“No Discrimination!

”
Pentecost 17 – September 26th and 27th, 2009
James 2:1-5, 8-10

What is the difference between a country club and a hospital? The answer – the right to discriminate.
Country clubs are designed to be exclusive; to allow into membership only those whom the governing body deems
as worthy based on economic and social status, and sometimes even based upon a certain race or gender. (There was
a country club in Seattle recently who denied membership to an individual because she was not a white male!)
Now, before we start to cry, “outrage,” understand that private clubs are allowed under the laws of our country to
discriminate to a certain degree, because they are private clubs and are meant to be exclusive. Most people can’t into
a country club, either because they don’t have the connections socially, or they don’t have enough money!
Hospitals, on the other hand, are not designed to be exclusive. Under the laws of our land, hospitals cannot
deny treatment based on social status, economic status, race, gender, and so on. Hospitals cannot, by law,
discriminate. Everyone is supposed to be welcomed, no matter who they are, because the function of the hospital is
to give proper treatment to every sick person that comes through the door.
A country club or a hospital – which one best describes the church of God? That’s what James wanted his
readers to consider in the second chapter of his letter. We have already seen last week that James is attacking some
of the core problems that arose in the early church among Jewish Christians, specifically that their actions did not
line up with their public confession of faith. In their confession, the Jewish Christians professed God’s church to be
a hospital for sinners – a place where all people, no matter who they were, could receive the medicine of God’s
Word to heal their sin-sick soul. But in their practice, they treated God’s church as if it were a country club –
catering to the rich and the influential, all the while pushing all the poor nobodies to the side as if their existence
didn’t matter one bit.
What a powerful lesson we receive from the Holy Spirit today, a lesson that is most certainly timely and
absolutely applicable here in the 21st century, a lesson that comes with a profound truth and a resounding
encouragement. “No discrimination!” There is no discrimination in the Christian faith – the body of truth found
in God’s Word where all people are equal under the law of God, and under the gospel of Christ. And since the
body of truth finds no distinction, let there be no discrimination in the Christian church, because this place isn’t a
country club for the exclusive. It is a hospital, open to all people to serve their most desperate need, the need to be
healed of the disease of sin!

I. In the Christian faith

Listen first to the indictment James makes against the Christians of the early church: “My brothers, as
believers in our glorious Lord Jesus Christ, don’t show favoritism. 2 Suppose a man comes into your meeting wearing a gold
ring and fine clothes, and a poor man in shabby clothes also comes in. 3 If you show special attention to the man wearing
fine clothes and say, “Here’s a good seat for you,” but say to the poor man, “You stand there” or “Sit on the floor by my
feet,” 4 have you not discriminated among yourselves and become judges with evil thoughts? 5 Listen, my dear brothers: Has
not God chosen those who are poor in the eyes of the world to be rich in faith and to inherit the kingdom he promised those
who love him?”
Call to mind that James, in his epistle, was addressing some very serious problems that were plaguing the
early Christian church, problems that were caused by an inconsistency between word and deed. The 1st century
Jewish Christians were saying one thing in their public confession of faith, and were acting in a manner that was
completely different, not in line with their public confession. Literally verse one reads like this: “My dear brothers,
do not with prejudice, hold the faith of our glorious Lord Jesus Christ.” In other words, don’t treat the church as if it
were a country club, distinguishing between the rich and the poor, the socially important and the nobody, because
there is no such distinction in the Word of God. There is no discrimination in the body of Biblical doctrine and
truth that is the Christian faith.
We are all equal under the curse of the law. Isn’t that what Paul reminded the Romans, “For we have all
sinned and fallen short of the glory of God?” Isn’t that what David communicated to the Israelites in Psalm 130: “If
you, O Lord kept a record of sins, O Lord, who could stand?” or in Psalm 14, “They have all become corrupt! There is not
one who does good, not even one!” It wouldn’t matter if President Obama himself were to walk through these doors
today– even he, the leader of the free world in all his power and authority on earth, could not stand before the
power and authority of the perfect and holy judge. Even he, in all his fame and earthly fortune would not be
exempt from the law’s harsh indictment. Rich or poor, young or old, life-long Christian or new to the Christian
faith, socially powerful or a social nobody, there isn’t one person that is more or less worthy to stand before the
holiness of God than another. There isn’t one person that is more or less worthy of their own merit to have a place
of honor in God’s eternal kingdom. No one is worthy. Everyone is equally unworthy because of sin! Everyone is
equally in desperate need of salvation!
And that’s exactly what our gracious God and Father provided, salvation through his Son Jesus – not just for
the rich, not just for the socially powerful, not just for the world’s most influential personalities. Jesus Christ won
salvation for all people through his suffering and death on the cross. Notice how the Holy Spirit doesn’t exclude
anyone from God’s promises: John 3:16, “For God so loved THE WORLD that he gave his one and only Son, that
whoever (again w/o distinction) believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life.” Paul says to the Corinthians,
“God was reconciling THE WORLD to himself in Christ, not counting man’s sins against him.” Even in the church’s
commission to spread the good news of salvation, Jesus tells his disciples in Mark 16:15, “Go into all the world and
preach the good news to ALL CREATION.”
There is no discrimination in the Christian faith. There isn’t a separate treatment for rich and poor, for
young and old, for the powerful and the weak in the body of doctrine that is Christianity. Jesus did not treat the
children differently from the adults, or the destitute poor schmucks differently from the well-dressed gentlemen. He
lived and died for all, equally. And therefore, you who were brought to faith through the Spirit’s work find your
equality in Christ and his Word of truth. “26 You are all sons of God through faith in Christ Jesus, 27 for all of you who
were baptized into Christ have clothed yourselves with Christ. 28 There is neither Jew nor Greek, slave nor free, male nor
female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus.”

II. In the Christian Church

Notice something about our sermon theme for today, though. Notice that I didn’t say, “We do not
discriminate!” I saw that on a sign here in town not too long ago, and while it would have been a rather catchy
theme for today, it wouldn’t be true! Like the 1st century Jewish Christians, we at times do treat the visible church
as if it were a country club and not a hospital for sinners. I know for a fact that it’s easy to look down on little ones
who have a hard time sitting quietly during church. Do they need to be here any less than the adults who are able
to sit quietly? That’s discrimination. We often in our minds think more highly of the people who give more in the
offering plate than those families who cannot give as much at this point in their lives – thinking that only a portion
of God’s people need to examine their hearts – the portion that falls below a certain “giving line.” That’s
discrimination! I’ve also heard it said about our congregation, not recently, but some time ago, that it was hard for a
new person to feel at home here; that our congregation was so close knit, that new faces were not easily welcomed.
Being close knit is wonderful, and one of the blessings of a smaller church like ours, but it can become a problem if
the generational members reject the new faces simply because they are new. That’s discrimination!
The Christian faith doesn’t discriminate. That is a fact that is undeniable! Yet, in our sinful weakness, we
who are members of visible Christian churches, do. That fact is also undeniable. Listen to what James says about
this: “8 If you really keep the royal law found in Scripture, “Love your neighbor as yourself,” you are doing right. 9 But if
you show favoritism, you sin and are convicted by the law as lawbreakers.”
As Christians, who have been chosen by God to receive his greatest blessings, and made his heirs of the
promise of eternal life, why would we ever want to make a distinction among men when the Word of God clearly
does not make such distinctions? Such a practice is not only unloving towards our neighbor, but is a serious offense
against God’s law, and a poor witness of our Christian faith.
Think of it like this: For years, I went to the Thanksgiving Day celebration that my aunt put on. At
Thanksgiving in the Stephenson family, there were two rooms, and two separate tables. There was the adult table in
the main dining room and the kids table, this little card table, in the cat room. Every year, my mother would call
and demand that we go to Thanksgiving at my aunt’s house, which, against my better judgment, we did. Every year
it was the same. I wasn’t good enough to sit at the adult table. Every year, my family and I were cast aside, put in
the cat room, so that the “adults” wouldn’t have to listen to me or my children. No one talked to us. No one asked
how we were doing. No one asked about how my ministry was going down in Monroe. Nothing! So I stopped
going last year! And, oh, how I got the cold shoulder – “This is your family...how can you ignore your family like
this?” And my answer was, “Because I’m not being treated as family.”
We are a family! That’s why the Holy Spirit addresses us today as “dear brothers (and sisters).” Family
doesn’t discriminate against one another! The family of God finds a glorious and consistent equality under the cross
of Christ Jesus, as forgiven and sanctified brothers and sisters, even when they do have social and economic and
familial differences. We are all equal. We are all family! Celebrate that equality! Strive for that equality in our
church, in our congregation! Because whether a person is elderly or an infant, wealthy or penniless, powerful or
pitiful, sophisticated or rugged – the Lord Jesus did not discriminate when he won salvation for mankind by his
death and resurrection. Let it be our practice, as we carry out our Lord’s commission to go and make disciples, that
“We do not discriminate!” For all are equal, all are one in Christ Jesus our Lord. Amen.