Mahatma Gandhi wrote in his autobiography that during his student days he read the Gospels seriously and considered converting to Christianity. He believed that in the teachings of Jesus he could find the solution to the caste system that was dividing the people of India. So one Sunday he decided to attend services at a nearby church and talk to the minister about becoming a Christian. When he entered the sanctuary, however, the usher refused to give him a seat and suggested that he go worship with his own people. Gandhi left the church and never returned. "If Christians have caste differences also," he said, "I might as well remain a Hindu."
Now, this was in South Africa, where at the time apartheid was in full sway. Whites and Indians and blacks and people of mixed race were pretty much required to stay to themselves. But we don't have to look too far back in our own history to find exactly the same kind of behavior. And that, to our shame, was after nearly 2000 years of Christian influence! We had at least gotten to the point where we paid lip service to equality. After all, the Declaration of Independence said, "We hold these truths to be self-evident: that all men are created equal." But of course that didn't include blacks for almost another hundred years, and it was another 50 before women got in on the act. But if you think inequality is a problem in the 20th century, be glad you didn't live in the first.
The social structure of the ancient Mediterranean world was incredibly rigid, especially in Rome. Even if you got rich, which wasn't easy and almost always involved fraud or violence, you still wouldn't be accepted by the real upper classes, who had to have birth as well as money to be players. But hey, if you were already richer than 90% of the population, shouldn't that be enough?
Of course not. There is never “enough”.
When Jesus said, “For to all those who have, more will be given, and they will have an abundance; but from those who have nothing, even what they have will be taken away,” [Mt 25:29] he was talking about spiritual wealth. But it was equally true - if not more so - in the earthly realm. The richer you were, the more free food you got on public feast days.
The only way to get any power was to buy your way into the lowest rung of the recognized elites. From there you could buy your way into public office. But before you could even take the first step in this process you had to suck up to somebody who already had power. Excuse me. I mean, the first step in this process was to become a client of someone a few steps above you, who could - if he wanted to - grease your way on your upward climb. Obsequiousness was a not only a virtue, it was a survival technique. And no one thought it was wrong. Clients were expected to display their dependence on their patrons by public displays of flattery. Plutarch wrote, "Most men think themselves robbed of their wealth if they are prevented from displaying it." And if you couldn't get power and status and recognition any other way, you might join a trade association, or become a patron of a religious organization.
There was no other route to self-esteem except through public recognition. As theologian David Nystrom says, "the pervasive nature of this hunger for prestige is difficult to overemphasize." The great Roman orator Cicero said, "Rank must be maintained." And woe to anyone who even considered trying to go against this tide.
As rigidly stratified as European social structures were at the beginning of the last century, the sign "Abandon all rank, ye who enter here" was posted on the rest homes behind the lines in World War I. They were open to enlisted and officers alike. Our culture has rank, and status, and prestige. We crave our fifteen minutes of fame, and the rich give buildings to towns and universities on the condition that their names be chiseled in granite over the doors. We cling to our symbols. But a sign eliminating rank would not even have been possible, in the world which James and his congregation lived.
But before we start patting ourselves on the back for having made so much progress in the last two millennia, people are still the same now as they were hen. We still measure ourselves by largely external standards, and almost everyone can identify a group of people they can look down on.
Everybody seems to have to look down on someone else.
As a line from “A Merry Minuet” goes, "Albanians hate the Yugoslavs, South Africans hate the Dutch, and I don't like anybody very much."
What are the social divides here in Leadville? Is it rich vs. poor, old-timers vs. newcomers, Anglos vs. Hispanics, Democrats against Republicans, blue-collar vs. professional? I know there are divisions, it doesn't take long before the political squabbles in this town become painfully apparent. Do we import those attitudes into the church? As the apostle Paul would say, and frequently did, "my brothers, may it never be."
Our declaration of independence says, "all men are created equal." Our laws require that all people must be treated equally. But Jesus asks us for even more than this. Jesus asks us to welcome all people equally. And that is what James is telling his congregation.
Favoritism - that is, treating some people as better or more valuable than others - is incompatible with belief in Jesus Christ. God does not judge people based on externals, and therefore we should not either.
Some people think that James is telling us to prefer the poor over the rich. "Has not God chosen the poor in the world," says James, "to be rich in faith and to be heirs of the kingdom that he has promised to those who love him?" Doesn't this mean that if a well-dressed person comes into the church with a beggar that we should seat the beggar in the place of honor? No, it doesn't. Because only God is able to judge.
James has already tried to show us how as followers of Jesus we have to change our attitudes toward poverty and wealth. But we're making a mistake if we think that he is only referring to material possessions, the size of one's house or income, what kind of car you drive or the clothes that you wear. James is really telling us that to judge people according to an arbitrary set of human standards is wrong. How are you tempted to judge your neighbor? It might be by education, or accent, or color, or looks, or even the way you spend your spare time. Perhaps you look down on the rich, thinking that they can't possibly be truly spiritual, or must have prospered by exploiting the poor. That is just another way of judging by appearances.
It is not only in materialism that we have to 'keep unstained by the world." [Js 1:19] We are infected by our culture. We cannot help it. But we do not have to be controlled by it. And it may not be the obvious things that creep into our midst without our knowing it. The Roman historian Livy, who died about fifty years before James wrote his letter, wrote, "Wealth has made us greedy and self-indulgence has brought us, through every form of sensual excess, to be, if I may so put it, in love with death both individual and collective." 2000 years later, Alexander Solzhenitsyn echoed this charge.
We may not see ourselves as part of a culture devoted to death, but choosing any path over the love of God given equally to all people is a step on a deadly road. The Jews of James' day had a hierarchy of sin, something on the order of the Roman Catholic distinction between mortal and venal sins. They figured that if they toed the line on the big three, piety, philanthropy, and righteousness, they were well on the way. Piety involved following the ceremonial law and attending all the prescribed worship services; philanthropy was, of course, giving to the poor. And righteousness basically consisted of avoiding murder, adultery and theft. All of these are good things. And hasn't James just told the rich members of his congregation to be more generous to the poor? Philanthropy is a good thing.
But James is saying that just jumping through hoops - even good ones - isn't enough. We have to love people for themselves, as themselves, not just do the things that make us look good on the outside. That's what Jesus was trying to teach the disciples: "But woe to you Pharisees! For you tithe mint and rue and herbs of all kinds, and neglect justice and the love of God; it is these you ought to have practiced, without neglecting the others. “ [Lk 11:42] Listen again to what James says:
"You do well if you really fulfill the royal law according to the
scripture, 'You shall love your neighbor as yourself.' But if you show
partiality, you commit sin and are convicted by the law as
transgressors. For whoever keeps the whole law but fails in one
point has become accountable for all of it." [v. 8-10]
The law is all of a piece. The different items on it are just facets of the same inseparable whole. It might help to think of the law as a glass windowpane. If you break it, even a little, it's broken. The wind comes through. It's not like a loaf of bread, which is still good after you've cut off a slice.
So, you see, trying to secure our status in God's sight by doing a certain specified number of church things isn't enough. There isn't a checklist of brownie points that we can tick off that will give us enough credit to get away with looking down on our neighbor, or judging people who don't live up to some arbitrary or superficial criteria.
I am not saying that we shouldn't have standards. But we need to make sure of two things. First, they need to be God's standards, not ours, and not the world's. And second, we need to have the same kind of mercy to the people who fail those standards as God has already shown to us.
Dorothy Sayers wrote that we want justice for others, for others to get what's coming to them, but we want mercy for ourselves: that God might forget the time we spoke harsh words to someone who meant us no harm, that God might overlook the time we refused to forgive someone who stepped on our toes or our ego, that God might ignore the time we spent our tithe on a vacation.
Thanks be to God - mercy does triumph over judgment. But only if we let mercy rule in our own lives as well.
