Welcoming Everyone

READING                 James 1:19-27 – Living the Word

My dear friends, you should be quick to listen, slow to speak, and slow to anger. If you are angry, you cannot do any of the good things God asks us to do. Rid your life of anything that is immoral or evil. Instead, be humble and accept the word planted in you to save you. Be doers of the word and not merely hearers of the word who mislead themselves. If you hear the word and don’t do it, you are like people who stare at themselves in a mirror and forget what they look like as soon as they step away. There are those who study God’s law, the law of freedom, and continue to do it. They don’t listen and then forget, but they put it into practice in their lives. They will be blessed in whatever they do.

If those who claim devotion to God don’t control what they say, they mislead themselves. Their devotion is worthless. True devotion, the kind that is pure and faultless before God, is this: to care for those in need and to keep oneself unstained by the world.

REFLECTION

READING                 James 2:1-7 – Welcoming All

My friends, if you have faith in the way of Jesus, you won’t treat some people better than others. Suppose a rich person wearing fancy clothes and a gold ring comes to one of your meetings. And suppose a poor person dressed in worn-out clothes also comes. You must not give the best seat to the one in fancy clothes and tell the one who is poor to stand at the side or sit on the floor. This is the same as saying that some people are better than others, and you would be acting like a corrupt judge.  My dear friends, pay attention. God has given a lot of faith to the poor people in this world. Hasn’t God chosen the poor as heirs of the kingdom promised to those who love God?  You mistreat the poor. But isn’t it the rich who use their power to control you and drag you off to court? Aren’t they the ones who make fun of your God and your faith?

REFLECTION

READING James 2:8-10, 14-17 – Loving Others

My friends, you will do all right if you obey the most important law in the Scriptures. It is the law that commands us to love others as we love ourselves. But if you treat some people better than others, you have done wrong, as the Scriptures tell us. If you obey every law except one, you are guilty of breaking them all. What good is it to say you have faith, when you don’t do anything to show you really do have faith? Can this kind of faith save you? If you know someone who doesn’t have any clothes or food, you shouldn’t just say, “I hope all goes well for you. I hope you will be warm and have plenty to eat.” What good is it if you don’t actually give them what their body needs? What good is it unless you do something to help? Faith that doesn’t lead us to do good for others is dead!

REFLECTION