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SERMONS:
Pastor Peg posts her two most recent sermons on this page. If you are interested in reading more of her sermons you can go to pastorpeg.wordpress.com. For the next five weeks our sermon series is: The Book of James. Enjoy.
Being Impartial
June 22, 2025 2nd Sunday of Pentecost
James 2:1-13 Matthew 7:1-5 & 12
In our age, the idea of impartiality doesn’t have the same impact as it would have in Jesus and James’ time. The social consensus was that if you were a prosperous person, had been born into a good family, or if your business was successful, that God was blessing you because you were a good person. So, it followed that people who had wealth, status, and who had made their way well in the world, should be given greater respect then those who were disadvantaged in life. Conversely, it was thought that if you couldn't get ahead or prosper, or were afflicted with disease or some calamity, that God was punishing you for your sins or the sins of your family.
But Jesus didn't it adhere to that philosophy. He told his followers that God loved every one of them. He told parables that illustrated that just because you were rich it didn't mean that God favored you. In the parable of Lazarus and the Rich Man, Lazarus begs for food outside the Rich Man's gate, but the Rich Man ignores him. Then one day the two of them die and Lazarus ends up in heaven but the Rich Man, because he ignored the commandment of God to take care of the poor and the needy, ends up in hell.
We know that when the disciples set up their communities of the faithful that everybody shared equally with everybody else no matter who you were; Jew or gentile, rich or poor. But it’s commonly accepted among scholars that this was a continuation of the type of communities that Jesus set up during his three-years of ministry.
Jesus also stressed the empathy that we need to have for each other. The scripture from Matthew tells us that we will all be judged equally, so we should be very careful how we evaluate and judge others. It is not that I’m better than someone because they sin worse than I do. I also sin, so I need to be careful about judging others for their sins.
And withholding judgment does not excuse sin. Spontaneous, strategic, or systemic inflictions of negativity that hurt people are still inflictions of negativity that hurt people, and they must be confronted and stopped, or sin will never stop. But we are told to have empathy for the sinner and for those who are caught up in the blow back of sin, because we might find ourselves in the same situation one day. This was an important point for Jesus because people who had truly done nothing wrong, but who had had the misfortune of being associated with a sinner, were often cut out of their communities.
I recently read an article that discussed the instability that was beginning to creep into the Roman Empire during Jesus’ time. I was amazed at how much uncertainty there was economically and socially, and how people we're getting to be very tired of the privilege and corruption of the upper class.
Judaism was very appealing to a lot of gentiles because of its emphasis within the Laws of Moses of a greater equality for everyone. But Judaism was a very enclosed religion; if you weren't born into it, you weren't considered to be Jewish, or even able to become Jewish. Jesus, however, preached the equality of the law, and he emphasized that God considered everyone to be His children; that He showed no favor; and that He was always willing to welcome back anyone, not shun them, who had strayed from the path and who wanted to get themselves right again. Christianity accepted everyone, and many gentiles were very attracted to this new branch of Judaism and joined the Christian movement.
Still, human nature is human nature, and it's hard to change a society's way of thinking overnight. I'm sure James saw it in his own congregation. Someone who had really nice clothes would walk through the door, and all the greeters would swarm over to them welcoming them and showing them a nice seat at the front of the house. Whereas somebody who didn't wear nice clothing and looked like they were in need of a meal might not be so welcomed and would be shown to the back. That’s probably why James devotes a section of his book to impartiality.
James challenges people and says: If you really believe in Jesus, then you are not going to do this sort of behavior. He reminds people that God does not show partiality. He reminds them that it’s our Christian duty to take care of those in need, and to treat them as lovingly as we would treat anyone else who walks through the door. And he also reminds people that the rich are the ones with advantages and the ones who have the ability to oppress others. It isn’t that the wealthy who walk through the door are going to be those oppressors, but in the world outside the church, they are the ones who already have power. Here, inside the church, everyone is equal. It is not your worldly social status that gives you power in here, it is how well you use your gifts and graces to help others.
And he reminds people that it is a sin to not love your neighbor as you love yourself, because by neglecting that second commandment, you are committing an infliction of negativity against another person. Think about what we get when we don’t treat others as equal: Bullying, below living-wages, denial of education for some people, and slavery are just a few examples. All those things are justified when one group convinces themselves that their better than another. The second commandment is a call to treat everyone that you come in contact with as equal with the love and respect of Jesus.
Now I know that some people are really hard to love. Some people are very negative, or self-centered, or controlling, or discourteous. We can list a whole bunch of very undesirable traits that all of us can indulge in. The question to wrestle with is: How do we set boundaries so that we can relate to difficult people, without writing them off spiritually? It’s one of the greatest challenges that all of us face. How do we not compromise our Christian integrity as loving people?
Jesus gives us a system to deal with difficult people. First he says: Do not judge, so that you may not be judged. In other words – hold off on your judgement, because if you’re wrong it’s going to come back around to you. But how do we hold off from judgement? Well, I think the best way to do that is to try to understand, as completely as you can, what is happening and why. Now I know that it is very hard to understand why people commit murder or serious cons against others. But if we can get to why something happens in the first place then maybe we can prevent the same thing from happening in the future to someone else.
Second, Jesus asks us to remove the log from our own eye before we remove the speck from others. We have to work on ourselves and our own problems, before we can condemn others. If someone is gossiping maliciously about others then they can’t condemn someone from gossiping about them.
For Jesus this isn’t so much about judgment but setting an example of kind and loving behavior as a person who is willing to help someone in difficulty. When someone comes to you and says, “I have a problem,” your answer shouldn’t be, “Well, if you had done this, that, and the other thing, you wouldn’t have the problem. You’re getting what you deserve.” Yeah, and maybe they are but instead, you can answer, “What is the problem and how can I help you to work out of it?” After all, if we go to someone with a problem we’re asking for help, not condemnation.
One of the cores of Christianity is that it understands that our lives are all about relationships. When James was alive, he was trying to get his community to work together in mutual love and cooperation as Jesus taught his disciples to do. Think of what your relationships are in life. You have a relationship with God, a relationship with yourself, a relationship with members of your family and a relationship with people in your community. When you treat yourself with respect, love, and kindness you are honoring your relationship with God. When families work together in respect, love, and kindness, that is a unit that is expressing and supporting their relationship with each other and God. And when neighbors work together in respect, love, and kindness, then everyone is expressing, supporting and their relationships, and the community as a whole rises and becomes stronger under God.
But it doesn’t work unless we all live into the belief that we are all God’s beloved children. But once we do get that idea into our hearts, great things can happen. We can build and strengthen ourselves, our families, our communities, and even our nation. And when that happens we will find that God’s mercy will always triumph over judgement.
Words and Actions
June 15, 2025 Trinity Sunday
James1:19-27 Matthew 7:24-27
For the next five weeks we are going to be studying the Book of James, which is considered to be written by James, Jesus' brother. There are references throughout the New Testament that state that James is Jesus' brother. And Paul says that Jesus appeared to James after the resurrection, so we know that James was probably very important to Jesus.
Peter and James set up the early church in Jerusalem. After a few years, many of the new Jewish-Christians left Jerusalem with Peter because they started to be persecuted, but James stayed behind and ministered to the Christians who remained and became the head of the Jerusalem church. He held that position for about 30 years, until he was martyred by the temple authorities in 69 C.E.
Many of his parishioners either knew about Christ first-hand or second-hand in their cultural context. (For instance, I never met Martin Luther King Jr., but I grew up knowing about him and what he did.) Also, James' parishioners were mostly Jews who had been brought up learning the laws of Moses, which is a collection of rules and guidelines to live your life by. James's parishioners probably wanted some guidance to help them live their lives as Christians. They already knew the stories of Jesus, they wanted to know how to apply his teaching into daily life.
So, James created a practical handbook of Christian living. If you read the book, and I encourage you to read it during these five weeks, you will see that there are only five, rather short, chapters. In fact, the book would probably take you less than an hour to read. Each of those chapters are divided into four or five sections with advice and actions that will help you to be a good Christian.
Over these five weeks I’m going to lift-up one guideline from each chapter. Keep in mind that people write how-to books to address the problems and conflicts that people are having. As we work through, and as you read this book, think about how those problems relate to you in our modern day. Human nature doesn’t change, and I’ve found that what James’ people were going through are what we go through today.
From the first chapter we’re going to be talking about James' idea of words and actions. But it's interesting that before James talks about speaking he talks about being hearers of the word. He wants everyone to be quick to listen and slow to speak. Now that's an interesting phrase. But think about it for a minute: How many times do we hear something and then jump right in with an opinion, before hearing it through or giving ourselves time to think about it? Often we might hear incorrectly, so our opinion isn’t really worth very much because we have to keep on revising it. James is telling people that the place to begin with any action is by listening to what is going on around you; to take time and think about it before you speak about it.
It's also interesting that he then talks about being slow to anger. This jump from speaking to anger confused me because, why would speaking about something make me get angry? Well, I think that what James is really talking about is being defensive or always having a defensive reaction, which might come across to other people as being angry. James doesn’t want us to live in the assumption that someone is working against us, or that the world is out to get us. To have that attitude prevents us from seeing how God is working in the world through His blessings.
Then James goes on to say that we should be doers of the word, not just people who hear the word of Christ and then do nothing.
Now I need to say something about the concept of the spoken word, which was very important in Judeo-Christian theology. After all, how does the Bible begin? Creation starts when God says, “Let there be light.” Everything in the creation story happens because God speaks it into being. This is mirrored in the Gospel of John which starts with the phrase: In the beginning was the word, and the word was with God, and the word was God. What you say matters. If you speak positively, your life will lean to the positive; if you speak negatively, your life will lean to the negative. I know it sounds like some new age thing; but trust me, this idea has been around for a long time.
But for James it’s not enough to say you're going to do something, or to say you believe something, your actions must reflect your words. Not only the ones you speak but also the message that you’ve heard about Christ and how he wants us to live our lives. I wonder how many people in James' congregation said they were going to do something and then did something else, or never followed through with their intentions? (I know I’ve been guilty of that.) How many people in James' congregation came on the Sabbath and did the prayers, listened to the teachings of Jesus, participated in the discussions, and then went home and weren't very nice people for the rest of the week?
James is trying to get his congregants to build a foundation for their lives on the words of Jesus. Jesus said that just listening to his words wasn’t enough – that we need to act on them. Acting on Jesus’ words will enable us to have a rock-solid foundation for our lives, as opposed to a foundation build on sand. A sand foundation has no firmness of morals, no understanding of what is right to do in life. The result of that no firmness is decisions and actions which always slide around. Since nothing is firm in decision or deed, you never know if something is going to collapse under you, bringing the whole house down in ruins.
James wants us to listen to the words of Jesus; to bring them into our minds and to spend some time thinking about them. To focus our minds into the positive so that we can bring his words into actions that will help the world. James doesn’t mind if we speak about our ideas, but it’s important to bring our ideas into actions.
Hearing, thinking, reacting/speaking positively, talking about being a Christian and then acting as a Christian, is the essential discipline of being a disciple of Christ. To be a disciple calls us to have the discipline to act the way Christ want us to act. When we act the way Christ wants us to act then we begin to move towards perfection in Christ. Christianity is a practice that we get better at as we do it. It then becomes a way of life, which leads to a revelation of blessings.
James seems to go off on a tangent when he ends this passage by saying: Religion that is pure and undefiled before God, the Father, is this: to care for orphans and widows in their distress, and to keep oneself unstained by the world. I think that here James is pointing people to a suggestion of what they can do to bring Christian action into the world. Widows and orphans in the first century were often the poorest and most marginalized people. There was a lot you could do to help them. Bring them food and clothing. Help them to repair their homes. Give them some employment in your household. Adopt a widow into your family. Maybe even bring up a child as one of your own and educate them so they could go onto support themselves. These were people in James’ communities who needed help, and he was telling his people that all they had to do was to walk out the door to be a Christian in action.
Who needs our help today in our communities? Is it a someone with cancer who needs a meal once a week, so they don’t have to cook? Is it a mother who needs someone to watch the kids while they do their homework so she can go shopping? Is it an elderly couple who need some repairs in their house? Is it a family who needs help rebuilding after a fire?
There is always some way we can be generous, renewing, and compassionate to someone out there. We need to listen to what is going on around us to find out the needs. We need to suspend our defensiveness and anger to see the problems. We then need to speak our plans and act on them so that they come into being. And when we do, we will then be practicing our faith and bringing the love of Christ to others. And then, all of our words and deeds will be set on a firm foundation of God, Christ and the Holy Spirit, and we will be Doers of the Word.