God’s Favorites
A friend of mine in New York City
wanted to celebrate the anniversary of their engagement during Restaurant Week,
when many expensive restaurants offer a low-price three course meal that more
people can afford. The restaurant where they got engaged was one of these fancy
restaurants with special deals that week, but the deal didn’t matter to her.
What mattered was that she wanted to recreate a special meal with the person
she loved. So she called the maitre’d in advance and made a reservation and
asked for the exact table which they had sat at. And they told her on the phone
that would be no problem. They went to the restaurant and explained their
reservation. The host looked at this young couple, sized them up, and said,
“That table isn’t available, we’ll have to seat you somewhere else.” They were
put over in a corner, by the bathrooms, where their server almost never noticed
them, and people constantly bumped into them as they walked by.
Many
of us have had experiences like this, ones in which we are judged simply by the
way we appear to others. Maybe you went straight from the fields to the city
for a meeting, and people didn’t listen to what you had to say. Maybe you went
to look at a car, and were treated with condescension and disregard, but when
you came back with your husband, suddenly you were a VIP customer. Maybe you
have never experienced this, but only because you never left the house without being
dressed to the nines to make sure that no one could ignore you.
In
the book of James, we learn that in James’s community this sort of stereotyping
was common. If a person wearing nice clothes and gold rings walked through the
door, the welcoming committee was right there. They made them feel at home, and
ensured them a good seat at the banquet, and a good portion of the main course
in case their wasn’t enough to go around. A poorly-dressed person, on the other
hand, made little impression. Sit here, stand over there, just try not to be in
the way. The people in James’ community came together to proclaim that in
Christ there is no male or female, Jew or Greek, slave or free, but in their
actions they proclaimed that the social hierarchies of the world were well in
order. Now this isn’t hard to understand. No matter how we try to create a
community that reflects the kingdom of God, the world always slips in. The social and cultural mores around
gatherings were hard to ignore for first and second-century Christians.
Most
of the early church worship services were shaped around meals, in banquet halls
or in the homes of wealthier members of the community. At this kind of meal in
the Greco-Roman world, people were seated on large sofas along the walls of the
room in order of precedence, with the highest status person on just to the left
of the door, all along until they ran out of room and lesser people sat on the
floor at people’s feet. Remember in Luke when Jesus said that you should sit
yourself in the lowest place, that the host come and say, “Friend, move up to a
better place,” and so you would be honored in front of everyone? It was this
system of dinner place ranking that James was talking about. If you managed to
get a spot close to someone important, you would be seen as their friend or
associate, and your status would improve as well. Sort of like high school,
where if you can manage to hang out with the popular kids, people will assume
that you are popular too.
So
everyone wanted to hang out with the well-dressed visitors, not to mention the
fact that Christian house-churches were dependent on their largesse to host
events. These were people that were too important to ignore. This sort of
behavior was common at nearly every social organization of the Greco-Roman
world. People of high status were treated with great partiality because their
patronage could bestow significant benefits on those whom they favored.
However,
Christian churches were radically different from any other organization at the time.
In many ways, they were an experiment. An experiment in radical openness.
Unlike other religious groups at the time (or other non-religious groups, for
that matter), membership was not limited to a certain social-class or
life-sphere. Instead, Christians deliberately chose to include everyone, men
and women, slaves and free, Jews and Greeks, rich and poor. They were a
community apart from the others, and they welcomed everyone.
They held themselves up as an
example of inclusion, but James holds up the mirror that they see what their
form of inclusion looks like. James shows them that their so-called inclusion
really was just the same social stratification with a new coat of paint.
Now we are still a radical
experiment in inclusion. And if James were here today I imagine he would hold
the mirror up to us too, and we would see that we fall short as well. Martin
Luther King famously said that eleven o’clock Sunday morning is the “most
segregated hour in America,” and I suspect that statement is still true today.
But even more so, churches tend to be stratified based on income, educational
attainment, and even age. Now much of that has to do with the fact that
neighborhoods tend to be divided along the same lines, but have you ever
thought better of inviting someone to church because you were worried they
wouldn’t fit in, or that people might think differently of you if you brought
them?
If we hold up the mirror to ourselves, we’ll realize that
we’re much more likely to fight tooth and nail to bring in a couple with two
young children (and a chance to boost our Sunday School numbers) than that old
widower who has recently lost his way.
And sometimes we spend so much time
worrying about the people who aren’t here, we forget the ones who are. There
was an old suburban church that was rapidly being encroached upon by immigrant
neighborhoods, and it had become the default church of a few immigrant
families, whose children all came to church often because there was nothing
better to do at home. It turned into a great ministry, as the suburban members
of this church helped them learn how to navigate life in the U.S., how to get
healthcare, get into college, and have access to a better future than their
parents.
The youth group, which had always
been strong, was now full of low-income teenagers with lots of free time and
very little knowledge of God or the U.S. During one late-night talk on one of
the retreats, one of the suburban kids lamented the fact that many of his
friends had stopped coming to youth group. “It’s just, nobody comes anymore,
and it’s sad because there used to be so many of us,” he said, completely
unaware that this trip had broken records in attendance. And one of the younger
boys, trying so hard to fit in, said in his accented English, “yeah, I wish
somebody was here.”
What James tells us is that we are
called not to play favorites because each one of us is God’s favorite. God is
dying (quite literally), to love each and every one of us, especially the poor
and unlovable. Remember the story of the Prodigal Son, in which the son takes
his share of the family land early and blows it all in a few binges in the
city. When he returns home in disgrace he is not shunned or ashamed, but a
feast is thrown for him. Every single one of us, rich or poor, sinner or saint,
is given grace. Take note: You are God’s favorite. He delights in spending time
with you, in lavishing you with blessings, in lifting you up in joy.
But now here is the hard part. In
spite of our very human tendency to share our love with those we feel deserve
it, Jesus calls us to a much higher level of love. Loving only those who love
us back is easy, he tells us. Even sinners do that. (See Luke 6:32-36) But love
even your enemies, those who have done nothing to earn or deserve your love, and
your reward will be great. “Be merciful, he said, just as your Father is
merciful” (Luke 6:36). We are
called to treat everyone we meet, as God’s favorite. As someone who gets
special dispensation when they do something wrong. As someone who deserves extra
love and appreciation for being who they are. As someone important enough to be
made welcome.
“Mercy triumphs over judgment,”
James tells us. As Christians we claim God’s grace, God’s mercy, supercedes the
judgment we deserve. Through Christ’s resurrection we are rescued from the
punishments we deserve, and freed from the bondage of sin. We are no longer
judged by our appearance, by our sex, our heritage, our career, or even our own
accomplishments, but we are judged under the law of liberty, the law of grace,
in which Christ, through his sacrifice made us righteous in the eyes of God.
“So speak and so act as those who are to be judged by the law of liberty,” say
the book of James. According to the mercy which we have been given, let us pour
out mercy upon those whom God loves, especially those who suffer in want and
need, who are forgotten and lonely, burdened and oppressed, sick and weak,
sinful and ashamed.
There’s a story in Rebecca
Pippert’s, Out of the Saltshaker and Into the World, [1]about
a young man Bill, who was a little bit of a hippie. He didn’t worry too much
about his appearance, and he went barefoot wherever he went, even through the
rain and the snow. He’d become a Christian while in college, going to the
campus ministry there. Now there was a middle class church close to campus that
wanted to reach out to students, but didn’t really know how, and Bill decided
one day that he would go over to that church to worship. And so he walked into
the church in blue jeans and a T-shirt, and started looking for a place to sit.
So he walked barefoot down the center aisle, looking for a place to sit. Only
the place was rather full, so when he got to the front, he still couldn’t find
a place to go. So he just plopped down right on the carpet. This might have fit
in at a college fellowship, but his behavior was totally unusual at a church
congregation.
People didn’t know what to do. Then
slowly, one of the ushers, an older gentleman, began to walk down the aisle
towards the man. Some folks were a little relieved that he was going to do
something about him. Others preemptively forgave him for what he was going to
do, thinking, you can’t really blame an old many for being a little rigid about
decorum. The church went silent, all eyes focused on him, waiting to see what
would happen between this old man and this hippie college kid. When he got down
to the front, he leaned down, and with no little amount of effort, sat himself
down on the carpet right beside Bill. He went and met Bill right where he was.
According to the grace which we
have been given by the one who came down to earth to save us let us go out into
the world to forgive, to love, and to serve, and to treat every single person
we encounter as one of God’s favorites, just like us.
[1] Pippert,
Rebecca. Out of the Saltshaker and Into the World; Evangelism as a Way of Life.
Westmont, IL: InterVarsity Press, 1999. p. 260.
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