How to Love Someone

Prejudice

I’m not racist, but...

That is usually the opening to a phrase that almost inevitably will betray the racist ideas of the speaker.

Usually the speaker will justify that it’s not racist because they can point to various facts that can justify what they are about to say.

Now there are a lot of problems with racism but the problem I’ll identify now is that it puts up barriers that prevents a relationship being formed.

It puts up blinkers so that we don’t see the other like we should.

Recently I started reading a book called Dark Emu, written by the Aboriginal writer, Bruce Pascoe. The idea of the book is that the indigenous people of this land have actually had far more sophisticated agricultural and farming practices then we have previously given them credit for.

One thing that I have found striking in this book is that Pascoe actually cites many of early white settlers who observed these practices. But the irony that he highlights is that due to underlying prejudice, they simultaneously observed these advanced farming practices, and dismissed them as some freak occurence, despite the occurences being observed time after time in different locations.

You see, the pre-conceived ideas of these early white settlers blinded them to what was actually happening. As Pascoe observes in the book, not only did these prejudices result in horrific events for the indigenous people, but because the farming practices were dismissed in favour of the European method of farming, the result was significant damage to the environment.

Unfortunately our prejudices are not limited to race. It seems whenever we find a defining characteristic within a group that differs from ourselves, our natural inclination is to put up another barrier. Whether it be gender, age, religion, political preferences, or whatever, if it’s different we become cautious, usually because we don’t understand.

Now what happens is that these prejudices occur at a level that we don’t really realise. In fact, I believe that’s what drives people to make comments like I started - “I’m not racist, but...”

As Christians, this often unconscious bias causes us a problem. You see, we are to love everybody. But if we start putting up all of these barriers, then our ability to show love is severely hampered.

James

Well, today we continue our series in the book of James. We now move into the 2 chapter and we see a little shift in his focus, although as is common with James, he very craftily puts in a nice little link between the previous section and this one.

You see, the first chapter primarily focused on our own personal struggles.

This is perhaps very important because we all have our own personal battles raging within us.

Often those struggles will start with some external factor, but we need to learn wisdom to see things from God’s perspective.

And so this first chapter is full of lots of great advice about how to get that wisdom that we need.

But then, as the chapter draws to an end, what we see is that James shows what should naturally come from this wisdom. You see, not only will we be able to understand our own situation better, but we will also start to see the situation of others as well.

The last verse of chapter 1 highlights that the end product of what we do should include looking after orphans and widows.

If you think about it, it was the orphans and widows that would have been the amongst the most vulnerable in those days. There was no social security system and so they had essentially no means to provide for themselves.

Unfortunately, before the teaching of Jesus, there were very few people that would care for them.

But hopefully you can see the logic of what James is writing. He wants us to gain wisdom and understanding, which will help us understand our own situation, but also to love others.

But James recognises that with this comes a problem, and essentially it is the problem that I identified in my introduction.

You see, we are predisposed to show favouritism.

And because of this predisposed tendency, James recognises that we straight away have a barrier.

In particular, James focuses on a particular form of prejudice, and that is the prejudice we show to the poor.

And so, as we move into chapter 2, James, the attention shifts somewhat from the first chapter. The first chapter got us to a point where we should be now showing love to others, but chapter 2 turns to the things that stop us from loving others as we should.

And so as we go through, my intention is to explore the ways in which we can remove these blockages that stop us loving as we should.

Become aware of prejudice

Well, I’m going to suggest, that as we read through this section of James, the first thing that we should become aware of, is how absurd these prejudices are.

As much as we try to justify them with supposed facts, usually they are based on ignorance. The type of ignorance that the early white settlers showed.

And so, as we move into chapter 2, James, the attention shifts somewhat from the first chapter. The first chapter got us to a point where we should be now showing love to others, but chapter 2 turns to the things that stop us from loving others as we should.

So to help us see this, James gives us a good example to demonstrate this point.

And so as we go through, my intention is to explore the ways in which we can remove these blockages that stop us loving as we should.

W

The example involve two men who walk into our church service.

Let’s just pretend that James is talking about our church right here and now.

So, the first man comes in wearing all the fine clothes. His lovely gold ring clearly shows that this is a man who has a bit of wealth.

Well, our treasurer takes note. Imagine if we get this guy to come regularly. Imagine if he starts tithing. I’m sure 10% of his pay is going to worth a bit. He might even be able to meet our entire budget just on his tithe alone! Imagine what we will be able to do with all this additional income.

I’m getting excited too because I’d love to employ a youth pastor and an admin worker.

But he’s not the only person to walk in. Close behind comes a poor man. His clothes are filthy. He probably smells a bit too.

Sub-consciously we start making assumptions. This man is coming with problems. And problems equal time. He doesn’t look like he’s going to be able to help with any of the ministries of the church, because he just doesn’t look suitable. No doubt he has medical and/or mental problems.

But you know what? - we’re not a church that shows prejudice… but...

You know, we’ll greet both just the same. We’ll tell ourselves, probably even convince ourselves, that they are both just as welcome.

But will we actually treat them the same?

Here is the sub-conscious bias coming out.

You see, sub-consciously, we start treating the rich person as someone who can help us. We treat the poor person as someone who we’re going to need to help.

Without realising it, we can so easily dishonour the poor.

Now in the example of James, the difference shown is not as subtle. He gives a seat to the rich and the floor to the poor. Maybe we can justify our stance by pointing to the technicalities, but can we really avoid the charge James gives in verse 4 - “have you not discriminated among yourselves and become judges with evil thoughts?”

Blessing of the poor

You see, James opens our eyes to the error of our natural assessment - and I’m sure that many of you will resonate with this.

You see, in verse 5, James gives us a different perspective on the poor. What he tells us is that God doesn’t just tolerate the poor, rather he has chosen them to become rich in faith and to inherit the kingdom he promised.

Now, just as a bit of a clarification, while James here is highlighting the place of the poor, that is not to say wealthy people aren’t also chosen by God. Throughout the Bible there are numerous wealthy people who play very important roles for God, and it is clear that God values them.

But, generally speaking there is so often a richness in the faith of the poor. Maybe it is because of all they have had to endure and the fact that they have so often had to rely on Jesus because there was no other option that they have this rich faith. Or maybe because God just wants to bless them, but so often the people who are poor in the eyes of the world, are so much richer in their faith.

For this reason, rather than seeing poor people as people we can help, we need to see them actually as people who can teach us.

This is always one of the humbling things as a pastor. You see, as pastor, you might think that I’m the one to help others. But so often I find that as I go to people in various struggles within their lives, I’m the one who comes away learning more - seeing the faith that God gives them.

All too often, the ones that we consider are the one that need help, are actually the ones that can teach us the most.

The problem with the rich

In verse 6, James then looks at the flip side - the rich.

While our natural thought is, right, how can they help us, as James rightfully points out - aren’t they the ones exploiting us? Or in verse 7 “Are they not the ones who are blaspheming the noble name of him to whom you belong?”

I’m sure you don’t have to use your imagination too much to think of a rich person, fed by greed, making decisions that just trample over the poor and vulnerable.

Too often people think that when they become rich, that’s when they will start to become generous. Whereas, far too often we see the opposite. The richer people get, the more they want to hold onto that wealth.

Now again, James’ words here are not designed to swing the prejudice around the other way. Rather he is helpfully trying to help us see that our natural assumption that the poor are people we help and the rich are people who can help us is completely misfounded.

The poor are often a great blessing to us, and the rich can often be a big burden to us.

At the end of the day, it doesn’t matter if you have lots of money, or very little. What matters is the faith you have in God. Or you could say, rather than the question of whether you are rich or poor in a material sense, what really matters is whether you are rich or poor in faith.

The awareness

And so, as I started a moment ago, the first step to really loving others, is to become aware of our natural inclination toward prejudice, and realise how foolish it is.

To do this for other prejudices, it means actually taking the time to get to know people who are different from us. Get to know people from other races, or religions. If your a young person, listen to the older generation, or vice versa.

Showing partiality is wrong.

Just look at verse 9 - “But if you show favouritism, you sin and are convicted by the law as law-breakers”.

That’s pretty strong language.

The Glory of Jesus

The next lesson about how to love others that I want to make is somewhat obscured in some of the English translations.

I’m going to draw this lesson from back in the first verse.

The word I want to pick up on is the word “glory”, or “glorious” as it is translated in the NIV.

You see, what we find is that the first verse in the Greek is written in rather an awkward way.

If we were to go with essentially a word for word translation, then this first verse would read “My brothers, not with partiaity of any sort must you hold the faith of our Lord Jesus Christ, of the glory”.

It is the “of the glory” which stands out as strange. Some, like the NIV, have chosen to assume this tacked on description should just be added as a description of Jesus. But the problem being that the writing in James is usually identified as being quite stylish with his use of language, however this sentence is quite abrupt.

It is therefore thought, that this abruptness, is because James wants to draw attention to Jesus’ glory. In other words, he is not just saying it because he wanted to add another adjective, rather he is saying it because when we start to understand the glory of Jesus, we will be better placed to understand why favouritism or partiality is so wrong.

You see, the glory of Jesus is in the gospel. The good news of Jesus coming to earth to bring heaven to earth. He died and rose again allowing us to be right before God. Christ then ascended into glory.

This glory found in the gospel has a significant impact for us. The glory of Jesus shines a light on our life that we are all sinners and he alone is righteous.

Once we begin to understand this, we understand that all forms of judgement on others is completely unwarranted. Essentially you could say, to judge others is to diminish the glory of Jesus because it implies that his grace is not sufficient.

As we get to the end of this passage, we see how we should act in light of the glory of Jesus.

James tells us: “Speak and act as those who are going to be judged by the law that gives freedom” - that law that gives freedom is highlighting the very glory of Jesus.

And then it ends: “Mercy triumphs over judgement”.

Reflecting on the glory of Jesus

If we want to love others the way that we should as Christians, then I want to suggest that we would do very well to reflect on the glory of Jesus.

And in a sense, he could have and perhaps it would have worked just as well. But when we focus on his glory, I want to suggest that we get a bigger sense of what Jesus is about.

When we gaze upon this glory, how can we then stoop to the level of thinking other people are somehow unworthy, when Jesus chose us, yes us in all our sinfulness.

You see, his glory points further to his character. Not only is he gracious, he is also holy among many other attributes.

In this way, we get a good follow on from the previous chapter. The first chapter helped us gain wisdom, and urged us to dwell on the word of truth. It is dwelling on God’s word that we truly begin to see the glory of Jesus, and in the process all our attempts to judge others become shown for the foolishness that it is.

God’s Character

So firstly, I’ve shown that to love others, we need to become aware of the prejudice that exists in our life.

Secondly, we should focus on the glory of Jesus.

The third and final lesson I want to draw from this passage comes from verse 10 and 11 when James moves in to a discussion about the entire law.

In some ways it seems James has moved into a bit of a tangent that is only vaguely connected with the main topic.

But let’s look at what is going on.

You see, James’ argument is that if the law is broken at one point it is broken in it’s entirety.

To illustrate, you could imagine a window. If you throw a small rock at it, though the rock would only hit a very small part of it, the whole thing would shatter.

In the case of God’s law, it is all so intimately connected because it is all based on God’s character. His laws are not just some arbitrary set of rules, rather they express who God is.

When you break that law you are no longer demonstrating the character of God.

But how does this fit into the bigger picture?

Well, James is going to some length to point out that when we show partiality or favouritism, we are not just doing some minor offense, rather we are turning our back to God’s character.

When we say: “Oh, it’s no big deal”, we are saying God’s character doesn’t matter.

And so the third and final lesson I want to give this morning is the idea that we need to understand God’s character better.

It is when we start to see how it all fits together that we see the importance that loving others without prejudice is.

Conclusion

The reality is, we are all going to stumble in this regard. We do all show partiality and this breaks God’s heart.

Even if we do all the things I mentioned today, we will still fall.

Thankfully, as I read earlier at the end of verse 13 - mercy triumphs over judgement.

But these lessons we get from this passage will go a long way in making us people that love others better.

So the lessons are:

First, we need to become aware of the prejudices in our lives. This involves careful reflection of our thoughts.

Second, we should focus on the glory of Jesus.

And thirdly, consider the whole character of God.

These three things should involve spending time in God’s word. Praying and listening to God.

As we do that, I believe we will start to see other people from the perspective of God.

Let me pray...