Fifth Sunday in Lent (3/22)

READ: James 2:1-4, 8-9 (revisit)

My brothers and sisters, when you show favoritism you deny the faithfulness of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has been resurrected in glory. Imagine two people coming into your meeting. One has a gold ring and fine clothes, while the other is poor, dressed in filthy rags. Then suppose that you were to take special notice of the one wearing fine clothes, saying, “Here’s an excellent place. Sit here.” But to the poor person you say, “Stand over there”; or, “Here, sit at my feet.” Wouldn’t you have shown favoritism among yourselves and become evil-minded judges? … You do well when you really fulfill the royal law found in scripture, Love your neighbor as yourself. But when you show favoritism, you are committing a sin, and by that same law you are exposed as a lawbreaker.

REFLECT 

Love your neighbor as yourself. This royal law keeps coming back because we keep forgetting. We keep deferring to the powerful and dismissing the vulnerable. We keep building systems that honor some and dismiss others. We keep building hierarchies Jesus tore down. James won't let us spiritualize this. Loving our neighbor is concrete: how we treat the service worker, the unhoused person, the immigrant, the person in front of us. As we approach Holy Week, we're reminded that God chose the poor and exalted the humble, and calls us to do the same.

RESPOND 

Who did you dismiss or defer to this week based on status? Commit to do differently this coming week.

PRAY 

Jesus who chose fishermen and prostitutes, forgive us for honoring empire's hierarchies in your church. Teach us to love as you loved. Amen.