The readings
James 2:1-17
My brothers and sisters, do you with your acts of favoritism
really believe in our glorious Lord Jesus Christ? For 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, and 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,” have you not made distinctions among
yourselves, and become judges with evil thoughts? Listen, my beloved brothers
and sisters. Has not God chosen the poor in the world to be rich in faith and
to be heirs of the kingdom that he has promised to those who love him? But you
have dishonored the poor. Is it not the rich who oppress you? Is it not they
who drag you into court? Is it not they who blaspheme the excellent name that
was invoked over you? You do well if you really fulfill the royal law according
to the scripture, “You shall love your neighbor as yourself.” But if you show
partiality, you commit sin and are convicted by the law as transgressors. For
whoever keeps the whole law but fails in one point has become accountable for
all of it. For the one who said, “You shall not commit adultery,” also said,
“You shall not murder.” Now if you do not commit adultery but if you murder,
you have become a transgressor of the law. So speak and so act as those who are
to be judged by the law of liberty. For judgment will be without mercy to
anyone who has shown no mercy; mercy triumphs over judgment. What good is it,
my brothers and sisters, if you say you have faith but do not have works? Can
faith save you? If a brother or sister is naked and lacks daily food, and one
of you says to them, “Go in peace; keep warm and eat your fill,” and yet you do
not supply their bodily needs, what is the good of that? So faith by itself, if
it has no works, is dead.
Mark 7:24-37
From there he set out and went away to the region of Tyre.
He entered a house and did not want anyone to know he was there. Yet he could
not escape notice, but a woman whose little daughter had an unclean spirit
immediately heard about him, and she came and bowed down at his feet. Now the
woman was a Gentile, of Syrophoenician origin. She begged him to cast the demon
out of her daughter. He said to her, “Let the children be fed first, for it is
not fair to take the children’s food and throw it to the dogs.” But she
answered him, “Sir, even the dogs under the table eat the children’s crumbs.”
Then he said to her, “For saying that, you may go—the demon has left your
daughter.” So she went home, found the child lying on the bed, and the demon
gone. Then he returned from the region of Tyre, and went by way of Sidon
towards the Sea of Galilee, in the region of the Decapolis. They brought to him
a deaf man who had an impediment in his speech; and they begged him to lay his
hand on him. He took him aside in private, away from the crowd, and put his
fingers into his ears, and he spat and touched his tongue. Then looking up to
heaven, he sighed and said to him, “Ephphatha,” that is, “Be opened.” And
immediately his ears were opened, his tongue was released, and he spoke
plainly. Then Jesus ordered them to tell no one; but the more he ordered them,
the more zealously they proclaimed it. They were astounded beyond measure,
saying, “He has done everything well; he even makes the deaf to hear and the
mute to speak.”
The message
A few weeks ago Jen and I watched a TV series called
“Rev”. It’s a BBC show one of her
friends in England recommended. The show
is about a young pastor who leaves a thriving Suburban church to try and
rebuild a struggling inner city congregation in London. The story centers around the pastor, his own
struggles and his relationships with the few remaining members of the
congregation, church leadership and community. It is part comedy and part sad
as he tries his best to address real challenges that many churches actually
face. In each episode, he fails in a place where nothing goes right. There is one episode where the young pastor
meets a famous and wealthy artist at a dinner party. The artist starts to
attend the church, offers to bail them out with a large donation and host an
art opening in the church sanctuary, which would bring a great deal of media
and attention to his congregation. As
usual in the show, after a series of misunderstandings and mistakes, it all
falls apart. There is another episode
where his church building is rented by a large and thriving young church that
takes over. The new church has a cult like leader, very weak theology and a
very large, desperately needed rent check. In this case, there is a dispute
between a leader of the large church and a homeless member of the small church. It is settled when the large church along
with the rent moves on to another place.
The small church sides with the homeless member, choosing the biblical
ways of understanding, welcome and forgiveness over rent.
In both situations,
we see a pastor and small church community trying to live out the words
James writes to the church almost 2000 years ago, when he asks “My brothers and
sisters, do you with your acts of favoritism really believe in our glorious
Lord Jesus Christ? For 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, and 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,”.
This issue of favoritism, of catering to those who can help
and dismissing those who need help, of welcoming the people like us while
ignoring those who are different, trying to please the rich and powerful while
trying to get rid of the poor and weak as quickly and cheaply as possible, has
always been around. As far as I can tell, it is one of those things that has
always been part of human life. Today, it comes up in all different ways, in
the suspicion of immigrants and new people, in the judgment of criminals long
after they have served their time, in the nagging idea that the poor are lazy,
in the way we, mostly unconsciously, welcome the rich and ignore the poor, and
in the racism that separates people, creates unnatural, preventable suffering,
and holds everyone back. Answering
James’ challenge “ do you with your acts of favoritism really believe in our
glorious Lord Jesus Christ?” honestly can be a very difficult thing.
Favoritism is a challenge that even Jesus faces. This
morning in one of the stranger conversations Jesus has, there are two things
which are hard to hear, First- Jesus starts out playing favorites, refusing to
help a syroiophoncian, a non-jewish woman in need and telling her “let the
children be fed first” meaning his ministry was to the children of Israel. In
Matthew’s version of this encounter, this is explicitly stated when Jesus
responds to her initial request for help by saying that he was sent only to the
lost sheep of the house of Israel.Second, that Jesus changes his mind. After this encounter, Jesus realizes and
teaches that the Kingdom of God has room for all people
.
Many people have looked at this reading and tried to shape
this conversation as a way where Jesus does not really mean the first things
that he says, that Jesus is testing the woman’s faith and pushing her to see if
she truly believes he has the power to help.
They look at the words and say it’s a clever dialogue or some sort of
coded talk. People try to make all sorts of excuses to lessen our difficulty in
a bible reading where Jesus calls a woman who wants help for her daughter, a
dog, and telling her he only helps Jews. I like to look at what the text says,
in all its nastiness because I think that is where we see a way to confront
favoritism and work for change.
First I think its important for us to see the value in
naming favoritism, in recognizing something wrong when we see or hear it, when
we skip over excuses and different ways to look at it. In this text Jesus reveals his initial though
that the kingdom of God was for the children of Israel. At the start of the
church, Peter and James feel the same way, changing their minds only after a
multi- year argument with Paul and his missionaries and visions from God. It is
ridiculous for us to pretend that we do not benefit, commit and suffer from
favoritism of all kinds. Even Jesus and his early followers seemed to get
caught up in it.
Second, and most importantly, in recognizing how things
start off, we see how the change that happens.
After the initial rejection and dismissal, the Syriophonican woman does
not give up, she knows if Jesus sees her faith, her need and her life as a
child of God, it will overwhelm his resistance. Jesus does not walk away, he listens, he
understands and he sees truly amazing faith someplace unexpected. After this encounter Jesus reaches out to
everyone, healing, teaching, caring for, sharing God’s promises with and
blessing all people.
Today, across the ELCA, many churches in Partnership with
the African Methodist Episcopal church in talking about racism and favoritism.
I honestly didn’t think of that that until I was almost done with this message.
For me this reading is one of the most exciting in the bible, it exposes the
realness of favoritism, how deeply it is ingrained in our world, rules,
thoughts, behaviors and ways of living.
It is also a message of hope, that with God, all things are possible,
that if we see how things are from other people’s perspectives, if we spend time together, listen, care, and
remember God loves all people, we will see amazing things in unexpected places.
This sermon was my last one from the revised common
lectionary readings. Starting next week, we will make the change to the narrative
lectionary. The most noticable change is that we will go from 4 readings to 1. We will start at the beginning of the story and revelation of God’s
love for us with the opening chapters of Genesis. From then until Christmas, we will walk
together through the Old Testament as we hear about God’s first conversations
with the world and see where the hope for Christmas comes from. I look forward to starting this journey with
you.
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