pure religion

I'm not much of a fan of "religion", defined as a particular system of faith or worship.  I much prefer being in a "relationship" with God Whom I worship and trust.  However, we're advised in James 1:27 to adopt a religion that is pure and faultless...to look after orphans and widows in their distress and to keep oneself from being polluted by the world.  In the first centuries of the church, special care was shown to these groups who were both the most helpless in Greco/Roman/Jewish culture and the lowest in social status.  Believers were also noted by friend and foe alike for their impeccable morality.

Though we continue to care for those who have lost spouses or those who have no parents, I wonder who might be the lowest and most helpless in our culture?  Who are the ones whom God would expect us to look after?  I suppose it might be the very ones that we might be tempted to write off, as if they're too far beneath us, or too far from our help.  We could point to those who are not of our particular religion, or our denomination.  Or we could draw away from those who don't share our perspective or politics.  Or we could recoil from those who identify themselves as LGBTQ+.  We might be worried that in looking after them we might pollute our faith, or that of our children.  On the other hand, we might be drawn to look after these people, but do so by adopting their values and practices, compromising our relationship with God in order to appear attractive to those we wish to reach, ending up only polluting ourselves, and them.

What would it mean for us to be in the world as agents of God's Mercy and Truth, with whoever He calls us to look after, but not to be of the world since we have been entrusted with a pure and faultless Gospel to share in word and deed?  I wonder if this dual approach to outreach might have something to do with the other mark of a pure and faultless religion, that we keep a tight rein on (our) tongues (James 1:26)?