Sermon 9.9.12

Sermon 9.9.12

Proper 18, Year B

Proverbs 22:1-2, 8-9, 22-23

Psalm 125

James 2:1-10, (11-13), 14-17

Mark 7:24-37

With Scriptures like we have today and just after two party conventions and an election only a couple months away, I must say I am tempted to talk about politics!

Surely these scriptures have direct implications for the way our public life should be shaped.  Clearly they call us who are followers of these scriptures to have a particular faithful agenda when entering public life.  We are informed by some values and broad goals and then sometimes some very specific injunctions about how to live our individual and our corporate lives and how to be in relationship with the larger society around us.

We read in James “Faith without Works is Dead.”  And it is a particular kind of works that James is talking about.  Our previous reading from last week said that true religion is to care for the orphans and widows, the most vulnerable in our society.  This may come as a surprise to some folks who thought true religion was converting people to Christianity, telling folks that Jesus died for our sins and only through him can we get into heaven.  For James the essence of true religion is in our actions not our words.  In our attitude toward the poor, in our humble service, not in the way we lord it over people with our self-importance and self-righteousness.

Today’s scriptures give us some specific ways that we are to shape our common corporate life together, so that we can be a sign of a new way of living together, so that we can truly model this Good News of the Kingdom of God, and not just talk about it. 

He says don’t show favoritism.  He is really talking about favoritism to the wealthy.  He is condemning the special treatment we give people who wear fine clothes and gold jewelry, and he is condemning the way we ignore, discriminate and dishonor the poor among us:  making them sit on the floor or in the back while we bend over backwards to make sure the person of means has the best seat in the house.  The way we talk about helping, pray for the poor, hope they keep warm and well fed, but do nothing to provide for their physical needs.  “What good is this?” James says.  That is exactly what the scriptures say!  What good is this?  Faith without works - this kind of works - that truly serves the most vulnerable in our community, faith without that is dead!

In our society rich people are rock stars, they are the dream we all aspire to, the goal and hope for which we all strive: the American dream.  For many of us the life they lead is the heaven we seek.  I remember Hilary and Corey’s grandmother, a very wealthy woman, saying to us once, “Now don’t get mad at me,” she said, already anticipating our opposition, “But we were talking last night and you know, this is heaven, we have heaven on earth here and now.”  And many of us would agree with her.

We also honor rich people for making possible the good life that rest of us enjoy, for creating jobs.  The model wealthy person understands their role in being leaders in the larger society, being benefactors and patrons of all the arts and education and all institutions that make up the quality of life we all enjoy.  Noblesse Oblige.  This promise is held out to every American, that you too can make it and be successful.  Maybe you won’t get so incredibly wealthy, but you can live in the middle class: own a home, have a good paying job, a small business or farm, get a good education, care for your family and contribute to your community. You too can do your share of giving back to the community.  We talk about the middle class as though we are not incredibly wealthy, but compared to the rest of the world . . . We imagine that we are the envy of the whole world and we lift up this American life style as the beacon of light for the rest of the world, a little slice of heaven on earth.

It’s a subtle thing, what this position of power and privilege begins to do to us.  It is a thing we keep hidden from ourselves.  We don’t like to admit it, but we begin to think that after all, we do deserve the best seat in the house.  We pat ourselves on the back and allow others to praise us as well for just how good we are.  And we talk such a good talk, especially every four years or so, about this American dream, in rousing inspiring speeches about how this is the greatest nation on earth!  While the poor continue to live out in the cold, to go without food.  Again it is a subtle thing, but we blame them.  That is the dominant discourse.  They are somehow inferior.  We say they just don’t work hard enough, or they are criminals, not playing by the same rules as the rest of us, or they are broken in some way by some self-inflicted wound that makes them the exception to this American Dream.  It is really their fault. 

But James makes no mention of this kind of blame in today’s scripture. There are certainly scriptures about personal responsibility, but what James talks about here is the system that gets set up whether it is our small congregational gathering as was the setting in James or in the larger society as a whole, in which the wealthy of means and power and position are privileged at the expense of the poor.  Coming to terms with our own privilege, finding ways to move beyond it personally in our own individual lives and to restructure our community intentionally to model something completely different: this is the hard work of discipleship, this is what it means to take up our cross and follow Jesus.  It begins by turning our pious words and concern for the poor into real action to help, that is a good thing, but it goes further as we find the deep ways in our lives that we can give up privilege in whatever form it takes.

According to our proverbs reading this is the beginning of wisdom.  It is the No 2 saying in the Thirty sayings for the wise that are listed in Proverbs 22. 

Do not exploit the poor because they are poor
    and do not crush the needy in court,
²³ for the Lord will take up their case
    and will exact life for life.

The Lord is clearly on the side of the poor who are being exploited in this scripture.  Remember that!  That is the scriptures talking and the warning is indeed harsh for those who would seek to do harm to the least of these.  “God will exactly Life for Life!” Proverbs 22 is all about the rich and the poor.  The author of Proverbs knows that “The rich rule over the poor, and the borrower is slave to the lender.” This is from verse 7, which is left out of our reading today.  But the lectionary which some times tends to try to soften the harshness of scripture cannot hide completely the clear preference God is calling the wise to have in these passages. 

“A good name is more desirable than great riches; to be esteemed is better than silver or gold.  Rich and poor have this in common: The Lord is the Maker of them all.”  All of this echoing the letter of James:  the admonishment against favoritism toward the wealthy and the call to a life of integrity in which our words and actions really go together to create a good name.  And there is the same call to a specific kind of action: In verse 8 and 9 from the Proverbs passage:

⁸ Whoever sows injustice reaps calamity,
    and the rod they wield in fury will be broken.

⁹ The generous will themselves be blessed,
    for they share their food with the poor.

Even Jesus had to learn this lesson about moving away from privilege in order to bring about the just and peaceable Kingdom of God in which all could be included in the blessing of healing and hope he had to offer.  A Syrophoenician woman came to him looking for an exorcism for her daughter.  She was not Jewish, not one of the chosen, not one of the privileged and amazingly Jesus’ first response to her was exactly from a position of privilege, of favoritism.  “It’s not right to take the children’s bread and toss it to the dogs!”  He just called this woman a dog, someone destined to beg at the table for crumbs and leftovers, never to be given a seat of honor at the table of blessing that is only reserved for the children of Israel.

My daughter is now in Lebanon, documenting the work of local artists painting murals in a Palestinian Refugee camps in Beirut.  These people have been living for decades discarded, forgotten, without homes in a refugee camps, in poverty, begging for scraps while the privileged position of Israel continues to be one of the cornerstones of our foreign policy.  Ok, ok, I know that that was a controversial statement!  But you see how hard the lesson is to learn!  What inclusion and justice and peace really look like and what it takes to really truly get the peace with justice that will make everyone whole, include everyone in the blessing of God’s creation.

The woman’s response to Jesus was filled with irony.  “Even the dogs under the table eat the children’s crumbs.”  When Jesus heard this response he was not content to just give her crumbs!  I believe he learned something powerful from this woman.  Jesus himself was on a journey from privilege to emptying himself for the sake of all.  We believe that he was God and scriptures say that he left equality with God to become human and die on a cross, emptying himself of all the power and privilege he had.  Doing exactly that is what it takes to have his power spread out and shared and bring new life to everyone.  To empower others, you have to give it away.  That is how it works.  That is what Jesus shows us, that is how we are called to follow.  But of course this is a hard lesson, and on a human level, this very human Jesus as well, he too had to learn this lesson.  He too had to learn how to let go of his narrow point of view, of his prejudice about his own and his own people’s position in the world in order to proclaim in word and deed that everyone can be included in the phase, “People of God!”  Its not a lesson we learn once and for all; it is life time of coming up against our privilege and letting go of our power for the sake of empowering and equipping others.

But once you begin to get it, there is no stopping you!  There was no stopping Jesus once he learned this lesson!  His power was shared and given to all. The blind and lame, the deaf and dumb, could see, and walk and hear and speak again.  The most vulnerable were not just given scraps from the table of the privilege, they were given sight and hearing and they were able to walk on their own two feet, they were given a voice to speak on their own behalf.  Jesus could not keep them quiet, even though he tried!  Once you let this cat out of the bag there is no containing it!  They were filled with the power of the Holy Spirit. They found new life, healing and wholeness and they too were given a place - they claimed a place - at the table of blessing with all of the children of God.

This is the gospel message.  This is what Scriptures says.  I’m not making it up!  This is the story; these are the values that take us out into the public arena:  the basic story line from the Song of Mary that the rich might be humbled and the poor exalted.  That is the Good News.  Now I have to be careful here.  This is not a specific public policy necessarily.  There are good people on all sides of the public debate that have contributions to make to toward a more just world.  But one thing this story clearly does not do.  It does not set up a false dichotomy between private and public life, as though religion were relegated only to the private spiritual realm and had nothing to say about how we treat one another in society.  This story also does not draw some false distinguish between private charity and the stuff we do together as a whole society.  It talks as much about one person giving another person a piece of bread and a cup of water as it does about reforming the rules governing our lending practices so the rich do not exploit the poor.

At the heart of the story is the question of privilege and power and the question we must ask ourselves, especially now, as we seek to make our faithful choices in this upcoming election, “What are we doing with our own privilege and power?”  Some of us might think others have more than we do, we might feel like we are the oppressed and powerless ones.  But everyone finds themselves in a position just as Jesus was in, to withhold help or give it, to lord it over someone else or find a way to serve and empower others, to hang on to our seat or give it up for someone else, or maybe just move over a little bit to make room for everyone!

Jesus learned this lesson and there was no stopping the power to heal and bring new life that was released.  I pray that we continue each day to learn this lesson ourselves, and as we come to this table now may we too present ourselves a living sacrifice to God, which is our spiritual worship.   May we too be filled with the power of the Spirit that Christ’s sacrificial love has brought to the world:  the power to include everyone in the blessing of God’s creation!  AMEN.