“My dear brothers and sisters, how can you claim to have faith in our glorious Lord Jesus Christ if you favor some people over others? For example, suppose someone comes into your meeting dressed in fancy clothes and expensive jewelry, and another comes in who is poor and dressed in dirty clothes. If you give special attention and a good seat to the rich person, but you say to the poor one, “You can stand over there, or else sit on the floor”—well, doesn’t this discrimination show that your judgments are guided by evil motives?” (James 2:1-4, New Living Translation)
Discrimination is so easy, even for those of us who don’t have a racist, hateful, bigoted bone in our bodies. That obvious kind of discrimination is something that we, as Christ-followers, stand against. In fact, those who are seeking to truly demonstrate the character of Christ will actually fight discrimination against those who are hateful and discriminatory towards us.
The easy kind of discrimination is much more subtle. It is simply a matter of giving preference to those who we perceive as being able to benefit us more. We are often happy to go and do ministry for the poor (sometimes, sadly, to make us feel better about ourselves), but we are not so eager for them to “join our church” because they will only be beneficiaries of resources, rather than benefactors. The end result of that kind of thinking is that we are actually doing ministry FOR US, rather than out of love for God and love for people. There is even the risk of reverse discrimination in which we give preference to the poor and forget that those who have material riches are often empty and broken spiritually. If we become proud of our ministries to the poor, that pride can lead us once again to to ministry FOR US, rather than out of love for God and love for people.
Question: What can we do to insure that we don’t get trapped in subtle forms of discrimination as we seek to be the hands and feet of Jesus in the world?
Leave a comment below. I’d love to learn from your perspective.
