9/6/15
I’m going to read you the opening sentences of a letter sent this past Monday to all Episcopal churches from the Presiding Bishop and the President of the House of Deputies:
“Dear Sisters and Brothers in Christ,
On June 17, nine members of Mother Emanuel AME Church in Charleston, South Carolina were murdered by a white racist during their weekly Bible study. Just a few days later at General Convention in Salt Lake City, we committed ourselves to stand in solidarity with the AME Church as they respond with acts of forgiveness, reconciliation, and justice.
Now our sisters and brothers in the African Methodist Episcopal (AME) Church have asked us to make that solidarity visible by participation in ‘Confession, Repentance, and Commitment to End Racism Sunday’ on Sunday, September 6. We ask all Episcopal congregations to join this ecumenical effort with prayer and action.”
So we do that here today. Some of us may feel that racism is not particularly a front-burner issue for us here in New Milford. We seem to get along pretty well. This might be because we think we live in a largely homogeneous, white community (although if you come to the annual Literacy Volunteers dinner on Oct. 24 in our parish hall your eyes will b e wonderfully, joyfully opened, as mine were three years ago.) But there can be subtle, quiet racism that we participate in without being conscious of it, and that we enable by our silence.
But it is certainly a front-burner issue around the country. The Presiding Bishop’s letter quotes AME Bishop Reginald Jackson, who says, “Racism will not end with the passage of legislation alone; it will also require a change of heart and thinking. This is an effort which the faith community must lead, and be the conscience of the nation.” He is certainly right. And we need to be aware of what’s in our own hearts, especially as people of faith. The subject of racism and how we respond to it has to do with what it means to be a Christian.
We heard a couple of months ago from the letter to the Ephesians: “For ]Christ] is our peace; ...he…has broken down the dividing wall, that is, the hostility between us….[I]n him you also are built together spiritually as a dwelling place for God.” In Christian faith we are set in motion to break down walls, walls that we ourselves have erected for what we think is our own preservation.
By the grace of God, that all three of today’s Scripture readings have to do with this – funny how that happens - each in its own way.
Hearing the letter of James is what it must have been like to hear John the Baptist: his message is consistent, simple, direct, and most emphatic. Last week we heard it this way: “…be doers of the word, and not merely hearers who deceive themselves.” Today he puts it like this: “…faith by itself, if it has no works, is dead.”
These are not the words of a crank: Jesus says the same thing, repeatedly. From the gospel of Luke: “No good true bears bad fruit, nor again does a bad tree bear good fruit; but each tree is known by its own fruit.” Or again: “…[s]omeone who comes to me, hears my words, and acts on them…is like a man building a house, who dug deeply and laid the foundation on rock; when a flood arose, the river burst against that house but could not shake it, because it had been well built.”
We need this wake-up call from James because we’re human: we grow and change, we forget, we take our behavior for granted; and we need to maintain ourselves in the integrity of our faith just as we need to maintain our physical health. Jesus tells his disciples over and over to be alert, be awake. And we need to be alert about this dimension of our lives because we usually don’t recognize the ways in which God is at work all around us, all the time, inviting us to join in that work.
In the first verse of today’s passage James sets up an example of the connection between what we believe and what we do about that. He doesn’t accuse, or scold. He just puts the question: “…do you with your acts of favoritism really believe in our glorious Lord Jesus Christ?” The particular favoritism he chooses as an example is that of rich over poor. James says, if two people come into your church, one who’s well dressed and one not so much, do you say to the first, Have a seat here please; and to the other, Stand over there (meaning, we’ll see about a seat another time); or else, to that second person, the shabby one, Sit at my feet (that is, Sit on the floor, right here where I can keep an eye on you.)
Clearly there’s a principle here that involves more than simply the favoring of rich over poor: James says, “…have you not made distinctions among yourselves, and become judges with evil thoughts?” When we behave that way we become something other than who God intends us to be; we distort our own nature. In today’s reading James tells us to hold to the Golden Rule, or what he here calls the “royal Law”: you shall love your neighbor as yourself. The problem, quite clearly, is our tendency to choose our neighbors: to say this guy’s my neighbor, but this guy’s not. When we do that we’re not being faithful: we are not living the faith we profess. In James’ words: “…if you show partiality, you commit sin and are convicted by the law as transgressors.”
The gospel story of Jesus and the Syro-Phoenician woman is one of those in which we see Jesus learn something; in which Jesus’ knowledge of the presence of God within him leads him in a direction he doesn’t expect. Jesus has been by the Sea of Galilee, and at the beginning of today’s passage Mark tells us that Jesus ”set out and went away”. He does this from time to time: he removes himself from the normal course of his ministry,: he goes up on the mountain to pray, he gets in a boat and goes away, he gets away from the crowds who surround him. And he always does this for a reason. He’s human; and there are times when he gets tired, or over-taxed, or when he knows the Spirit of God within him is working something out. As it does in the garden of Gethsemane, when Jesus knows that what he wants may be at cross purposes with the will of God, and he needs to resolve it, so he goes off by himself to pray. (Good spiritual practice: when something’s got hold of you like that, stop: step back: pray about it.)
The Spirit is at work – on something – in Jesus, so he goes away. In this case he goes away to the region of Tyre – present-day Lebanon – which is a Gentile country, outside the kingdom of Judea, outside the boundaries of his ministry. But though he goes here specifically for peace and quiet, away from the people he’s been teaching, that turns out to be the very issue that God calls him to confront.
Mark tells us that Jesus “entered a house and did not want anyone to know he was there” – there’s a big “Do Not Disturb” sign hanging on the door. But it doesn’t work out that way. A woman comes to him because her “little daughter” has an unclean spirit. That means that she is diseased beyond human reach. The woman asks Jesus to help: she bows down before him: she knows that the power of God is within him, and that only that power can help.
But Jesus responds to her in a way that should give us pause. He tells her, Let the children be fed first, for it is not fair to take the children’s food and throw it to the dogs. He’s distinguishing between Jews and Gentiles: he’s saying that his ministry is to the Jews, the people of the covenant, and he gives them primacy of place. The metaphor he uses sounds harsh, but it’s not: the Greek word here translated “dogs” is a diminutive that means “puppies” or “pets”. But in the language of James, Jesus does show partiality, even though it be in order to fulfill his mission.
And the woman doesn’t take his answer as final; she says, Even the dogs under the table eat the children’s crumbs: we’re part of the family too, and we get hungry just like you do. And in beholding that faith, Jesus tells her, For saying that, you may go – the demon has left your daughter. So in this story, Jesus establishes a hierarchy (he shows partiality); the voice of faith speaks against it, says that’s not the truth; that voice – that act of speaking – breaks down a dividing wall (this time not between rich and poor, but between Jew and Gentile); and, through Jesus, the healing is thereby brought about.
The passage from Proverbs uses the first example: “the rich and the poor have this in common: the Lord is the maker of them all.” This is the bottom line. This is the ground of our existence; literally the source of our life.
And there are consequences when we don’t live in recognition of this truth. “Whoever sows injustice will reap calamity, and the rod of anger will fail.”
“Do not rob the poor because they are poor, or crush the afflicted at the gate; for the Lord pleads their cause and despoils of life those who despoil them.” So when we turn away from the poor and the afflicted, who before anything else are our brothers and sisters, we turn away from the source of life. That’s the “despoiling of life”. It’s not like a penalty that God makes us pay: it’s a natural consequence: you don’t use a muscle, it atrophies; you don’t water a plant, it dies. God pleads their cause because they’re God’s children just like we are. We know this. In the pursuit of our own self-interest, it’s easy to forget.
“The Lord pleads their cause”: this is attested throughout the Bible, that God looks to care for the weak, the oppressed, the marginalized. These are the distinctions that we make, the walls that we build. Today we look at the wall we build between ourselves and our sisters and brothers who happen to have skin of a different color than ours. And we remind ourselves not just to have faith, but to speak it; to bear witness that the skin is God’s creation but the wall is ours; and in our act of speech, our act of witness, we make room for God to do God’s work. Thanks be to God.
I’m going to read you the opening sentences of a letter sent this past Monday to all Episcopal churches from the Presiding Bishop and the President of the House of Deputies:
“Dear Sisters and Brothers in Christ,
On June 17, nine members of Mother Emanuel AME Church in Charleston, South Carolina were murdered by a white racist during their weekly Bible study. Just a few days later at General Convention in Salt Lake City, we committed ourselves to stand in solidarity with the AME Church as they respond with acts of forgiveness, reconciliation, and justice.
Now our sisters and brothers in the African Methodist Episcopal (AME) Church have asked us to make that solidarity visible by participation in ‘Confession, Repentance, and Commitment to End Racism Sunday’ on Sunday, September 6. We ask all Episcopal congregations to join this ecumenical effort with prayer and action.”
So we do that here today. Some of us may feel that racism is not particularly a front-burner issue for us here in New Milford. We seem to get along pretty well. This might be because we think we live in a largely homogeneous, white community (although if you come to the annual Literacy Volunteers dinner on Oct. 24 in our parish hall your eyes will b e wonderfully, joyfully opened, as mine were three years ago.) But there can be subtle, quiet racism that we participate in without being conscious of it, and that we enable by our silence.
But it is certainly a front-burner issue around the country. The Presiding Bishop’s letter quotes AME Bishop Reginald Jackson, who says, “Racism will not end with the passage of legislation alone; it will also require a change of heart and thinking. This is an effort which the faith community must lead, and be the conscience of the nation.” He is certainly right. And we need to be aware of what’s in our own hearts, especially as people of faith. The subject of racism and how we respond to it has to do with what it means to be a Christian.
We heard a couple of months ago from the letter to the Ephesians: “For ]Christ] is our peace; ...he…has broken down the dividing wall, that is, the hostility between us….[I]n him you also are built together spiritually as a dwelling place for God.” In Christian faith we are set in motion to break down walls, walls that we ourselves have erected for what we think is our own preservation.
By the grace of God, that all three of today’s Scripture readings have to do with this – funny how that happens - each in its own way.
Hearing the letter of James is what it must have been like to hear John the Baptist: his message is consistent, simple, direct, and most emphatic. Last week we heard it this way: “…be doers of the word, and not merely hearers who deceive themselves.” Today he puts it like this: “…faith by itself, if it has no works, is dead.”
These are not the words of a crank: Jesus says the same thing, repeatedly. From the gospel of Luke: “No good true bears bad fruit, nor again does a bad tree bear good fruit; but each tree is known by its own fruit.” Or again: “…[s]omeone who comes to me, hears my words, and acts on them…is like a man building a house, who dug deeply and laid the foundation on rock; when a flood arose, the river burst against that house but could not shake it, because it had been well built.”
We need this wake-up call from James because we’re human: we grow and change, we forget, we take our behavior for granted; and we need to maintain ourselves in the integrity of our faith just as we need to maintain our physical health. Jesus tells his disciples over and over to be alert, be awake. And we need to be alert about this dimension of our lives because we usually don’t recognize the ways in which God is at work all around us, all the time, inviting us to join in that work.
In the first verse of today’s passage James sets up an example of the connection between what we believe and what we do about that. He doesn’t accuse, or scold. He just puts the question: “…do you with your acts of favoritism really believe in our glorious Lord Jesus Christ?” The particular favoritism he chooses as an example is that of rich over poor. James says, if two people come into your church, one who’s well dressed and one not so much, do you say to the first, Have a seat here please; and to the other, Stand over there (meaning, we’ll see about a seat another time); or else, to that second person, the shabby one, Sit at my feet (that is, Sit on the floor, right here where I can keep an eye on you.)
Clearly there’s a principle here that involves more than simply the favoring of rich over poor: James says, “…have you not made distinctions among yourselves, and become judges with evil thoughts?” When we behave that way we become something other than who God intends us to be; we distort our own nature. In today’s reading James tells us to hold to the Golden Rule, or what he here calls the “royal Law”: you shall love your neighbor as yourself. The problem, quite clearly, is our tendency to choose our neighbors: to say this guy’s my neighbor, but this guy’s not. When we do that we’re not being faithful: we are not living the faith we profess. In James’ words: “…if you show partiality, you commit sin and are convicted by the law as transgressors.”
The gospel story of Jesus and the Syro-Phoenician woman is one of those in which we see Jesus learn something; in which Jesus’ knowledge of the presence of God within him leads him in a direction he doesn’t expect. Jesus has been by the Sea of Galilee, and at the beginning of today’s passage Mark tells us that Jesus ”set out and went away”. He does this from time to time: he removes himself from the normal course of his ministry,: he goes up on the mountain to pray, he gets in a boat and goes away, he gets away from the crowds who surround him. And he always does this for a reason. He’s human; and there are times when he gets tired, or over-taxed, or when he knows the Spirit of God within him is working something out. As it does in the garden of Gethsemane, when Jesus knows that what he wants may be at cross purposes with the will of God, and he needs to resolve it, so he goes off by himself to pray. (Good spiritual practice: when something’s got hold of you like that, stop: step back: pray about it.)
The Spirit is at work – on something – in Jesus, so he goes away. In this case he goes away to the region of Tyre – present-day Lebanon – which is a Gentile country, outside the kingdom of Judea, outside the boundaries of his ministry. But though he goes here specifically for peace and quiet, away from the people he’s been teaching, that turns out to be the very issue that God calls him to confront.
Mark tells us that Jesus “entered a house and did not want anyone to know he was there” – there’s a big “Do Not Disturb” sign hanging on the door. But it doesn’t work out that way. A woman comes to him because her “little daughter” has an unclean spirit. That means that she is diseased beyond human reach. The woman asks Jesus to help: she bows down before him: she knows that the power of God is within him, and that only that power can help.
But Jesus responds to her in a way that should give us pause. He tells her, Let the children be fed first, for it is not fair to take the children’s food and throw it to the dogs. He’s distinguishing between Jews and Gentiles: he’s saying that his ministry is to the Jews, the people of the covenant, and he gives them primacy of place. The metaphor he uses sounds harsh, but it’s not: the Greek word here translated “dogs” is a diminutive that means “puppies” or “pets”. But in the language of James, Jesus does show partiality, even though it be in order to fulfill his mission.
And the woman doesn’t take his answer as final; she says, Even the dogs under the table eat the children’s crumbs: we’re part of the family too, and we get hungry just like you do. And in beholding that faith, Jesus tells her, For saying that, you may go – the demon has left your daughter. So in this story, Jesus establishes a hierarchy (he shows partiality); the voice of faith speaks against it, says that’s not the truth; that voice – that act of speaking – breaks down a dividing wall (this time not between rich and poor, but between Jew and Gentile); and, through Jesus, the healing is thereby brought about.
The passage from Proverbs uses the first example: “the rich and the poor have this in common: the Lord is the maker of them all.” This is the bottom line. This is the ground of our existence; literally the source of our life.
And there are consequences when we don’t live in recognition of this truth. “Whoever sows injustice will reap calamity, and the rod of anger will fail.”
“Do not rob the poor because they are poor, or crush the afflicted at the gate; for the Lord pleads their cause and despoils of life those who despoil them.” So when we turn away from the poor and the afflicted, who before anything else are our brothers and sisters, we turn away from the source of life. That’s the “despoiling of life”. It’s not like a penalty that God makes us pay: it’s a natural consequence: you don’t use a muscle, it atrophies; you don’t water a plant, it dies. God pleads their cause because they’re God’s children just like we are. We know this. In the pursuit of our own self-interest, it’s easy to forget.
“The Lord pleads their cause”: this is attested throughout the Bible, that God looks to care for the weak, the oppressed, the marginalized. These are the distinctions that we make, the walls that we build. Today we look at the wall we build between ourselves and our sisters and brothers who happen to have skin of a different color than ours. And we remind ourselves not just to have faith, but to speak it; to bear witness that the skin is God’s creation but the wall is ours; and in our act of speech, our act of witness, we make room for God to do God’s work. Thanks be to God.