Faith Works 2

Sometimes injustice is so ingrained in us that it goes completely unquestioned. Sometimes we may not be the direct purveyors of injustice, yet are contentedly living as part of a political or economic system that insured evil acts of injustice go unquestioned.

I want to start with a clip from the movie “Iron Man.” The clip that I’m going to show you is of a press conference after the owner of an international armaments manufacturer has a first-hand experience with the indiscriminate destruction from which he draws his immense wealth.

[Play Clip]

In that clip, Tony Stark says that he realizes his complicity in a system that has no accountability and now that he realizes it, things can never be the same. The evils are rampant and systemic, and yet they have been easy to ignore because he never had any first-hand experience with the reality of the situation. It was simply a system, a business, a way of doing things as they had been done before him. Why question that? Suddenly he had a reason.

Most often when the bible, old or new testament, discusses sin, it isn’t primarily concerned with small, individual sinful acts, but the larger structure that supports such acts. The prophets aren’t simply mad that the foreigners, orphans, and widows have gone abused by some people. The prophets instead are repeatedly livid that the Israelite culture has developed in such a way that the structure itself supports the abuse and that it has gone unchallenged. It should not go unmentioned that care of the vulnerable is exactly what James ended chapter 1 by calling a “pure religion” or “pure faith.” Sometimes we know our impurities. Sometimes we unknowingly participate. Even worse, when our complicity comes to light, we often find ways to justify or explain it away, defending ungodly worldly structures instead of recognizing them for what they are.

I hope the complexity of that illustration, of our own history, helps frame up the challenge of holy living, of living faithfully to God in a world that is often oriented towards anything but. But one this is certain. James reflects the biblical understanding that how we live in our world, in our community, towards stranger and neighbor, near or far, is something faithful people pay attention to.

As we continue on in James today, we will see the ways unquestioned participation in daily life on the terms set by the culture at large is just as much a problem in James’ world as it is not, and we will once again be reminded why we must pay attention to those customs.

The New Revised Standard Version Warning against Partiality

2 My brothers and sisters, do you with your acts of favoritism really believe in our glorious Lord Jesus Christ? 2 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, 3 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,” 4 have you not made distinctions among yourselves, and become judges with evil thoughts? 5 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? 6 But you have dishonored the poor. Is it not the rich who oppress you? Is it not they who drag you into court? 7 Is it not they who blaspheme the excellent name that was invoked over you?

So while the wealthiest members of society receiving better treatment than the poorest of society certainly still goes on today, its nothing new. However, there is a very specific reason it takes place in the culture of which James and his audience are a part. In James’ world, everything functioned around an honor-and-shame system that might as well have been its own currency. D.A. deSilva says it this way:

“Honor and dishonor represent the primary means of social control in the ancient Mediterranean world. A society upholds its values by rewarding with greater degrees of honor those who embody those values in greater degrees. Dishonor represents a group’s disapproval of a member base on his or her lack of conformity with those values deemed essential for the group’s continued existence.” - D.A. deSilva

To honor those with wealth and power was to attempt to gain your own favor and honor, to associate yourself favorably with someone who could raise your status, something the poor who were seen as much less honorable could not offer. We have all sorts of unflattering nicknames for people who do such things now, but it was a long-established cultural expectation that all participated in during the New Testament period. But I want to make sure we understand that James is not just saying that being a stuck-up snob is a sin. This is a much larger, systemic problem of an transformed person unquestioningly participating in the culture-at-large and still understanding themselves to be a faithful follower of Jesus. Not only should they avoid the temptation to discriminate based on the visual, but they should reject the notion that such a standard matters at all. Why would a transformed follower of Jesus care about whether or not they are deemed “honorable” by anyone but God? Thats the real question that sits below the surface of this text. James accuses his readers of seeking their value, the measure of themselves as people, in a culture that does not see as God sees. By doing so, they reinforce society’s values and not God’s. God’s expectations of faithful people look very different than the cultural standard they have had ingrained into them their whole lives.

The New Revised Standard Version Warning against Partiality

8 You do well if you really fulfill the royal law according to the scripture, “You shall love your neighbor as yourself.” 9 But if you show partiality, you commit sin and are convicted by the law as transgressors. 10 For whoever keeps the whole law but fails in one point has become accountable for all of it. 11 For the one who said, “You shall not commit adultery,” also said, “You shall not murder.” Now if you do not commit adultery but if you murder, you have become a transgressor of the law. 12 So speak and so act as those who are to be judged by the law of liberty. 13 For judgment will be without mercy to anyone who has shown no mercy; mercy triumphs over judgment.

Loving neighbor has everything to do with God. An unqualified, compassionate love for neighbor, for those around you, friend or enemy, known or strangers as defined by Jesus in the parable of the good Samaritan, is expected in the lives of faithful people who have been transformed by the gospel of Jesus. Yet to treat the poor and the wealthy as equals in the Mediterranean world is cultural heresy. James forces his readers to recognize their complicity in a cultural standard that is not of God and pushes them to make a choice between their loyalty to that system with all of its systemic sins or to God and a kingdom that does not differentiate based on the visible.

A few months ago, I told you the story of Oscar Romero, minister in the country of El Salvador who was assassinated on the church steps by government officials because he dared to suggest that the systematic murder and abuse being carried out by the El Salvadorean government against its own people, the murder or “disappearance” of thousands of civilians for speaking out, was unholy and unacceptable. I don’t think anyone here could disagree with that, right? As people who like justice and want to see people held accountable for their actions, I would think that most people would want to see those held accountable who were responsible for establishing and maintaining a system that intentionally and systematically silenced those who criticized the totalitarian who ran it and those who kept him in power. I don’t know anyone who is comfortable supporting a regime who repeatedly carried out the murder of children, women, and men without cause.

Does it become more uncomfortable when I tell you that the US Government sent weapons, military trainers, and millions of dollars that supported that government which used against its own people to maintain its power? Even more uncomfortable if I point out that U.S. Tax dollars funded that level of injustice and therefor taxpayers participated, even if tangentially. I don’t bring to light this part of our history to accuse, but to highlight that systemic sin isn’t ancient history. We live in a system that is wrought with injustices that go unrecognized by many of us living in the system who simply haven’t found a reason to notice, not unlike Mr. Stark from our video clip in the beginning.

James, however, gives us a reason. We are responsible for how we interact with our neighbor, both in direct interactions and through the cultural structures we support and participate in, and if that isn’t reason enough to choose to become more aware of the impact what we might call simply “our way of life,” then I don’t know what is.

The good news here that James points back to is that God has not only called us to a different way, but has modeled one for us. Because God has called us to a unselfish, sacrificial way of life and because Jesus has modeled for us an unselfish, sacrificial way of life, then we have the opportunity to live that way towards those around us, not seeking our own selfish desires in this world, but seeking ways to ensure that all find a way to Gods table, a place where there is no favoritism, no battle for honor and no doling out of shame- a place unlike what we often find in our world, which is the precise reason we have been called to live that way.