So, I’ve been thinking a lot about favoritism because I’m preaching on James 2 this week. I used to think the opposite of favoritism is neutrality or evenness. But that’s not how the Bible frames it. After warning against favoritism as a contradiction to the faith, James shows...

…what favoritism looks like: it looks like giving preferential treatment to those with high status or considerable wealth; in short: power. Favoritism is about favoring the powerful in order to gain from their power. But then, James says something about the character of God.

"My dear brothers and sisters, listen! Hasn’t God chosen those who are poor by worldly standards to be rich in terms of faith? Hasn’t God chosen the poor as heirs of the kingdom he has promised to those who love him?” James says God does show people a special kind of favor! What?

God favors the poor. His mother, Mary, sang about that in Luke 1. And in Deut. 10:18, right after saying that God shows no partiality, says that God "enacts justice for orphans and widows, and he loves immigrants, giving them food and clothing."

Here’s the deal: the Bible’s problem with favoritism is not that it is an uneven distribution of attention. It is that it favors the wrong people: those with power. God wants us to be like Him: to show favor on the weak, the lowly, the outcast and oppressed.

This is why, when people try to respond to outrage over the mistreatment of a historially oppressed people (like African-Americans) by saying, “Well, what about the riots? Why is there no outrage about that?" Or, “If a black cop killed a white man, we wouldn’t be this mad”...

…they are missing the point. The point is not to give even attention to all things. It is to give disproportionately favorable attention to those who have been marginalized and oppressed. God *does* play favorites: He favors the poor, the widow, the orphan, the immigrant & more.

In conlusion: It IS good and right that we give more outcry and lament and advocacy for the mistreatment of an oppressed people than we do in situations when the role is reversed. It’s because justice is long overdue.