The royal law - Love your neighbour as yourself

 

Reflection Sunday 5^th September 2021

Chapter 2 of the Book of James starts off with a short illustration:

2 My friends, if you have faith in our glorious Lord Jesus Christ, you won’t treat some people better than others. ² Suppose a rich person wearing fancy clothes and a gold ring comes to one of your meetings. And suppose a poor person dressed in worn-out clothes also comes. ³ You must not give the best seat to the one in fancy clothes and tell the one who is poor to stand at the side or sit on the floor. ⁴ That is the same as saying that some people are better than others, and you would be acting like a crooked judge. James 2: 1 – 4 Contemporary English Version

James is writing to address a problem within the early church in Jerusalem – that preference is shown to rich people at the expense of the poor.  James is addressing those who claim to profess the faith of Jesus, but do not live up to it. It’s a reminder that preference for the rich, rather than the poor, is a betrayal of God’s law, the law of love.

The behaviour described in James’ story isn’t just confined to a first century church. It is typical of human behaviour on so many occasions. All so often the rich and prosperous – especially if they are well dressed and have the outward trappings of wealth – are welcomed in, and the poor are excluded.

As I was writing this I remembered a film called “Pretty Woman”. If you’ve not seen it, it is a story of how a very wealthy man falls in love with a prostitute – Vivian Ward. He saves her from the gutter as it were and then they live happily ever after. In one scene, after they have just met, he decides that if Vivian is to be his companion she needs to dress more smartly. He gives her his credit card and sends her off to some exclusive shops. However, when Vivian walks in to one shop in her scruffy jeans and t shirt, the swanky shop assistant refuses to serve her kind. Vivian is served in another shop, and she returns – beautifully dressed – to the first shop to point out the costly mistake of the shop assistant.

That is how people often are. Societies all too often treat the rich with worldly honour; meanwhile the poor are addressed with scorn and degradation. 2000 years ago, James was able to identify this behaviour going on in the early church.

James pulls no punches in telling those in the early church who favour the rich over the poor that they have done wrong.

⁵ Listen, my dear brothers and sisters: has not God chosen those who are poor in the eyes of the world to be rich in faith and to inherit the kingdom he promised those who love him? James 2:5

These words echo Jesus’ teachings in the Beatitudes Matthew 5:3, or in Luke 6:20

James reminds us that God has chosen those who are poor in the eyes of the world to be rich in respect of faith. God has promised that the poor are the heirs of his kingdom. The view of society – that the rich should be honoured – is completely at odds with the preaching and teaching of Jesus.

And James reminds us that there is a royal law:

⁸ If you really keep the royal law found in Scripture, ‘Love your neighbour as yourself,’^[a] you are doing right.

Christianity always has a special message for the poor and marginalised. The Christian message has consistently been that those who matter to no one else, matter immensely to God.

So often we in church are concerned about dwindling numbers. There are many reasons for the decline. But I cannot help feeling at times that one reason is that what the church says goes so far against the values of the world.  When we have a society that idolises the rich and encourages wealth – seemingly at any cost – then our message:

‘Blessed are you who are poor,
    for yours is the kingdom of God.

And

‘Love your neighbour as yourself,’

falls on deaf ears. But our message is truth and we must keep proclaiming it. In our own society when we are all rich when compared to most of the world, then people think they don’t need the Gospel. However we as Christians need to challenge the world. We need to keep proclaiming that:

‘Blessed are you who are poor,
    for yours is the kingdom of God.

And

‘Love your neighbour as yourself,’

That means we as Christians must be the voices for those who have no voice. That means for example, instead of tutting at refugees coming across the channel in small boats, we should be questioning why they are fleeing their countries in the first place. I use the word refugee. Sometimes the press talk about “Migrants”. Sometimes about “Asylum seekers”. And those terms have taken on a negative image in the press. But first and foremost these are people. They are human beings. We must remember that.

Maybe if we started to think of refugees and migrants as people needing Christ’s love, our attitudes would change? Maybe if we knew their names, their faces, their ambitions and their fears, their loves, what they fled from, then we’d begin to think of them as our neighbours? Maybe we’d challenge our politicians. Maybe we’d try to help them in some way? And maybe we’d be prepared to offer them sanctuary and help instead of rejection?