James 2:1-9 & 14-20 & 26
My brothers and sisters, when you show favoritism you deny the
faithfulness of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has been resurrected in glory. 2
Imagine two people coming into your meeting. One has a gold ring and fine
clothes, while the other is poor, dressed in filthy rags. 3 Then suppose that
you were to take special notice of the one wearing fine clothes, saying,
“Here’s an excellent place. Sit here.” But to the poor person you say,
“Stand over there”; or, “Here, sit at my feet.” 4 Wouldn’t you have shown
favoritism among yourselves and become evil-minded judges?
5 My dear brothers and sisters, listen! Hasn’t God chosen those who are
poor by worldly standards to be rich in terms of faith? Hasn’t God chosen
the poor as heirs of the kingdom he has promised to those who love him? 6
But you have dishonored the poor. Don’t the wealthy make life difficult for
you? Aren’t they the ones who drag you into court? 7 Aren’t they the ones
who insult the good name spoken over you at your baptism?
8 You do well when you really fulfill the royal law found in scripture, Love
your neighbor as yourself. 9 But when you show favoritism, you are
committing a sin, and by that same law you are exposed as a lawbreaker.
My brothers and sisters, what good is it if people say they have faith but do
nothing to show it? Claiming to have faith can’t save anyone, can it? 15
Imagine a brother or sister who is naked and never has enough food to eat.
16 What if one of you said, “Go in peace! Stay warm! Have a nice meal!”?
What good is it if you don’t actually give them what their body needs? 17 In
the same way, faith is dead when it doesn’t result in faithful activity.
18 Someone might claim, “You have faith and I have action.” But how can I
see your faith apart from your actions? Instead, I’ll show you my faith by putting it into practice in faithful action. 19 It’s good that you believe that
God is one. Ha! Even the demons believe this, and they tremble with fear.
20 Are you so slow? Do you need to be shown that faith without actions
has no value at all?
26 As the lifeless body is dead, so faith without actions is dead.
Message: “James Said: Show Me The Works” Rev Heather Riggs
This is the second sermon in our series on my favorite book of the Bible,
the book of James.
Just a little review to catch us up.
The Book of James was probably not written by the apostle James, the
brother of Jesus, but by another James. The Book of James is also not a
letter to a specific community of Jesus followers. There’s no greeting to
specific people at the beginning or farewells at the end. Marcus Borg
suggests that James was written for a Christian Jewish community
because in chapter 2 verse 2, the word used to describe the local church is
the Greek word from which we derive the word, “synagogue.” (Evolution of the
Word, p194) Borg thinks the Book of James was written in the 70’s or 80’s (of
the first century), so it was written after the Gospel of Mark, but before the
Gospel of Matthew, because James seems to have a fresher take on some
of the stories that are included in Matthew and Luke.
The Book of James is not about orthodoxy, which means right belief.
James isn’t trying to make meaning of the resurrection or connect the
prophecies of the Hebrew Bible with the stories of Jesus.
James is about orthopraxis — that’s a big word for doing the right thing.
Ortho – means right
Praxis – means practice, or actions.
James is a practical guide for following Jesus.
And yet, James references more sayings of Jesus than any other New
Testament book besides the gospels (Evolution of the Word, p196)
James is my favorite book of the bible because James challenged me to
ask:
What does it mean to be a Christian?
Last week we explored chapter 1 where James said that we are to, “be
doers of the word not only hearers.” (James 1:22)
But what exactly are we, as Christians, supposed to do?
James begins to answer that question in chapter 1 verse 27:
“True devotion, the kind that is pure and faultless before God the Father, is
this: to care for orphans and widows in their difficulties and to keep the
world from contaminating us.”
Caring for widows and orphans, in the first century context, meant to care
for the people who could not care for themselves. Widows and orphans
often had no source of income in the first century, so that part seems pretty
clear to interpret for today. Christians are supposed to care for the people
who need help. This is why we are supporting the Montavilla Community
Pod Village, and Family Promise, and Our Daily Bread Express, and
Rahab’s Sisters. By organizing to support the pod village and partnering
with these organizations we are being doers of the word all week long, not
just being hearers of the word on Sunday.
But what does it mean to, “keep the world from contaminating us?”
James is so glad you asked!
James presents us with a story example of what contamination by the
world looks like in chapter 2 verses 1-4:
My brothers and sisters, when you show favoritism you deny the
faithfulness of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has been resurrected in
glory. 2 Imagine two people coming into your meeting. One has a gold
ring and fine clothes, while the other is poor, dressed in filthy rags. 3
Then suppose that you were to take special notice of the one wearing
fine clothes, saying, “Here’s an excellent place. Sit here.” But to the
poor person you say, “Stand over there”; or, “Here, sit at my feet.” 4
Wouldn’t you have shown favoritism among yourselves and become
evil-minded judges?)
I’m going to update this story to 2024.
Church, when you show favoritism you deny the faithfulness of our Lord
Jesus Christ, who has been resurrected in glory.
Imagine with me, that on some random Sunday morning, two different
people – new people, whom you’ve never met before show up for worship.
We love new visitors, right!
These new visitors are obviously not together, because one of them is
dressed in a really nicely tailored suit, and when he shakes your hand at
the door, a gold watch peeks out from his cuff.
The other person looks, and smells, like they’re homeless.
? Would you treat these 2 people differently if they showed up for
worship here?
? Have we treated people like these 2, differently when they showed up
for worship here?
If we’re honest with ourselves, we can admit that it’s almost a knee-jerk
reaction to treat the rich person better, isn’t it?
That passage always makes me feel kinda called out.
Take a deep breath. Remember that Jesus loves you all the time…
especially when we get it wrong. That’s what Grace is!
That’s what James means when he talks about being contaminated by the
world.
Our culture, Western Culture, is heavily influenced by the values of the
Roman Empire because the Roman Empire conquered Europe and the
European Empires colonized America. This is why something James wrote
about 2000 years ago is still so very relevant!
The values of Empire are:
? Might makes right, and
? Wealth makes right
? Therefore the powerful and the wealthy are more important than
everyone else.
? And we should work hard to please them
But the Values of Empire ARE NOT THE WAY OF JESUS!
By reflex – we react according to the values of Empire, because we have
been enculturated, from childhood, with the values of Empire. This
enculturation is what James calls contamination. James even goes so far
as to call this kind of giving in to the values of Empire
– denying the faithfulness of our Lord Jesus Christ
– denying the faithfulness of our Lord Jesus Christ
Ouch! James!
— which, by the way, was a very political statement in the First Century.
To call Jesus Lord, or Lord and Savior, was to take the title of Caesar – the
title of the original Roman Emperor – and give it to Jesus.
James is drawing a line in the sand.
Either you are a follower of Jesus or you are a follower of Caesar…and the
litmus test for determining who is your Lord, is how we treat the poor.
And James goes on to make it crystal clear in verses 5 -7
5 My dear brothers and sisters, listen! Hasn’t God chosen those who are
poor by worldly standards to be rich in terms of faith? Hasn’t God chosen
the poor as heirs of the kingdom he has promised to those who love him? 6
But you have dishonored the poor. Don’t the wealthy make life difficult for
you? Aren’t they the ones who drag you into court? 7 Aren’t they the ones
who insult the good name spoken over you at your baptism?
First of all, I want to point out that James is paraphrasing the sayings of
Jesus here. James is referencing the Beatitudes in Matthew 5, the
Sermon on the Plain in Luke 6 and the story of the sheep and the goats in
Matthew 25. Remember in the introduction when I referenced Marcus
Borg’s claim that James quotes Jesus more than any other book of the
Bible beside the gospels? James isn’t being woke, James is quoting
Jesus.
I also want to point out how relevant verses 6 and 7 still are!
One could argue that it’s time to shut up about Bob, is a pretty accurate
paraphrase of James 2:6
“But you have dishonored the poor. Don’t the wealthy make life difficult for
you?”
One of the biggest Con jobs of the modern world is the idea that caring for
the poor is bankrupting our economy when it’s the very, very, very wealthy
who are keeping wages flat, slurping up Trillions in government subsidies,
buying up family homes to turn them into overpriced rentals and letting
luxury apartments sit empty because they get more from the tax write off
for claiming they can’t rent them out at a fair market price, than if they
lowered the rent to what people can afford!
Please understand that having a nice house or a comfortable retirement is
not the definition of wealthy! I’m talking about nesting doll yachts wealthy.
Gifting cars and vacations to Supreme Court Justices in order to buy their
decisions, wealthy.
James said:
8 You do well when you really fulfill the royal law found in scripture, Love
your neighbor as yourself. 9 But when you show favoritism, you are
committing a sin, and by that same law you are exposed as a lawbreaker.
I don’t think that needs explaining.
And as if all of that wasn’t enough to make us all wonder if we really are
Christians at all… at least that’s what happened to me. James shattered
my comfortable, Church-going faith. James took all these nice, “blessed
are the poor,” sayings of Jesus and condensed them into some sort of
gospel concentrate. The first time I read James, I felt like I was drinking the
concentrated sludge from 1000 keurig cups from a fire hose!
Because Sunday school taught me to be obedient to my parents, be nice to
everyone, pray the Lord’s Prayer, and go to church every week.
James said, I can either follow the Way of Jesus and practice neighbor-love
for the neighbors who are most in need of love…
Or I can follow the Way of Empire and love the rich and the powerful.
Or as Jesus put it in Matthew 6:24, you can’t serve both God and Money.
Then James, in a very Jesus like story telling style, gives us one more
example of what it means to really be a Christian in verses 14b-17
My brothers and sisters, what good is it if people say they have faith but do
nothing to show it? Claiming to have faith can’t save anyone, can it? 15
Imagine a brother or sister who is naked and never has enough food to eat.
16 What if one of you said, “Go in peace! Stay warm! Have a nice meal!”?
What good is it if you don’t actually give them what their body needs?
Ugghhhhh!
James! James! How on earth am I supposed to do that???!!!
Every single day, I see sooooo many houseless people. So many people
contact the church because they are short on their rent. So many people
are refugees from pointless wars and local conflicts between monied
interests. James! Sometimes all I *can* offer is the dignity of being polite
to my houseless neighbors. Because the problem is bigger, so much
bigger than just me.
The problems are so much bigger than I can solve all by myself.
The Church exists to teach people the Way of Jesus, which is the
practice of neighbor-love, and to organize together to be doers of the
Way and not just hearers of the way.
This is why I am still a part of the Church.
Because I can’t do it all.
Our little local church can’t do it all.
But, if we invite our neighbors to come join us in caring for those in need
and working to advocate for systemic changes by fulfilling our Baptismal
Vows to resist evil and injustice in whatever forms they present themselves
(p35 UMH), then there will be enough of us to make a difference.
That’s why I am still a Christian. Because the Church exists to teach
people the Way of Jesus, which is the practice of neighbor-love, and to
organize together to be doers of the Way and not just hearers of the way.
I’m going to let James have the last word.
18 Someone might claim, “You have faith and I have action.” But how can I
see your faith apart from your actions? Instead, I’ll show you my faith by
putting it into practice in faithful action. 19 It’s good that you believe that
God is one. Ha! Even the demons believe this, and they tremble with fear.
20 Are you so slow? Do you need to be shown that faith without actions
has no value at all?
26 As the lifeless body is dead, so faith without actions is dead.
