The Condemnation of Partiality

James 2:1-13

Southern Gables Church

Dr. Rich Peterson

April 27, 2008

I thought this Family Circus cartoon provided a great word picture of the Christian community and the diversity without disunity that is ours in Jesus.

Crayons can teach us a good lesson: “…they’re different colors, have strange names, but all learn to live together in the same box.”

When we enter the household of faith, we long to feel the joy expressed by the psalmist: “I rejoiced with those who said to me, ‘Let us go to the house of the LORD” (Ps 122:1).

We long to come into a place where everybody is a somebody. A place where even “nobodies” are somebodies. A place where mercy matters most and love reigns supreme. This is James’s vision of the Christian church!

Doug Webster says we long to come into a place where “the relational strategies of preferential treatment and pragmatic interests are laid aside. Stroking egos gives way to praising God. Mercy overcomes manipulation. The Lord’s Supper replaces the power lunch. Instead of courting one another’s favor we rejoice in God’s favor.”

But Dr. Webster continues, “the problem is that the way we operate all week does not dust off easily on Sunday. Without the Spirit’s direction and purposeful resistance, we fall back into the habits of human nature and custom. Christian service turns into customer service, and favoritism evaluates every relationship in terms of profit or loss. We size people up. We are as sharp as Sherlock Holmes in spotting the telltale signs of prominence, prestige, influence, and control.”

Like a lone voice in the worldly-wilderness James cries out as pastor/prophet,

“My brothers, as believers in our glorious Lord Jesus Christ don’t show favoritism.”

James mandates three actions in this passage. Two are rather general and one is very, very specific.

In general James writes: “Speak and act as those who are going to be judged by the law that gives freedom.” Then a little more to the point, “If you really keep the royal law found in Scripture, ‘Love your neighbor as yourself’ you are doing right.”

And then very, very specifically James tells us:

“Show no partiality.”

Why be so specific at this point? Because partiality runs completely contrary to the character of God.

God does not show favoritism and because how we treat others is the evidence of our relation to Christ.

The church of Jesus Christ is the one place where everybody matters! (v.1).

“Don’t show partiality. And just what is partiality?

Partiality is the undue, unfair respect of persons that panders to someone because he is rich, influential, or popular. To be partial is to distinguish, decide, and judge. But as John Piper suggests partiality means that you base your treatment of someone – or your attitude toward someone – on something that should NOT be the basis of how you treat them. That is on whether they are rich or poor.

Now we have seen and heard this kind of thing before:

In Jesus we watched as “the spies questioned him, ‘Teacher, we know that you speak and teach what is right, and that you do not show partiality but teach the way of God in accordance with the truth” (Luke 20:21).

“Teacher, we know you are a man of integrity, you aren’t swayed by men, because you pay no attention to who they are; but you teach the ways of God in accordance with the truth” (Mark 12:14).

In Peter we watched as the Holy Spirit opened his heart to the new reality of those who would follow after the ways of Jesus in his encounter with the Gentile, Cornelius. “I now realize how true it is that God does not show favoritism but accepts men from every nation who fear him and do what is right” (Acts 10:34).

With respect to different races, Paul emphatically teaches, “God does not show favoritism” (Rom 2:11). With respect to social and economic status Paul writes, “And masters, treat your slaves in the same way. Do not threaten them, since you know that he who is both their Master and yours is in heaven, and there is no favoritism with him” (Eph. 6:9).

And here with the gentleness of a pastor, the firmness of a prophet and the guidance of an older brother in the faith, James echoes the same truth, “My brothers, as believers in our glorious Lord Jesus Christ, don’t show favoritism.”

Partiality – it is one of the truly multicolor words in the letter of James. The word literally means, “that which receives face or that which lifts up the face.” Both meanings could fit here as the word may mean “to receive the face of another person in an evaluating way.” Such an attitude scans the features of a new face coming into the church. An instant evaluation takes place. Immediately the evaluation categorizes the newcomer socially, educationally, racially, and economically. On the basis of such a decision, fellowship is given or withheld.

Or James may have in mind the idea that many people can’t conceal their reaction to a newcomer. Their emotions write themselves on their faces. So, perhaps James is referring to the accepting smile or the rejecting frown on the faces of church members when they react to new members.

Whatever the case, James condemns such superficial distinctions in the community of Christ. The church of Jesus is the one place where everybody matters because at the final judgment, every rank and category of people will stand on level ground.

On that level ground before the Cross you want to experience the mercy of God and not His judgment only!

A couple of weeks ago I had my hair cut by a young man by the name of “Anthony” who had stopped attending church because of a felt injustice done to him and his family when he was a child.

His Mom was a widow and worked a blue-collar job to help support a family of five. They started attending a church in hopes of growing in the Lord and locating a family of faith. Because of their impoverished situation, the mother handmade all of the family’s clothes. Anthony told me of a conversation he overheard the leaders of the church having regarding his Mom’s “unkempt appearance” and how the family was such an embarrassment to the church. These church leaders wondered within hearing distance from Anthony why the family couldn’t just find another church that would be more “appropriate” for them.

This conversation and the prejudicial attitudes that came with it were so disturbing to Anthony that he has never again set foot inside a church.

How we treat others is THE EVIDENCE of our relation to Christ. James condemns partiality because it so completely contradicts the character and glory of God. Some older translations of this passage read, “Show no partiality as you hold the faith of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Lord of glory.” Or as some have paraphrased it, “In proclaiming your faith, do not play favorites in the church.”

If our most passionate desire is for human glory we will most certainly continue to show favoritism. But if our most passionate desire is the glory of God then His illuminating light will enable us to see and value all people as Jesus does.

In the new community of Christ – everybody matters!

Then James takes it a step further when he implies that in this place even “nobodies” matter.

Pretend for a moment that,

A man comes into your meeting wearing a gold ring and fine clothes, and a poor man in shabby 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?

Focus on that last sentence for a moment: Have you not discriminated among yourselves and become judges with evil thoughts? Here is, I think, an example of how the “pollution” of the world has invaded the church of Jesus Christ. Along with the moral filth and the evil that is so prevalent inside our hearts (and James has already addressed this issue in chapter one) the pollution of the world shows up in the way we treat the less important – the widows and orphans, the helpless, the voiceless, the powerless, the forgotten, the poor.

The pollution of the world seeps into our pours and works its way under our skin. It ever so insidiously affects our breathing in and out of the Holy Spirit.

No doubt the world values people who appear important. The world is enamored with celebrity holding certain people in higher regard than others on the basis of wealth, achievement, position, and prominence. These are the folks given the best seats in the house.

In fact, we have become so used to these distinctions that they are normal for us.

Of course, the rich will sit in the $750 seats on the floor of the Nuggets game.

Of course, the affluent will occupy the box seats at the Bronco game.

Of course, those who can afford it will sit in first class. So why should it be different in church?

This may be why the wealthy man in James’s story receives special attention. Maybe the one who led this prominent man to his seat of privilege was in the habit of catering to the wealthy every business day. He may have thought why should a worship service be any different from the workplace? What makes the house of God different from the office?

If the Christian community were merely an extension of the world this would make perfect sense.

But the Community of Christ is not an extension of the world – the community of Christ is otherworldly and most radically a different place. The only place in fact where even the “Nobodies” and perhaps especially the world’s “nobodies” are God’s somebodies!

When we started our ministry with the developmentally disabled one of the first things Shushawn suggested was that we create “prime seating” for those in wheelchairs within our sanctuary. Create spaces in the center of the worship center so that those in wheelchairs can easily access and participate in the corporate worship experience.

So we did this and the results have been very interesting.

From one of our Abled-Hearts women we learned that this single gesture became the very thing God used to bring her to saving faith in Jesus Christ. So impressed that a church should care enough for the disabled as to reserve the best seats for THEM, she began to wonder if there was something to these Christian’s faith.

It was a great privilege for a couple of us to introduce this woman to the Lord Jesus and an unforgettable experience for me personally to literally carry her into the baptismal waters.

On the other hand, when we made the arrangements for such seating one of the men in our church confronted me one day with the question, “Are we just doing this because the government has somehow forced its way into the church and mandated special treatment of these folks? Why can’t they just park their rigs in the back and be satisfied with that?

To which I responded, a little to quickly and not without a bit of anger – “No, not the United States government – the government of the King of kings! Not surprisingly there wasn’t much conversation after that regarding the matter – sometimes my passion gets ahead of my mouth and overrides my brain!

But still, I do believe that it is with a great deal of passion for such things that James declares, “have you not discriminated among yourselves and become judges with evil thoughts?”

In the church of Jesus Christ everybody matters

It is the one place in the entire world that even “nobodies” matter and not only that James implies, it is also the one place where those who matter to no one else matter intensely to God!

Listen, my dear brothers: Has not God chosen those who are poor in the eyes of the world to be rich in faith and to inherit he kingdom he promised those who love him? But you have insulted 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 slandering the noble name of him to whom you belong?

Wait a minute – did we read that right? “Has not God chosen those who are poor in the eyes of the world to be rich in faith?

Pastor Joel Gregory provides some helpful insight here when he writes, “The large number of poor people in the church in James’s day betrayed no accident of fate. Deliberately, God had chosen the people who were poor in the material realm to be rich in the spiritual realm.”

In a sharp call to attention James demands our focused interest.

“Listen, my dear brothers:

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? It is a rhetorical question and the only answer is “Yes.”

But WOW, James points to something almost unfathomable to those who have been spiritually food poisoned through thoughtless consumption of so much prosperity preaching offered at so many religious venues and included on so many “evangelical” menus today.

Literally, God chose the poor for Himself.

Now folks, even after having been a part of this church for half a decade, even after that many years and that many sermons in this place – God’s election of individuals and groups still remains for me one of the Bible’s great mysteries. The doctrine of election means that God saves people because He intends to do so. God chooses to save and those who respond to Him in faith become part of His elect.

James tells us that a vital part of God’s elective intention is the salvation of the poor. This doesn’t mean that no rich person can saved and that all poor people care chosen for salvation – but it does reinforce God’s interest in the poor by His own sovereign choice.

As the Son of God, Jesus reveals God’s special interest in the poor.

Jesus’ first Beatitude: “Blessed are you poor, for yours is the kingdom of God” (Luke 6:20).

Jesus began his first sermon with the affirmation: “the Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he has anointed me to preach good news to the poor” (Luke 4:18).

When the imprisoned John the Baptist wanted to test the authority of Jesus’ ministry, Jesus sent him the evidence: “The poor have good news preached to them” (Luke 7:22).

It would appear that no matter how you slice it the central appeal of the gospel was to the poor people of the land. Hannah’s haunting cry echoes throughout the Scriptures:

He raises up the poor from the dust

He lifts the needy from the ash heap.

To make them sit with princes

And inherit a seat of honor (1 Sam. 2:8)

In Jesus, even the poor have hope of an inheritance which is “imperishable, undefiled, and unfading” (1 Peter 1:4).

Not long after he became pastor of First Baptist Church, Dallas, W. A. Criswell had a life-changing encounter with the poor that encouraged his downtown church to continue reaching out to all people. As the story goes, Dr. Criswell went to the church early one morning and noticed a group gathered around one of the doorways of the sanctuary. Curious, he worked his way through the crowd. He saw a man on the steps with his hands stretched out toward the church door. The man was dead. He died reaching out to the church in the heart of the city. This episode led Dr. Criswell to design a whole spectrum of “Good Shepherd” ministries to reach the neediest and poorest people in the community.

The commission to reach out in love to those who matter most to God seems clear enough, and yet so few churches feel compelled to make outreach to the poor a central concern of gospel ministry.

God has chosen the poor -

“But you have insulted the poor.”

Have the poor persons who live in the midst of the American dream become an embarrassment to the very people who claim the name of Christ?

Should we as middle-class Americans step back and ask ourselves some serious questions in this regard?

How have I insulted the poor? Is it through my denial of charity? Or maybe my denial of dignity? How do I treat the person who serves my family dinner at Chili’s – with respect or disdain?

Have I become like the godless rich who exploit the poor for their own advantage? How might I be doing this even in subtle fashion? Do these attitudes and behaviors break God’s heart? Is my self-interest, self-concern, self-protection choking me to death spiritually?

What would it look like for me to creatively and innovatively take this passage seriously and with the aid of the Holy Spirit apply it to my own life? Is Jesus’ truth statement that the “poor you will always have with you” an invitation for me to engage in ministry or an excuse for my continued complacency?

These (and questions like these) were hard for me to wrestle with as a pastor of an inner-city church in Dallas. As I have indicated before – I feel like I got about 25 years of ministry experience in 5 as our impoverished little community of faith sought to meet the enormous needs of the urban poor.

But as much as that experience helped shape some of my passions, and even as much as I like to refer to my time thereJ The true heroes for me remain the people who spent their entire lifetimes in that church on Maple and Douglas; ministering to the urban poor, the down-and-out African-American, the impoverished family of immigrants fresh from Mexico, the young man struggling with addictions, the destitute homeless single mom whose four kids had four different fathers.

Of all the heroes who compassionately ministered the gospel of Jesus Christ to those people, one name stands above the rest.

Ellis Watkins.

Ellis was the Director of the Dallas Transportation District. He was extremely well respected, well-to-do and well – just a giant of a man in the Dallas area. But somewhere along the line Ellis began to see that all those things didn’t matter much if he didn’t use his influence for the cause of Christ. And there was no greater cause to which Ellis would give his life then to the ministry of the gospel to the poor.

He accomplished this feat by the choices he made on a daily basis. Choices like the kind of car he would drive, the kind of modest house he would own, and the kinds of people he would be seen with most often.

When I traveled back to Dallas in 2002 for the church’s 100-year anniversary, Ellis asked me out to lunch. I thought we would go somewhere nice (read expensive). Why not, after all I had invested time in this church as their Senior Pastor, come all this way from Denver to be with them….

When we were through with the worship services that day we made our way to Ellis’s car. To my chagrin and later shame two others followed us to the car.

“These are new friends of mine”, Ellis said, pointing first to the dirty, unkempt woman in the wheelchair and then to the clearly homeless man standing next to her.

I’ve asked them to join us for lunch today, as I knew you wouldn’t mind.”

As I was seated in the backseat, because the woman needed to ride “shotgun” it occurred to me that when it came to “really keeping the royal law” when it came to living my life “by the law that gives freedom, “ I still had a long way to go.

It also occurred to me that day dining with these “diverse” people in that dingy, hole in the wall Mexican food restaurant that this might be as close as I would ever get to “heaven” this side of glory.

This is James’s vision of the church of Jesus Christ:

A place where everybody matters

A place where even the “nobodies” matter.

A place where those who don’t matter to anybody else matter to God

A place where love is the only law that really matters

A place where mercy matters most.