There’s something about us homonids that makes us want to draw lines, usually in the sand. It may be our own insecurity about Who We Are, or a misplaced sense of wanting to win. But we’re good at including some and excluding the others, finding some little detail to justify our actions. Some of us feel challenged by cultures and values not our own; others will cite trumped-up anxieties about scarcity and sharing the Good Life. Scriptures that are about to address us this weekend have a common commandment: “DON’T DO THAT!”
Several verses from PROVERBS 22 are chosen, vv. 1-2, 8-9, and 22-23. They remind the Hebrew people, until recently insulated from alien belief, that God and God’s Power extend beyond geographic and language frontiers. “The rich and the poor have this in common: the Lord is the maker of them all.” These verses refer not only to our individual ethics, but beyond these to the unity of the community however we define it. How then are we tied up in the lives of those around us? And what value can we give to Those People next door? Will we insult YHWH by demeaning those whom God created and pronounced “Good”?
Despite the issues some of our Church Founders had about the writings of JAMES, the author continues to bring us good things. The reading at hand is 2:1-17, which speaks of “the royal law” of “loving your neighbor as yourself”. A hypothetical situation in a service of worship is described: an obviously well-dressed person and a shabbily dressed person both show up, and who gets the better seat? In the Church, James says, there’s no place for distinction. As one who’s been there, it’s good to know that here’s one place where you can’t be looked down on! Archie Smith, Jr. notices two concerns: 1, that we and they all bear God’s image; and 2, that many who seem externally “rich” may well be spiritually impoverished (FEASTING on the WORD, B 4:40). This is a radical expression of Christianity: to weave all comers into the fabric of the congregation/community.
The Gospel Lesson is MARK 7:24-37, which remembers two healings Jesus performed in (gasp!) Gentile country. The first is rather awkward, since it depicts Jesus as willing to withhold healing from the Syro-Phoenician woman: “It is not fair to take the children’s food and throw it to the dogs!” He said that?? But she made him come around to see that God has no partiality, even–especially–in Tyre & Sidon! The second part of this remembers how the community brought a deaf man for healing–both of these accounts have a happy ending, and are included here to demonstrate how God loves ALL the children of the world… “In these stories it is not the faith of the disabled person that brings about their healing, but the active faith of their companions.” (Dawn Ottoni Wilhelm, ibid.) A little non-Jewish woman-child was healed. So was a sinful (?) foreign man. Is this an inclusive God or what?!
As I grow older, I’m sorry to realize that my own prejudices too often pop out: when I drive through ethnic-centered neighborhoods; when I’m galled by irresponsible traffic; or when “their” music is too loud… So I need to hear these readings even again to break through my complacent isolation and give ’em a break. May God help us all to be more inclusive.
In the process of unfolding, Horace Brown King
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