Class, Tribe, Sex, Race
James 2:1-7 1 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?
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?
6 But you have dishonored the poor man.
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 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?
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?
6 But you have dishonored the poor man.
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?
Financial difference, as James outlines here, is not the only way that we show preference. We’re going to look at a few of those today.
Ageism. Old people say, “We want what we want! We are old people and we want more old people! We want the church and society to cater to the old people because we’ve earned it! We’ve done the work, and now we want everyone to take care of us.” Or young people say, “We don’t care about the old people, the future is in the young people, forget about the old people. I’m young, I need the stuff to make sure this nation continues, to make sure this city continues, forget the old people.” People suffer from ageism – you go to a job interview, and can’t get a job because they think you’re too old, or because you’re too young to have the experience needed.
Sexism. The Church in general suffers with this tremendously. We promote men above women. We promote men so far above women that we allow the men to run everything and tell women to sit there and be silent. We take scripture and twist it! When it says the woman is to learn in silence – read, study – stop judging, because it’s putting evil ideas into your head. Now the Church struggles with elevating men above women, right? Society is kind of the opposite – if you want to sell a product, what do you do? You get a woman in a bikini and put it on Facebook – how did Hardee’s sell hamburgers? By having a celebrity in a bikini wallow all over a car and take a bite out of a hamburger that probably weighs as much as she does.
There’s also classism – you show preference to those within your socio-economic class, those who are most like you. You take that preference too far and show favoritism to those who have the same background as you, the same traditions as you, and you start showing a lot of preference to them. They have the same backgrounds, made the same school choices. Parents are horrible about this, the has-beens and never-was – you’re not just rooting for your team, you’re rooting against the other team. You’re not just saying “Go Team” you’re saying “kill the other team!” We show classism, judging based on height or weight. Short people don’t like tall people, tall people get frustrated with short people. Welcome to genetics! Skinny people get frustrated with no-longer-skinny people. You judge them. You treat them differently, poorly. You’re frustrated because they look better, they’re thinner, they’re whatever – and so you judge them, decide you’re not going to like them, or even be angry at them. WHY?? Because they look differently?? Everyone in this room has suffered from one or more of these things, and you’re still doing it today. And that’s what James is talking about.
There’s tribalism – we elevate one group against those of a certain belief. Well, I go to CommUNITY Church, we’re “non-denominational” – we don’t participate in all the practices of the Methodists, the Pentecostals, the Baptists, the whatever – and we may be tempted to look down on them and judge them all! Because our tribe is better than yours.
Or Nationalism – we become so patriotic that we begin to disparage other nations, who are just trying to do their best and help their nation survive.
There’s also racism. Mike and I serve together at the Fire Department, and we serve two overnights a month together, so all of you who have heartburn overnight, we get toned out because you didn’t take your antacid. So we have a lot of time to talk, and we always say we’re going to get our chores done and go to bed, but we never do. We always end up talking all night. But in one of those conversations I heard a story, and I want you to hear Mike’s story.
Ageism. Old people say, “We want what we want! We are old people and we want more old people! We want the church and society to cater to the old people because we’ve earned it! We’ve done the work, and now we want everyone to take care of us.” Or young people say, “We don’t care about the old people, the future is in the young people, forget about the old people. I’m young, I need the stuff to make sure this nation continues, to make sure this city continues, forget the old people.” People suffer from ageism – you go to a job interview, and can’t get a job because they think you’re too old, or because you’re too young to have the experience needed.
Sexism. The Church in general suffers with this tremendously. We promote men above women. We promote men so far above women that we allow the men to run everything and tell women to sit there and be silent. We take scripture and twist it! When it says the woman is to learn in silence – read, study – stop judging, because it’s putting evil ideas into your head. Now the Church struggles with elevating men above women, right? Society is kind of the opposite – if you want to sell a product, what do you do? You get a woman in a bikini and put it on Facebook – how did Hardee’s sell hamburgers? By having a celebrity in a bikini wallow all over a car and take a bite out of a hamburger that probably weighs as much as she does.
There’s also classism – you show preference to those within your socio-economic class, those who are most like you. You take that preference too far and show favoritism to those who have the same background as you, the same traditions as you, and you start showing a lot of preference to them. They have the same backgrounds, made the same school choices. Parents are horrible about this, the has-beens and never-was – you’re not just rooting for your team, you’re rooting against the other team. You’re not just saying “Go Team” you’re saying “kill the other team!” We show classism, judging based on height or weight. Short people don’t like tall people, tall people get frustrated with short people. Welcome to genetics! Skinny people get frustrated with no-longer-skinny people. You judge them. You treat them differently, poorly. You’re frustrated because they look better, they’re thinner, they’re whatever – and so you judge them, decide you’re not going to like them, or even be angry at them. WHY?? Because they look differently?? Everyone in this room has suffered from one or more of these things, and you’re still doing it today. And that’s what James is talking about.
There’s tribalism – we elevate one group against those of a certain belief. Well, I go to CommUNITY Church, we’re “non-denominational” – we don’t participate in all the practices of the Methodists, the Pentecostals, the Baptists, the whatever – and we may be tempted to look down on them and judge them all! Because our tribe is better than yours.
Or Nationalism – we become so patriotic that we begin to disparage other nations, who are just trying to do their best and help their nation survive.
There’s also racism. Mike and I serve together at the Fire Department, and we serve two overnights a month together, so all of you who have heartburn overnight, we get toned out because you didn’t take your antacid. So we have a lot of time to talk, and we always say we’re going to get our chores done and go to bed, but we never do. We always end up talking all night. But in one of those conversations I heard a story, and I want you to hear Mike’s story.
My story consists of me being around 15 years old, and I grew up in Muncie, which you know has some segregated neighborhoods. I grew up in an area called Whitely, which was predominantly black. I was the only white kid on my school bus. I had a few friends, but we didn’t get along like we should have. Growing up, my brothers and sisters hated everybody who didn’t look like them. So it wasn’t anything for my family to drop the big nasty n-bomb. We would even name our pets the n-bomb – it was terrible.
But one day on the school bus, me and a kid got into a little bit of a “your mama” joke things, and he said more than I could handle, so I told him to shut his mouth and a few other choice nasty words, and the big disgusting word popped out of my mouth. And at that point, all the other kids were at it, wanting us to fight, so we got off the bus and started fist-fighting. I can tell you, he had the better of me for sure.
As we were fighting though, a gentleman, the biggest black man you’ve ever seen in your life comes running up there and grabs us both by the back of the neck and asked why we were fighting. So I told him, “He called my mom a B,” and he said, “Is she?” and I said, “No.” So he asked the other kid, Herman, “Why are you fighting?” And he said, “Well, he called me the N-word,” and started swinging at me some more.
The black man was actually a pastor in the neighborhood, which I didn’t realize, and here I was using foul language and being disrespectful to everybody, so he dragged us both up to his porch and made us call our moms to come pick us up. I wasn’t really worried about talking to my mom, because I got the beat-down from that Irish lady all the time, I was more concerned about his mom being mad at me for beating on him, hitting him.
When the mothers pulled up, as the preacher was standing there, he rubbed blood off my face, rubbed blood off Herman’s face, rubbed his hands together, and asked whose was whose. He said we were so worried about color, but both of us were bleeding the same color. That’s stuck with me since I was 15 years old, and I’ve never dropped the N-bomb again.
You ever had that happen to you? Don’t be deceived, CommUNITY Church, racism is as prevalent today as it ever was, only now it’s not just black and white. It’s white and everybody else, and they all fight too. It’s sickening.
The big picture is this: we allow our preferences to become our prejudice. I get that you get along with certain type of people better because you have similar backgrounds – that’s fine! There’s nothing wrong with that, that’s being in community, but when you allow that preference to start controlling your life, and that preference changes to prejudice and you start to judge evilly those who aren’t like you, that’s what James is talking about. Verse 5 says, “Listen my brothers…” Who? My brothers! Those who are in Christ! Those who claim the name of Jesus Christ are still doing these things! These issues are in the church! Do you think those outside our walls don’t notice when these issues show up inside the church? Why do we think we can invite people here “because we’re different,” if we’re not?
The big picture is this: we allow our preferences to become our prejudice. I get that you get along with certain type of people better because you have similar backgrounds – that’s fine! There’s nothing wrong with that, that’s being in community, but when you allow that preference to start controlling your life, and that preference changes to prejudice and you start to judge evilly those who aren’t like you, that’s what James is talking about. Verse 5 says, “Listen my brothers…” Who? My brothers! Those who are in Christ! Those who claim the name of Jesus Christ are still doing these things! These issues are in the church! Do you think those outside our walls don’t notice when these issues show up inside the church? Why do we think we can invite people here “because we’re different,” if we’re not?