James this week
reminds us that our care for the poor as followers of Jesus can’t be just about
having our consciences pricked or simply about sending money. Nor is it only
about building or supporting programs — whether governmental, or faith-based,
or led by other non-profits — to help folks get a "hand up." It is
not even solely about addressing and reversing the "root causes" that
lead to conditions of poverty in the first place.
To be sure, all of these
are critical places for the church to be actively engaged. But all of them can
also be exercises in missing the point. What matters most of all, James reminds
us, is building real relationships of mutuality and respect, in recognition
that the poor — like the wealthy and all those in between — have both much to
offer and much to receive. Folks who are engaged in hands-on ministries with
the poor, whether in your local community or around the world, either quickly
learn this truth or find their efforts to bring greater hope and help greatly frustrated
until they do.
James calls individual
Christians and congregations to account for the ways they actively dishonor the
poor. Anytime we dishonor the poor, we fail to fulfill what he calls the “royal
law”—to love every neighbor as we love ourselves.
Notice the conclusion of
this week’s reading. It is the famous, “Faith without works is dead.” James
does not posit this as a general principle, but as a conclusion to his whole
point about dishonoring the poor, and the ways we may confuse good intention
for actual love consistent with the call to discipleship. Put even more bluntly
than James does, “If you’re not actively opposing and undoing the segregation
between rich and poor in your fellowship and community, and not actively
helping those in actual need, whatever faith you think you have is dead.”
As I write this, Harper
Lee’s second novel, Go Set a Watchman has just been released. In it, an
adult Jean (known as Scout in To Kill a Mockingbird) returns to her
hometown of Maycomb to discover just how little progress has been made by
professed Christians in dismantling the racism that had divided their town all
her life. And in the midst of this discovery, she also discovers her father,
her hero, was right in the middle of the efforts and making the arguments to
keep things as they had been. Jean is thoroughly disillusioned by what she
sees. She wanted to believe her father was better than this, that he had a real,
living faith. She discovers his faith, like that of many of her Christian townspeople,
is truly dead, not only not empowering them to act on behalf of their
neighbors, but actually seemingly underwriting their efforts not to do so.
James in this week’s
reading especially is a like a watchman who views how we treat others and tells
the truth about what he sees—a truth grounded in what a life of discipleship to
Jesus must call us to be and do.
Coach James had hard words
for us this week. He puts us through a serious workout. Will we learn from him,
repent, and begin to dismantle the systems that divide rich from poor, weaker
from more powerful, among us?
Or will we be content to
have the watchman tell us in no uncertain terms our faith is dead.
From www.umcdiscipleship.org