Preferential Treatment

Pentecost 16 – September 8, 2024

Isaiah 35:4-7a
Psalm 146
James 2:1-17
Mark 7:24-37

James, in our reading today, is telling us his understanding of how faith and works are connected. He makes this connection in a different way than Paul does. Paul insists that it is by faith and not by works that we are saved. James tells us that without works faith is dead. So which is correct? Luther’s answer is that Paul is and James had it wrong. That is why he disliked the book of James and said he would have removed it from the Bible if he could. What the contrast does show is that the relationship between faith and works is complicated. I would suggest that if we sat down and talked about these two concepts each of us will have a slightly different understanding of them. Paul and James are no different. I would suggest that their difference in understanding faith and works comes from how they became a follower of Jesus. For Paul his early “work” was to persecute Christians and it was a sudden dramatic encounter with God who asked him why he was persecuting Christians. For Paul his conversion had nothing to do with his work (except in a negative sense). James, on the other hand, seems to have become a believer through his participation in the Synagogue. For him the transition from a Jewish follower of God to a Christian follower was a natural flow. He did not have a dramatic conversion experience and so works is how he lived out his faith.

While it is difficult to decide how each section of James is related to another and where one thought ends and another begins, the committee that assigned this text must have assumed that the admonishment to not show partiality is connected to the one about faith and works. Our first observation here is that James is talking about how the congregation treats visitors since, in the text,  each person (poor and rich) are shown where to sit. A regular member would know where to sit. Was James speaking from experience? We cannot say. What is clear is that James calls on his community to treat all visitors with the same respect and welcome. By doing so they would be demonstrating that in Christ there is no distinction. Although we do notice that James seems to have a preference for the poor. That, of course, comes from his Jewish background. God calls for the people to take care of the poor and hungry, the widow and orphan, and the alien in the land. And after this discussion James begins his discussion on works.

We do not read all of James’ discussion on works in this chapter. The most difficult part – verse 18 to the end of the chapter – is not included in our reading for today. In the part that we do have, we can see that James and Paul do not agree and that their understanding of faith and works cannot be completely reconciled. Paul is concerned about some who would require Christians to follow the Law in order to be saved by God – a very real occurrence in the churches Paul dealt with. James, on the other hand, noticed how the Christians in his community continued to live their lives as they had before they received faith. His conclusion was, if their faith did not move them to act, it was dead. The subtle difference between Paul and James is that they were talking about two different parts of the Christian life. Paul had to keep reminding the churches that he was involved in that they were unable to save themselves, but out of love, God sent Jesus to do what they could not do for themselves. James is addressing those who had been Christians for some time who had decided to sit back on their laurels and talk about faith doing the work that God was calling them to.