This is the second sermon in our series on the book of James
The
gospel story for this Sunday is the story of Jesus’ encounter with the Syrophoenician
woman (Mark 7:24-30. Jesus is in
Tyre. While there, he does something rather
un-Jesus-like. He’s pretty rude to
someone seeking his help.
He’s
in Tyre for a little down time – time to rest and recharge. And this woman, this GENTILE woman seeks him out to heal her daughter.
Tyre
was outside of Judea, a in a land of Gentiles.
Not only that, but the city of Tyre was a wealthy city. The residents of Tyre were living the good
life – one blogger pal likens it to ‘living on the right side of the tracks.’[i]
Was the
wealth and status of the woman what got to Jesus? He’s in this Gentile land to get away from
the crowds that follow him back home. He’s
tired and worn out. He’s seeking some
rest from the endless job of loving his neighbors - the Jewish peasants, poor,
sick, without an advocate, without anyone who will stand up for them.
But
that’s what Jesus does. He stands up for
them. He understands their needs and
hopes and fears and dreams. He is busy
doing God’s will, caring for the poor and widows and orphans and the most vulnerable
of society.
This
woman is everything his people are not.
And
his first response is to send this rich, non-Jewish woman away, with a rude
insult. He equates her request for
healing to asking that the food meant for the master’s children be given to the
dogs. It’s unbelievably rude – yes,
Jesus calls her a dog.
His
human nature gets the best of him.
Jesus
does exactly what James is talking about – except that in Jesus’ case, it’s the
rich getting shoved to the side in favor of the poor.
James
is writing to people who don’t have a problem showing honor and respect to
others – as long as that person is rich.
It’s the poor person who will get pushed aside, relegated to the corner –
getting the crumbs, so to speak.
James
calls them on it. Reminds them about God’s
love for the poor. James takes it a step
further and reminds them that the rich person they honor may just be the same
person who will have them in court later in the week.
Sometimes,
this passage gets interpreted to mean, “Treat the poor better than you treat
the rich.”
Except…
James
never says that.
James
says to not treat the poor less honorably than you would someone who is rich.
Treat
the rich with honor. Treat the poor with
honor, too. Treat everyone with the
honor and dignity deserved by a beloved child of God – which they are.
James
calls us out on our partisanship.
No
favoritism.
No
dividing people into ‘in’ and ‘out.’
None
of the putting people into categories that define some as good or bad, worthy
or unworthy:
o
rich
vs. poor
o
Jew
vs. Gentile (Greek)
o
slave
vs. free
o
man
vs. woman
o
old
vs. young
o
white
vs. black
o
pretty
vs. plain
o
rural
vs. urban
o
American
vs. immigrant
o
Red
vs. blue
Or any
of the myriad other ways we push people to the edges.
We all
do this – dismiss the “other.” The one not
like us. We treat them as if they were
less than ourselves. We sometimes turn
them into villains, or at least into someone with a suspicious character.
It’s
almost a primal drive – to identify those who are ‘in’ and those who are ‘out.’
James
asks, “Is that the way for someone who says he or she belongs to God to act?
Jesus
answers, “No. It’s not.”
The
woman takes Jesus’ insult and turns it into a pun, rephrasing her request – “Even
the dog eat the crumbs from the table, the leftovers. Don’t you have a leftover for me and my
daughter?”
Something
in her response makes Jesus stop,
and
look at her, look beyond the categories to see,
not the ‘other,’
but a child of God in need.
Jesus
does heal the woman’s daughter, and then goes on (in the rest of the assigned
text for this Sunday, Mark 7:31-37) to yet another Gentile region and heals a
deaf man there.
Because
- in the Kingdom of God, everyone belongs.
Everyone
is in the ‘in’ group – those who God loves.
Here’s
the hard part:
– everyone is in “the beloved child of God”
group, even those you think don’t deserve it.
James teaches
us that if you say you have faith, if you say you love God, then there’s only
one rule:
Love your neighbor as yourself.
Let’s
go back to the story this ‘royal law of love’ is most often associated
with.
If you
remember the story of the Good Samaritan (Luke 10:25-37), an expert in religious
law was questioning Jesus the Torah.
Jesus asked him what the law said, and the expert replied: You shall love the Lord your God with all your
heart, and with all your soul, and with all your strength, and with all your
mind; and your neighbor as yourself."
Apparently
loving God is the easy part. Loving the
neighbor is harder.
When
Jesus said that was all he needed, the expert was not happy. He could love God ok, but wanted to clarify
who was his neighbor. Just who did he
have to love? Basically, he wanted to
divide people into categories – who’s in and who’s out, neighbor or
not-neighbor.
In
telling the story of the ‘other’, the Samaritan, who was the only one to rescue
the injured man, Jesus made it clear that in God’s kingdom, everyone is
neighbor.
We
know the Samaritan is the neighbor to the injured man, because he is the one
who showed mercy. He acted in love,
lived his faith.
Love your neighbor as yourself.
It’s hard sometimes –
to get beyond our desire to put people in neat pigeon holes,
to treat everyone with dignity, not because of their power or wealth
or beauty but because they are created in the image of God and treat all with
dignity,
to love the other, especially if the other seems unlovable,
to stand with God in favor of the poor and oppressed and
vulnerable,
to meet the need of those who are hungry, or sick, or lonely or…
But that’s where God empowers us – with the seed of God’s word implanted
in our hearts in baptism. The seed grows
in our lives nourished each week when we hear God’s Word proclaimed and when we
come to God’s table. This plant that is
our new saint nature growing in us pushes out those desires as we confess our
partiality – those times we don’t love our neighbor as ourselves, making room
for God’s love to flow through us.
James
says “So,
you have been saved by grace through faith in Jesus Christ…ok…now what? What
difference does God’s grace make in your life? Are you loving your neighbor as
yourself? Show me!”
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