The Strange Case Of The Snooty Usher Series

This passage ends in verse 13 with James giving us a good news/bad news picture. He starts with the bad news first. For judgment is without mercy to one who has shown no mercy. But then he gives us the good news. Mercy triumphs over judgment. Every single time, church, mercy triumphs over judgment.

I remember hearing a pastor once tell the following story about a conservative, fundamental church that was operating during the hippie era. Does anyone remember those days? Anybody need to confess anything? But the story goes that a young man with long hair during the Jesus Movement felt God tugging at his heart…and so he did the only thing he knew to do. He went to a church and walked in. He had never been to church so he had no idea what was acceptable and what was not. Since he was totally unchurched, the denominational name of the sign meant nothing to him, and so he had no idea that he was walking into a very uptight, ultra conservative church. He walked into a room filled with people in suits and dresses. In his bellbottoms and bare feet, he walked all the way up to the front of the auditorium, in front of the pulpit, and sat down in the middle of the aisle with his legs crossed. As you can imagine, the service came to a dead silence.

About that time, the most respected and distinguished man in the church, a white-haired deacon in his 80’s, got up out of his seat and everyone thought, “Uh-oh, here it comes.” Without saying a word, he walked up to the young man, lowered his arthritic-riddled frame slowly onto the floor next to the young man, slipped off his wing tipped shoes, and put his arm around him. And he sat there through the entire service…until the very end when the long-haired hippie gave his life to Christ.

What a perfect picture of the gospel. That anybody and everybody who walks through the doors of the church, should be made to feel like a somebody, even if they look like a nobody. Church, let’s commit today to ALWAYS do that.