James 2:1-3 -- On Having Faith For Everyone

"My brethren, have not the faith of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Lord of glory, with respect of persons.
For if there come unto your assembly a man with a gold ring, in goodly apparel, and there come in also a poor man in vile raiment;
And ye have respect to him that weareth the gay clothing, and say unto him, Sit thou here in a good place; and say to the poor, Stand thou there, or sit here under my footstool:"
James 2:1-3


This selection ends a little strangely just because I left off verse 4 which comes after the colon and completes the phrase, but this part captures what I wanted to talk about, which is how we treat each other based on external factors. We're instructed here clearly not to allow that to be part of our faith, but I think too often we allow it to creep into the way that we think about and treat others... which is one of the reasons why the temple is so cool, actually, because changing into white clothing on some level helps us all to see each other as equals.

On the other hand, even white clothing doesn't cover up other differences, and we discriminate against others sometimes based on language, skin color, accent, citizenship, marital status, age, amount of children, calling, cleanliness, grammar, and so many other things. :)

Today, let's take a look at ourselves and our own biases, and make a serious effort to not let them leak into our faith. Let's talk to the Lord about learning to love other people and let go of the markers that we each use to divide people into groups, and learn to be more accepting and inclusive in the way that we think about everyone. Not to fulfil some societal norm, but because every single person is a child of our Heavenly Father, and he loves them infinitely... let's try to grasp that idea, and find the beauty that exists in each person we meet, whether or not they happen to share our political values or any other opinions or physical, mental, or social similarities.

It's not an easy thing. In our society we learn at a very young age to judge and divide people into groups and titles and we want to be part of one group and not another in various ways... but God asks us here to try to not let those things infect the way that we live the gospel, so let's see if we can solve our own predjudices little by little as we learn to love a wider variety of types of people. :)