Sin’s ‘nice hierarchy’

In our series on ‘Respectable Sins’, James uncovered our terrible favouritism and snobbery last time (James 2: 1-7), shown in the way we treat those we think are beneath us or above us in status.

‘My brothers and sisters, believers in our glorious Lord Jesus Christ must not show favouritism.’ Jesus is not interested in our definition of worthy. He is looking for sinners to save – be they rich or poor. He is looking for recipients of His grace; that includes all of us! Our worth is found – only in Him.

James has more to say on this: ‘If you really keep the royal law found in Scripture, “Love your neighbour as yourself,” you are doing right. But if you show favouritism, you sin and are convicted by the law as lawbreakers’ (James 2: 8-9).

Some of you may have read the book Philomena or seen the film? It’s about a young girl who fell pregnant in Ireland in the 1950s and was sent to a Magdalene house to have and give up the baby. Yet many of the young girls there didn’t even know how they got pregnant because no one had ever told them the facts of life.

The early descriptions of her appalling treatment at the hands of the nuns is heartbreaking. Women who claimed to be serving God treated those young, vulnerable, unmarried women as the absolute condemned scum of the earth. It was a classic case of themselves breaking God’s law of love as they condemned those young girls to hell. Yet when the bishops came to visit (one of whom later turned out to be a practising paedophile) they tripped over themselves to honour and pamper them.

We may tut and frown and think ‘How appalling!’ – except we too can be like that.

We may not openly speak judgment on those we think are beneath us morally or socially, as the nuns did. But we definitely think it! And if we are prejudiced in our thoughts and attitudes it is very revealing: it means we just don’t understand the mercy and grace that has been shown us. And if we play God and judge people in this way, we are lawbreakers. We may think we are nice, respectable, obedient children of God, but actually we are as bad as murderers and adulterers.

Look at James 2:9-11: ‘For whoever keeps the whole law and yet stumbles at just one point is guilty of breaking all of it. For he who said, “Do not commit adultery,” also said, “Do not murder.” If you do not commit adultery but do commit murder, you have become a lawbreaker.’

We think to ourselves: ‘Surely a bit of looking down my nose isn’t that serious!’ James says: ‘Yes, it is!’

The problem is, we usually think in terms of individual laws and their respective penalties – some being much worse than others. Our fallen nature means we like to play god – putting sin into a nice hierarchy with the big ones at the top (like sexual immorality) and the respectable ones we do at the bottom.

But God’s law is seamless… It isn’t God’s laws – it comes as a whole – it’s GOD’S LAW!

We are being double-minded when we choose to ignore our respectable sins – our partiality, favouritism, and judgmentalism; as we liberally break the Royal Law to love our neighbour as we love ourselves. And it puts us in grave danger.

Look at James 2:12: ‘Speak and act as those who are going to be judged by the law that gives freedom.’ If we don’t show mercy, then we’ve missed the point of the gospel. We must speak and act toward each other as people totally in need of great mercy from God, fellow sinners forgiven by the blood of Christ. In that humility, we are very unlikely to show each other favouritism based on the world’s standards.

Let’s be on the lookout for this particular respectable sin over the coming days as we go about our business. I think we may be shocked how regularly we break God’s law of love. Let’s pray the Holy Spirit produces in us that beautiful, humble Christ-like fruit of love that is not limited by prejudice and vanity.