Today’s Scripture Reading (November
12, 2014): James 2
Tony Blair
commented on Western society in the early years of this millennium saying that
we are dealing with evil “out there.” We seem to have agreed, and our reaction
to that evil is wrapped up in belief that because there is evil out there, what
we need to do with that evil is to bomb it out of existence. N. T. Wright calls
the move incredibly naïve. But the root of the problem might be even more wicked
than the evil we are trying to destroy. And it is bound up in the idea that we
get to define exactly what evil is. Admittedly, sometimes the decision seems to
be easy, but more often than not there is collateral damage to our definition all
over the place. Our current struggle with the Islamic State – a conflict that
some are arguing is going to be a multi-decade conflict that still lies in
front of us – highlights the issue. The disregard that the “IS” seems to have
for human rights and the beauty of creation may very well reflect a theism, or
more likely a political beliefism that is evil at the core, but the problem is
that increasingly more political watchers, especially within the Christian
Church, seems to have colored all of Islam with same pen, and that is a
reaction that, I believe, is deeply irresponsible. And in making that decision
it is us who have become the judges with evil thoughts.
Maybe a
better example is a story that comes straight out of our financial system.
Following the financial crash of 2008, there were several major companies that
needed help. And they came to the taxpayer and basically said “Please rescue
us, after all, this crash wasn’t our fault.” Okay, actually they may have been
lying to us because the roots of the crash just may have been their fault, but
we bailed them out anyway. But again N. T. Wright points out the tragedy in all
of this is that we did for the rich of our own society what the poor nations of
the world have been begging for us to do for them for decades. Many of the poor
nations are in great need of having their debt forgiven, debt that was incurred
by evil leaders who used the money for their own purposes; leaders who have
long since gone, yet the people still are left with this debt, and debt itself
is multiplying because of compound interest, and we refuse to anything about
it. In this case, the crash is really not their faults and yet we refuse to let
them off of the hook. Our actions reveal that we are saving the best seats for
the rich and leaving the floor open for poor to come and sit at our feet.
And this is
precisely the behavior that James is condemning. We are to welcome the poor,
the alien; the one who is not like us just as we would welcome the one who is
like us. We are not to reserve the best for the people who we hope that one day
we will emulate, we are to treat everyone with the same respect, recognizing
that Christ values them just as much as he values us – that the love of God is
for everyone.
There is
nothing special about me other than that God sees value in me. And what he sees
in me he also sees in you, and the poor (as well as the rich.) But it goes even
deeper than that. The value that God placed in you, he also has placed in the
Muslim, and the Buddhist, and people from every other believe system in this
world. What we believe that God has placed in us, the beauty and worth that he
has given to “us,” he has also placed in the people whom we would often
characterize as “them.” And evil is found wherever we this beauty and worth in
the other is ignored. Real evil exists in the refusal to acknowledge the beauty
that God has place in all peoples everywhere, and to instead insist that that
beauty resides only in us.
Tomorrow’s Scripture Reading: James 3
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