The Breath of Life

James 2:1-17

¹My brothers and sisters, believers in our glorious Lord Jesus Christ must not show favoritism. ² 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. ³ 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,” ⁴ have you not discriminated among yourselves and become judges with evil thoughts?

⁵ 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? ⁶ 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? ⁷ Are they not the ones who are blaspheming the noble name of him to whom you belong?

⁸ If you really keep the royal law found in Scripture, “Love your neighbor as yourself,” you are doing right. ⁹ But if you show favoritism, you sin and are convicted by the law as lawbreakers. ¹⁰ For whoever keeps the whole law and yet stumbles at just one point is guilty of breaking all of it. ¹¹ 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.

¹² Speak and act as those who are going to be judged by the law that gives freedom, ¹³ because judgment without mercy will be shown to anyone who has not been merciful. Mercy triumphs over judgment.

¹⁴ What good is it, my brothers and sisters, if someone claims to have faith but has no deeds? Can such faith save them? ¹⁵ Suppose a brother or a sister is without clothes and daily food. ¹⁶ If one of you says to them, “Go in peace; keep warm and well fed,” but does nothing about their physical needs, what good is it? ¹⁷ In the same way, faith by itself, if it is not accompanied by action, is dead.

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How often have you heard, “Don’t judge a book by its cover?”

Okay, yeah we’ve all heard that, but I do it all the time!  I love to read.  I read a LOT!  Which means I buy a lot of books – both at traditional bookstores and on the internet for my Kindle.  I have authors I like, but sometimes my favorite authors don’t have anything new out, so I end up browsing.  And when I’m browsing, I tend to judge the books by the covers.

Romance novel?  I like pirates, cowboys, cops, firemen.  Not a fan of the fainting femme fatale.

Science fiction?  I like interesting worlds, creatures, space ships.  I don’t like clock faces (they usually indicate time travel, which I hate), or anything that looks like a Star Wars wannabe.

Fantasy?  Real vampires (no sparkling please), magic, unique ideas.  I avoid books that have covers showing teenage characters doing pretty much anything.

It saves time.  I avoid picking up books that are probably going to have story lines that irritate me.  But it’s also possible that I’m missing out on a great book.

I don’t spend a lot of time stressing about that, because as much as I love to read…really, it’s a book, not exactly the future of the world.

We do the same thing with people—and that’s a problem.

In 1990 a movie called Pretty Woman came out, starring Julia Roberts and Richard Gere.  You might have seen it.  If you haven’t, the basic concept is this: Julia Roberts is a prostitute and Richard Gere is a very rich business man.  He basically hires Julia Roberts’ character to accompany him to a variety of functions.

He gives her a great deal of cash to go buy appropriate clothes on Rodeo Drive.  But there’s a problem.  Although she has plenty of money, she’s still wearing the clothes that identify her as a down-on-her-luck prostitute.  The sales person refuses to wait on her.

When she finally gets the help she needs, she returns to the shop that refused to help her.  She now looks like an affluent customer, and the sales person’s attitude is significantly better than it was the first time.  The sales person obviously doesn’t recognize Roberts’ character until Roberts points out that the sales person works on commission.  Gesturing with the clothes she’s purchased elsewhere, which would have represented a huge commission for the sales person, she says, “Big mistake.  Big.”

It doesn’t really bother me that I tend to judge books on the shelf by their covers, even though it means I might miss out on a good book once in a while.

But when we judge people only by what we see, we miss out on a lot more.

Our scripture today warns us about playing favorites in our churches.  This was a warning given to churches two thousand years ago.  I can’t decide if it’s encouraging or discouraging that our churches today still need this warning.

On the one hand, it’s kind of encouraging because it can be nice to know that we’re not first to mess this up.  On the other hand, it’s discouraging because we’re still making the same mistakes after all this time!

The fact is, we are human.  We’re wired to approach our world a certain way, and the first impression we typically receive is a visual one.  Our first impression is mostly instinct—it’s influenced by past experience, the lessons we learn from our culture and environment. 

We may not always be able to control that first, instinctive thought.  We can control the thoughts that come next.

“Love your neighbor as yourself.”

That’s easy when your neighbor looks and acts like you, but not all of our neighbors do.  What about the neighbor that doesn’t speak English?  What about the neighbor that wears a turban or a hijab?  What about the neighbor with a family structure that is very different from yours?

There isn’t a community on the planet that’s made up of people who are completely the same.

But it’s so much easier to love people who look like us, act like us…are us!

Take a walk through Wal Mart and listen the conversations you hear.  Go online and check out the comments on any given news item.

It won’t take long before you hear or read something that sounds like this:

“Those people need to learn English if they wanna live here.”

“Why do they have to force their culture on us?”

“We have to protect our way of life—they want to make us all (fill in the group).”

I’m not exactly feeling the love.  If you want to have a really passionate discussion with someone—in person or online—ask them about the “love your neighbor” thing.

Almost immediately you’re going to get a whole raft of excuses for why that doesn’t apply to this particular situation.  Some of those excuses are going to be accompanied by scripture (typically taken out of context).

No matter what excuse we come up with, the fact remains that when Jesus was asked which commandment was the most important (in Mark 12:28-31) he very clearly stated that the most important commandment was to love God.  And the second most important commandment was to love your neighbor as yourself.

Not, love your neighbor as yourself…unless they look funny.

Not, love your neighbor as yourself…unless they speak Spanish.

Not, love your neighbor as yourself…unless they’re on welfare.

Not, love your neighbor as yourself…as long as they look exactly like you and never do anything wrong.

Suddenly the fact that we still struggle with this, even after a couple thousand years, doesn’t seem that strange.  We’re fighting instinct, training, and experience.  We’re fighting our own human nature.

We’re not going to succeed every time.

I’d really like to say that you will.  That someday you will become so good at this Christian thing that you won’t even think about what a person looks like, or acknowledge that first impression.

That’s a nice thought, but it’s not realistic.

The apostles failed at this once in a while, and they were literally walking with Jesus.  We’re not always going to win that battle, but that doesn’t mean we stop trying.

And that’s where the next part of today’s scripture comes in:

¹² Speak and act as those who are going to be judged by the law that gives freedom, ¹³ because judgment without mercy will be shown to anyone who has not been merciful. Mercy triumphs over judgment.

¹⁴ What good is it, my brothers and sisters, if someone claims to have faith but has no deeds? Can such faith save them? ¹⁵ Suppose a brother or a sister is without clothes and daily food. ¹⁶ If one of you says to them, “Go in peace; keep warm and well fed,” but does nothing about their physical needs, what good is it? ¹⁷ In the same way, faith by itself, if it is not accompanied by action, is dead.

We are never going to win a battle we stop fighting.  We have to act on our faith—which means reaching out to our neighbors and serving in our community.

No matter how small your community is, there are opportunities to serve.  It’s easy to avoid some of those opportunities.  We don’t feel comfortable with the people being served, or the environment that service is happening in.

Some people don’t like serving at their local food bank because they feel like some people are taking advantage of it.  Some people don’t like serving at the women’s crisis center, because they feel like some women make bad decisions and get themselves into trouble they could have avoided.  Some people don’t like volunteering at school because they end up working with Hispanic kids and they wonder if the parents are here illegally.

“Mercy triumphs over judgment.”

“Faith by itself, if it is not accompanied by action, is dead.”

We don’t want a dead faith, and we definitely don’t want to be judged without mercy!

Those first thoughts, those reasons we have for not serving, are the products of our human nature.  They may be the first thoughts we have, but they don’t have to be the last.

Spend some time this week looking at your community, and how you serve your neighbors.  Are you taking advantage of the opportunities to serve?

Make a commitment to serve in a way you haven’t considered before.  Find a way to work with people who don’t look like you…step out of your comfort zone and breathe some life into your faith.