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September 6, 2009—Proper 18

Lectionary Texts: Proverbs 22:1-2, 8-9, 22-23 or Isaiah 35:4-7a; Psalm 125 or Psalm 146; James 2:1-17; Mark 7:24-37

Sermon Text: James 2:1-10, 14-17

Distraction

The song is called “Screen Door,” and the artist is Rich Mullins. We have sung several of his other songs in our services, most notably “Awesome God.” Here are some of the lyrics to “Screen Door.”

It’s about as useless as a screen door on a submarine./Faith without works, it just ain’t happening./One is your left hand, and one is your right./It takes two strong arms to hold on tight./Some folks cut off their nose to spite their face./You need some works to demonstrate your alleged faith./There’s a difference you know between having faith and playing make believe./One will make you grow, the other one just makes you sleep./Faith without works is like a song you can’t sing./It’s about as useless as a screen door on a submarine.

As we saw last week in our study of James 1:17-27, faith is a gift from God which protects the believer from the temptations which can destroy life. Without faith no one can be saved. Yet faith is not true faith unless it is a “lived out” faith. In the early Church, there were those folks who believed that following every aspect of the Jewish law was necessary in order to be saved. These folks were called Judaizers. The apostle Paul strongly refutes this teaching in his Epistle to the Galatians. He declares that Jesus came to set us free from the old law of sin and death. Paul’s teaching is so important that it was the core tenet of the Protestant Reformation: justification by faith alone.

One extreme teaching that has been evident throughout the history of the Church has been to return to the slavery of the law. The other extreme, in the early Church and throughout history, is a misunderstanding of Paul’s teaching. Some believed that by simply professing Jesus Christ as Lord, that was enough. These folks were coasting in their Christian life. They talked about being a follower of Jesus, but they were not living it.

We see the same thing today. It is what German theologian Dietrich Bonhoeffer called “cheap grace.” True Christianity is not merely a matter of talk, it must show itself in appropriate action. Some young Christians, leading a street ministry to their friends, realized this truth. When people professed to receive Jesus Christ, they were told: “Don’t tell us you’re a Christian. We’ll tell you that you have become a follower of Christ when we see how you live.” Saying that we are Christians, without Christian lifestyles, is worthless. It is worse than worthless, for it offers a negative image to those watching how Christians live.

In our passage today, James offers a wonderful example of a temptation all of us face when it comes to living out our faith: showing favoritism. For his example he uses rich and poor, and this may have been the problem in the Jewish Christian communities to whom he was writing. The principle applies to any time and place: showing favoritism is a sin.

James does not allow us to think of living out our faith in an abstract sense. He demands that we deal very practically with the real world. So he offers us an illustration of how many of us do not live out what we say we believe. Two people walk into our lives. In the first case the man is wealthy; in the second case the man is destitute. How do we respond?

We all can think of illustrations of rich people receiving preference, and of poor people being pushed aside. Or perhaps your mind goes to life circumstances where you believe that the wealthy receive preference, and the very poor also receive an undeserved handout. What we need to see here is that James is not attacking wealth or poverty, but reminding us that a focus on these things is not God’s perspective. It is always a shock when American Christians travel to other world areas and spend time with fellow believers. They are so surprised at how little these fellow followers of Christ have, and yet they seem to have so much more joy than we see in the American church. When a South American pastor was asked about this by a visitor from the US, he said “Perhaps it is because you cannot see anything except what you have, and what we do not have, that you have no joy.”

What a great truth. The danger of showing favoritism of any kind is that we focus on the things which are not God’s focus. When we focus on:

• wealth, either riches or poverty

• race, ethnicity and culture

• family member or stranger

• persons with specific gifts, or celebrities

• education or lack thereof

We are violating the great law of God, first given in the Old Testament and emphasized by Jesus himself: Love your neighbor as yourself.

To show favoritism to someone because they are rich, or they are of the same race and culture as us, or they are a so-called celebrity, is a grave sin which contradicts our claim to have faith in a God who shows no partiality. The right course of action is to show favor to everyone, whether rich or poor. Love overlooks such superficial distinctions as wealth and quality of clothing. It shows kindness to a person in spite of any distasteful qualities he or she may have.

Unfortunately, we have been raised in cultures which continue to teach favoritism and prejudice. Our entire society emphasizes the importance of wealth, power, and celebrity, with the attending partiality which accompanies it. Many of us have been raised to believe that other races and cultures are inferior. I have never met a person who practiced racism whose parents did not also practice it. It is a systemic evil passed down from one generation to the next. As Christians we cannot allow the sins of our cultural training to control us. The Holy Spirit’s power is greater than the sins of our upbringing.

A more subtle favoritism is shown when we show partiality to those who are like us in other ways. Those of our family, our group, our clan--those people are of course the folks we are most comfortable around. God has a strong word for us: welcome the stranger. Do not allow the Church to become a club for people who are like us. Love your neighbor as yourself means loving them no matter who they are, including inviting them to church and welcoming them into fellowship.

But James goes even further. He takes a key teaching of Jesus and literally accuses the Church of ignoring it. When you read verses 15-17, you cannot help but think of the parable of the Good Samaritan, or of Jesus’ command to feed those who are hungry and clothe those who are naked. What did Jesus say? Unless you do these things, you will not be saved. James reminds them, in blunt language, that their faith is worthless unless it results in the kind of action which Jesus himself expects from His disciples.

James offers us a situation which is, on its face, ridiculous. It is the case of a believer (“brother or sister”) who is in dire need (“without clothes and daily food”). The Greek word actually means naked and is probably to be understood as hyperbole. The purpose of the overstatement is to emphasize the drastic need of this believer. This is no mild case of need. He is desperate. Yet what is the response of his so-called brothers and sisters? The statement, “Go, I wish you well” would literally be translated “Go in peace.” This was a standard Hebrew farewell. The translation “keep warm and well fed” is best understood as “get some warm clothes and eat your fill.”
The preposterous nature of such a command is no doubt intentional. “What good is it?” James asks. Its seeming concern for the welfare of the poor person is a worthless facade. James is saying that this is the way some Christians act. Their professed faith, if true, would give them a keen eye for seeing the needs of others, and make a loving, compassionate response the most obvious thing in the world. Instead, some respond with “That’s someone else’s job,” or even, “Go, do it yourself.” A faith which does not respond to the obvious needs of others is no faith at all.

Throughout the history of the Church, there has always been a place where no favoritism is shown. This place is where rich and poor, from all nationalities, cultures, and tribes gather. Every person is equal, and all that matters is whether or not you come in response to the invitation. It is the table of the Lord. At this place, where common bread and wine become the means of grace for God’s people, we receive the spiritual nourishment to carry out the work that demonstrates true faith.