You Don’t Need Anyone

“If you really keep the royal law found in Scripture, "Love your neighbor as yourself," you are doing right. But if you show favoritism, you sin.” (James 2:8-9)

James wrote these words to poor, mostly Jewish Christians. His readers were living in times that were hard for Jews and getting harder for believers in Jesus. If you read the few paragraphs around this verse, you’ll see what their specific sinful tendency was. If a rich guy happened to show up at their fellowship, they treated him like a rock star. But if it was just another poor shlub, they showed him to a nice cozy spot on the floor. Near the foots.

James didn’t get it. Rich people were the ones giving the Christians all kinds of fits, really hurting in creative ways those who followed Jesus. Why would they roll out the red carpet for those guys? He doesn’t spell it out for us, so we’re left to guess.

It might have been because the churches really needed money. They did this thing where they pooled their resources to help the poor and the sick -- people who needed food, daily care, real help if they were going to make it. If the rich guy threw that gold ring in the plate, it would go a long way toward feeding some needy friends and family members. Or maybe they were just scared. “Don’t make the rich guy angry, or he’ll come after us. Maybe if we treat him nice, he’ll tell his rich friends to give us a break.”

Either way, their favoritism was evidence that they weren’t trusting God. Think about it. Playing favorites, in this sense, is a belief issue. These Christians thought they needed something from the rich guys, so they made their play for it. But who really provides all of our needs? Do we really need anything from anyone? In your life, do you need anything from richer people, your parents, your friends, you boss? Here’s the radical idea: No. All of your needs are met by one source: God. He’s the one who provides. We don’t need anything from anyone; if God wants to give us something good, He’ll find a way to do that. And we can definitely trust Him to take care of all of our needs. So why treat some people better than others?

Oh, good, so now we can treat those rich guys like the jerks they really are, right? Let them sit on the floor for a change. We can ignore them completely. Or, better yet, yell from our church tower, “You tiny-brained wipers of other peoples' bottoms!” (One for the Python lovers.) Um, no, James isn’t telling us to play favorites with poor (or other unpopular) people, either.

Instead, he tells them to love everyone -- rich and poor -- as they love themselves. Because I don’t need anything from anyone, I can focus all my relationship time on giving myself away to others as I’d like them to treat me. If I can relax and trust God to provide for my needs, I can become a way that He uses to provide for the needs of others. Even pig-dogs.

Can you think of any rich/poor, popular/un, ugly/pretty, powerful/nobody people you need to stop trying to please in hopes that they’ll do something good for you? Can you think of any that you could spend some time trying to encourage, help, build up? Don’t fall into the sin of playing favorites. You don’t need that.