I want to begin by saying a word of prayer:
‘Your word is a lamp unto my feet and a light unto my path.’ Father, may that be true as we look at these verses in James now. May they shine light into our lives, and may we act according to what they show us. For your name’s sake. Amen.
Well, we are working our way through this letter of James. If you’ve just joined us for the first time, welcome! We (finally) finished chapter 1 this morning. I’ve said before that I don’t think that as an idea occurred to James he popped it down in any old order, as though we jump from the end of chapter 1 now, where he’s been discussing the difference between true and false religion, and suddenly he’s off about favouritism, discrimination, treating the rich in a different way from the poor, in chapter 2, as if it had no connection with what’s gone before. The letter is not a string of pearls like that. And I hope that, if you have been with us before in the book, you’ve begun to get a bit of a feel for it and you’re prepared to work with me now on this passage to see how it fits with what James is saying to us all the way through his letter. Because I want to suggest that what he’s doing in chapter 2 is continuing to explain the difference between what it is really to be a Christian (to have a relationship with the God and Father he’s just described in the last two verses of chapter 1), and just wearing some religious clothes, like a chimpanzee dressed as a human being.
Now, we frequently get taken in in life, don’t we? I was delighted to be shown, a while ago, this extract from The Times: ‘Some years ago Willie Rushton stealthily labelled an electric plug socket in one of the Victoria and Albert Museum’s galleries: “Plug hole designed by Hans Plug (b.1908)”. Meanwhile, his friend Nicky Bird labelled a spectator’s bench in the same gallery: “The Bennidorm Bench designed by the Marxist minimalist Van der Pohe c. 1958”. “Pohe” – Bird’s label went on – “believed in the primacy of shoddy goods. ‘Cheap and cheerless’ was his catchphrase. Here he has fashioned something uncomfortable out of Vinyl and Formica to discourage loitering.” [The two took a bet about whose label would last longer. After two months, Van der Pohe was discovered by museum staff not to exist, but Hans Plug remained for a full year – to the great annoyance, apparently, of a cleaner who had to use a hefty extension lead for 12 months so as not to damage the exhibit.]’
This morning when we were looking at those two verses before, we were noticing that when it comes to the Christian faith, people do not get taken in for long. The reality is all too obvious, and indeed many are put off Christianity altogether by the sight of the falsely religious, wearing the same clothes but lacking the life, monkeys dressed as men. And there may be some here this evening who have been put off Christianity by people whose lives do not match their lips. Well, I hope we are going to have a chance to examine in these verses the reality of the Christian faith.
And for those of us here who are Christians we will need to check ourselves against these verses. We may be nearer to the chimps’ tea party than we think.
We will take each paragraph in turn, and I have given each a title.
1) The Presenting Issue: Judging by Appearances. (vv.1-4)
‘My brothers, as believers in our glorious Lord Jesus Christ, don’t show favouritism. Suppose 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?’ (vv. 1-4).
Again, verse 1: ‘My brothers, as believers in our glorious Lord Jesus Christ, don’t show favouritism.’ The word has a sense of making judgments and distinctions based on external factors. So ‘favouritism’ in the NIV doesn’t quite capture it. Partiality, or prejudice, but that too is only part of the sense. It’s making judgments based on external factors. It’s a deliberate contrast to the heart religion that James has just been describing in the two previous verses. Notice the emphasis on appearance that comes in the next two verses: Suppose 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,”…’ (vv. 2, 3).
Now one of these two visitors looks worthy and gets treated worthily. The other looks unworthy; the word for ‘poor man’ has the sense of beggar – it’s not just somebody who’s a bit hard up for cash. He looks like a dosser, a down-and-out, a tramp. And he gets treated like it. And so James writes, in verse 4: ‘… have you not discriminated among yourselves and become judges with evil thoughts?’ Now the words can certainly mean that, but the word translated ‘discriminated’ in verse 4 was translated ‘doubt’ back in the previous chapter at verse 6: ‘But when he asks, he must believe and not doubt’. That’s the same word as is here translated ‘discriminate’. And when we looked back at verse 6 of chapter 1 we saw that it meant to waver between two opinions, to look in two directions at once, to have one foot on the bank and one foot on the punt. And it may have the same sense here. Not just making discriminations between each other, but doubting, wavering inside yourself.
Of course, they were making unfortunate social distinctions between themselves when they preferred an apparently rich, well-dressed man to a shabbily dressed dosser, but more sinisterly they were inside themselves wavering, doubting, looking both ways, being inconsistent. Because where does worthiness lie? Does it lie in material wealth? Or does it lie somewhere else? Does it lie with what God thinks is worthy?
Please look back to verse 1 of chapter 2. The words ‘in our glorious Lord Jesus Christ’ are literally ‘in our Lord Jesus Christ of the glory’ in Greek, which doesn’t easily translate into English. But it’s phrased in that way to put a deliberate emphasis on Jesus as the source of glory, the source of what makes something valuable and worthy, of what makes somebody valuable and worthy. What James is accusing his readers of here is that, in preferring somebody who looks worthy to somebody who looks unworthy, they are wavering in their minds between whether they actually believe that Jesus is the glory, or whether they think material wealth and prosperity and success and wellbeing are the glory. In other words, he’s saying in verse 4, “Have you not been inconsistent within yourselves and become judges with evil thoughts?” Those thoughts are evil because they deny Christ. If we start to say that what makes somebody worthy is how they appear in terms of their material success and prosperity, then we are denying Jesus. Discrimination, in this sense, is to worship the world’s gods and not the true God. (Materialism is not just a handicap in the spiritual life, it is an enemy of the spiritual life; and the worship of appearance is what idolatry is all about.)
You see, it’s not just a horizontal problem he’s talking about here. As we read that passage you may have thought that this is a horizontal problem: snobbishness, discrimination between people. It’s not just between human beings: it has a vertical dimension to it. Because if I judge between human beings on the wrong basis, I reveal something about my relationship with God. Now which of us doesn’t judge in the wrong way between human beings when we meet them? That has implications about how we think of Jesus Christ Himself.
Now I don’t want to overplay this illustration of the punt,
but I find that I keep coming back to it in trying to understand this passage and particularly this word that’s quite difficult to get right – translated either discriminate or doubt: it speaks of a person putting half his or her weight on something dependable and solid, and half on something shifting and insubstantial. And the point is that those two are destined to get further and further apart.
I don’t want to overplay it, but I do find that very helpful in trying to understand what James is on about, right through his letter. This idea of being double-minded, two-spirited you could translate the Greek word. It’s to do with whether you and I have got one foot in a faith in God, and one foot in a faith in something quite different: success on this planet, relationships, family, building our own world around ourselves, a home to live in, a career to follow, nice people who like us. And at the end of the day, James says, those two are going to get further and further apart. And you and I have got to decide where we are going to put our weight.
Can I just pause for a moment and ask if that is a picture of your Christian life? We trust God, but we also put our faith in the values of this world: what this world thinks glorious. And spiritually we look as stupid as the person with one foot on the punt and one foot on the bank. The two are getting further and further apart, for all our attempts to hold them together – we struggle so much in life to have a bit of both.
2) The Principle of Mercy (vv. 5-7)
But if James is indicting us for judging by appearances rather than by faith in Jesus in verse 4, he has a more serious accusation in verse 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?’ Here we see the principle of mercy spread out before us. Forget for a moment the financial implications of the words ‘poor’ and ‘rich’ in verse 5, and think of the principle on which God has always acted towards the human race. We don’t deserve anything from Him except His judgment on our sin, on our rebellion against Him, the fact that we have refused to acknowledge Him and have lived our lives as though He didn’t exist. But instead of condemning us for that, He has forgiven us for Jesus’ sake. Mercy, not merit, is the basis of the relationship. God has chosen to save sinners. So James is saying that not only are we wrong to judge people on whether they appear worthy or not (v. 4), but that we completely misunderstand God if we think He is even looking for worthiness. He’s not. He’s looking for sinners to save. He is looking for sinners, like you and me, to show mercy to. And the gospel logic therefore should compel us, even once we have decided that one person is less worthy or more worthy than another, to treat the person who is less worthy as an especially appropriate recipient of God’s grace. That is the principle of mercy: that God reaches out to those who don’t deserve Him, to those who don’t even want Him, to those who are in rebellion against Him. God’s grace cuts across all human value systems: ‘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?’ (v. 5).
Whatever gives a person merit in the world’s eyes does not count with God. He loves you because He chooses to love you and for no other reason. And therefore gospel thinking will take us to the most needy people we know, to offer them God’s grace. And gospel logic must rule the Christian’s life. The principle of mercy must triumph (as we will see when we get to the end of our passage today.)
I find, when I am talking to an unmarried mother, they are so convinced that God condemns them – even though what they have done in keeping a baby with the tide of abortion running so strongly in this country is a brave and courageous act close to God’s heart. And we need, as the Christian community, to express that grace to people like that who have a deep, deep sense of condemnation. Maybe somebody here is crippled with guilt because you have had an abortion. You, too, need to hear the grace, the forgiveness of God. He’s not looking for worthy people. He didn’t look around Cambridge and think, Who are the worthiest? Let’s call them together in St Andrew the Great so I can deal with them today. He called the undeserving here – and every sense that you and I have that we are deserving takes us further from the grace of God as we assemble here.
Now I am not saying that in these verses there is not one of the Bible’s many stern warnings against the effect of earthly riches. That is here as well. But I don’t want to miss what I think is James’ unfolding thought here of how this principle of mercy must shape and undergird a relationship with God, and how this passage fits into what he’s already been saying to us in chapter 1. They are not just verses about how we should treat the rich and the poor. Nevertheless, we may not evade what this is saying in relation to that. The beginning of verse 6 is certainly true of the Western Church today, even if we feel that the rest of verses 6 and 7 are not so particularly relevant. What does it say? ‘You have insulted the poor.’ You have dishonoured the poor. And the middle-class captivity of a church like St Andrew the Great is not a good thing. It is not something of which we should be proud. The alienation of the working classes in the Western world from the Church is a shame and an embarrassment and a scandal. There is no question about that, and there is no question that these verses challenge us at that level as well. I’m not trying to let us off the hook.
Let’s look at the rest of verses 6 and 7: ‘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?’ In our grossly materialistic society in Britain today we can see clearly that the wealthy, the outwardly successful, are very rarely friends of the Christian faith. Those who could be such a credit to the kingdom are often the most indifferent to it. For many among them worship an altogether different god.
Think of the media – and of the opposition to real Christian faith that there is there. Are you as appalled as I am when you turn to those programmes that are supposed to be religious programmes? How rarely do you hear anything about living Christian faith, being born again, a heart transformation by the work of the living God in the lives of human beings?! Success in this world leads so often and so quickly to enmity with God. And even Christian organisations and churches can get out of step with God as they become successful in the world’s eyes. Let us beware, because the underlying issue is being out of step with God.
3) The Underlying Issue: Being out of step with God (vv. 8-11)
‘If you really keep the royal law found in Scripture, “Love your neighbour as yourself,” you are doing right. But if you show favouritism, you sin and are convicted by the law as law-breakers’ (vv. 8, 9). Verse 8 is how a Christian is to treat everyone else, rich and poor alike, the likeable, the unlikeable, the respectable, the disreputable. “Love your neighbour as yourself.” We love ourselves not with great emotional attachment, rarely with much sense of satisfaction, often with pretty wholesome disapproval, sometimes indeed even with loathing – but always with concern, care and attention. As we’ve said before, when we see our faces in the mirror first thing in the morning the word “Ugh!” may rise spontaneously to our lips. Yet at once we take that revolting face to the bathroom, we wash it, we tend it and make it as presentable as nature will allow. And so it goes on throughout the day. So with my neighbour. His attractiveness or her loveableness is irrelevant. I am to love as God loves, as I love myself. That is the principle of mercy again. But favouritism is quite different: ‘But if you show favouritism, you sin and are convicted by the law as law-breakers’ (v. 9).
You see, to discriminate, to show favouritism, is to decide whom I will love and whom I won’t love – whatever basis I do that on, I decide. I will love this one; I won’t love that one. I choose. That’s the principle of favouritism, of discrimination. Now if I decide whom I will love and whom I will not love, I am a transgressor of God’s law. Those I make a fuss of, the people I choose to love, will never atone for those I choose not to make a fuss of, those I do not love.
So James goes on, in verses 10 & 11: ‘For whoever keeps the whole law and yet stumbles at just one point is guilty of breaking all of it. For he who said, “Do not commit adultery,” also said, “Do not murder.” If you do not commit adultery but do commit murder, you have become a law-breaker.’ Now who would ever think that a murderer’s non-adultery could atone for his committing murder? People don’t stand up in court when convicted of murder, and say, “But your honour, I haven’t committed adultery so I should be allowed off,” do they? It’s a ridiculous idea. Yet you and I play that game with God all the time. Whenever we arrange sins into a hierarchy, so that we congratulate ourselves for not committing what we regard as the more serious sins, and excuse ourselves by that for indulging in less serious ones, we take from God His right to decide the nature of good and evil. If you think about it, this is what Adam and Eve did in the Garden of Eden when they ate from the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. And that’s exactly what you and I have done in our lives. How many of us say of something we know to be wrong, “Well, it’s not very serious”? We’ve decided we will be the moral arbiter. Perhaps it’s the failure to get on well with a parent or a parent-in-law, that slight dishonesty over an expense claim or a tax return, that two-timing relationship, that covetous attitude to our property, that sexual indulgence.
The Ten Commandments are not questions in an exam paper: ‘Attempt any four of ten.’ They are the character of God. A Commandment is not just a text. It is someone speaking to us. And to break just one, is to disobey Him. If we try to evade some, we are trying to evade Him. And the Christian life is coming face to face with God. When we want to choose whom we will love and whom we will not love, discriminating, favouritism, we are attempting to avoid facing God.
Now I hope we’ve seen that what James has done in this paragraph is to show us that what we might want to regard as just being a little bit snobbish (a little local difficulty on the horizontal level with my fellow man), is actually an indication of the nature of my vertical relationship with God. My relationships with other humans cannot be disengaged from my relationship with God. I have to decide whether I will deal with them on the basis of the world’s values or the basis of God’s values – and the two are drifting further and further apart. (It’s that punt again.)
And so James brings us back to God’s values, the principle of mercy, in our final paragraph. Only this time you will see it is:
4) The Triumph of Mercy (vv. 12-13)
We’re nearly there. Cheer up! It’s been a heavy sermon, I know – it’s a heavy passage to understand, I think. But now just verses 12 and 13: ‘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!’ Speak and act as those who are going to be judged by the law that gives freedom. That, in terms of our punt picture, is James saying, “Keep both feet on the bank!” Speak and act as those who are going to be judged by the law that gives freedom, not by what human beings think of us, not by worldly values, not by what looks successful in human terms. It is the law that gives freedom because it is the gospel which has brought us the freedom to be what we were always meant to be. It frees you and me to be not what we have decided we want to be but what God knows we should be. And it sets us free from everything else. It is free forgiveness and God’s power within us to transform our sinful nature little by little, into what He means it to be.
The gospel must take over all our lives. So speak and act the mercy principle, ‘because judgment without mercy will be shown to anyone who has not been merciful.’ Do you remember how Jesus expressed that in the prayer He taught us? – ‘Forgive us our sins as we forgive those who sin against us.’ That is a bit of a problem, isn’t it? Because it sounds as if you buy forgiveness: if you’re forgiving enough you will be forgiven. Well there is something peculiar about mercy – we can’t receive it if we cannot give it.
Now I can’t say I fully understand this, but it is the repeated teaching of Scripture; and the best I can do for you is to give you the only illustration I could think of, while I was working on this passage, and say that mercy is a flow. It is not a reservoir but a river. Somebody couldn’t give you a river and you then stop it flowing. It would cease to be a river and become a lake, a reservoir. Mercy must in some sense be like that. When God gives it to us, it comes to us like a stream, like a river flowing. If we try to stop it, and try and receive mercy but not give mercy, then we can’t receive it – it turns into something else and we cannot receive it in that way. Receiving mercy and showing mercy go together. You can’t dam the river of mercy. But mercy triumphs over judgment! And what a wonderful note to end on.
I find James a very challenging book. It’s a hard book to preach and I guess it’s a hard book to listen to and to study seriously. Because it hits us at the very centre of our Christian lives. It’s a really challenging book – but we end on such a fabulous note today: mercy triumphs over judgment!
The principle of mercy doesn’t just undergird the whole of our relationship with God, reversing human thinking and condemning human discrimination. But at the end of the day it also triumphs. It has great power because it is what the Cross supremely demonstrates: the Cross that is the power of God and the wisdom of God, to which James points us. It tears down all those barriers in human life that make you and I look down on other people and discriminate between them. We need to get back to the Cross. I don’t know who it may be in your life and who it is in mine that we discriminate against mentally, deep within ourselves. James says, get back to the Cross, and only there will you understand other people as you were meant to and love them as you were meant to.