Sermon Tone Analysis

A good name is more desirable than great riches;

to be esteemed is better than silver or gold.[1]n

2 Rich and poor have this in common:

The Lord is the Maker of them all.[2]o

[3]

8 Whoever sows injustice reaps calamity,[4]x

and the rod they wield in fury will be broken.[5]y

9 The generous will themselves be blessed,[6]z

for they share their food with the poor.[7]a

[8]

22 Do not exploit the poor[9]l because they are poor

and do not crush the needy in court,[10]m

23 for the Lord will take up their case[11]n

and will exact life for life.[12]o

[13]

My brothers and sisters, believers in our glorious Lord Jesus Christ must not show favoritism 2 Suppose a man comes into your meeting wearing a gold ring and fine clothes, and a poor man in filthy old clothes also comes in. 3 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,” 4 have you not discriminated among yourselves and become judges with evil thoughts?

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?

6 But you have dishonored the poor.[14]b

Is it not the rich who are exploiting you?

Are they not the ones who are dragging you into court?

7 Are they not the ones who are blaspheming the noble name of him to whom you belong?

8 If you really keep the royal law found in Scripture, “Love your neighbor as yourself,” you are doing right.

9 But if you show favoritism, you sin and are convicted by the law as lawbreakers.

10 For whoever keeps the whole law and yet stumbles at just one point is guilty of breaking all of it.

11 For he who said, “You shall not commit adultery,” also said, “You shall not murder.”

If you do not commit adultery but do commit murder, you have become a lawbreaker.

Rev. Charissa Clark Howe

12 Speak and act as those who are going to be judged by the law that gives freedom, 13 because judgment without mercy will be shown to anyone who has not been merciful.

Mercy triumphs over judgment.

Faith and Deeds

14 What good is it, my brothers and sisters, if someone claims to have faith but has no deeds?

Can such faith save them?

15 Suppose a brother or a sister is without clothes and daily food.

16 If one of you says to them, “Go in peace; keep warm and well fed,” but does nothing about their physical needs, what good is it?

17 In the same way, faith by itself, if it is not accompanied by action, is dead.[15]

Mercy Triumphs Over Judgment

Rev. Charissa Clark Howe

Liberty Presbyterian Church

9/6/15

“God helps those who help themselves.”

This sounds like pretty solid advice.

It’s strong advice – advice about being self-reliant.

It’s good old fashioned “pull yourself up by the bootstraps” kind of advice.

You want something?

Get it yourself.

If you don’t have things. . .

it’s because you didn’t try hard enough.

Those who have have because they are hard workers and those who don’t have don’t have because they didn’t work hard enough.

It’s a pretty simple system.

But it’s not how the world works, and it’s completely unscriptural.

The phrase “God helps those who help themselves” is often quoted as being from the Bible, but it’s not.

It’s found in ancient Greek literature.

A similar phrase is found in the Quran, but it’s nowhere to be found in the Bible.

It’s not found in the Bible because that’s simply not how the world works.

We are never in the Bible called to judge why the rich are rich and the poor are poor.

There are plenty of people who work several jobs day and night just to pay the rent and get the basic food on the table.

There are others who are just sort of handed what they need because they were born in the right place at the right time.

There are places in the world where being poor means that you don’t have the latest iPhone model, and there are places in the world where being rich means you have enough to eat.

And it’s not that one place in the world is just full of more industrious people and other parts are full of lazy people.

The US holds over 25% of the world’s wealth, but fewer than 5% of the world’s population.

That doesn’t mean this country is simply full of people who are harder working than the single mother of four in Uganda who works day and night just to put rice in the bellies of her children.

It just means we’re all pretty darn lucky to live here in this beautiful, safe, economically stable community.

Even in just our own country, the US shows wider gaps between the richest and the poorest citizens than any other developed country in the world.

In a country that holds such a large portion of the world’s wealth, almost 10% of children are in homes that are considered “food insecure.”

That means that they don’t have reliable access to nutritious food because they live in poverty and/or in neighborhoods where there is simply nowhere to buy food other than fast food restaurants.

They call these areas “food deserts.”

I preached almost exactly this same message on this same passage three years ago at my last church.

At that time, the Syrian refugee crisis was front and center on the news.

Dead children were washing up on beaches after their families fled their war-torn homeland.

Today, as I revisit this passage, it’s not any better.

The world is still trying to figure out how to be friends and neighbors to those who are fleeing war in the Middle East.

We in the US are trying to figure out what it means to be a good neighbor to our brothers and sisters in Mexico, especially those who live in poverty and want to come here to provide a better life for their families.

Those of us who were “here first” are often as being more deserving than those who seek to immigrate as our ancestors did, as if we somehow did something to earn our seat of privilege here.

The twin sins of inequality and favoritism have crept into the world and have caused havoc, oppression, and sorrow.

All over the place.

That’s why it’s so important for us to host Presbyterian Peacemaker Manolis Ntamparakis from Greece next month.

He’ll be talking to us about what he is doing in Greece to help refugees there.

And we’ll be having a public discussion panel presentation with friends from refugee and immigrant service organizations, as well as some high profile immigrants themselves.

It’s hard to figure out these lines and how to be a good neighbor and friend to the people we find around us.

Proverbs says that God made us all – rich or poor.

God made the people with smartphones and the people with barely enough food on the table.

God made the citizens and the refugees.

God wants all to experience real Christian love.

In , God even says that the Israelites are to “give the foreigner whatever they want” so that they might come to know God.

That’s how much God cares about the poor and the outcast – the refugee and the foreigner.

Give them what they want – help them fulfill their daily needs so that they might come to know God.

But hundreds of years later, when James writes – long after the time of the Proverbs and Chronicles – we see the problem isn’t gone.

It’s still lurking in the background.

The poor are still not being taken care of and those who are different are still being pushed out to the edges of society.

There are a group of books in the Old Testament called “Wisdom Literature” and Proverbs falls into that category.

James is actually considered by some to be the one book of wisdom in the New Testament.

Much like Proverbs, it is a “this is what a wise person looks like” book.

This favoritism that the Israelites used to show, that the early Christians were showing, that the world even today still participates fully in – that’s not what a wise person looks like.

It’s foolish.

The rich have a responsibility not to question why the “Have-nots” have not, but to help provide for their daily needs.

The wealthy – the smart phone holding, car driving, four walls and a roof and food in the kitchen wealthy – have a special responsibility to care for those who don’t have clothing or food or shelter.

James goes so far as to say if you say you have faith, but don’t care about the daily needs of all people, you’re missing the point and your faith isn’t going to get you very far.

God created everyone.

God didn’t just create some and not others.

God didn’t create some more than others.

God didn’t do a better job or a more careful job creating some people and mess up a little on others.

In spite of the evil inequalities that plague our world, God is still the maker of us all.

And just as those who are able but not willing to share their wealth – those who plant injustice in the world – will ultimately find themselves in a load of hot water, those who are generous will be blessed for their kindness and their love.

They might not be blessed with material riches – that’s not the kind of blessing God’s worried about here, nor is it the kind of blessing we should be worried about – but they will be blessed richly by God in their faith, in their relationships, and in the honor that comes with having a good name – a name that when people hear it, they say, “That is a great person right there.”