05.04.07
James (6): The Ugly Face of Favouritism (James 2:1-13)
How can I live out my faith in Jesus Christ in my daily life? That is the question James has been answering for us as we have gone through Chapter 1 of his book. He has reminded us that we must not be double-minded in our approach to Christianity – with one eye on the world and one eye on heaven – we must be all out for Christ. But what is that kind of pure faith going to look like in daily living. James now gives us a solid example – lived out, pure faith, does not show favouritism.
The Greek word we translate as ‘favouritism’ literally means to ‘receive the face’ or to judge someone on their appearance. We have a similar expression when we talk about someone whose face fits. And James tells us that we cannot hold the faith of Jesus Christ whilst at the same time accepting only those whose face fits. In these verses James gives the example of a person whose face fits – someone who is rich, having a gold ring and wearing splendid clothing; and he presents us with someone whose face does not fit – someone who is poor dressed in shabby clothing. That, I believe, is still a problem in our churches today – we are delighted when someone comes to the fellowship who has a healthy bank balance and has an air of respectability; whereas we are not bothered if someone comes who is poor and needy. And James tells us that to show favouritism on this basis is wrong and sinful. But there are other applications of this principle which may strike us even closer to home: for example, how readily we accept someone into our fellowship who is of the right family stock, perhaps culturally akin to ourselves, someone who has been brought up perhaps in the same denomination as ourselves; whereas although we are happy enough to see others, we aren’t really that bothered about them. We need to apply this in our own situation – checking our motivation and attitude towards each new visitor or member – “am I treating them without favouritism”?
In these verses, James gives four reasons why favouritism is unacceptable in the Christian Church – first, it is stupid; then it is senseless; it is sinful and it is serious.
[A] The Stupidity of Favouritism (vs. 1-4)
James begins this majestic section by talking about the majestic one Himself – “my brothers, do not have favouritism in the faith of the Lord Jesus Christ, the Lord of Glory.” There are four implicit reasons why it is stupid to show favouritism in the Christian Church as highlighted by James here:
· We are brothers – favouritism in a family is a horrible and disturbing thing – we see it all the way through the Old Testament – Jacob and Joseph; Jesse and David and so on. But in the Christian faith, we are all brothers – we are family. There is no pecking order in this family – we are brothers by virtue of us being sons and daughters of the living God. The meanest, most shabbily dressed Christian is your brother – you wouldn’t treat your earthly brothers with favouritism; so why would you treat your spiritual brothers that way?
· We have been accepted through faith – a good definition of faith is that which you get if you take the first letter of the word faith – “Forsaking all I trust Him.” We came to Christ by forsaking everything – forsaking worldly possessions and forsaking worldly standards of judgement. Are we now going to take up again these distinctions? We came to Christ naked and our worth lies in this majestic robe of His righteousness which He has given us to wear. Faith and worldly distinctions are polar opposites.
· Our Lord is Jesus Christ – Jesus Christ wasn’t a rich man – the Scriptures tell us that though he was rich yet for our sakes He became poor. To show favouritism against the poor is the polar opposite of the ethos of Christ’s example. We cannot say that we worship Him for how low He was willing to stoop if in our actions we negate or belittle those who are poor in this world’s eyes.
· Jesus Christ is Glorious – we often have skewed views of what glory really is – is glory the same as a splendid set of clothes; is glory a fine Highland heritage – no, nothing of the world is of any value when it stands up beside the truly glorious One – the Lord of Glory Jesus Christ Himself. If we have seen Him in His glory, we will recognise any worldly glory for what it is – fool’s gold.
After having given his example of favouritism in practice, James suggests that if we do show favouritism then we discriminate among ourselves – where this word discriminate means to look two ways – to look both at Christ and at the world – to say we are Christians and live by heaven’s standards, whilst at the same time we are really living as materialists and judging by the world’s standards. It makes us double-minded Christians – that which James is warning us against throughout the whole of his book. It makes us into judges with crooked, or evil reasoning – the exact thing which the Christians were suffering from – the judgements of crooked and unrighteous judges. So, to show favouritism, is theologically stupid.
[B] The Senselessness of Favouritism (vs. 5-7)
In these verses, James strikes at the senselessness of favouritism where he contrasts the rich and the poor, God’s valuation of both and what the church’s valuation of both should be. He begins in vs. 5 by turning the world’s valuation on its head – the world thinks that the rich, by virtue of their affluence and wealth, are important, and therefore, by extension, they must be important to God. But true wealth has nothing to do with your bank balance – God has chosen those who are poor in the eyes of this world to be truly rich – they are truly rich because they are rich in faith, and they are heirs of the kingdom – and not the kingdom of some tin-pot earthly ruler, but the kingdom of the infinite, eternal and unchangeable God. The poor man who comes in wearing shabby clothing is far wealthier than the wealthiest of men here and now, because he is the heir to an infinite inheritance. But of course, its only as we look at this from heaven’s perspective that we see this – if we are so senseless as to have no heavenly eyes, we will not see it. And so, next time Donald Trump visits, remember that he is a poorer man than a tramp who has just been converted.
But then also look at what the rich were doing to the church – they were responsible for the persecution of the church in Jerusalem – they didn’t have the eyes of heaven and so they were oppressing the Christians and taking them to court; they were the ones who were laughing and mocking the name of Christ – so why toady up to them? Why offer their hands to the rabid dog? Toady-ing to ‘great people’ is a horrible and distasteful thing because the least in the kingdom of heaven are greater than these. It’s senseless and futile. It is so worldly.
[C] The Sinfulness of Favouritism (vs. 8-9)
In vs. 8, James holds up what he calls the royal law, or the law of the king, which says, “love your neighbour as yourself”. As we know, this command is the summary of the second table of the Ten Commandments – ‘honour your father and your mother, do not murder, do not steal, do not lie, do not commit adultery, do not covet.’ And James tells us that to show favouritism is to break these commandments – because if you are showing favouritism then you are, first of all, not loving the rich because you are making them think that their riches matter to God, which in fact they don’t, and therefore you are reducing the sense that they must have of their nakedness and sinfulness before a holy and just God. Likewise, you are not loving the poor because you are belittling the dignity which God has bestowed upon them as a function of who they are in Christ. In short – by showing favouritism, you are sinning against the greatness, love and salvation of God in Christ. You are saying that there are more important considerations in life than whether a person is a Christian or not – you are saying that what a person is and of himself is more important than what a person is as he is in Christ Jesus. To show favouritism to a person because he or she is from a certain cultural background is therefore to sin against God.
[D] The Seriousness of Favouritism (vs. 10-13)
I want you to picture a chain of ten iron links – links of various sizes. Now I want you to imagine that you are hanging off the edge of a cliff and you are kept from falling just by holding on to this chain of ten iron links. Now supposing a big link in that chain fails and breaks – you fall. But supposing a little link in that chain fails and breaks – you still fall. Whether the link is big or small – you still fall to your death. That’s the point James is making in vs. 10-11. Adultery and murder are big links in the chain, and favouritism is just a small link – but supposing you don’t commit adultery or murder, but you do show favouritism – supposing you break the smallest link in the chain – the whole chain still breaks and you fall to your death. That’s why James says, “for whoever keeps the whole law but stumbles in one point has become guilty of it all.” To keep the rest of the law perfectly, but to fail in this small regard, makes you a law-breaker, a transgressor of the law and that renders you liable for judgement. And as we size each other up against this perfect law – a law which gives liberty and does not enslave – we hang our heads as we realise that we have, at times, shown so little mercy to those who aren’t like us – those who are of a different social class; those who are from a different background and those who are more, humanly-speaking, needy than us.
How grateful we are then that James finishes off this section with this tremendous proclamation of the Gospel – “mercy triumphs over judgement!” There is mercy and forgiveness for us at the cross of Jesus, where our merciful God became one of us, needy human beings, died to take away our sins and rose from the dead to make us truly rich in Him. As, with the promised help of the Holy Spirit, you examine your heart to see if you are living out your faith in Christ in a God-honouring way; for all your transgression, there is the righteousness of Christ to cover you. Give God all the glory, because there is no favouritism or double mindedness with Him. AMEN