“If you cause one of these little ones who trusts in me to fall into sin, it would be better for you to have a large millstone tied around your neck and be drowned in the depths of the sea.
What sorrow awaits the world because it tempts people to sin. Temptations are inevitable, but what sorrow awaits the person who does the tempting. So, if your hand or foot causes you to sin, cut it off and throw it away. It’s better to enter eternal life with only one hand or one foot than to be thrown into eternal fire with both of your hands and feet. And if your eye causes you to sin, gouge it out and throw it away. It’s better to enter eternal life with only one eye than to have two eyes and be thrown into the fire of hell.” (New Living Translation)
It’s probably a good idea not to get on the wrong side of Jesus.
Throughout the Gospels, Jesus utilized a variety of teaching methods to communicate his message. In today’s Gospel lesson, Christ used the language of hyperbole to arrest attention and get his point across.
A universal truism of this world is that sin exists. In Holy Scripture, sin is anything people do or say – or fail to do and say – which damages or destroys another’s or one self’s physical, mental, emotional, or spiritual wellbeing.
Greed, envy, gluttony, sloth, anger, lust, and pride abound no matter where one goes on this planet. Sin is downright awful. It causes people to stumble, and, when unchecked, leads to personal and corporate chaos, unrest, and destruction.
Whenever sin is viewed merely as a character flaw, or simply part of the fabric of organizations and institutions, then hellfire is not far off. Hell exists because of sin.
We get the flavor that Jesus took sin quite serious. Christ considers sin so terrible and heinous that he deliberately used the height of hyperbole to communicate that radical, drastic, and decisive action must unequivocally be taken to get rid of it.
The Lord Jesus wanted there to be no mistake in his communication: Sin is not something to dabble in or take a shallow approach; rather, sin must be eradicated, at all costs. The language is severe: If your hand, foot, or eye causes you to sin, cut it off. It’s better to enter life crippled or blind rather than be thrown into a suffering hell.
Temptations will inevitably come. Yet, how we handle those temptations and what we do with them is of eternal significance.
We must get to the root of the sin – which happens through succumbing to temptation – and re-arrange our lives, alter our schedules, and change our lives in a radical way to remove putting ourselves in a position to sin.
Solid daily spiritual habits of Scripture reading and prayer; time for sleep and rest; attention to Sabbath; and a regular exercise regimen are all ways to help ensure that temptation will not win the day.
And God forbid that we cause another to sin because we are hangry, tired, and out of shape because we’ve neglected ourselves for far too long. Self-care isn’t a luxury; it’s a necessity. Other people get hurt when we hurt ourselves.
Your self-care is always a valid excuse to say “no.”
If we take the words of Jesus to heart, perhaps we will gain awareness of the ways we need to metaphorically cut off a hand or gouge out an eye. For many people, this means learning to say “no.”
There doesn’t always need to be an explanation for assertively and courteously saying the word “no.” If an explanation is warranted, it should be brief. The word “no” doesn’t mean we are selfish pricks trying to wriggle out of responsibility. “No” simply realizes we are finite creatures with limited time, energy, and resources. Unlike God, we cannot do it all.
Setting personal boundaries is both wise and necessary. Without them, we let others chain us in bondage to their agendas. A lack of personal boundaries also typically means that the boundary-less person continually violates others’ boundaries. Since there are no fences in their own lives, they feel they can hop anybody else’s fence in front of them.
Violating someone’s space through mental or emotional manipulation, spiritual abuse, or bodily harm is sin. Jesus wants radical action to deal with such offense of others.
For the Christian, priority must be given to saying “yes” to Jesus, which then allows a “no” to come when there are competing priorities. A person unclear on their values and priorities will chronically violate others. If you have a specific plan of doing the will of God before being confronted with another person’s request, you’re more likely to stick to your original plan.
Jesus continually said “yes” to the Father. This framed and formed his earthly life so that he crossed social boundaries to speak to a Samaritan woman, a tax collector, and a leper – while maintaining the respect of another’s personal boundary by asking if they want to be helped and healed.
Sin is horrible – which is why Jesus went to the ultimate length to deal with it. He sacrificed himself and suffered an ignominious death so that sin’s power would be crushed, so that you and I could say “no” to temptation.
Holy God, you sent your Son to this earth to deal decisively with the world’s sin. I choose today to walk in the forgiveness you offer through Jesus, and to avail myself of the Spirit’s power to forsake temptation in all its forms. Amen.
“You are the salt of the earth. But if the salt loses its saltiness, how can it be made salty again? It is no longer good for anything, except to be thrown out and trampled underfoot.
“You are the light of the world. A town built on a hill cannot be hidden. Neither do people light a lamp and put it under a bowl. Instead, they put it on its stand, and it gives light to everyone in the house. In the same way, let your light shine before others, that they may see your good deeds and glorify your Father in heaven.
“Do not think that I have come to abolish the Law or the Prophets; I have not come to abolish them but to fulfill them. For truly I tell you, until heaven and earth disappear, not the smallest letter, not the least stroke of a pen, will by any means disappear from the Law until everything is accomplished. Therefore, anyone who sets aside one of the least of these commands and teaches others accordingly will be called least in the kingdom of heaven, but whoever practices and teaches these commands will be called great in the kingdom of heaven. For I tell you that unless your righteousness surpasses that of the Pharisees and the teachers of the law, you will certainly not enter the kingdom of heaven. (New International Version)
There is a world of people in our sphere of influence, who need to see that Christianity is real and that it works.
Jesus used a few metaphors to help his followers understand their role in society and their effect on the world.
Salt
Obviously, in the ancient world, there was no refrigeration. So, salt was used to preserve food, with the added result that it brought some flavor when the food was eaten. Christians are meant to be a preservative in the culture, helping to stave off worldly decay and rot.
Sometimes, believers in Jesus feel a compulsion to complain about eroding cultural mores, the sad state of public affairs, or the declining value of religion. However, Christians can play a positive role, rather than a negative stance, by being salt in the world.
Christianity is meant to be therapeutic and helpful, adding value to culture and society – and not an added burden to an already bad situation.
Jesus said if Christians lose their saltiness, and are no longer impacting society, they are useless to the culture. Nobody would miss them if they were thrown out into the garbage dump of the street to be trampled on and forgotten.
Christians were never meant to simply exist for themselves. They are on this earth to be the continuing presence of Christ in the world by means of God’s Spirit.
This is not an exhortation from Jesus to be salt, because he says we are salt. It is rather a matter of allowing the world to taste Christianity and find it compelling and flavorful.
For example, instead of being worried or upset that a low income housing project is being built next to church property, leading to discussions of erecting a fence, a salty Christian response would be to imagine creating a sidewalk so that the neighborhood kids will wander over to the church’s grounds.
Saltiness is a fundamental way of thinking and acting which orients itself around the common good of everyone and the community needs surrounding where Christians live, work, and play.
To drive his point home even deeper, Jesus used a second metaphor to describe what Christianity’s relation to the world is to be like….
Light
In the ancient world, there were no artificial lights. At night, it was pitch black. In the dark, any light, even a small candle, makes a real difference.
An individual person may mistakenly believe their life does not make much of a difference. Yet, it does! One person exhibiting the characteristics of humility, gentleness, grace, and peacemaking is able to have significant penetration into the darkness.
Here are some ways the church has always brought light into the darkest times of history:
Taking-in and adopting unwanted children who would otherwise be victims of infanticide.
Ministering to the sick and dying during periods of plague and disease, while others fled.
Caring for prisoners who had no family to provide them with necessary food and clothing.
Giving benevolence and kindness to the poor – especially to immigrants, widows, and orphans.
Christianity is designed to take a proactive approach – and not just a passive policy of waiting for needy people to show up – by searching, identifying, and meeting the needs of people.
The reason religious people wondered about Jesus and his teaching is because Christ offered a different perspective than what they typically heard.
Jesus was concerned to uphold basic Old Testament ethics by offering a distinct interpretation that the Law is fulfilled in himself. For example, the entire book of Leviticus (which reads something like a B-grade slasher film) is a detailed account of regulations concerning the sacrificial system – with the actual intent of all these laws to expose sinfulness, and the need for a once-for-all sacrifice that would take care of the sin issue altogether. The ceremonial law was not intended to be permanent, but to be fulfilled by the Messiah, Jesus.
Christ made it clear that all of Scripture is important; not the slightest detail is unimportant. True righteousness shows itself when Christians do the right things for the right reasons.
Christians are people of the Word. They are to learn Scripture, know it, and live it. One opportunity of doing this is based on an ancient way of reading the Bible called Lectio Divina (Latin for “spiritual reading”):
Lectio (reading with a listening spirit)
Meditatio (reflecting or meditating on what are hearing from God)
Oratio (praying in response to what I hear from God)
Contemplatio (contemplating what I will do to live out the text)
Through listening, reflecting, praying, and obeying, Christians allow Holy Scripture to spiritually shape and form them into the people of God – thus becoming salt and light in the world.
May you discover the light of God’s grace through being a person of the Word.
May you be salty, flavorful and preserving the world in which you live.
May you know and connect with Jesus.
May Christianity be seen, felt, and known as the contribution to this old world it was always meant to be. Amen.
Isn’t it obvious that God-talk without God-acts is outrageous nonsense?
I can already hear one of you agreeing by saying, “Sounds good. You take care of the faith department; I’ll handle the works department.”
Not so fast. You can no more show me your works apart from your faith than I can show you my faith apart from my works. Faith and works, works and faith, fit together hand in glove.
Do I hear you professing to believe in the one and only God, but then observe you complacently sitting back as if you had done something wonderful? That’s just great. Demons do that, but what good does it do them? Use your heads! Do you suppose for a minute that you can cut faith and works in two and not end up with a corpse on your hands?
Wasn’t our ancestor Abraham “made right with God by works” when he placed his son Isaac on the sacrificial altar? Isn’t it obvious that faith and works are yoked partners, that faith expresses itself in works? That the works are “works of faith”? The full meaning of “believe” in the Scripture sentence, “Abraham believed God and was set right with God,” includes his action. It’s that weave of believing and acting that got Abraham named “God’s friend.” Is it not evident that a person is made right with God not by a barren faith but by faith fruitful in works?
The same with Rahab, the Jericho harlot. Wasn’t her action in hiding God’s spies and helping them escape—that seamless unity of believing and doing—what counted with God? The very moment you separate body and spirit, you end up with a corpse. Separate faith and works and you get the same thing: a corpse. (The Message)
True faith is shown as the genuine article by how it acts and responds in real life situations.
Christians are saved for a purpose. Christian faith is much more than mere intellectual knowledge of Jesus Christ. We are to take our knowledge of Christ’s redemptive events and put it into daily practice.
There were folks in today’s New Testament lesson who were justifying a lack of action with statements such as, “I’m not wired that way,” “That’s not my gift,” “We pay our pastor to do the ministry,” “This church is not meeting my needs,” “Let the next generation deal with change.”
Anyone in the habit of complaining without doing anything to be part of the solution needs to get an active faith. Every believer in Jesus Christ is called to ministry. All Christians are gifted by God for service. And God expects us to use those gifts to build up the Body of Christ. The church suffers when we do not all participate with the abilities God has provided.
Faith apart from action is impossible. It’s like saying I can bench press 400lbs. just because I read about it in a muscle magazine; or, that I can produce corn just because I saw a farmer in a field.
There are no atheistic demons. The glimpses of Satan we get in the Bible lead me to think he likely has the entire Bible memorized and knows it quite well. Knowledge, however, by itself, is useless.
The Great Blondin, walking a tightrope across Niagara Falls, 1859
In the nineteenth century, a famous tightrope walker from France, Charles Blondin, once strung a cable across Niagara Falls from the American side all the way to the Canadian side. Thousands of people watched him do his theatrics across the falls. He walked back and forth, people applauding wildly. Then to further wow the crowds, he put a blindfold on and went back and forth. He also rode a bicycle back and forth, and then pushed a wheelbarrow back and forth.
As the story goes, while pushing the wheelbarrow back and forth, he called out to the crowd on one end, inquiring whether or not they thought he could successfully push the wheelbarrow across with a human being riding in the wheelbarrow. The crowd went berserk: “Sure you can. You’re remarkable. We believe in your abilities. You are the greatest.” On and on they went, to which Blondin responded, “Then someone volunteer. You come right up here, single file, form a line, and get in the wheelbarrow to prove your trust in my ability.” A deafening silence overtook the crowd. There were no takers.
Intellectual belief is one thing. It is quite another thing to place complete trust in Jesus Christ. Knowledge without an active commitment is about as helpful as a backseat driver.
Faith is a big word in Scripture and life. It encompasses the totality of how we come to Jesus Christ and how we live for him. So, when talking about faith, it is important to distinguish between saving faith and sanctifying faith.
If we are fuzzy on our understanding and application of these two spiritual realities of salvation and sanctification, we will sleepwalk through life as zombies living in two different worlds of the living and the dead.
“Salvation” is a term used a lot in the church. In Christianity, it means to be delivered from sin, death, and hell. Through the death and resurrection of Jesus, a person is “saved” by knowing about the work of Christ on the cross and trusting this has taken care of the sin issue once for all.
Through repentance and faith in Jesus, there is salvation. A person cannot earn it, accomplish it, or buy it. Salvation is a gift that comes by faith in the person and work of Jesus. It is a one-time event of trust.
“Sanctification,” on the other hand, begins when we become believers in Jesus. The word means “to become holy,” or, “to be set apart for God.” Sanctification is not a singular event; it is a lifelong process. Whereas saving faith is a gift given to us without effort, sanctification requires much effort. We work, struggle, and expend lots of energy to live the Christian life.
“Grace is not opposed to effort; it is opposed to earning. Earning is an attitude. Effort is an action. Grace, you know, does not just have to do with forgiveness of sins alone.”
Dallas Willard
When a student receives a college scholarship, it is a one-time event, granted to the student. She now possesses it and is able to attend school without trying to earn the money to pay for it. Yet, the scholarship was given for a reason – so that the student can now focus entirely on their studies and/or sport. The work is just beginning. More blood, sweat, and tears will take place living into that scholarship than the student could ever imagine. It won’t be easy. It will consume the student’s waking hours for the next four years.
When the Apostle James talks about faith, he is primarily referring to sanctifying faith, to believers who already professed saving faith in Jesus. They were granted a full-ride scholarship in the kingdom of God. Now the work begins. And, just as a student will surely become discouraged at points throughout their education, wondering if they ought to drop out, so the Christian will face tremendous adversity and challenge in living the Christian life. There is a lot of spiritual training and studies to do so that faith will be strengthened for a lifetime of service.
Abraham was saved from an empty way of life and given a gift of grace to move to a better country. Abraham did nothing to earn this favor. God just chose him, period. Abraham sojourned as a pilgrim throughout the land God gave him, which mirrored his spiritual sojourning and learning to be a follower of God.
Abraham’s faith was demonstrated by what he did. The way genuine faith develops and grows is in the fiery trial of adversity and hardship.
Christianity is not a matter of continual upward triumph; it is a downright hard work of faith development as we learn to be followers of Christ. Spiritual maturity happens through sanctifying faith by means of difficult life circumstances.
Rahab, a completely different person than Abraham, was a prostitute who lived in the red light district of Jericho. Abraham is a recognized giant of faith. Rahab is an almost overlooked example of faith. All of us likely fall somewhere in between these two people – graced and called by God to live into our sanctifying faith through continual spiritual exercise.
Rahab’s faith and actions worked together. She honestly believed the city of Jericho would experience God’s judgment, and, so, she housed the visiting Israelite spies.
Maybe we need to expand our understanding of faith to include people we might typically exclude.
No one is outside the realm of faith. So, let’s not be quick to judge those with dubious lives and backgrounds, as well as the poor and needy. If we do not know their stories, or why and how they ended up in this station in life, we may make unwarranted assumptions, and turn our backs on the needy.
We must not sanitize Rahab as someone other than who she was – and because of her faith she ended up being an ancestor of Jesus himself.
Needy people are not dumb, clueless, helpless, or ignorant; they are resourceful and resilient. They need Jesus, too. Yes, people make choices, often bad ones. Yet, nobody says to themselves, “When I grow up I want to be a prostitute or maybe a porn star and live in a red light district with a pimp who abuses me and gets high on heroin.”
People too often back into behaviors due to a lack of positive relational connections and just trying to survive whatever crisis is going on in their lives. The church can be a social connection for them to become grounded in something other than their past experience.
God grants faith scholarships to the rich and the poor, from every race, ethnicity, and background imaginable across the entire earth.
From the standpoint of faith, Abraham and Rahab are on the same level. Neither of them did anything to receive God’s grace. And God does not grit his teeth to show favor – the Lord genuinely loves us – and sincerely loves and likes all kinds of people.
Saving faith means life is just beginning. True salvation produces good works. Both Abraham and Rahab, along with all God’s people throughout the ages, exhibit sanctifying faith by persevering through hardship and allowing God to grow their faith.
Therefore, submit to hardship. Find solace in God and Scripture. Pray and worship like you mean it. Lean into community. Keep your eyes of faith open to what the Lord is doing around you.
Faith works. So, embrace it. Enjoy it. Live into it and with it always.
My brothers and sisters, believers in our glorious Lord Jesus Christ must not show favoritism. Suppose a man comes into your meeting wearing a gold ring and fine clothes, and a poor man in filthy old 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?
Listen, my dear brothers and sisters: 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 dishonored 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 blaspheming the noble name of him to whom you belong?
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, “You shall not commit adultery,” also said, “You shall 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. (New International Version)
Being an Outsider
It’s awkward feeling like an outsider. As a young pastor in Michigan, I once went to make a hospital call on one of my parishioners. He was having a procedure done at Ford Hospital in Detroit. I had never been there before. I parked my car and walked into the hospital, just like I had done at several hospitals before.
Yet, there was something different that I couldn’t quite put my finger on. Then, I realized, I didn’t see any other Caucasian people. Every person I encountered was African-American.
Up to that point in my life, I was never a minority in any situation. Although everyone in the hospital was polite and respectful, it was still weird for me. I distinctly remember thinking to myself in the midst of that experience, “Huh, so that’s what it feels like for my African-American friends!”
Imagine being a visitor to a church worship service. You are 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. “Wow, that building is big! I don’t know anybody here, except Mary.”
Mary isn’t here today. You gin-up the courage to get out of the car and walk into the building. “Where do I go? Will anybody notice me? How am I supposed to act? Where do I sit?” All the things we take for granted are at the forefront of your mind.
Favoritism is Insider Judgment
Not everyone thinks or lives the same – and that is the point the Apostle James is trying to get across to us. If we are only attentive, aware, and care about people who look like us, think like us, and live like us, then we are playing favorites. And God calls that being judgmental.
The word “favoritism” comes from an idiom literally meaning, “lifting up the face.” That is, taking something merely at face value. To make a biased judgment based on only surface impressions is not good. It is not the way of Jesus, who associated with people of dubious morality and came into close contact with ostracized persons, like lepers. Discrimination based on limited understanding is soundly condemned in Scripture.
Those who show favoritism aren’t good.
Proverbs 28:21, CEB
Be fair, no matter who is on trial—don’t favor either the poor or the rich. (Leviticus 19:15, CEV)
Times change; God’s heart doesn’t. The Lord cares for all kinds of people, not just insiders. Peter had to get that into his head and heart concerning Gentiles, whom he considered inferior. He took for granted they were to always be outsiders. It took a series of visions from God for Peter to get this testimony into his life:
“Now I understand that God doesn’t play favorites. Rather, whoever respects God and does what is right is acceptable to him in any nation.” (Acts 10:34-35, GW)
A poor woman once wanted to join a church. She went to the pastor, and he told her to pray about becoming a member. The pastor did not see the woman for months and then one day met her on the street. He asked her if she had been praying and what she had decided about joining the church. She said, “I did what you asked me to do, and one day while I was praying, the Lord said to me, ‘Don’t worry about getting into that church – I’ve been trying to get into it myself for the last twenty years!’”
The church the Apostle James addressed had the mistaken notion certain persons were better than others because of their ability to financially contribute and wield influence. Put yourselves in the shoes of those ancient church folks.
These are refugees trying to make it in a strange country. It was tempting and easy to suck-up to the rich persons who came to their meetings. They 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.
Favoritism is a Heart Problem
For the Apostle James, showing favoritism reflected a terrible malady of the heart: a divided loyalty between God and the world. When things got rocky, the church turned to money and those with it, instead of coming to the Lord and seeking God’s unlimited resources. Inattention to the poor and needy might make good business sense but will result in spiritual death when Jesus comes back to judge the living and the dead.
Far too many Christians believe poor people are poor because they are lazy and don’t want to work. There are certainly lazy people in this world, and maybe we are some of them – too spiritually lazy to take the time and effort to get to know persons in poverty and those very different from ourselves.
In the third century, a church deacon named Lawrence was in charge of the church’s treasury (benevolence fund) in Rome. One day the prefect (mayor) of the city asked Lawrence to gather up and give him “the wealth of the church.” Lawrence sent back a message: “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 walked through all the alleys and squares of Rome and gathered the church’s real treasure—the poor, the disabled, the blind, the homeless, and the lepers. The people he gathered 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.
Lawrence wrote down their names and lined them up at the entrance to the church at his appointment with the prefect. “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.
Growing up, I had a dog named “Sam.” Sam loved being on the farm. One time he tussled with a skunk. I could barely get close enough to him to clean him up because he stunk so badly. Favoritism stinks, and God has a hard time getting close to us when we show partiality to others. And he is going to clean us up when he smells the stench of discrimination on us.
Showing favoritism to some over others is evidence that the dog is running away from the bath of grace. To develop relationships and interact with people the way God wants us to, we must be free from prejudice.
Three Reasons Why Favoritism Stinks
1. A theological reason: Jesus doesn’t show favoritism to the rich.
“The Spirit of the Lord is on me, because he has anointed me to proclaim good news to the poor.” (Luke 4:18, NIV)
In the Old Testament, God said:
There will always be poor people in the land, so I command you to give freely to your neighbors and to the poor and needy in your land. (Deuteronomy 15:11, NCV)
God is looking for humble persons, giving grace to people who cannot offer something in return. It is easy to be merciful to people who will turn around later and scratch our backs. It is altogether a different thing to give without any expectations of response.
2. A logical reason: Favoritism comes from a materialistic heart.
Money does change us. Research by the University of Minnesota’s Carlson School of Management found that even the mere suggestion of getting more money makes people less friendly, less sensitive to others, and more likely to support statements like “some groups of people are simply inferior to others.”
Another series of studies from the University of California at Berkley concluded that wealthier people tend to be less compassionate towards others in a bad situation than people from lower-class backgrounds.
Some people are willing to put up with being treated unfairly, just so they can be the recipients of a rich person’s wealth and position. Favoritism ignores the sin in others in order to gain something from them. That is stinking thinking.
3. A biblical reason: Favoritism is a violation of God’s law.
The entire law is summed up in two commands: Love God. Love neighbor. Favoritism is a violation of loving our neighbor. Therefore, to discriminate on any basis is to disobey God.
Who is my neighbor? The parable of the Good Samaritan tells us that any needy human being we encounter – no matter their social or economic status, their ethnicity, race, gender, religion, or anything identifying them as different – is to be helped when we have the opportunity to do so.
Ernest Gordon was a P.O.W. who wrote a book about his experiences in a Japanese concentration camp in 1942. The Japanese were ruthless and horribly treated their prisoners. With barely any food to survive, the law of the jungle ruled amongst the prisoners. But a Christian prisoner operated with a different set of rules. He continually shared his food with other prisoners to the point where he actually starved to death because of it.
The other prisoners could not understand why this guy would do such a thing, until they found a Bible in his few belongings. One by one the prisoners read his Bible and found in it the principle of love and not showing favoritism. Eventually, the entire camp changed and came to know Christ because of one man’s humble spirit to be generous with what he had.
Speak and Act with Mercy
Words are important, and are to be full of grace, seasoned with salt. An active faith without merciful words is not really faith at all – it is an excuse to keep a galloping tongue going. Showing mercy, instead of favoritism, is the way love expresses itself.
The stench of showing favoritism goes away with a cleansing bath of God’s mercy in Jesus Christ. God is the expert in:
Turning people from only associating with those they are comfortable with, to lovingly reaching out to people very different from themselves.
Changing people from the stinking thinking about what they can continually obtain and consume, to people who are loving and generous with their words and their physical resources.
Putting to death a proud spirit that looks to get ahead and accomplish an agenda by any means possible, to giving new life through humble repentance.
Let’s make it our goal to give grace, to be like Jesus. Amen.
Rev. Tim Ehrhardt 