If you really keep the royal law found in Scripture, “Love your neighbor as yourself,” you are doing right … Speak and act as those who are going to be judged by the law that gives freedom … (James 2:8, 12).

Wait, what?  A law that gives freedom?

This week, as part of our Integrated series, we’ve been exploring James 2:1-13. James goes after the universal human tendency to play favorites, particularly when it comes to favoring the rich and powerful over the poor and weak.  It’s pretty human to want to be close to, be seen with, the so-called “movers and shakers.” But James is blunt: “Is it not the rich who are exploiting you?  Are they not the ones who are dragging you into court … slandering the noble name of him to whom you belong?” (verses 6-7).

Then, towards the end of our passage, James makes an interesting move: he starts talking about freedom.  And connects freedom with something he calls the “royal law.”

James is reminding us that when King Jesus was asked about the law on which his kingdom is built, and by which it operates, he replied, “Love God with all that you are and have, and love your neighbor as yourself.”  This is the Royal Law.

And, curiously to our modern American minds, this Royal Law of Love sets us free: “Speak and act,” James tells us, “as those who are going to be judged by the law that gives freedom” (verse 12).  This is not the kind of modern freedom that means “getting to do whatever I want as much as possible.”  That kind of “freedom” inevitably turns others into objects, into “things” who may or may not be useful to me.

True freedom does not lie in getting to do what I want to do, but in becoming the kind of person who is free to do what our King commands.  We are freed to treat others as subjects to be loved, rather than objects to be used or ignored or discarded.  So true freedom needs to be learned and practiced; real freedom does not “come naturally” to us!

James ends our passage with a reminder that love and mercy are interconnected.  This Royal Law of King Jesus frees us to show mercy to others as God in Christ has shown mercy to us.  

Favoritism reduces us to being users of others.  The Royal Law frees us to love.

Who are the people, or the kinds of people, you tend to favor?  What would be a small step of repentance?

To whom do you have a hard time showing mercy?  What could be a small step into the Royal Law that brings freedom for you?