9-19-2020 6:26pm

Pastor's Corner: Von Anderson

Rick Amburgey Neighbor

The sin of partiality.

2 My brothers, show no partiality as you hold the faith in our Lord Jesus Christ, the Lord of glory. 2 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, 3 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,” 4 have you not then made distinctions among yourselves and become judges with evil thoughts? 5 Listen, my beloved brothers, has not God chosen those who are poor in the world to be rich in faith and heirs of the kingdom, which he has promised to those who love him? 6 But you have dishonored the poor man. Are not the rich the ones who oppress you, and the ones who drag you into court? 7 Are they not the ones who blaspheme the honorable name by which you were called? 8 If you really fulfill the royal law according to the Scripture, “You shall love your neighbor as yourself,” you are doing well. 9 But if you show partiality, you are committing sin and are convicted by the law as transgressors ESV (Jas 2:1–9).

Last week we looked at the story of David being anointed as king. God told the prophet Samuel, that God does not look on the outward of man, as man does to each other, but that He sees the heart of man. This week we will look for a moment at the scriptures before us found in the book of James. He warns us and instructs us about the sin of partiality or favoritism. When we as a church see the events taking place in our country, we need to look at ourselves and see if we are contributing to the help or the detriment of the issues. The reality of what we have in our country, is that the most segregated part of our country is the church worship hour. We talk about unity and diversity and inclusion and yet at any given time on Sunday mornings we fail to see those platitudes actually put into action. Most of the time when the world says that the church is nothing but filled with hypocrisy, I usually try and defend and define what they perceive as hypocrisy. But sad to say in this particular case, I have very little defense. Yes, there are churches who are very inclusive and diverse in their membership, but they are the far exception in respect to the majority.

James here is speaking specifically to how the church was welcoming the rich in the community as opposed to how the welcomed the poor. The rich were given places of honor in the sanctuary whereas the poor were put in the back or even outside the inner section. I have visited many older churches in our country, both north and south. I have seen the way that they were set-up for the very same type of sitting arrangements. Many times if the church had a balcony this is where the poor and “common” people were placed while the wealthy and “respected” people were able to sit on the main floor. Several of these churches still exist today. We still have learned so little from our Christian forefathers and what they wrote and taught us through scriptures.

While he is speaking about rich and poor specifically, it can easily be applied to any situation in which we try and judge those that are “worthy” and those who are not. It may be skin tone, social position in the community, wealth, clothing, or dozens of other factors that somehow we deem “important”. I have personally seen and have experienced these sins of partiality on several occasions. At one church we had a youth pastor who was young and very energetic. Our church was located in an area of the city that was on the poorer side and struggled with broken homes, drugs, alcohol abuse, and other social issues. The area had not always been that way so some of the older members remember what it was like when it was a more affluent neighborhood.

The youth pastor had been working hard with one particular young man who was caught in the middle of a lot of pain, but didn’t want to come to church, fearing he would be looked down upon. The pastor continued to encourage him to come and see for himself. So he finally said yes, he would be there the coming Sunday. Being his first time he didn’t where to go when he got there. Unfortunately, he was met by one of the older members who looked at this young man, with a mohawk haircut in several different colors, a Ozzy Osbourne t-shirt, and several tattoos. The member made the comment, saying to the young man, didn’t he have something better to wear to church, at which time I was able to step in between and gentle escort the young man to the youth area and explaining to our youth pastor what had happened. I then proceeded to have a rather stern talk with the member and informed him I had better never hear that kind of talk again.

My ex-wife happens to be Mexican. I only say this because this has been an issue in the church several times for her more than me. She has been removed as a summer missionary at a church in Florida because of her heritage and they were a “white” church. When we were first married we were the leaders of a youth ministry. Things were going very well, the group was growing numerically as well as spiritually. We took a week vacation, when we returned the pastor informed us that he was going to ask us to step down from our positions. When pressed for a reason, we were informed that one of the youth, a white girl, had started dating a young man at her high school, a black boy, and her parents had decided that because we were an inter-racial couple that we had been a bad influence on their daughter. Just to make sure we understand something it doesn’t just happen in “white” or “black” or any other title you want to place on a church.

Here in Dayton, just a few months ago, I was politely informed that it would be better if I didn’t enter into a worship service at a “black” church. This was done outside the church right before services began. Yet, I went and got my haircut at what would be labeled a “black” barbershop. I was treated as a person, with respect and kindness. No one even looked as if this was anything but what it was. I have seen time and time again that the outside secular world has a better chance of accepting everyone than the church does. This has got to stop. There is no place in the Kingdom of God for such sinful and shameful behavior on the part of God’s children.