The brother in
humble circumstances ought to take pride in his high position. But the one who is rich should take pride in
his low position, because he will pass away like a wild flower. For the sun rises with scorching heat and
withers the plant; its blossom falls and its beauty is destroyed. In the same
way, the rich man will fade away even while he goes about his business. (James 1:9-11)
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Having read through the Letter of James
last week, we’re now going to take the next few weeks to reflect on some of the
content we found in it. Since James is essentially an "ethical"
letter - stressing how we should respond to God's grace and not God's grace
itself (although, with apologies to Martin Luther, I don't believe grace is
absent from the letter!) - I'm going to be focusing on the ethics of Christian
living (or, as in the words James actually uses, the "deeds" or
"works" that are ideally called forth in our lives by the gospel of
grace as it touches our hearts and transforms our lives.) One of the things we
have to come to terms with is that we are not called to live as the world
lives. Our faith is supposed to change us. The way we live is supposed to be
almost unrecognizable to the world. People are supposed to look at us and shake
their heads because we think and act and respond so differently than the world
expects. People are supposed to wonder how it is that Christ can make such a
difference in our lives. Jesus is supposed to turn the world and how we view it
upside down. Both the Old Testament and the New Testament make this abundantly
clear and repeatedly tell us that people of faith are supposed to approach each
day with an outlook that defies worldly standards and that makes people stand
up and take notice. But, unfortunately, it doesn’t always work that way.
I have a friend who I’ll call John (that’s
not his real name) who I’ve come to know over the last few years who is a
Baptist pastor in South India. Since I’ve known him, he’s shared a fair bit
with me about what being both a pastor and a Christian in South India is like,
and I now have a standing invitation to visit and worship with him at his
church if I’m ever in South India - and I’ve extended the reciprocal invitation
to him to worship with us should he ever find himself in this part of the
world. John was born and raised as a Christian in an overwhelmingly Hindu
culture in which only 5% of the people are Christians. His father was also a
Baptist pastor, but he was a convert in his early adulthood from Hinduism to
Christianity. The family made a lot of sacrifices to become Christians.
Persecution of Christians in the region isn’t uncommon. I found this report
about the situation of Christians in South India: “There has been an increase in
anti-Christian violence in recent years … . The acts of violence include arson
of churches, re-conversion of Christians to Hinduism by force and threats of
physical violence, distribution of threatening literature, burning of Bibles,
raping of nuns, murder of Christian priests and destruction of Christian
schools, colleges, and cemeteries.” I share this not to demonize Hinduism
(because God knows Christians have done a lot of ugly things over the years
too, so we have no room for feelings of pride or superiority) but just to give
you a taste of what my friend John faces on a regular basis. One of his
challenges is that almost all the people who attend his church are converts
from Hinduism to Christianity in a culture that doesn’t take very kindly to
such conversions. Another challenge - especially for him as a Baptist - is that
many of his parishioners absolutely refuse to be baptized. He doesn’t doubt
their Christian faith, but they believe that if they accept baptism that will
be the final sign for their enemies to begin persecuting them. So they gather
quietly to worship, but because baptism by law has to be registered, they
decline baptism. Dr. David Scott, a Methodist who teaches at the Union
Theological Seminary in Bangalore, India, writes that “ the Indian
Christian convert has been described as “an outcaste, no longer recognizable as
a functioning member of his or her former community. ... numerous Indians
consider Christian conversion and baptism to be effective denationalization.
For many conversion to Christianity is offensive, a betrayal of India's
national heritage, an alienation harmful to the life of the nation, a disturbance
having undesirable political and economic implications.” My friend John tells
me that, to avoid these consequences, many in his congregation insist on
holding on to the Hindu caste system - the system that establishes a “social
pecking order,” with those on the bottom (known as the “untouchables”) being
truly cast out. They can be educated, make money and even rise to positions of
prominence in government, but those of higher castes still won’t associate with
them. So John’s congregation is hopelessly divided into Hindu castes, in spite
of the fact that they’re professing Christians, and many of his parishioners
won’t even speak to each other.
That is not just a South Indian
phenomenon, although in South India it’s taken to something of an extreme.
There are many Christian congregations in North America that find themselves
quietly (or sometimes not so quietly) divided between the “ins” and the “outs,”
and woe to anyone who chooses to challenge the unspoken power structure. And
this is not just a modern phenomenon. It’s witnessed to in Scripture. There are
repeated warnings in Scripture about the dangers of discriminating within the
community of faith, and repeated calls for that not to happen, for all to be
treated as equal in the eyes not just of God but also of the people of God. In
Matthew 20:16, Jesus says “So the last will be first and the first will be
last.” There is no sense to that, is there? But Jesus is saying that God
will bring about a radical re-ordering of society in which those who are often
the last to be thought of and the last to be taken care of will be placed at
the front of the line. Jesus was the one who promised blessing - and not as a future promise but as a present condition - to the most
unlikely of people: the poor, the meek, those who mourn. Our world is more
likely to see those in such conditions as cursed, not as blessed. Even before
Jesus was born, Mary saw that His birth would re-order society. As she
reflected upon God’s work, she said: “He has brought down rulers from their
thrones but has lifted up the humble. He has filled the hungry with good things
but has sent the rich away empty.” And even centuries before that, the
prophet Isaiah in speaking of the work of the Messiah, wrote that “Every valley
shall be raised up, every mountain and hill made low; the rough ground shall
become level, the rugged places a plain.” The fact that these things
needed to be said suggests that Jesus, Mary, Isaiah - and James, who wrote that
“The brother in humble circumstances ought to take pride in his high
position. But the one who is rich should
take pride in his low position” - all saw various forms of inequality in the
community of faith as a problem to be addressed. And it is a problem to be
addressed. Most congregations have a power structure - those who, for one
reason or another, can influence every decision that gets made if they want to.
If that’s because they’re the spiritually mature people, that’s all right - and
appropriate. But that isn’t always the case. Sometimes it’s those with money
vs. those without. Sometimes it’s those who are educated vs. those who aren’t.
In some contexts it’s those who speak in tongues vs. those who don’t. Sometimes
it’s those who commit what they think of as “lesser” sins vs. those who commit
what are thought of as “bigger” sins. In some churches it’s men vs. women, or
clergy vs. lay. We’re not supposed to (and maybe we don’t even mean to) - but
we try to make the church look like the world by dividing it in some way into
those who “have” vs. those who “don’t,” or those who “are” vs. those who “aren’t.”
Ultimately, that destroys Christian community. It becomes far too easy for
those who “have” or who “are” to look down upon those who “don’t have” or who “aren’t”
and it becomes equally easy for those who “don’t have” and who “aren’t” to
start to believe they’re unworthy.
That’s why I like to speak about the
"paradox" of the gospel - the fact that what Jesus gives us is not
what we expect by worldly standards. From Jesus we get the God who humbled
himself and became a man; from Jesus we get the crucified God; from Jesus we
get the Son of God who eats with sinners; from Jesus we get unmerited grace
apart from obedience to law. The world doesn’t understand this. Neither should
they really understand we who follow Jesus. Instead, the world should be fascinated
by both Him and us; they should wonder what makes such a difference. Back to
those words of James: “The brother in humble circumstances ought to take
pride in his high position. But the one
who is rich should take pride in his low position, because he will pass away
like a wild flower.” This isn’t normal. It’s a complete reversal. It’s not “the
law” that demands obedience but it’s part of “The Works” that should simply
flow from faith - to establish a community where there are no rich and no poor,
no mighty and no weak, no important and no unimportant; to establish a
community where we all just treat each others as equals - which is what we are
in the eyes of God anyway. The things of the world don't count to God. Having a
lot doesn't make us more worthy in God’s eyes; having little doesn't make us
less worthy in God’s eyes. We are equal in the sight of God. God promises a
radical re-ordering of society; and God desires that it begin in the church,
among His people, as an example to the world of what real community and real
relationship look like.
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