I'm doing you a favor

James 2:1-8,14-17

         I can picture the person in the synagogue (or church) telling the poor person to 'sit here' and at the same time rationalizing why the person would want to sit in a place less honoured.  I am amazed at how convoluted some logic becomes in a effort to justify one's position. Jesus certainly did not use such logic. Jesus was a straight shooter and used  parables that people could understand and that made sense.

         As you may know, several years ago  I had a Baptist minister living with me. He stayed a few months while he discerned what he was being called to do. We agreed on almost nothing except that Jesus is our Lord and saviour.  One of our big differences was on the role of women in life and in the church, any church. He was of the barefoot and pregnant ilk. What amazed me is the logic he tried to use to justify his position. Clearly Hebrew and Christian scripture showed women in a status that was radical for their time. Jesus touched , spoke and congregated with women which was almost heresy at the time. Perhaps it was then.  So to hear this man of the cloth say that his sincerest wish was to elevate all women and the way to do that he'd say was to be sure they live the life God made for them by virtue of their wombs. Uh-mayzing. All I could say in my astonishment was that I completely and thoroughly disagreed with him. It's not that I wish to dishonor women. My wish is to allow a women to choose what they want to do. I am for women's lib as much as I am for men's liberation.

           That seemed like a bit of  digression but the Christian right seems to revel in an equal mix of ignorance and  faulty logic. As Saint Paul said, 'there will be neither, Greek nor Jew, male nor female'. We are all equal in God's eyes, rich and poor, black, white, yellow, gray, Jew, Muslim, Christian, Chinese, Arab, American or Martian.

            The only thing in my mind worse than treating people differently is to have the chutzpah to try and rationalize it. There is a simplicity to Jesus' message of love. There is no need to justify it by some artificial or pseudo-intellectual treatise. Jesus' message is love and it stands on it's own, simply and quite powerfully.

             To my way of thinking, when someone starts talking and my eye's begin to glaze over, that's a sign that there is something fishy going on. If the message isn't clear and obviously derived from love, it is probably very questionable in content and motive. Just a thought. Equality is equality. Love is love.

Warning against Partiality

My brothers and sisters, do you with your acts of favouritism really believe in our glorious Lord Jesus Christ? For if a person with gold rings and in fine clothes comes into your assembly, and if a poor person in dirty clothes also comes in, and if you take notice of the one wearing the fine clothes and say, ‘Have a seat here, please’, while to the one who is poor you say, ‘Stand there’, or, ‘Sit at my feet’, have you not made distinctions among yourselves, and become judges with evil thoughts? Listen, my beloved brothers and sisters. Has not God chosen the poor in the world to be rich in faith and to be heirs of the kingdom that he has promised to those who love him? But you have dishonoured the poor. Is it not the rich who oppress you? Is it not they who drag you into court? Is it not they who blaspheme the excellent name that was invoked over you?
You do well if you really fulfil the royal law according to the scripture, ‘You shall love your neighbour as yourself.’

Faith without Works Is Dead

What good is it, my brothers and sisters, if you say you have faith but do not have works? Can faith save you? If a brother or sister is naked and lacks daily food, and one of you says to them, ‘Go in peace; keep warm and eat your fill’, and yet you do not supply their bodily needs, what is the good of that? So faith by itself, if it has no works, is dead.