James 2:1-13
We’re reading the book of James this fall. It’s a project to discover what the first followers of Jesus thought was important as they tried to form communities of faith. It’s also a project to help us think about what’s important to us 2000 years later as we try to form communities of faith.
When your community is small, new and struggling, it makes sense that you want to attract important new folks. James would agree that new folk were important, but he’s pretty clear about which ones matter most – all of them. Don’t just pay attention to people with money and influence. Everyone matters.
Paying attention to wealth has plagued the church throughout its history. I remember a treasurer telling me I couldn’t offend a particular family because they had money. (She was very irritated when I found out they had influence but weren’t actually donating anything toward the church budget.) I suspect each one of us could name an organization we’ve been part of over the years where a person’s influence became outsized because of wealth or family name or length of tenure or something not related to actual wisdom.
Martin Luther King, Jr. once preached that 11 a.m. Sunday is the most segregated hour in America. That’s true still. We are racially segregated, and I believe we are economically segregated. We’re probably divided in many other important ways. The churches which should be the gathering place for people all across our community actually reflect self-selected groups of like folks – like-minded, like-educated, like-aged, like-whatever. It makes sense that we group ourselves with people with whom we feel comfortable. But the reign of God isn’t about being comfortable. It’s about many things, including being inclusive.
James is asking us to stretch beyond our comfort zone. I’m as guilty as most of not wanting to do that very badly. It’s relatively easy to hang out with folks whose lives are just like mine. It’s harder to connect with people whose life experiences are quite different. Thinking economically, we’ve become friends with people at LaGrave who live on much less income than most of us do. I’m happy to give those people food. It makes me feel good. But many of them have asked me about our church and I haven’t yet provided a ride so they can join us. I know they’d be welcome, but thinking about welcome and actually picking people up on Sunday morning aren’t the same thing.
The divide cuts in multiple directions. I remember my grandmother telling me about how she was a great tennis player as a young adult. Some of her friends offered her a free family membership to the country club if she would come teach them to play tennis better. My grandfather wouldn’t let her do it. He was a machinist who was uncomfortable with the thought of his family joining the country club. He couldn’t believe he’d fit in with “those rich people.”
Beyond the logistics of forming communities of multiple income levels, multiple education levels, multiple political parties, multi anything, is the underlying principle which makes James believe being inclusive and welcoming matters: God loves us all.
We all belong together because God loves each and every one of us. No one is better than any other; all are loved. James quotes, “Love others as you love yourself.”
That starts with believing that we are loved. It’s a temptation to compare myself with others and feel like I come up short. James reminds us that God loves us all the same. None of us has to be the best at everything to matter. It’s OK to just be on the team. Love is the great leveling field. There are a great many big theological ideas in the world today. Here’s the most important one: you are loved. We can’t hear too many times or too many ways: God loves you.
God’s love doesn’t depend on us getting the rules right (although James tells us that it’s helpful if we try to follow them). It doesn’t depend on us loving God (although that’s a good basis for life). It doesn’t depend on our success or failure at anything (although we can enjoy times life goes well for us). God loves us because God IS love.
The best response to God’s love is to share it. James isn’t asking us to love the peasant more than the ruler, but to love both. We form community best when we value every single person. Then we give each one what they need – a seat where they can hear best, a bland diet at the potluck, a ride home… We treat people according to what is best for them, not according to what they can do for us.
We’re living in a time that’s becoming more and more divided. Last Tuesday some of the statewide candidates for office held a town hall in Grand Forks. It was advertised on Facebook and the comments caught me by surprised. One I remember noted that the person would never go to hear a Democrat. She didn’t, in fact, know any Democrats, but she did know that all of them were terrible people and electing them would destroy our state. I thought about being offended. Some of my best friends are Democrats. Then I realized that we could switch the name of the political party and there would be just as many people saying the same thing. When did we stop listening to each other? When did compromise become a negative word? When did we stop agreeing on common goals and working to help everyone? How can we get back what we’ve lost?
Because God loves everyone, everyone deserves respect. Everyone’s opinion matters. Everyone has value. Value doesn’t come from income or degrees or skin color or gender or any of the ways we judge each other. Value comes from being alive and being loved. James tells us over and over that behavior matters, but value falls equally on everyone. A community gets to set norms and standards about how they will work together, but they don’t get to discard anyone as being without worth. We can practice how we think about one another until we get this right. I can disagree with you, but not devalue you. I can ask you do behave differently, but not devalue you. When I catch myself wanting to put someone down or disparage their ideas, I need to remember that this is a person God loves – as much as God loves me. Here’s what that means (from the wedding yesterday and the letter to Corinth): love is patient; love is kind; love is not envious or boastful or arrogant or rude. It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful; it does not rejoice in wrongdoing but rejoices in the truth. It bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. Love never ends.
We can build this community and our wider community on love.