The ties that bind us

James 2: 1-17
New Ark United Church of Christ, Newark, DE
September 5, 2021

Recently I started watching “Downton Abbey” again. I’ve read that during the last 18 months many people are tuning into TV series and movies that they’ve seen before, as well as rereading favorite books, as a way of dealing with their anxiety and grief. There are relatively few surprises, depending on one’s memory, and stories with “small art and love and beauty” and a happy ending can be a balm and a relief from the never-ending news cycle.



However, this second-time around I find I am much more critical of the whole set-up. Even though both upstairs and downstairs folk are complicated with their own moral challenges and failings, of course there is still the mostly firm line between the classes, or as author Isabel Wilkerson puts it, between the dominant caste of those with power and the subordinate caste of those without power. A caste system enables those with power to remain where they are and provides enough stigma and dehumanization for those deemed inferior to be kept at the bottom, in order to serve those with power.

We have our own caste system in our country, and the predominantly White, middle to upper middle class Church is its own enclave. And despite our attempts to be open and affirming it is still much the same. It takes a willingness to disrupt the status quo, to afflict the comfortable, and to admit our part in it feels like the rich man who went away sad because he had many possessions.



She writes, “[It] is the actions, or more commonly inactions, of ordinary people that keep the mechanism of caste running, the people who shrug their shoulders at the latest police killing, the people who laugh off the coded put-downs of marginalized people shared at the dinner table and say nothing for fear of alienating an otherwise beloved uncle. The people who are willing to pay higher property taxes for their own children’s schools but who balk at taxes to educate the children society devalues. Or the people who sit in silence as a marginalized person, whether of color or a woman, is interrupted in a meeting, her ideas dismissed (though perhaps later adopted), for fear of losing caste, each of these keeping intact the whole system that holds everyone in its grip.”



Wilkerson goes on to say that it is race, the color of our skin, what we look like that is the visible cue of our caste and how we are to be treated. I would say it also includes our perceived gender, our body shape, how we are dressed, our ethnicity, the accent of our voice and whether English is our first language, where we live, the ability of our body, our age, and we assign superiority or inferiority and morality to each of those and have structured our society and culture to reflect that.

Or as the author of the letter of James puts it, we show partiality. It sounds as if this early Christian letter was written to people who were neither rich nor poor but somewhere in the middle, and yet they were showing partiality toward those who gave the visible cue of wealth and prosperity. We are more likely to align ourselves with and thus be in the service of safety and power than the opposite because we have been conditioned and rewarded for doing so and punished when we didn’t. I wonder if this is where the opposition to the slogan “Defund the police” stems from, because it essentially distances us from safety and power and shows a partiality to those without power.



It seems that as long as there have been gatherings of followers of Jesus, we Christians have often chosen to be the well-intentioned bystanders who side with the oppressors to lessen our discomfort. We have tolerated differences of interpretation to the point of schism, then gone our separate ways, even as some of those differences have festered into White Christian nationalism, policies and laws that dehumanize and criminalize others. We have equivocated with the words “love your neighbor as yourself” like the lawyer who asked, “Who is my neighbor?” We know that if we actually do drive a spoke into the wheels of injustice, the way we live will come to a screeching halt.

Pastor Carlos Rodriguez tweeted, “Stop worshipping centrism. The Gospel is good news TO THE POOR. Healing FOR THE BROKEN. Releasing FOR THE CAPTIVE. Welcoming THE STRANGER. Learning FROM THE OTHER. Feeding THE HUNGRY. Caring FOR THE LEAST. Jesus took sides. We should too.” In the letter of James, it’s more than taking sides, it’s joining forces. It’s not enough that we bless the powerless with our solidarity: “Go in peace, keep warm and eat your fill”. We are to join our fate with theirs, which is what it means to love our neighbor as ourselves. When we join our power to the powerless, we have joined forces with God.







It’s often hard for us to give money directly to those who need it the most, and yet I tell you, those who give to GoFundMe to help pay the rent or medical care or who roll down their window at an intersection to give a few dollars will enter the kindom of heaven before we do. We worry that the money will be spent on drugs or alcohol or some other immediate comfort, and yet when we make a purchase on Amazon, no one is dictating how Jeff Bezos spends his billions in profits. How do we decide who is worthy? All of us come into this world poor and powerless and we leave the same way. What if there were no better or worse people? What would our lives be about then?



What if we purchased some medical debt and retired it so some folx could sleep better at night? $100 can relieve $10,000 in medical debt. $10,000 could relieve $1 million in medical debt. Every day, 79 million Americans choose between paying their medical bills and rent or groceries. 25% of all credit card debt is medical debt. 66% of bankruptcies are tied to medical debt. What if we started a campaign that invites other faith communities and non-profits to match dollars?



Empire wins when divide and conquer succeed, when we fight amongst each other, when we uphold this caste system by deciding who is worthy and who is not. Empire loses when we love our neighbor as ourselves, when we show partiality to the powerless, and join our fate with theirs. There is power in a union, the union called the human race. God calls us to do justice and love mercy, no matter what. These are the ties that bind us. Amen.

Benediction – enfleshed.com

May you go forth co-creating the kin-dom of God.
Through your marching, striking, resting, and playing.
Through your weeping and taking one day at a time,
Through your protest songs, imagination, and showing up.
May you go forth co-creating the kin-dom of God.