"Playing Favorites"

Scripture: James 2:1-17
Preacher: Rev. Ross Purdy
Date: September 10, 2006

My father is a Presbyterian minister.   Many years ago he came home and related this story to me.   He had been working at the church on a Saturday morning.   Since the work he was doing was construction and maintenance, he wore jeans and old t-shirt.   After a long, hard morning of manual labor, he left the church building to go home.   He had a wedding later in the afternoon and needed to get ready.   While walking out the front door, he saw a woman drive up in a very luxurious car.   She parked in front of the church, stepped out the car and called to my father.   "Hey, you!   Do you work here?"   She was gruff and commanding.   My father walked toward the car and said, "well, yes I do."   Immediately, the woman began barking orders at him.   She lifted he trunk and began handing plants and other objects for him to take inside the church.   He received the items and began loading everything into the narthex inside.   When he was done, the woman then directed him, very forthrightly, to put "this here and that there".   Then, when he was done, she told him to straighten the books up in the pews and get the vacuum out to vacuum the aisle, even though it was already clean.   There was no doubt that she saw my father as a manual laborer and a slave instead of a freeman.

Not too much later, my father turned to her and said, "I really have to leave."   Although she was disturbed, she gave him permission.   My father went home to take a shower and clean up for the wedding.

Just prior to the wedding that day, my father returned to the church all showered and shaved.   He had his suit on and his appearance was quite different than earlier in the day.   Just as the wedding was about to start, the bride was excited to introduce my father, Reverend Purdy of whom she had spoken so highly about, to her family.   As she took him over to introduce him to her mother, the mother of the bride, he caught a glimpse of the mother's eyes locking his.    The mother of the bride, the same woman who had ordered him around all morning disrespectfully, showed signs of distress.   "Mom," the bride said, "This is Reverend Purdy.   He's the wonderful minister who counseled us for marriage.   We're so glad you could meet him."  

My father said the look on the woman's face...the woman who had dreamed of a beautiful day for her daughter for many years, was priceless.   It betrayed the shock of a woman who realized that the dirty laborer was the one who held the power and authority to perform the ceremony and make the day go well.   "Nice to meet you," my father said.

Looks can be deceiving.   The Bible says that "God is not a respecter of persons" (Acts 10:34).   The Apostle Peter learned this when he was instructed by God that he, a Jewish man, should go and preach the Gospel to a Gentile (Acts 10).   God doesn't care about the designations or classes we give people.   In the eyes of the Lord, a poor person is the same as a wealthy person.   In the eyes of the Lord, an uneducated person is the same as an educated person.   In the eyes of the Lord, an unknown person is the same as the greatest celebrity.   God does not play favorites...even though we do.

A young man once applied for a job at a bank in Chicago.   The bank requested a letter of recommendation from his former employer, another banking institution in Boston.   The letter arrived and said, "This young man is the finest they come.   He comes from a long line of important people, He is of the finest stock.   His father was a Cabot; his mother was a Lowell. Further back was a happy blend of Saltonstalls, Peabodys, and other of Boston's first families.   We give him a recommendation without hesitation."   After receiving the letter the bank in Chicago wrote back.   "Dear Sirs, we do not care about this young man's lineage.   We don't intend to breed him.   We are simply interested in knowing if he is competent to work.

We care about the wrong things in this world.   We make designations and categories of people.   We like to organize things but often put people in boxes.   Then, when there, we like to keep them in their positions.   It's less confusing.   It might work well when people are put in high categories.   But, when people are placed in unwanted categories, it can be very hurtful.   Have you ever been categorized in a way that seemed unfair?   Have you ever been called a "loser"?   Have you ever felt as though there was no way to overcome the designations people gave you?  

Don't judge me on my outward appearances.   Judge me for my work.   Use right judgment....that's what Jesus said about judging.  

In the early Church judgment was common.   We often think that much of the problems of the church today could be solved if we returned to the early church.   Well, that's not really a solution.   If you look at the Church at any given time in history, at any given place in any land, there never has been a church that worked perfectly.   There were times when it worked better than others.   But the problems that existed in the first church still exist today.   There has never been a perfect church.   On earth the Church will not be perfect.   It is a hospital for sinners and we are all patients.   We are to strive for perfection, but until the day that Jesus returns and establishes perfection, we will be a group of people who make mistakes, who judge one another, and who look anything like we'd hope to be.   Don't ever give up on the Church!   One day....one day....one day, we will be perfect.   One day, perhaps today, we will choose to disregard our faulty systems of judging.  

The Church is supposed to be different than the world.   The world puts people in their categories.   The world raises up many people who shouldn't be raised up.   The world gives credibility to too those who haven't earned it.   On the other hand, the world puts down many because it is a competition and there is only enough to go around.   Because we have this same temptation we need this word from James to remind us how to overcome it.  

I believe the only place for the possibility of a fair balance is the Church.   It is the only place where there is enough honor to go around.   The world is frightened that if they give honor to too many people, there won't be enough to go around.   Why do we buy into the temptation of this type of scarcity in the Church?   There is plenty of encouragement in Jesus to satisfy the neediest person.   There is plenty of honor in Jesus to honor the most insignificant person.   In the Church, no one needs to fight for a place at the dinner table.   Everyone is given a robe of many colors.   But we need to be reminded of this.   James was reminding his Church.

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 feet," have you not discriminated among yourselves and become judges with evil thoughts?

Coming to church with a ring on your finger is not an important issue today.   But in the early church the wealthy wore rings.   They wore them on their fingers, sometimes one or two on every finger except the middle one. (Why?   I don't know...it seems to have been simply a custom).   The more rings, the more wealth.   In fact, there are instances of people borrowing rings for prominence in meetings.

That's flashy.   But it still has the same effect today.   We pay homage to the wealthy and those we think to be important.   We are intimidated by those who speak well or have the right amount of collective "coolness".   But we're all the same.   No one is more important than another.   We keep insulting the humanity of others when we create "in groups" and put people on pedestals.  

Listen, my dear brothers: 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? But you have insulted the poor. Is it not the rich who are exploiting you? Are they not the ones who are dragging you into court? Are they not the ones who are slandering the noble name of him to whom you belong?

There is a famous picture of Jesus in a bread line.   I think it's interesting that when God came to earth he chose to identify with the poor.   "God," Abraham Lincoln said, "must love the common people because he made so many of them."   God's heart has always been for the poor.   But this is not favoritism for the poor.   It is God's way of balancing out the power given to those who have much and control much.   In Jesus' first sermon in Nazareth, he said that his anointing as the Messiah was to preach good news to the poor. (Luke 4:18)   When John the Baptist was locked in prison about to die, he floundered on his belief in Jesus as the Messiah.   Jesus' ultimate confirmation of his anointing was this: "The poor have good news preached to them."   (Matthew 11:5)   John the Baptist rested from his fear and knew that Jesus was sent from God.

In Jesus' sermon we have recorded, Jesus said, "Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the Kingdom of Heaven" (Matthew 5:3).   And Luke is even more direct when he records Jesus saying, "Blessed are you poor; for yours is the Kingdom of God" (Luke 6:20).

During his ministry Jesus was banished from preaching in the synagogues, so he went out into the fields and found listeners in the poor.   In the early church it was to the crowds in the streets that the preachers preached.   Paul, the Apostle, told us that the early church was filled with poor people when he said to the Corinthians, "not many of you were wise according to worldly standards, not many were powerful, not many were of noble birth" (I Corinthians 1:26).

In the society of the first century, the century in which James is describing in his letter, it was common custom to find the rich oppressing the poor.   The poor had debts that needed to be paid.   If you, a rich man, found a poor debtor of yours, you had every right to grab that person by the throat or the neck of his robe and drag him, immediately, to the courts.   There was no sense of justice or trial.   You were guilty and required immediate payment.   But in the Church, it was not the wealth of a person that mattered at all.   For James, it was a false understanding that just because you had riches, you had more importance.

Imagine the scandal, then, of the early Church if it worked well.   Conceivably, at a worship service, a man who had a slave could have come to the meeting, be shown a lower seat than his slave, and even listen to the words of his slave who might preach the message that day.   That's impressive.   In the Church, when it operates the way God intends, the society begins to become transformed.   Do you think the slave owner would be changed in his heart as he began to experience the Church in action; the Church making no distinctions?   That's the power that comes about when we choose to live the ways of God in this society.   It will overturn the world.   When we refuse to play favorites, no matter how tempting it might be; no matter how it goes against our nature, we prove that love is the very heart of the Church.  

If you really keep the royal law found in Scripture, "Love your neighbor as yourself," you are doing right. But if you show favoritism, you sin and are convicted by the law as lawbreakers. For whoever keeps the whole law and yet stumbles at just one point is guilty of breaking all of it. 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.

Speak and act as those who are going to be judged by the law that gives freedom, because judgment without mercy will be shown to anyone who has not been merciful. Mercy triumphs over judgment!

The heart of the Gospel, the message for us, is that we are not to play favorites.   I am no more loved by God than you.   You are no more loved by God than the poorest, filthiest sinner.   If we could show love to everyone we meet, acknowledging that we are brothers and sisters, the world would be transformed.  

Jesus was put to death for this very thing.   In Jerusalem they have found that the wealthy and leaders walked on bridges over the poor streets so they didn't have to encounter those whom they felt God didn't regard.   But when they looked down from the bridges they saw Jesus walking among them.   That's why Jesus had to die.   He was endangering society's norms.  

May God give us the courage to do the same.   May God give us the passion and conviction that we will not play favorites.   There is enough love to go around...to everyone.   God loves the world...everyone in the world.   May we also.

Amen.