So says The System. Work! Sweat! Keep your nose to the grindstone, your shoulder to the wheel! And then you’ll be rich! And if you’re not, then you must have done something wrong. Or else God just doesn’t like you. Texts to be heard this weekend challenge us to change our stance toword the Work Ethic, reminding us that God loves rich and poor alike.
Selected verses from PROVERBS 22 tend to bend the point to our counter-cultural direction. But Vicki of Nashville has included v.22, “Do not rob the poor because they are poor, or crush the afflicted at the gate.” The purpose of these proverbs is to guide the hearer into a wise and ethical community. The prevailing social view is that the Poor–or anyone not fitting the conventional mark–is a Loser. Bullies usually pick on the smallest, most vulnerabled kid on the playground. Yet all are created in the image of God, and deserve their place within the community.
The Epistle of JAMES (2:1-17) continues to ask the embarassing question, “Do you with your acts of favoritism really believe in our glorious Lord Jesus Christ?” Through the generations the System has told us, “Cultivate those that have power, befriend the well-to-do”. But there’s no place for favoritism within the House of God! How then shall we stitch the outcasts of The System into the Living Church?
The stories told by MARK in 7:24-37 serve to be models of our own discipleship. Here was Jesus, in an alien culture, being asked by throw-away Gentiles for healing. If nothing else, these picture an expansion of the Chritstly mission to disregard the borders someone drew: in national territories, in proper expressions of tradition, in self-indulgent views of the rich and those poor… These also speak of the community formed by expectation–the mother interceding for the daughter, the crowd interceding for the deaf & speechless man. As Jesus ministered to these “least” ones, how can we not minister to the needy nearby?
When I got my doctorate, one of my pals sent me a congratulatory card which read, “If you’re so smart, why aint ya rich?” The System will raise its viscious head until the Last Day (see Revelation). True faith is demonstrated through our acts of mercy and welcome; again we’re asked to Walk the Walk.
In the process of unfolding, Horace Brown King
Every Tuesday we delve into the core of Biblical readings to be heard in worship on the upcoming weekend; please join us at horacebrownking.com
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