James 1 & 2

Religion that is pure and undefiled before God the Father is this: to visit orphans and widows in their affliction, and to keep oneself unstained from the world.

My brothers, show no partiality as you hold the faith in our Lord Jesus Christ, the Lord of glory. For if a man wearing a gold ring and fine clothing comes into your assembly, and a poor man in shabby clothing also comes in, and if you pay attention to the one who wears the fine clothing and say, “You sit here in a good place,” while you say to the poor man, “You stand over there,” or, “Sit down at my feet,” have you not then made distinctions among yourselves and become judges with evil thoughts? (Jas. 1:27–2:4)

Today we would call it favoritism. We are drawn to people we like. Magnetically, we move toward people who can give us things and do things for us, and in whose glory we can bask. To the people who look and smell and sound good, and who do great things, we want to say, in effect, “You sit here in a good place” (2:3). But to the “poor man in shabby clothing” (2:2) we say, “You stand over there,” or, “Sit down at my feet” (2:3), as if to say, “You have no glory worthy of my time and attention and effort.” If we’re really honest, this is how we love. We love

• human wealth (money and resources and comfort),
• human intelligence (degrees and PhDs and stimulating conversation), and
• human strength (sport and youth and skill).

We are so partial to all those things. We love their glory.

And James comes up beside us, puts the stethoscope on our heart, and just listens. Ah, yes, I can hear what you love. The stethoscope is telling me how in your heart you divide people up into significant, skilled, useful, and attractive and not so significant, less useful—and look, here it is, that divided heart spilling right out into the open, with you separating people in the way you treat them.

“Right,” says James, as he takes off his stethoscope; “that’s how you love. You love this kind of glory. Now let me tell you how God loves.” Did you spot that in our passage? “Religion that is pure and undefiled before God the Father is this: to visit orphans and widows in their affliction, and to keep oneself unstained from the world” (1:27). This verse comes immediately before 2:1. James is saying what God likes to see in church (1:27), and when we read it through these verses together, the contrast could not be more shocking.

We are told to love and care for orphans and widows (1:27). We are told to do this because it’s the kind of religion that pleases God the Father. God loves as Father. As a perfect Father. Pity the home where the father’s love shows partiality. Favoritism. Good fathers who love well don’t discriminate. And God is our perfect heavenly Father, so we should love like he does.

But do you? Do I? Such people are unrewarding. James is probing deeply to enquire if we know that God loves his world in the same way as a father loves his children. 

I need to ask myself again, “When was the last time someone utterly unrewarding in every way received my love?” And by that I mean actual love, real time, real attention, and real care. Maybe, already, God is speaking to you while you read these lines. This is such a challenge. It is a call to examine what our inner, divided heart loves look like when they come out into the open.