23rd Sunday in Ordinary Time (Year B)
James 2:1-7
My brothers, do not try to combine faith in Jesus Christ, our glorified Lord, with the making of distinctions between classes of people. Now suppose a man comes into your synagogue, beautifully dressed and with a gold ring on, and at the same time a poor man comes in, in shabby clothes, and you take notice of the well-dressed man, and say, ‘Come this way to the best seats’; then you tell the poor man, ‘Stand over there’ or ‘You can sit on the floor by my foot-rest’. Can’t you see that you have used two different standards in your mind, and turned yourselves into judges, and corrupt judges at that? Listen, my dear brothers: it was those who are poor according to the world that God chose, to be rich in faith and to be the heirs to the kingdom which he promised to those who love him.
Following on from last Sunday’s 2nd Reading, we read again from the Letter of St James focusses once again on the Christian Duty to care for the poor and aggrieved.
Its commonly reported that we form our first impression of someone new within around 5 seconds of meeting them. That first 5 seconds set the tone for the rest of interaction with that person – it sets that bar against which we will judge them. It’s a frighteningly short period of time. In those 5 seconds we take in a lot: their clothes; the way they walk; their accent or dialect; their hair colour (natural or otherwise) and their style; as well as their age and appearance.
That goes for people we meet wherever we meet them – in the street, at school, at work, or even in at Church. It’s normal, even unavoidable, to notice those things. And we use that information to determine whether they are ‘our kind of people’. We use what we see in those first 5 seconds to make assumptions about all kinds of things: their education; their income; their family; their upbringing – all of which, in the UK in particular, we know as class.
What this Sunday’s 2nd Reading shows is that this is not a new thing – that the members of the early Church (who were christio-jews, who would still have worshiped in synagogues for some part) were having to deal with this same problem. And what James tells us is that we owe it to others, and to ourselves, to treat all not from where they come from, but by their actions.
In 2018, my brother and I went on a trip together to London. I was out a walk myself and was walking past Westminster Cathedral and saw that Daily Mass was just about to be said, so I went in a joined the Mass. And there was a point in the Mass – as there was in all pre-COVID Masses and I hope there will be again soon – where everyone present offered the ‘Sign of Peace’ to each other. All of us shook the hand of whoever happened to be near us – and I am certain that in that congregation, as there is in our Parishes and in every parish in the world – a mix of the rich and the poor, the professional and the unemployed, the Doctorate-holder and the no-qualifications haver. Each of us held and treated each other, not as the world judges us, but as a brother or sister in Christ.
Each was equal before God. God offers none of us his grace because of who we are – but simply because we are. Jesus didn’t select his disciples because of their station in life – if he did he wouldn’t have called fisherman and tax-collectors, but priests and scribes. And as we strive to follow Christ’s example, we should not treat those who ‘look better’ as if they are better. Because we, as Christians, are called to respect the dignity present in every human life – and particularly the poor, the weak, the suffering and the ignored.
And this is a lesson we must apply to every aspect of our life – because we are not merely Catholics in the chapel, we must live our Christianity in our home-life, our school-life, our work-life and our social-life as well. We are Christians at all times, which mean we must never attempt to “…combine faith in Jesus Christ, our glorified Lord, with the making of distinctions between classes of people”.
Christianity, properly lived, is a radical proposition.
If you want to read more on this topic – then a good place to start would be Pope Franci’s recent Papal Encyclical ‘Fratelli Tutti’, which you can access here or access the PDF of here.
Corpus Christi & Our Lady of Perpetual Succour 