Listen, dear friends. Isn’t it clear by now that God operates quite differently? He chose the world’s down-and-out as the kingdom’s first citizens, with full rights and privileges. This kingdom is promised to anyone who loves God. And here you are abusing these same citizens! Isn’t it the high and mighty who exploit you, who use the courts to rob you blind? Aren’t they the ones who scorn the new name—“Christian”—used in your baptisms? (The Message)
Have you ever felt like an outsider? It is an awkward feeling, isn’t it?
Imagine being a visitor to a church worship service. Picture that you are a just a normal person trying to make ends meet, without much money or resources, and only a few clothes with none of them being very dressy. You have never been to this church before. You pull up in a fifteen year old car that has a few rattles to it and park.
What is going through your mind?… What are you observing?… “Wow, that is a big building! I don’t know anybody here.” You work-up the courage to get out of the car and walk into the building. Your inner dialogue may be, “Where do I go? Will anybody notice me? How am I supposed to act? Are my kids going to be okay? Where do I sit?” All the things the regular attenders never think about and take for granted are at the forefront your mind.
Not everyone thinks the same and has the same experiences – and that is the point the Apostle James was communicating to the insiders about the marginalized outsiders.
If we are only attentive and aware and care about people who look just like us, think just like us, and act just like us, then we are playing favorites and have become judgmental persons who cannot be trusted with the things of God.
That’s a big reason why so many persons in the West today have no desire to be a regular church attender.
Showing favoritism is not a good thing. It’s foolish. The word “favoritism” comes from an idiom, “lifting up the face,” that is, taking something merely at face value. To make a biased judgment based only on surface impressions is contra God’s will.
Jesus freely associated with people of dubious morality. He went out of his way to hob-nob with hated tax collectors and came into close contact with ostracized lepers.
Discrimination of people based on our limited understanding of them is soundly condemned throughout Holy Scripture.
You must neither show partiality to the poor nor honor the rich. You must judge your fellow citizen fairly. (Leviticus 19:15, NET)
Prejudice is wrong. (Proverbs 28:21, GNT)
I caused everyone to hate and despise you, because you disobeyed me and failed to treat all people alike. (Malachi 2:9, CEV)
Times change; God’s heart for the poor never changes. God cares for all kinds of people, not just “insiders.”
The Apostle Peter had to get prejudice of Gentiles out of his heart. He had always assumed they were inferior and needed to be outsiders. It took a series of visions from God for Peter to become woke.
“I really am learning that God doesn’t show partiality to one group of people over another. Rather, in every nation, whoever worships him and does what is right is acceptable to him.” (Acts 10:34-35, CEB)
All people, without exception, are to be treated well and respected.
Be fair with everyone, and don’t have any favorites. (1 Timothy 5:21, CEV)
God soundly condemns favoritism. Whenever we discriminate between people, we render opinions based on outward appearance. Then, there are only insidious motives toward outsiders to be used for one’s own advantage – which is at the heart of all discrimination and segregation.
The church James addressed had the mistaken notion that certain persons were better than others because of their ability to contribute to world missions and wield a big influence.
The temptation was to suck-up to the rich. The church needed some stable donors, and not some poor people who were going to drain their already short resources. Showing preferential treatment to the wealthy only made sense to them.
But James would have none of it. For him, showing favoritism was sin and reflected a terrible malady of the heart: a divided loyalty between God and the world.
When things got rocky they turned to the rich, instead of coming to the Lord who has unlimited resources.
Wherever you find favoritism, there you will find a divided loyalty between the kingdom of God and the kingdom of Satan.
Inattention to the poor and needy might make good fiscal and business sense, but it will result in spiritual death when Jesus comes back to judge the living and the dead.
Blaming poor people for being poor merely takes the attention off one’s own heart and need for repentance.
Showing favoritism ought to bring to the surface that we need to re-establish a true, genuine, authentic, and real relationship with Jesus who does not look at us for what we can do for him but loves us just because he wants to.
People who show favoritism and give preferential treatment to certain persons only demonstrate that they are not gracious, merciful, and kind, like God is.
In the third century, Brother Lawrence was a deacon in the Church of Rome. According to tradition, Lawrence was in charge of the church’s treasury and its mercy (benevolence) fund. One day the Prefect of the city asked Lawrence to gather up and give him “the wealth of the church.”
Lawrence sent back a message: “I do not deny that our Church is rich … and that no one in the world is richer, not even the emperor …. I will bring forth all the precious things that belong to Christ, if only you will give me a little time to gather everything together.” The Prefect agreed, as he dreamed of what he could do with the money, gold, and silver.
For three days, Lawrence ran about the city of Rome, collecting the Church’s treasures. But they were not the sort of treasures the greedy Prefect was dreaming of. Instead, Lawrence walked through all the alleys and squares of the city and gathered the church’s real treasure—the poor, the disabled, the blind, the homeless, and the lepers.
The people Brother Lawrence gathered into the church included a man with two eyeless sockets, a disabled man with a broken knee, a one-legged man, a person with one leg shorter than the other, and others with grave infirmities. He wrote down their names and lined them up at the entrance to the church. Only then did he seek out the Prefect to bring him to the church.
“These are the treasures of the Church of Christ!” Lawrence declared as he presented the ragged crowd to the astonished Prefect. “Their bodies may not be beautiful, but within these vessels of clay they bear all the treasures of divine grace.”
The ground is level at the foot of the cross. Jesus was not an upwardly mobile and tech-savvy Jew; he was a king who chose to serve and get into the lives of the poor, the pitiful, the wretched and the marginal folks of society just as he did with the rich and influential.
Getting rid of favoritism only happens whenever we adopt a ministry of mercy toward the poor.
Learn. Get to know a family in poverty. Listen to their story. Find out the roots of their situation. See how incredibly resourceful and resilient they are at getting by and how they are helping others.
Act. Volunteer at the local food pantry. Deliver meals at Christmas. Do some research on poverty in your area. Find out what poverty level is and calculate if you could live on that amount. Take a helping vacation or mission trip. Send a needy student to college. Find out what organizations need to help those in poverty. Show respect to everyone who is need.
Connect. Do you have any ways of helping people out of poverty? Feel free to share what you have done.
Come, Holy Spirit, and open our hearts, minds, and souls to your presence. Grace us with the strength to follow the example of Jesus. May you provide us with a voice to cry out for justice for the poor. Remind us that what we do to the least of those among us, we do to you. Amen.
Rev. Tim Ehrhardt 