2025-08-31 Pentecost 12

Scripture Readings

Grace, mercy and peace be to you from God our Father and our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ. Amen!

In my first church, we had a rather eclectic member. He was a pleasant fellow but he had some eccentricities about him that made him stand out from the crowd. He lived up on a mountain in an old, run down, ramshackle house. He was a hoarder, with boxes of paper and junk stacked from floor to ceiling, with only narrow pathways from the door to the kitchen table to a sitting chair in the living room, and maybe one more to the bedroom. Bathroom was outside. He was pretty much a vegan, eating a lot of preserved fruit. He kept goats too, and they would often come into the house with him. When he came to church, his 19-diggidy-5 Volkswagen Beetle would drip at least a quart of oil all over the church parking lot, leaving a trail all they way down the mountain and into town. The acreage where he lived had a beautiful orchard that was naturally spring fed. He didn’t have to irrigate. That property was worth millions but this guy lived all of his days as a pauper. When he came to church or to sing in the choir, he would still be wearing his coveralls but with a suit jacket over top. He smelled much like the goats and stewed prunes of home.

“My brothers, show no partiality as you hold the faith in our Lord Jesus Christ, the Lord of glory. 2 For if a man wearing a gold ring and fine clothing comes into your assembly, and a poor man in shabby clothing also comes in, 3 and if you pay attention to the one who wears the fine clothing and say, “You sit here in a good place,” while you say to the poor man, “You stand over there,” or, “Sit down at my feet,” 4 have you not then made distinctions among yourselves and become judges with evil thoughts?“ (Jam 2:1-4).

St. James is keying into this idea today. In fact, all of our scripture readings have to do with the contrast of heavenly humility and sinful pride. Pride and boastfulness are always condemned in the Scriptures. Earthly glory and celebrity and glitz and glam is nothing in comparison to the heavenly glory that awaits the baptized children of God. To this end, humility and humbleness were always elevated and seen as a blessing, contrary to how we often think about success and wealth and money and possessions. And this applies directly to how we treat each other too. James hammers away on this. Making distinctions in the family of God based on wealth or earthly success or whatever is wrong and has no place among us. We are all sinners in need of God’s grace. We are all quite literally in the same boat - a sinking ship of sin needing salvation from the Saviour.

“5 Listen, my beloved brothers, has not God chosen those who are poor in the world to be rich in faith and heirs of the kingdom, which he has promised to those who love him?” (2:5). In the eyes of the world, you might look like a stinky goat pauper - but in Christ, you’re worth millions and millions! “Rich in faith and heirs of the kingdom” This is the status of every Christian. This is how we absolutely need to view each other as brothers and sisters of Christ. Earthly distinctions don’t matter when we are all children of the heavenly father.

I love internet memes. These are pictures that usually have some kind of humourous or satirical message on them. They are like modern day proverbs in a way, filled with pithy slogans. Often they are political, highlighting some kind of government numbskullery. But other times they can be religious, so we can offend everyone at the same time! I saw a great one the other day that said “Stop trying to sit at the tables Jesus flipped.” In other words, quit going after the stuff God doesn’t like. Stop valuing sinful stuff that is contradictory to the kingdom of God. Stop trying to take part in earthly pursuits. This is where St. James goes with his next point: “Are not the rich the ones who oppress you, and the ones who drag you into court? 7 Are they not the ones who blaspheme the honorable name by which you were called?” (2:6). You’ve dishonoured the poor man to embrace the rich people who cause you problems and persecute you! Stop trying to sit at the tables Jesus flipped.

“8 If you really fulfill the royal law according to the Scripture, “You shall love your neighbor as yourself,” you are doing well. 9 But if you show partiality, you are committing sin and are convicted by the law as transgressors” (2:8-9). Transgressor here is a pretty strong word. It’s equivalent to ‘apostates’ or ‘renegades.’ St. James’ hearers no doubt are caught up thinking that their conduct regarding the poor is no big deal. But to the contrary, St. James says that what they are doing is proving them to be full blown rebels against the law - probably the worst thing a law-abiding Jew could hear. “For whoever keeps the whole law but fails in one point has become guilty of all of it” (2:10).

The overarching point that St. James is hammering away at is our attitude towards God. Deliberately acting against God’s commands and doing what is valued by the unbelieving pagan world is what he is rebuking the congregation about. To this end, it doesn’t matter how many commandments in column A you think you’ve kept if you’ve broken all the ones in column B. No matter what it is, you’ve become a renegade, deliberately turning away from God’s will. You can’t tell the police officer about how much you don’t speed most of the time when you get caught speeding in the school zone! It doesn’t work like that. If you break the law, you’re guilty. In the same way, James’ hearers are rejecting the God who told them to love their neighbours as themselves when they show earthly partiality.

“12 So speak and so act as those who are to be judged under the law of liberty. 13 For judgment is without mercy to one who has shown no mercy. Mercy triumphs over judgment” (2:12-13). In other words, speak and act as a people hurrying towards the time when we ourselves will be judged by the Judge of all. And we ourselves will be judged by the same standard by which we judged others. If you show no mercy to others, why should the Judge show mercy to you?!

But that’s where the Gospel kicks in. The Judge of all has indeed shown mercy to His people in the cross of Jesus. The blood of the lamb that covers our sins and the baptismal water that washes them away - this is all pure grace and mercy from our merciful and gracious King. Our Judge, Who sees our sins, shows us mercy and grants us pardon. Therefore we see that mercy is greater than judgment. And mercy only triumphs in our lives when we as God’s people refuse to show partiality and strive to love all people as Christ commanded. Embody the mercy that Christ our King embodied for us on the cross. In His Name, now and forever more. Amen!