James 2:1-10, 14-17
September 9, 2012
Sermon preached by Rev. Donald Ng at the First Chinese Baptist Church in San Francisco.
A man said to his friend, “I can’t break my wife of the habit of staying up until five in the morning.”
“What is she doing?” asked the friend.
“Waiting for me to come home.”
Bad habits!
A woman walked up to a little old man rocking in a chair on his porch.
“I couldn’t help noticing how happy you look,” she said. “What’s your secret?”
“I smoke three packs of cigarettes a day,” he said. “I drink a case of whiskey a week, eat fatty foods and never exercise.”
“That’s amazing,” said the woman. “How old are you?”
“Twenty-six.”
Bad habits!
We all have bad habits, as individuals and as a church. One of the bad habits of the first-century church was the practice of showing partiality to the rich. There were signs that pointed in two different directions, one for the rich people and another one for those who were poor. A person with gold rings and fine clothes would come into the church, followed by a person in dirty clothes. Church members tended to honor the one wearing fine clothes and say, “Have a seat here, please,” while they would look down on the poor one, saying, “Stand here,” or “Sit at my feet.”
They were making distinctions, writes James in his letter, and acting as “judges with evil thoughts” (v. 4).
These are very bad habits!
Now you might not want to admit it but we do the very same today. A young husband and wife with well-behaved children, showing up at worship for the very first time, are almost always going to be received more warmly than a homeless man off the street, or someone with bad habits, a mental illness or even someone who may be of a different color of our skin. We make distinctions and sometimes even act as judges with evil thoughts.
“Listen, my beloved brothers and sisters,” say James, a servant of God and Jesus Christ. “Has not God chosen the poor in the world to be rich in faith and to be heirs of the kingdom that he has promised to those who love him? But you have dishonored the poor” (vv.5-6).
When we don’t find out who people really are and judge them based on their outer appearance, we are acting badly. We need to discover what’s in their heart. An attractive young couple could be coming to church only to get a child dedicated, so that a nagging grandparent will stop bugging them about it. At the same time, a homeless man could be “rich in faith” and anxious to find a community of love and acceptance. We all can confess to these bad habits.
How to Quit Bad Habits
So how do we move away from showing partiality, making distinctions and judging people on their outer appearance? Surprisingly, the answer is not better theology, morality or biblical studies. It’s not even hearing more of my sermons although I wish that would be the solution.
The best way to quit bad habits is to develop better habits.
Back in the 1990s, Starbucks employees were regularly cracking under the pressure of so many custom-made coffees. Then Starbucks created the LATTE method for their baristas: LATTE stands for Listen, Acknowledge, Take action, Thank the customer and Explain why the problem occurred. With this new habit, customer and employee satisfaction radically improved. When we replace established routines with smarter habits, success happens.
What are some of the bad habits that we have at FCBC? Many of us have a bad habit of not attending Sunday school following worship. We know that we are all capable of coming up with pretty decent reasons to do something else but to walk across the street for Sunday school. Have we convinced ourselves that God is not about to do anything new to us because we are older? We can break that bad habit next Sunday!
On Sundays, we all have developed strongly defined habits of coming to church at a certain time, parking at a specific space, and going to worship at a definite time. But maybe these habits have grown to be bad especially when we only think about them from our own perspectives rather than for the good of the whole church? After worship this morning, I hope that you would come upstairs to discuss the proposed Sunday morning hours because we will all be asked to break some habits and make new ones for the sake of the whole church.
When we are ready to change our habits and do things differently, we will be successful in being faithful to God’s plan for us.
Obeying the Law of Love
James has some strong suggestions for a church in search of better habits. He begins by urging us to obey the law of love, which he calls “the royal law” of Scripture, “You shall love your neighbor as yourself” (v. 8). This means treating others as we would want to be treated, and showing the same mercy to others that we would want to receive them. James identifies this as “the royal law” because it is the rule that stands at the very center of the kingdom of God.
When we show partiality in the church, we break this law of love. By favoring one person over another, we’re treating one person as more valuable than the other—a habit that makes no sense in the kingdom of equally precious children of God. But when we love our neighbors as ourselves, we are acting in a way that puts equal value on every person—whether rich or poor, strong or weak, neighbor or self.
Jesus told a story of the rich man and Lazarus that captures this eternal importance of this law of love found Luke 16:19-31. Told in today’s setting, there was a rich man dressing in Gucci and feasting on caviar and truffles every day. At the gate of his exclusive gated community lies a homeless man named Larry, covered with rags, who would like nothing more than to satisfy his hunger with the scraps from the rich man’s table. The rich man is in the habit of looking down on Larry and treating him like dirt, shouting, “Get a job!” as he blasts through the gate in his Mercedes Benz every morning.
Larry dies and is carried away by the angels to be with Abraham. The rich man also dies and is buried. From Hades, where he is being tormented, he looks up and sees Abraham and Larry, just chillin’. Still in the habit of showing partiality and making distinctions, the rich man calls out, “Father Abraham, have mercy on me, and send Larry to bring me a Perrier; for I am in agony in these flames.”
Even in the afterlife, the rich man is treating the poor man like a servant.
Abraham shakes his head no, and the rich man changes his request. “Then, Father, I beg you to send him to warn my brothers, so that they will not also come into this place of torment.”
Again, Abraham says no, reminding the rich man, “They have Moses and the prophets; they should listen to them.” Since long before the time of Jesus, people have known the commandment of God, “You shall love your neighbor as yourself” (Lev. 19:18). The words of James hit the rich man right between the eyes: “For judgment will be without mercy to anyone who has shown no mercy” (James 2:13).
It is also time for us, as individuals and a congregation, to get in the habit of loving our neighbors as ourselves. Mercy will be shown to us only if we are willing to show mercy to others.
Faith with Works
In his letter to the church, James also challenges us to keep our faith and our works together. “What good is it,” asks James, “if you say you have faith but do not have works?” (v.14). The rich man in the story may have had faith—at the very least, he knew about Father Abraham. But he showed no evidence of good works, since he failed to help the poor man who was hungry and lying at his gate.
“Can faith save you?” asks James. “If a brother or sister is naked and lacks daily food, and one of you say to them, “Go in peace, keep warm and eat your fill,” and yet you do not supply their bodily needs, what is the good of that?” (vv.15-16). James is warning us about the danger of hypocrisy, in which a person’s credibility is undermined by saying one thing and then doing another. James knows that it is impossible to respect a Christian who tells poor people to “keep warm and eat your fill,” while failing to make an effort to clothe and feed them.
We are in the midst of a presidential election year and politicians are pressured to disclose their tax returns. When they do, they reveal just how much—or how little—they have given to charity. Often it is the ones who say the most about the importance of charitable giving who give the very least. That’s hypocrisy. That’s faith without works.
James urges us to get in the habit of keeping faith and works together. Seeing words and deeds as two sides of the same Christian coin is the key to living a life of integrity and avoiding the charge of hypocrisy.
Since our neighbors are always watching us, we need to replace the bad habit of favoritism with the good habit of respect for all people. Since our credibility is always going to be based on whether we practice what we preach, we need to find concrete ways to love our neighbors as ourselves…instead of simply talking about it.
Saying we have faith is never enough. We have to make a habit of putting our faith into action in the works that we do.
Let us pray.
Merciful God, we confess there are times when our faith is not lived out in the works that we do. Forgive us when we have bad habits toward others for they too are created by you in your own image. Challenge us as the church, the Body of Christ to always be welcoming and accepting of those who are particularly different and perhaps less fortunate than we are. May we live with the integrity of Christ Jesus who taught us to live out our faith and everything that we do every day. In the name of our Lord, we pray. Amen.