James makes it clear at the beginning of his letter that there's a power available to Jesus people. It's a power that has the ability to form a new kind of community that is different from the rest of the world. And that power comes from Jesus. He makes it clear that faith in Jesus changes everything about the way we live our lives.

In some ways, we need James right now. Badly. He doesn't let us merely spiritualize our faith or cut it in half seeing it as a free ticket to heaven when we die. There's no escapist theology here. This is all down and dirty do the hard stuff of life. He kinda goes on a rant.

Okay, James. So, what shall we do? He says, "don't show favoritism." Then he tells a story about a rich guy and a poor guy walking into church. The rich guy gets preferential treatment. The poor guy has to stand by the door. Did this really happen in James' church? Maybe. Or maybe he's taking the wider cultural realities and bringing them down with laser-like focus in order to show us just how absurd they really are.

We make a lot of assumptions when we see the poor or hear about them. These assumptions were given to us - they're lazy, they don't work hard enough. Blah, blah, blah. All the while, we ignore the cultural realities that make it impossible for some people to provide for themselves. And that's just the rich and poor. What about other people groups who experience the adverse effects of favoritism? People of color, mental illness, LGBTQ+ peeps. When we ignore cultural realities that keep others out, we show favoritism.

There's a radical egalitarianism we find here in James - we're all equal. The Bible has other ways of thinking we can lift out of its pages - complementarianism, hierarchies of power, etc. We get to choose which voices in the Bible we get to privilege. It's our choice - let's just make that clear.

Why is this such a big deal to James? Because of the Greek word adelphoi. It's translated "brothers." We would say, "brothers and sisters" - better yet, "siblings." We're family! We all belong to the same family and we're called to solidarity - not division.

Speaker: Aaron Vis
Scripture: James 2:1-19
http://bible.com/events/49089725

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