Partiality

My brethren, do not hold the faith of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Lord of glory, with partiality. For if there should come into your assembly a man with gold rings, in fine apparel, and there should also come in a poor man in filthy clothes, and you pay attention to the one wearing the fine clothes and say to him, "You sit here in a good place," and say to the poor man, "You stand there," or, "Sit here at my footstool," have you not shown partiality among yourselves, and become judges with evil thoughts? – James 2.1-4

I remember the day that this passage first hit me. I don’t remember exactly the setting, but I do remember the impact. I was in a church, not that different from many churches. I began to notice a real difference in attitude about how to treat different visitors to church. I noticed that when nice looking, well dressed and turned out families walked in the door for the first time there was always a kind welcome and warm handshakes and plenty of people to make them feel at home.. The welcome for the ‘right’ people was great.

But not everyone fit the mould. Some folks came in and they didn’t quite fit in. Their clothes were not as nice. Often they did not wear the right things. Men may not be in nice suits and women may not have been dressed just right. There would not be a real rejection, but there were often funny looks and whispered words. There was a subtle difference in the way folks were treated. Folks who came in dressed poorly surely would have felt out of place.

Apparently this is nothing new. James wrote about this exact same scenario to the early church. There is no room for rich Christians and poor Christians and a difference in the way we treat each other. There is no place for ‘showing partiality amongst ourselves.’

But it goes much deeper than rich and poor and well dressed and poorly dressed.  If there is no partiality it means that there is no room for black Christians and white Christians and Hispanic Christians and American Christians and Polish Christians and Irish Christians and African Christians and settled Christians and traveller Christians and whatever Christians. There is no room for racism or jingoism or culturalism or any other kind of ism or schism.

We are one’ Let’s just act like it and treat each other like it.