Today's Daily Lesson comes from James chapter 2 verses 1 through 4:
My brothers and sisters,* do you with your acts of favouritism really believe in our glorious Lord Jesus Christ?* 2For if a person with gold rings and in fine clothes comes into your assembly, and if a poor person in dirty clothes also comes in, 3and if you take notice of the one wearing the fine clothes and say, ‘Have a seat here, please’, while to the one who is poor you say, ‘Stand there’, or, ‘Sit at my feet’,* 4have you not made distinctions among yourselves, and become judges with evil thoughts?
When I was in high school I got tickets to a Texas Tech football game and took three of my friends, who all happened to be black.
Before the start of the game, as I had gone to the restroom and to buy snacks, a woman and her husband showed up in the seats next to our and demanded to see my friends' tickets. Of course, I had the tickets in my pocket in the restroom.
When I returned my friends told me what was going on and how she had demanded that they vacate their seats, going so far as to say she was the owner of the tickets to their seats and had them in her own pocket!
The couple was white, my friends were black. And it was the first time the reality of racism really hit home for me. I burned with indignation.
I pulled out the tickets from my pocket. "How bout them apples," I said. Or something like it.
Looking back, I probably wouldn't show her the tickets today. For what right did she have?
What right do white people have to decide who has to prove they belong?
Ryon Price is Senior Pastor of Broadway Baptist Church.
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