North Dakota with one baptism into Christ. Do not forget, there is one baptism, one
Christ, one way of salvation, one Savior of all. Each and every one of us is condemned by
great sin, yet redeemed by a greater redeemer.
Therefore, there is no distinction.
Yes, there are different vocations, different tastes, different
personalities, but at the core there is one and only one Gospel—for you and me. This Gospel does not come to you in snippets
or through factions or through installments.
You
all have the same faith because the same Lord forgave you all of you sins. You all have the same baptism because you
were baptized into the same name of God.
You all have the gift of good works because the Lord gave you these good
works with His enlivening gifts. Therefore,
how on earth can we show partiality to one another? God did not show partiality in saving us,
which means that we are freed from this kind of mindset so that we can freely
serve our neighbor without favoritism!
Create
in us a clean heart O God and renew a right spirit with us. Amen.
No comments:
Post a Comment