James Rant

 Sometimes when a person preaches directly what the scriptures are saying,

            you can get into trouble,

because there is no way to avoid the political implications.

 

If the ancient scriptures the Christian Church has been reading for 2,000 years

            have a message for today

                       as much as it did for the times in which it was written,

            there is no avoiding political implications,

because history tends to repeat itself

            since humans have a way of forgetting the past 

                                    and disregarding the wisdom of the our ancestors.

 

I am going to start with the Gospel for today

            in which two healings take place.

First you are going to have to remember what the Gospel reading was

                                                for last week.

 

The Pharisees asked a question that was critical of Jesus’ disciples, 

            - remember? they didn’t wash their hands before eating! - 

and Jesus came back at them forcefully and directly

regarding the orientation of the question around traditional rituals

            that had been elevated in practice over the heart of the Law

                        that is focused first and foremost in relationship.

He said,

            “You have a fine way of rejecting the commandment of God 

            in order to keep your tradition!”

 

After all, the first and great commandment is to love God, 

and the second, like it, is to love your neighbor.

            The Law, the Torah, the Commandments are first and foremost

            concerned with relationship.

 

It is not the observance of laws about what we eat, 

                        what we take into ourselves, 

but what is produced in our own hearts that we then speak, 

                        what we put out there 

that shows us up.  

 

Now the rest of the story:

 

Jesus leaves the country; he goes to Tyre on the Mediterranean seacoast first,

            then back to the Sea of Galilee, but to the Roman area of the Decapolis,

                        places outside his own religion, non-Jewish.

So let’s note what is special about each of the two healings 

                        that take place in Gentile territory.

 

First the Syrophoenician woman (unclean to observant Pharasees)

            asks for healing for her daughter afflicted with an unclean spirit.

Remember from last week that Jesus said :

            it’s not keeping kosher so that you don’t eat unclean things that is the issue,

                        not what goes into the body,

            but rather what comes out of the heart, the core of our being.

And what comes out of Jesus is healing compassion.

 

And notice that the interchange between Jesus and the woman is like 

            a lived out parable for the sake of the disciples with him.

Jesus says, “it is not fair to take the children’s food and throw it to the dogs.”

            Well, honestly, the woman and the disciples would understand this

                        as so typical of the attitude of the Jewish establishment 

            that they were superior to their pagan neighbors.

But notice this:

            the woman knows something about Jesus and what he has to offer

and apparently just being around him 

            encourages her spiritual discernment that healing is flowing out of him,

                                                ABUNDANTLY

because she responds in a way 

            that seems to say that she gets what Jesus is about.

By using the example of children eating at the table,

            there is no need to take their food to throw to the dogs.

The dogs are being fed already with what the children drop from the table.

                                    (Doesn’t anyone with kids and dogs know this?)

The power of Jesus was obviously falling off the table.

Healing is overflowing out of Jesus, enough to go around and even more.

 

So Jesus in the Decapolis region heals a person that was brought to him,

            and I can’t help but notice that Jesus models how to pastorally minister

                        to someone who is deaf and therefore can’t speak.

            His actions, one might say, are intimate sign language 

                        for the man to understand what was happening to him.

 

Lesson: Jesus is no “respecter of persons,” does not discriminate.

            These people are not unclean to him

            or beneath his compassion, love and mercy.

 

Now, James – 

            “My brothers and sisters, do you with your acts of favoritism

            really believe in our glorious Lord Jesus Christ?”

If you favor the rich over the poor,

            you must not believe Jesus, you must be ignorant of him,

                                    you aren’t really a bona fide disciple of him.

 

Do we not see the very thing that is discussed in this Epistle reading

            played out around us today?

If a well known billionaire were to walk into Nativity on a Sunday morning,

            I can easily imagine how this rich person would be welcomed

                        and deferred to.

Now Nativity has a very good practice of offering hospitality 

            to those who come on Tuesday mornings and Saturday evenings.

What if these guests were to start coming on a Sunday morning?

            Would we accommodate them into our parish family as readily

            as those who could possibly become big donors and tithing members?

 

I want to think you folks could do that

            contrary to the way the rest of the world regards them.

 

The disenfranchised, the poor are not valued in the places of power.

They are expendable; they are the losers.

 

The rules favor those who can pay their way,

            and the rules are made by those who have been able to do well

                        and who therefore think that everyone else could do as well

                                    if they just applied themselves more,

            blind to the fact that there is no level playing field to start from.

 

James again: “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 … ?

But you have dishonored the poor.

Is it not the rich who oppress you?  Is it not they who drag you into court?”

 

Well, folks, if it’s a billionaire 

                        or the owners of a large, prosperous pharmaceutical company, 

            the laws seem to bend toward them

                        whether with tax advantages 

                        or the ability to retain personal wealth 

            in the face of so many lives left deeply harmed or destroyed.

 

James, the epistle writer, 

            follows the great tradition of the Old Testament prophets

                        in pointing out God’s preferential regard for 

                                    the disenfranchised, the poor, the expendables,

James echos the reading from the Prophet Isaiah this morning,

            who says to those very same disenfranchised, poor, expendables souls,

“Be strong, do not fear!

Here is your God.

He will come with vengeance, with terrible recompense.”

            Vengeance – not revenge as we might think of it,

            but vindication and setting right was is wrong.

Vindication for the disenfranchised, the poor, the expendables, the losers.

 

Looking at what is up globally for the human species at this very moment,

            with demonstrated climate change

            and a pandemic that keeps mutating and staying virulent, 

our lives and well being just may depend on the poor and expendables,

            for until all global-ly have the vaccinations,

                        none of us are safe from the impact of this virus.

 

So how can we here respond in a helpful way 

            to all this doom and gloom I have been laying out before us.

To quote James again:

            “So speak and so act as those who are to be judged by the law of liberty.”

The law of liberty

            that is, the release from the hopeless striving to be perfect in observing all the commandments of God out of our own efforts,

            and the discovery of law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus,

                        which sets us free from the law of sin and death.

Read all about it in Romans, chapter 8.

 

To quote James again:

            “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.”

            “Mercy triumphs over judgment.”

 

Mercy – a beautiful word – God’s compassion, care and love 

            flowing abundantly towards us

            whether we deserve it or not, whether we know our need for it or not.

Mercy,

what flows out of the heart of Jesus, and is pure and powerful.

 

This is the Heart out of which flows the Word in creation,

            the radiance of God, the First Light.

 

This flowing from the Heart of Jesus is the flow of Life itself,

            which to be in is to be healed, that is, to be in wholeness, in salvation.