It don’t matter if you’re black or white. – Michael Jackson

My dear brothers and sisters, how can you claim to have faith in our glorious Lord Jesus Christ if you favor some people over others? – James 2:1

Michael Jackson doesn’t hedge in this song. He doesn’t qualify. He just says it straight: it doesn’t matter where you’re from or what you look like, you’re my brother or my sister. It doesn’t matter if you’re black or white.

James would agree. But then he would look us in the eye and ask a harder question: Do you actually live like that?

James wastes no time. He plainly tells believers that faith in Jesus and favoritism cannot coexist. If we treat people differently based on wealth, appearance, ethnicity, influence, or usefulness, something has gone wrong — not socially, but spiritually.

That’s what makes James uncomfortable. He doesn’t let us keep discrimination “out there.” He brings it into the room, into our churches, into our conversations, into our instincts. Because favoritism rarely announces itself. It shows up quietly.

It shows up in who we notice first, who we listen to longer, who we assume is competent, who we assume needs help. We may never say, “You matter more than they do,” but James says our behavior says it all the time.

Michael sings about unity. James examines our practice.

James asks whether we’ve become judges with “evil motives,” which sounds harsh until you realize what he means. We size people up. We make mental calculations. We decide — often in seconds — how much time, respect, or patience someone deserves. And then we decide who will benefit us and who will not.

James calls that a faith issue and then he flips the script entirely. He reminds us that God has a long history of choosing people the world overlooks — the poor, the marginalized, the ones without status — and making them rich in faith. In other words, God keeps honoring people we keep passing over. That should stop us, because it means the problem isn’t that we don’t believe the right things; it’s that we don’t love the right way.

James calls loving our neighbor “the royal law.” Not a suggestion. Not a value statement. A law. And he says when we show favoritism, we don’t just bend that law — we break it, and in breaking it, we sin.

James isn’t asking whether we agree that everyone has equal worth. He’s asking whether our faith and our love shows up equally for everyone we encounter.

Michael gave us a song that still moves us decades later. James gives us a mirror that still confronts us centuries later. And the mirror asks a simple question: When someone walks into my world, do they experience love — or evaluation? Because in the family of God, it was never black or white. It was always love.

There is a rap section in Michael’s song that is worth notice:

Protection for gangs, clubs and nations
Causing grief in human relations
It’s a turf war on a global scale
I’d rather hear both sides of the tale
See, it’s not about races
Just places
Faces
Where your blood comes from
Is where your space is
I’ve seen the bright get duller
I’m not going to spend my life being a color

Here’s a “man in the Mirror” question: Look in a mirror and answer this: How many of you have ever judged Michael Jackson? How many have a right to do that? I thought so.

For an enlightening video of John “in the mirror” click here.