Isaiah 9: 1-4 (New Jerusalem Bible)
James 2: 1-7 (Common English Bible)
The Letter of James is the most neglected book in the New Testament. In my opinion it’s the most important book in the New Testament after the Gospels. James was the younger brother of Jesus. The reason you don’t hear James preached much by pastors, started with the Protestant Reformer Martin Luther who didn’t want James’ epistle to be in the New Testament. He viewed it as a “works” theology contradicting the Apostle Paul's belief that belief alone was all that was needed to bring salvation. But I believe that both faith and work can go together to make a person whole. And James had more in common with Jesus than the Apostle Paul.
James remained with the Jewish faith with its kosher rules but he firmly believed his brother Jesus was the
Messiah. He was martyred in 62 AD when Scribes and Pharisees threw him from the Temples’ wall and continued to stone him until he died. They didn’t like James preaching about Jesus.
During his ministry James was concerned that wealth and greed would take over the church. He uses an example
of two men entering the church assembly. One of the men is well-dressed while the other man was poor and wore ragged clothing. The rich man is ushered to a special seat and the poor man is told to stand up or set on the
floor. You know it really wouldn’t impress me if a super-rich person like Elon Musk showed up. I would be more impressed if we had a Palestinian from Gaza speak about the genocide caused by the Netanyau Regime. And there was no real peace-treaty in Gaza. If you believe that, you’ve been eating too many dream-sickles. People are still being killed by Israel’s bombs. Sam with the people in the Ukraine by Russia’s bombs.
There is no doubt there must have been social problems in the early 1st century church. During the period it was mainly the poor who came to worship Jesus. The Christian faith was something to be avoided by the by richerer classes during the first three centuries. But all that attitude ended when Constantine became Emperor in 312 AD. Constantine did two important things, one good and one bad. The good was making the Christian faith legal in the Roman Empire. The bad was ignoring what Jesus taught because Constintine was more into empire-building than helping the poor. And that is when the rich started taking over the churches.
“God,” said Abraham Lincoln, our greatest president, “God must have loved the poor because he made so many of
them.” Unfortunately, today we have these large mega-churches who preach the false “prosperity” gospel. In Jesus’ first sermon in the synagogue at Nazareth his claim was, “God has anointed me to preach the Good News to the poor (Luke 4: 18). The first of the Beatitudes says, “Blessed are the poor, theirs is the Kingdom of Heaven.
After Jesus was banished from the synagogues he took his ministry to the hillsides close to the sea. It was
common for men and women in large crowds to hear Jesus preach. Kind of like when Bernie Sanders speaks. But it is a fact the gospel offers hope to the poor. They finally had someone who could speak the truth through
Jesus and they were the first Christians. Now James, Jesus’ brother, is not shutting out the rich, he is saying the gospel of Jesus is especially dear to the poor and there is a welcome for anyone who has no place to go.
The letter by James was written 48 years after the death of Jesus. In James 2: 1-7, it teaches that believers should not show favoritism. A poor person should get the same type of respect as a rich person. It warns against wealth being a status-symbol while justice is ignored.
We often build unnecessary boundaries around churches, communities and our nation. People create endless arcane rules and regulations. If you really study Jesus’ life, he didn’t have a lot of rules. And we should also follow James’ example who calls us to a faith that resists division because of wealth.
When we live our lives with fear, which the current presidential administration is doing, we lose hope. Many young people are walking away from churches. They can see their hypocrisy and closed minds that dominate so many American churches. Fundamentalist Churches are insane still believing the earth is only 6,000 years old and Adam and Eve were real people. Main Stream Churches are often just social clubs How can you be a follower of Christ and be OK with the murder of Renee Good by an ICE agent? And unless you didn't know, she was a member of a Presbyterian Church.
Isaiah chapter nine begins in the dark. The Prophet Isaiah paints a grim picture in the preceding chapters. Isaiah tells the people they are afflicted by a burdensome yoke, the kind of heavy burden on their shoulders. They faced oppression and the whip.
Isaiah is referring to the exile experienced by the people of Judah during the 7th Century BC in Babylon. In the same way, you can locate people who are suffering under oppressive regimes. Think about the genocide in 2007 in Sudan and Darfar. Think about the slaughter that took place in Rwanda in the 1990s. Think about the Jewish people forced into gas chambers by Hitler’s fascists during World War 11. And remember the Native Americans forced to march on the Trail of Tears many died during its cold weather. And the more recent genocide against the Palestinian people in Gaza.
Even the average Americans are being oppressed by the Oligarchs you have taken over our government. It is
astonishing to realize how many millions of people in America pay exorbitant prices for medications. In western European nations, health-care is basically free. Maybe someday the United States will become more civilized and realize that health-care should be a right and not a privilege. No one wants to buy cancer.
Jesus gave us the Light to follow him which always triumphs over the darkness. In the beginning, the first
act of creation was to create light. According to Genesis, God did not create the sun first, nor the stars and not any source of light. But God created just light, pure light, radiant light. It is one of the several features of Genesis chapter one that fits well in the widely accepted scientific theory about the Big Bang. Whatever else the Big Bang did billions of years ago, it had to be the most brilliant light to ever happen in our Universe, and the Light still shines on us through Jesus the Christ. AMEN
