The Problem with Playing Favorites

 “The Problem with Playing Favorites”

 Message @ Jericho Ridge Community Church – Sunday, Sept 21, 2014

Text: James 1:9-11, 2:1-13 // Series: Mirror, Mirror: Reflections in the book of James

Picture the scene.  You’re a tourist for the week in beautiful New York City.  You’ve just emerged from a pizzeria in Little Italy with your family and you’ve got your doggie bag of left-overs because no human being on earth needs the American-sized portions our friends south of the 49^th parallel put on the plate at restaurants each and every meal!  You are walking toward Grand Central Station and you look up and you see this [run VIDEO with no sound], a man rummaging through the trash bin for food.  Drinking a beer from a brown paper bag.  On the one hand, there can be a strong emotional and empathetic response to the sight of another human being scrounging through the trash for food.  On the other hand, if it is something you see every day, you can almost become completely immune to the sight of poverty and hunger. 

Well this past April, one French tourist named Karin Gombeau was moved by the sight of the man and she decided to share her left-over pizza with him.  She approached him and said “Je suis désolée [I am sorry], but the pizza is cold".  The man said “Thank you so much. God bless you.” and they both went on their way.  Gombeau didn’t think much more about it until she saw her picture in the newspaper two days later.  You see, it turns out that this man [photo of person who is homeless], is actually THIS man [photo of Richard Gere in tux].  Hollywood icon and actor Richard Gere, reportedly worth an estimated 100 million dollars.  Turns out Gere was in New York city this past April filming his next movie “Time Out of Mind” in which he plays a person who is homeless. Gere was in character and was reportedly being filmed by cameras far away from him, allowing him to wander through Grand Central Station without people realizing that a movie shoot was in process.  Appearances can be so deceiving, can’t they?  Put on the right clothes, or in this case, put off the right clothes, and you can go from looking like 100 million dollars to looking like a person who doesn’t have a home and who eats from the trash.  When I read this story, it jumped out to me as just one example of what we’re going to look at today: and that is our tendency to treat people differently based solely on the external appearance.

This fall, we are in a teaching series in the book of James called “Mirror, Mirror”.  This little book tucked away towards the end of the Bible was written by Jesus’ brother and it is full of practical advice for living.  That advice is rooted, though, in our willingness to be honest in our self reflection – hence the title of the series.  We have to be willing to hold up the mirror of God’s truth to our lives and see if there are areas that we need to make adjustments in.  So two weeks ago, we explored what it looks like to have God’s perspective on trials that come into our lives – we said that one of the purposes for their visit may just be to help us develop perseverance.  Then last weekend, we looked at James 1:5-8 which talks about what to do when we don’t know what to do – James reminds us that we are invited to ask God for wisdom.  But we are also to be careful HOW we ask – if we don’t ask with faith and meaning we doubt we are like a wave of the sea, driven and tossed by the wind and James says we shouldn’t expect to receive anything from God.  Now today we hold the mirror up to another area of our lives: how we treat people.  And James is going to show us that we ae prone to falling into the trap of favoritism. 

James is going to ask us to question our judgment if it is rooted only on external appearances.  We’re going to find out that often, like giving pizza to a millionaire movie star, our judgment is not driven by reality; it is driven by our perceptions.  And our perceptions are driven by our motives – which are not always pure or accurate.  Let’s read together what the Bible says about this in James 1:9-11.      

Here we see an amazing reversal.  We see that although Christians who are poor may look shabby and dishevel and on the margins, God has given something special and powerful people who are poor.  He has dignified them with a special measure of faith.  Those who are down and outers by global or economic standards are first-citizens of the Kingdom.  I have certainly experienced this. Sitting with fellow believers in Tanzania and Guatemala and on First Nation Reserves in northern Ontario…  I have met people whose only wealth is their faith.  And James says because of this, not because of their external appearances, they have something that you and I don’t have and can’t buy. They have received honour in the sight of the Lord.  This is why friends, our global brothers and sisters have so much to teach us about faith, about depending deeply on God.  The question is are you and I willing to learn from them or look down on them? 

But James doesn’t stop there.  He carries on with what is another mind-bending reversal.  If people who are poor can boast or be excited about their rich faith, the next verse says those who are rich in terms of worldly wealth, you and I, can boast in something, too.  But it’s not in our wealth or the relative sense of pseudo-security that suburban socio-economic status tends to lure us with.  Throughout this book James loves using word pictures to get his point across.  Last week it was a wave, this week it is a wildflower.  Have you ever been up into the meadows around Mt Baker or any other alpine environment in the early spring?  Some of the meadows up there are breath-taking.  They are literally FILLED from peak to trail to stream with delicate and colourful wildflowers.  And one of the most intriguing things for me to think about it how short the life-span is on some of these flowers.  They poke up through the snow in the spring, some of them don’t even last till the heat of the summer.  Millions and millions and millions of them are never even seen by human eyes in their temporary lives.  This is the word picture that James chooses to use to describe you and I.  Though our lives and our homes and our jobs and our clothes and our cars and our degrees and our achievements and RRSP’s all seem very, very permanent and important to us, James reminds us that one day, everything will fade away.  Like a wildflower.  Here today. Gone tomorrow.  Why is he telling us this?  Why make such a big deal about the benefits of being poor and the dangers of being rich?  Well turn with me in your Bibles or on our smart phones to chapter 2.  I won’t put it up on the side screens but James is going to tell us a story to help us see the problem with perceptions is that they lead us to play favorites. [Read 2:1-7]

The story is about a rich person and a person who is poor who come into church.  It could happen anywhere, even here at Jericho Ridge!  And the front lines team immediately perceives at the door that one person drove up in a very nice vehicle.  They got out of that car wearing very fancy clothes (so clearly they’ve never been to Jericho before!) and very fancy jewelry.  And Darryl and Jodi Bueckert immediately hold the door open for them.  They welcome them effusively and warmly and they immediately pass them along to Dan and Laura Martens at the top of the stairs. They too are suitably impressed by these people.  “They look like our kind of people” the Martens think.  Young, upwardly-mobile.  They have more than two kids.  They seem like they belong.  So Dan and Laura help them get their kids checked in.  They escort them right to the good seats – the ones in the back row (the best in churches – easy escape). And they offer to get them a coffee.  They make sure people around them talk to them and they touch base with them several times throughout the morning to make sure they are comfortable and enjoying themselves. 

Meanwhile, at the same time, someone wonders in from the hockey rink side.  Their clothes are shabby; they smell like they haven’t showered in sometime.  No one greets them.  People try not to make eye contact until they ask to speak to a pastor – and we think “ah, they’re here for a hand out.” So we don’t ask their name.  We don’t offer them a coffee.  We don’t ask anything about them – we hurry off to find Pastor Keith cause doesn’t he handle benevolence requests around here?”    

James exposes the problem of playing favorites.  Whether we want to admit it or not, our actions speak louder than our words.  And our actions in a situation like this say “some people are better than others.”  When we sift and segregate and distance or pull people in close to us based on external appearances, we’re nurturing a feeling of superiority in us that we are good judges.  That we know best.  That we know what’s really going on.  But external appearances are not reliable predictors of internal reality. As such can be a very flawed way to make decisions.  Back in our summer series we talked about the story of the prophet Samuel from the Old Testament in choosing a king.  Samuel was very impressed with the looks of a man named Eliab and he thought “surely this is the man God will choose as king – he looks like a king” But God said to Samuel “The Lord doesn’t see things the way you see them. People judge by outward appearance, but the Lord           looks at the heart.” (I Samuel 16:7)

James is making the same point when he talks about how distracted we can get by the way someone is dressed.  And he says it’s insidious and wrong because it is a feeble attempt to combine snobbery and Christian spirituality.  But the problem with partiality is that Favoritism and Faith do not mix.  James sets this story up almost over the top to help us understand that often we respond not with our hearts but with our eyes.  We tend to judge by appearances and accomplishments.  But James says straight up in 2:1 “How can you claim to have faith in our glorious Lord Jesus Christ if you favour some people over others?” (James 2:1).  God is not impressed by how someone is dressed, so why should you and I be?  When we begin to pull people into our orbit because we think they look like us or seem to act like us, we are playing favorites.  And favoritism and faith do not mix.                    

Dr. Douglas Moo in his commentary on this passage reminds us that “A favoritism based on external considerations is inconsistent with faith in [Jesus] who came to break down the barriers of nationality, race, class, gender, and religion.” (Moo, 88).  This is why distinctions based on external factors such as class or gender or race or religious background or sexual identity or how long you have or have not being going to church or anything else have NO place in the church.  It is not up to you and I to assess the quality of a person’s heart and their faith based on how things look on the outside.  The problem with favoritism is that’s its skin deep.

Now, does this mean that you can’t make any distinctions at all?  Well, no.  You can if the standard for your decision-making is valid. For example, in our Life Journaling reading this past week we were in I John and I was journaling about discerning truth and falsehood.  The standard there was a valid one – distinguishing false teaching and teachers based on if they believed that Jesus had come to earth as fully God, fully man.  If a person is running around purporting false teaching you don’t say “I’m sorry… I’m not allowed to play favorites or judge – we accept anyone and everyone here.”  No. You would challenge that person based on the authority & truth of God’s Word and say something like “we are not being judgmental but what you are teaching is wrong we are exercising good judgment.” 

But that is not what James is talking about here.  He’s talking about making your decision based on public opinion and optics.  Playing favorites based on how similar a person looks to you.  But if we all want to hang out with people who are like us, what’s so wrong with that? Look at the last section of verses – James’ logic is a bit hard to follow so stick with me.  [Read James 2:8-13]

James says the commands of God to us in the Bible about how we treat one another can be summed up in the phrase “love your neighbour as yourself” – BUT if we show favoritism to people, it shows that we don’t actually love our neighbour.  We love ourselves more than we love others.  The problem with playing favorites is that when I show partiality, I am not showing love to my neighbour.  And if God has commanded us to do this, then not doing it is a sin.   

Favoritism is a sin but we don’t like to call it that.  But James goes right for the jugular - “If you favour some people over others you are committing a sin” (James 2:9).  You can say all you want “well, I haven’t murdered anyone lately.  Or I haven’t committed adultery this week” James says you may be free on clear on those items but if you play favorites, you are a law-breaker and in need of God’s mercy & forgiveness. 

We tend to downplay favoritism – it’s not that bad.  But if you’ve been on the negative receiving end of it where you’ve been excluded because of soci-economic status or how you were dressed, it doesn’t feel minor or small to you.  James here is trying to help us understand that it’s about much more than simply the danger of mis-treating people based on how they are dressed.  It is about what’s in our hearts that’s coming out.        

Gary Smalley and John Trent in their book A Dad’s Blessing talk about a man who was excluded from his church because he was an AIDS activist and people weren’t sure they wanted their kids hanging around those kinds of people.  They rightly point out that “The issue is not whether the distinction is made over economic, social, educational, physical, spiritual or health concerns or differences.  The issue is that our motives for making the distinction are immediately called into question because favoritism is a sin.”

Favoritism is us giving someone what we think they deserve based on how similar they are to us.  Mercy is the exact opposite: God giving us what we don’t deserve because of the work of Jesus Christ.    

So how do you and I get victory over the sin of favoritism?  This is a tricky one to root out of our lives because our culture is so predicated on external appearances!  But I wonder if each of us can’t take some small steps this week to branch out beyond our comfort zones and begin to act and think like people who are working with God to undercut the sin of favoritism.  Let me suggest a few actions that undercut favoritism – you may come up with others that apply to your situation on your own. 

Kids, many of you tomorrow morning will be headed back to school.  As class lists get sorted out, it is really easy to gravitate toward those kids whom you already know and who live in your neighbourhood and who have the same brand of shoes and backpacks as you.  But there might be some kids in your class who are different.  From different cultures, they may have come from different schools. This week, try Extend a hand of friendship to someone who is very different from you.  Kids, I’ll let you in on a little secret – this is hard for adults too, so you may have to lead the way and help us in this one, OK?  Adults, say hi to someone you may not normally engage in conversation with. 

One way to break the hold of favoritism in your life is to begin to talk like a person who doesn’t play that game.  When you do this, you Give people dignity with how you talk to them or about them.  Some of this can be really simple – instead of saying “the poor” as a category, try saying “people who are poor”.  Think about how you talk to your kids in the car when you see a person panhandling in the median.  Make eye contact with them and smile.  Try to talk to the person who you see on your way to work begging for a handout.  Ask their name.  Instead of yelling at a person who comes to big through your recycling bin for cans or bottles, why not package them up and hand then to them in a dignified manner.  People who play favorites tend to talk down to and about people who are different from them.  But if you want to undercut the sin of favoritism, try to speak in a way that is loving, kind, gentle and honouring – you know, the way you hope your friends are speaking about you when you’re not in the room. 

The last suggestion is a bit of a tough one. Because people who play favorites only give something to people when there is a good chance it will be reciprocated.  They only have someone over for a meal who will invite them over later on.  They only help people move who might help them.  But what if you did something for someone this week with no possibility of it being repaid in any way?  What if you could find a way to Act with mercy, humility and compassion toward a person who doesn’t deserve it.  And will not repay it?  That’s how James closes this section.  He reminds us that the person who makes no allowances for others will find none made for them.  That the person who doesn’t show mercy, will have none shown to them.  All of us have people in our lives who we don’t particularly feel like deserve compassion and mercy. And it can be easy for us to list all of the reasons for us to treat them like they deserve to be treated.  But James gently lifts out gaze and reminds us that God doesn’t treat us like we deserve.  And in His mercy and love, He came down from heaven not as a king or one who played favorites, but as one who demonstrated humility and compassion and love at every turn and who invites you and I to go and do likewise.  Let’s pray together as the team comes to lead us and as we sing two songs of response. 

Thank you, Father, that all people are equal in your eyes.  Forgive us for judging people by appearances and accomplishments.  Forgive us for sometimes favoring the rich and powerful over people who appear to us to be poor and weak.  Oh God, change our hearts.  Teach us what it means to love our neighbours as ourselves. 

Benediction

Zechariah 7:9-10 – This is what the Lord says “judge fairly, and show mercy and kindness to one another. Do not press widows, orphans foreigners and the poor” – all are equal and precious in the sight of God.  Let’s go and be the people who live this out wherever we are this week.