(Please read the passage cited above first.)
God does not engage in favoritism. God welcomes all who come. We, however, engage in favoritism.
In our time we do not see many people coming to our assembly dressed in fancy duds nor many dressed in poor rags, such as the letter of James describes. On the other hand, we meet many people every day who need a lot of help from us and some who need nothing from us. It is easy to meet those not looking for a handout and very hard to deal with those looking to us for help.
We can divide people into two groups, those who demand a lot, whom we can call people of “high maintenance”, and people of “low maintenance” who demand little of us. There are people of high maintenance and people of low maintenance. Those of low maintenance are the rich who seem to us to be richly dressed; those of high maintenance seem poor to us.
In our relationships there are those with many needs (high maintenance) and those who are pleasant to be with (low maintenance). We divide everyone according to the energy or maintenance needed and we welcome those we like and withdraw from the rest.
The rich can always be rich; but the poor will be always be poor and always will be needing our help, like people of high maintenance.
People of high maintenance are the sick, those with handicaps like the blind, the deaf and the speech-impaired, those whom we do not like, and those we judge as nobodies. These are the ones dressed in shabby clothes. God welcomes them; why do we not welcome them?
People of low maintenance are the rich, those pleasant to be with, the strong, those with stylish clothes, the healthy, and the “perfect” people. We welcome them because we play favorites.
We have to welcome everyone, those of low maintenance and those of high maintenance. If we do not welcome all, we are not Christians; rather we are “judges with evil designs.”
“Did not God choose those who are poor in the world to be rich in faith and heirs of the kingdom that God promised to those who love him?”