In the 2024 election year, surely you have heard the reverberations of caustic speech. There has been a heavy load of name calling and uncharitable dialogue from both sides of the fence. More unfortunately, it is not just coming from the candidates and party faithful, it's coming from our neighbors, friends, families, and the church is sadly not immune. I am thankful to serve as a pastor/elder in a church family that seems to go against the trend. Our church is certainly not perfect, but I cannot recall one instance of concern about how anyone in our church family is facing the tense environment of this election in an unhelpful way for others. Thank you, Grace and Truth Cincy! My ongoing concern is how we continue in this way. I believe our text for this week is a big start in the right direction. God created man in his image!
When James was writing to the church, he had reason to talk about how we must be careful to treat each other with an equal sense of value. James 2:1-4 My brothers, show no partiality as you hold the faith in our Lord Jesus Christ, the Lord of glory. 2 For if a man wearing a gold ring and fine clothing comes into your assembly, and a poor man in shabby clothing also comes in, 3 and if you pay attention to the one who wears the fine clothing and say, "You sit here in a good place," while you say to the poor man, "You stand over there," or, "Sit down at my feet," 4 have you not then made distinctions among yourselves and become judges with evil thoughts? Why can James be so confident in saying that we can value and love the poor man as equally as the rich? He goes on to remind us that the poor in this world in Christ are rich in faith and equal heirs in God's promise and inheritance. Jesus has caused us to see that we are all level at the foot of the cross.
James doesn't stop there. Partiality is not just a problem that concerns seating arrangements in the church (and certainly James also meant his example for broader application). We seem to have problems in valuing our neighbors even by the way we use our speech. Because we have hearts that are so focused on self, we seem to be immediately outraged at any perceived evil that comes against us. Our speech is our first weapon in war. At these moments of opposition and disagreement, our evil hearts are identified through our tongues.
James 3:7-12 For every kind of beast and bird, of reptile and sea creature, can be tamed and has been tamed by mankind, 8 but no human being can tame the tongue. It is a restless evil, full of deadly poison. 9 With it we bless our Lord and Father, and with it we curse people who are made in the likeness of God. 10 From the same mouth come blessing and cursing. My brothers, these things ought not to be so. 11 Does a spring pour forth from the same opening both fresh and salt water? 12 Can a fig tree, my brothers, bear olives, or a grapevine produce figs? Neither can a salt pond yield fresh water.
Let's think carefully about what James is saying. He is firstly saying that we should beware of our speech. It seems to be harder to protect holiness in our speech than it is to train your dog to get the morning paper. The problem is that a Christian can be sitting in church on Sunday and singing praises and then walk out of the service spewing out sinful anger at the first thing that steps on our toes. How easy is that to do in an election year the moment we see the first YouTube video from a candidate threatening the world you want to live in?
I'm willing to agree that there is a lot at stake for this country. I'm willing to agree that I have also seen a lot of ideas that I have to be vehemently opposed to. What Christians all need to be better at is shining the light of Christ by the way we talk about it. James reminds us that the people we curse are created in the likeness of God. No matter how wrong another human being is, nobody can ever take away the fact that God made them in his image. It's absolutely true that our sin has corrupted the image of God, but it hasn't changed the fact that every human being is of equal value before the Lord because all of humanity is created in His image.
Donald Trump, J.D. Vance, Kamala Harris, and Tim Waltz are all created in the image of God whether they are conscious of that or not. They all have huge responsibility before God in that respect and will all answer to God one day. Like every other human, they all need Jesus who is the only ever uncorrupted image bearer.
Every Christian needs to take the lead in our speech. We agree that if God created all humanity in his image, it is not our prerogative to denigrate the value he has placed on a fellow human being. As hard as it is to tame our tongues, Christians should be known for how we talk - about everyone. If we disagree with another human, let's do it by honoring the value God has upon them by his very act of creating. Let's realize that they don't have a value problem, but we all have a sin problem.
So how do we overcome the ugly election rhetoric in 2024? Let your speech reflect that every single human being on the planet is created in the image of God. Remind yourself before you say a word - or type a word.