For many of us, when we think of high school we have moments when we cringe. Maybe it is when you see a picture of yourself of what you looked like. The picture from prom. Or a picture form your air guitar band. You knew that was coming back.
Maybe though, you can remember the feeling of being rejected. Maybe it was by a friend, maybe it was by a boy or girl that you had a huge crush on, a crush you didn’t think you would ever get over. Maybe you heard those fateful words, it isn’t you, it’s me.
This past week, I googled some break up lines. Here are a few:
• "Maybe we have too much in common. We are too much alike."
• "I don’t want you to feel like I’m breaking up with you. I just can’t be in a relationship with you anymore."
• "It’s pointless for us to be together because I’m going away in 11 months for college.”
• "I can’t see myself with you when I am eighty."
All of us at one point or another have been on the giving and receiving end of rejection.
I remember when I was in jr. high, I was in the youth choir at church. Every summer, the choir went on a tour to other churches. So every year, we piled into a bus and traveled around for a week or so. You can imagine, 30 jr. high students on a bus for a week. One summer, there was this girl named Missy. Missy was one of the girls I had my first crush on.
One night, we were in our rooms and I was telling the guys in my room what I thought of Missy. They started egging me on, you need to call her right now and ask her out. And I was like “no way,” and they were like “yeah, do it.” Remember, we were in jr. high in another state, where were we going to go?
I still didn’t want to do it. So the guys in my room said, we’ll call her up and each of us will ask her out and then you ask her out, so it won’t be a big deal. To this day, I don’t know how I thought this was a good plan.
So we called her room and each guy, there were 4 of us, they each asked her out and I guess Missy said yes. I got the phone and said, “Missy will you go out with me?” And she said, “No” and hung up the phone.
I am still scarred.
Each of us have scars that come from being rejected. Some are ridiculous like my story. Some of them are serious scars. Some of us right now are seeing the picture of the person who scarred us. Some of us are seeing the people that we have scarred.
If we were to pass a mic around this morning, all of us would be able to tell a story. Stories that are real, with pain that in many of us still hurt.
What do we do with those memories? How do handle those times in our life when we are rejected? Maybe something has happened recently to you. Maybe you didn’t get that job you were hoping for. Maybe your spouse has rejected you physically, relationally or emotionally. Maybe you have a family member that has rejected you, a friend who no longer seems to be there.
What do we do? Because those are real things, they are real pains, real hurts.
What about those of us who have been on the giving side of those situations? Maybe recently, you have said some really horrible things to someone you love.
For the past 2 weeks, we have been going through the book of James in our series A Search for What is Real. If you have your bibles, you can open them to James chapter 1. James is written to Christians who are not acting like Christians. He starts off his letter by telling them they are not handling trials and temptations correctly. Then he talks about how they are handling anger. So keep this idea of anger in mind as we move into chapter 2.
This is what it says in James 1, verse 26: 26If anyone thinks he is religious and does not bridle his tongue but deceives his heart, this person’s religion is worthless. 27Religion that is pure and undefiled before God, the Father, is this: to visit orphans and widows in their affliction, and to keep oneself unstained from the world.
James 2, verse 1: 1My brothers, show no partiality as you hold the faith in our Lord Jesus Christ, the Lord of glory. 2For if a man wearing a gold ring and fine clothing comes into your assembly, and a poor man in shabby clothing also comes in, 3and 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," 4have you not then made distinctions among yourselves and become judges with evil thoughts?
5Listen, 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? 6But you have dishonored the poor man. Are not the rich the ones who oppress you, and the ones who drag you into court? 7Are they not the ones who blaspheme the honorable name by which you were called?
8If you really fulfill the royal law according to the Scripture, "You shall love your neighbor as yourself," you are doing well. 9But if you show partiality, you are committing sin and are convicted by the law as transgressors. 10For whoever keeps the whole law but fails in one point has become accountable for all of it. 11For he who said, "Do not commit adultery," also said, "Do not murder." If you do not commit adultery but do murder, you have become a transgressor of the law. 12So speak and so act as those who are to be judged under the law of liberty. 13For judgment is without mercy to one who has shown no mercy. Mercy triumphs over judgment.
There is a ton going on in this part of the letter. Remember, when James would have written this, there were no verses or chapters, so when we talked about anger last week, that is connected to this part.
That is the first question, how does anger fit together with favoritism? After James gets done telling them how to handle anger, he moves right into verse 26 in chapter 1 which says: 26If anyone thinks he is religious and does not bridle his tongue but deceives his heart, this person’s religion is worthless. 27Religion that is pure and undefiled before God, the Father, is this: to visit orphans and widows in their affliction, and to keep oneself unstained from the world.
So James moves from anger, right to controlling our tongue and then to how we treat the poor. The fatherless and the widow, which in the first century, those were the people who could not take care of themselves, or provide for themselves.
He says at the end of verse 27 we are to be unstained by the world. Meaning, we aren’t supposed to take ourselves out the world, but instead, we are supposed to be different than the rest of the world. He is saying, everyone else is using their tongue and saying things they shouldn’t, everyone else doesn’t care about the overlooked, those on the margins of society. You are supposed to be different. The reason is, when we help those who can’t help themselves, when we help those people, we cannot expect to receive anything tangible in return.
Last night, as we laid out in Phoenix, we aren’t going to get anything back from anybody in Uganda who has been displaced for a decade. Next week, as we try to be a good neighbor and clean up our neighborhood, we aren’t doing that because we expect anything in return.
This is what I love about James, he gets right to it and doesn’t pull any punches. In verse 26 he says, the Christians who aren’t doing this, there religion is worthless in the eyes of God.
Then he moves in a little deeper. By telling a story. In verse 1 of the chapter, he says: show no partiality. That word, when translated literally from Greek it means to “receive a face.” That is, Christians should not prefer one person over another because of their appearance – their face, their clothes, or any other aspect of their outward appearance.
A few years ago, a group researched the way someone’s clothing affects the way others perceive him. They put a man on the street in a business district in New York City, pleading for cash with this line: “I’ve lost my wallet and need money for a taxi to the airport. This is my name, address, and phone number. If you loan me the money, I’ll repay you as soon as I get home.” They put the same man, wearing the same suit, on the same street, using the same line on consecutive weekdays. But in a year when beige was a proper attire, he wore a beige overcoat one day and black the next. The result: his proceeds on the beige day doubled his proceeds on the black day. It was simple favoritism.
Maybe you are thinking, yes, favoritism is wrong, but why begin a discussion of true religion with such a trivial issue? It’s hard even to stay aware of low-grade favoritism. Every culture and subculture does it; it’s human nature. Maybe, but maybe James is smart to analyze what we might call a trivial issue. The little things we do reveal our hearts. The English have a saying, “The true gentleman uses the proper fork even when he dines alone.” The little things reveal our heart and whether or not our religion is true or false. As trivial as it seems, favoritism touches all phases of true religion.
So James tells the story of a worship gathering like this one. It has already started and 2 men come in. One dressed in the latest threads, with gold on his fingers. The other, shows up in rags. The one dressed in expensive clothes gets a good seat in the front, the poor man is told to sit on the floor at someone’s feet.
We do this even today. I remember a friend who was a youth pastor telling me that his lead pastor told him to hang out with one of his students more than other students, because his dad was the biggest giver in the church. And my friend asked me, what am I supposed to do?
I know of a lot of pastors who won’t make right decisions in how they lead their churches because it might upset a tither. They will actually not make a decision they think is right or take the church to a place they think God wants it to go, so that they won’t lose a tither. One of the things I told the elders here was that I never want to know who gives what. I don’t want to know. I don’t want to be accused of giving into someone or hanging out with someone because they give more. I have no idea. I don’t want to show favoritism in my leadership.
Then James kind of takes a twist in the story in verse 5 when he says: 5Listen, 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?
Almost to say, the people who are the favorites, the people who are part of the in crowd, aren’t necessarily who God sees as the greatest. This is what one author (David P. Nystrom) said about the poor, “While many Christians claim that the poor alone are responsible for their condition, we must face the fact that this is a decidedly American opinion, based on a decidedly American value; it does not reflect the values of the Bible.”
Think about the last BBQ or party you were at. Who did you spend most of your time with? Was it the most popular person at the party, the person that could help your standing among those there?
What about the last party you hosted or the last time you had a couple over for dinner? Did you expect them to have you over in return?
The problem with favoritism is that it goes against the gospel. The gospel says that anyone can come to God, but favoritism says there are some who can and some who can’t.
We say with our mouths that this is wrong, but we say with our lives that this is okay and a value that we often hold in our lives.
When James wrote this, the poor were seen as faceless people, nothings in the eyes of the wealthy.
Look at what James says in verse 8: 8If you really fulfill the royal law according to the Scripture, "You shall love your neighbor as yourself," you are doing well. 9But if you show partiality, you are committing sin and are convicted by the law as transgressors. 10For whoever keeps the whole law but fails in one point has become accountable for all of it. 11For he who said, "Do not commit adultery," also said, "Do not murder." If you do not commit adultery but do murder, you have become a transgressor of the law.
James starts off by saying, if you keep this command, good. Almost to get people to think, I am doing okay. Then he says, but if you break this over here. You are in need of help. Almost to say, we can’t pick and choose the parts we are going to follow.
Many people live out their spirituality this way, trying to keep just a few rules. I have met countless people who say, if I just keep the ten commandments or keep a few of them, I will be okay. Do you know what is ironic about that, in the book of Exodus, where the ten commandments appear. The subject of eternity, heaven and hell do not appear. Yet, many people are banking their eternities on keeping the ten commandments.
We do this in other ways, we pick and choose the passages we like, so that we are comfortable with the bible.
Rich Mullins was a Christian singer and songwriter that wrote many of the most popular Christian songs and worship songs of the last 25 years. He decided early in his career that he would only make enough money to stay above the poverty level, the rest he gave away. So here is a guy giving millions away every year that he made in royalties.
Once, he spoke at Wheaton College in Chicago. This is what he said, “you guys are all into that born again thing, which is great. We do need to be born again, since Jesus said that to a guy named Nicodemus. But if you tell me I have to be born again to enter the kingdom of God, I can tell you that you have to sell everything you have and give it to the poor, because Jesus said that to one guy too…” And he paused in the awkward silence. And then he continued, “But I guess that’s why God invented highlighters, so we can highlight the parts of the Bible we like and ignore the rest.”
Often in our life, that is true. We follow the parts of the Bible that we like, the things that fit into the way we want to live our lives and leave the rest out. But James is saying, you can’t do that. And one of the ways we do that is by showing favoritism. You can’t pick this verse and ignore that verse.
Gandhi was once asked if he was a Christian and he responded by saying, “Ask the poor. They will tell you who the Christians are.”
But who are the poor in our world? The world of James was different from our own in a number of ways: one, social standing was not nearly as often a function of wealth as it is in our world; two, there was almost no possibility of social or economic climbing in James’s world; three, the social and economic pyramid in the Roman empire was incredibly steep, with virtually no middle class as we understand that term today.
Even still, the message of Jesus and of James is clear, don’t show favoritism. Treat everyone the same, regardless of money, clothes, color, religion, gender, sexual preference, regardless of anything. That is hard isn’t it?
Think about it, we meet people everyday who will not help us get to where we want to go, often we bypass them and keep on going. Speed bumps in our life journey. James would say we are breaking the whole law of God by breaking this one law.
We don’t like that word law, especially when it comes to God. But remember what we said last week and it was James reiterates in verse 12: 12So speak and so act as those who are to be judged under the law of liberty. 13For judgment is without mercy to one who has shown no mercy. Mercy triumphs over judgment.
The law of liberty. Whenever James speaks of the law, he is speaking of a way of life that brings freedom, that brings hope. James is saying, everyone shows favoritism, this is how you can be different. Anybody can play favorites. But not anyone can show love, grace and hope to everybody.
What about the overlooked in our lives? Maybe there is a guy in your office that always eats alone. Someone who always seems to be the butt of every joke. That is an overlooked person. They are the people who sell newspapers at traffic lights.
Mother Teresa said, “In the poor we meet Jesus in his most distressing disguises.”
Often in our lives we look for the best looking, most talented, most competitive, the one who will help us the most. James is saying, don’t look for that guy. Don’t look for the person that will help you get ahead.
Let me close with this. Soren Kierkegaard said this, “The matter is quite simple. The Bible is very easy to understand. But we Christians are a bunch of scheming swindlers. We pretend to be unable to understand it because we know very well that the minute we understand, we are obligated to act accordingly. Take any words in the New Testament and forget everything except pledging yourself to act accordingly. My God, you will say, if I do that my whole life will be ruined. How would I ever get ahead in the world? Herein lies the real place of Christian scholarship. Christian scholarship is the Church’s invention to defend itself against the Bible, to ensure that we can continue to be good Christians without the Bible coming too close.”
I want you to imagine for a second what your life would be like if you didn’t show favoritism. What would our church be like if we didn’t show favoritism towards each other? This is why we say we want to be a community that is known by love. Love does not show favoritism. While the rest of the world picks sides and says who is better than someone else, we can stand up and say, we aren’t going to play that game.
Before we head into communion, we are going to watch a video clip. After that, the band is going to lead us in some songs. You can use that time to come up and take communion, you can stand, you can sit. Do whatever you need to over the next few moments.
