There Is No Good Samaritan

The parable of the Good Samaritan is a fantastic example of Jesus’ ability to see behind motives, address the underlying concerns and reveal the truth of God among those who only want to cover it up.  Most likely the lawyer is sent by the religious leaders to use his cross-examination skills to put Jesus to shame and reduce the threat he posed to the “I’ve got God in my Pocket” religion of the day.

A lawyer is supposed to ask questions in such a way so as to lead the person being questioned to the inextricable conclusion that favors the lawyer’s client.  Jesus turns the table on the lawyer by telling a story and asking questions of the lawyer. He does to the lawyer what the lawyer was supposed to do to him.  In the end, Jesus asks the question:  “Which of these do you think was a neighbor to the man who fell into the hands of the neighbor?” and the lawyer has to say:  “The one who showed him mercy.”  Jesus 1, Lawyer 0.  Truth 1, hidden agenda 0.  God’s love for all 1,  our need to discriminate 0. 

The lawyer comes representing those who believe that THERE ARE NO GOOD SAMARITANS!  A corollary of this is that the Samaritan would not be a neighbor in the sense of one we have to love.  So, in fact, Jesus has three answers to the man’s question about the neighbor – the one in need is the neighbor you should love; the Samaritan you despise and malign is the neighbor you should love – the more important question is not who is the neighbor, but who acts like a neighbor.  Jesus 3, Lawyer 0

If Jesus lived in the United States the man, in the parable, who fell among thieves might have been on a lonely road in the south of Arizona and the first to pass would probably have been a Christian Minuteman out looking for illegal aliens crossing the border to abuse and the second might have been a legislator who voted for the recent discriminatory immigration law of that state.  And, you guessed it, the one who stopped and helped would have been a Mexican who had just crossed the border to look for work and who had no legal papers.  That is what is missing from our debate about immigration – mercy and a recognition that immigrants, legal and illegal are children of God, our neighbors for whom we are asked by god to love just the way God loves us.

But, don’t forget the original question:  “What must I do to inherit Eternal Life?”  There is a presumption here that Jesus does not agree with.  “Inherit” is not something that belongs in the same category as “eternal life,” despite the fact that many believe that because they are American, rich, Lutheran or Pentecostal or some other category of status that they should enjoy, if not eternal life, then privilege in relationship to others.  The answer to the first question is the same as to the second question and if right out of the Sermon on the Mount, Luke, chapter 6:  “Be Merciful , just as your father is merciful.”

The Best Sermon Ever Preached, Pentecost 20

Mark 10:35-45

³⁵James and John, the sons of Zebedee, came forward to him and said to him, “Teacher, we want you to do for us whatever we ask of you.” ³⁶And he said to them, “What is it you want me to do for you?” ³⁷And they said to him, “Grant us to sit, one at your right hand and one at your left, in your glory.” ³⁸But Jesus said to them, “You do not know what you are asking. Are you able to drink the cup that I drink, or be baptized with the baptism that I am baptized with?” ³⁹They replied, “We are able.” Then Jesus said to them, “The cup that I drink you will drink; and with the baptism with which I am baptized, you will be baptized; ⁴⁰but to sit at my right hand or at my left is not mine to grant, but it is for those for whom it has been prepared.”

⁴¹When the ten heard this, they began to be angry with James and John. ⁴²So Jesus called them and said to them, “You know that among the Gentiles those whom they recognize as their rulers lord it over them, and their great ones are tyrants over them. ⁴³But it is not so among you; but whoever wishes to become great among you must be your servant, ⁴⁴and whoever wishes to be first among you must be slave of all. ⁴⁵For the Son of Man came not to be served but to serve, and to give his life a ransom for many.”

There is little reason to make commentary or preaching points on this text.  There was never a better understanding of these expressed, never a better sermone preached than one by Dr. Martin Luther King called “The Drum Major Instict”.  Just do a web search with MLK and the name of the sermon for a text that lays it all out for our world.

Suffering Servant/Atonement Revisited, Pentecost 20

Isaiah 53: 4-12

 ⁴Surely he has borne our infirmities and carried our diseases; yet we accounted him stricken, struck down by God, and afflicted. ⁵But he was wounded for our transgressions, crushed for our iniquities; upon him was the punishment that made us whole, and by his bruises we are healed. ⁶All we like sheep have gone astray; we have all turned to our own way, and the Lord has laid on him the iniquity of us all. ⁷He was oppressed, and he was afflicted, yet he did not open his mouth; like a lamb that is led to the slaughter, and like a sheep that before its shearers is silent, so he did not open his mouth. ⁸By a perversion of justice he was taken away. Who could have imagined his future? For he was cut off from the land of the living, stricken for the transgression of my people. ⁹They made his grave with the wicked and his tomb with the rich, although he had done no violence, and there was no deceit in his mouth.

¹⁰Yet it was the will of the Lord to crush him with pain. When you make his life an offering for sin, he shall see his offspring, and shall prolong his days; through him the will of the Lord shall prosper. ¹¹Out of his anguish he shall see light; he shall find satisfaction through his knowledge. The righteous one, my servant, shall make many righteous, and he shall bear their iniquities. ¹²Therefore I will allot him a portion with the great, and he shall divide the spoil with the strong; because he poured out himself to death, and was numbered with the transgressors; yet he bore the sin of many, and made intercession for the transgressors.

 

There are, on the face of it, competing notions of how the “servant” saves many by his death.  A popular, and I think, wrong understanding of the text is one in which “we” take no part except to standby and see what God and the “servant” can do about our sin.  This is the most common understanding of atonement even among Christians – that the “servant” pays the price of our sin to God and thus saves us from our sin.

Here is what we can agree on – the “servant” ( at this point in the Old Testament it could be Israel – the people of God – or it could be a savior who is to come) dies as a result of our transgressions, he is oppressed, he is convicted by a perversion of justice, cut off from the land of the living even though he has done no violence and has not spoken in deceit.  The “servant” is laid to rest with the “sinners.” 

If we assume, as some exegetes do, that Isaiah 53: 1-10 is the voice of the people in a dialogue with Yahweh and verses 11-13 is the voice of God, then we see that the people think that God caused this injustice, this violence to happen to his son instead of us who deserved it:   ¹⁰Yet it was the will of the Lord to crush him with pain..”

But, God’s voice says that that he did not crush the “servant” with pain, but the “servant” accomplished the salvation of many ; because he poured out himself to death, and was numbered with the transgressors; yet he bore the sin of many, and made intercession for the transgressors.

What if the “for our sins” and “bore our sins” means he died “because of our sins”, i.e. not that our sins were paid for by his death, but that he paid the price of death because of our sins.  And, then he prayed for us. 

What is this sin that makes us the real transgressors?  It could be that we submit ourselves to a system of violence that takes the lives of innocents, people who have done no violence and cannot defend themselves as Jesus did not defend himself (he did not open his mouth; like a lamb that is led to the slaughter, and like a sheep that before its shearers is silent, so he did not open his mouth.)

Well, you say, Jesus refused to let his disciples to stand up for him when he told Peter to put down the sword and when he rejected the use of violence against a system of violence.  Yes, exactly, because to sanctify so-called “good” violence to defeat “bad” violence is to play the same game and saves no one from sin. Somebody had to stop the sin game in which we all capitulate to the cycle of violence that keep some on top and all of us slaves to fear.  If we had all stood up together, Jesus would not have had to stand alone.  Who killed the servant?  We all did/do.  But God chose to make the one who stood alone his son or, some would say, God chose his son to stand alone against the system of “sacred violence” that destroys us.  Either way, the story of salvation is the same, the one who stands with those who suffer, the servant is the one who shall make many righteous,

Here’s a story that is true.  For years in the 1990s I worked for the World Council of Churches in Guatemala in a diplomatic mission with several embassies and their diplomatic corp, the United Nations and international NGOs in order to return about 45,000 Guatemalan refugees who had been in Mexico after fleeing scorched earth in nothern Guatemala to their homeland.  During this time, on more than one instance I observed how rural peasants (campesinos) protected themselves from violence. 

Let me say that the cycle of violence in northern Guatemala had been made complete:  the army destroyed more than 400 villages in northern Guatemala to drive out the rebels who had taken up arms as a result of offical state violence.  In the place of the rural campesinos who were driven out, they place other poor campesinos on their lands and gave them title to the land if they would take up arms in Civilian Defense Patrols to keep the rebels from coming back.  The “rebels” were any of those who had lived on the land before. 

At one point in the process a group of us monitors, observers, mediators were taken hostage by one of these Civilian Defense Patrols who were not in agreement with the refugees returning to their lands despite the fact that we had spent 2 years negotiating a settlement to all land questions to the satisfaction of all parties, including the refugees, the local campesions, the army and the government.  The action of the hostage taking was inistigated by a local strong man who saw the return of refugees as threatening his control of the region.  He gave the orders.

We were held under the control of local armed campesinos in a wooden shed in the center of a poor rural village.  There were, among us, UN peacekeepers, a doctor from France, a volunteer from Canada and myself, so the government was not pleasde to see this happen and the news spread to all our embassies and around the world.  The government answer was “violence”:  send in the National Police. 

For our part, we were committed by our institutions and our own commitments to nonviolence and we understood that the sins that caused us to be taken hostage were the sins of all of us – the refusal to oppose the violence on both sides of the conflict and the tacit support of this violence. We told the National Police to keep the peace but not to try to rescue us by use of arms because it just would not work and it would not benefit the long term process of peace.  We also knew that campesinos have a secret weapon against overwhelming arms when there are outside observers. 

Despite our warnings, the head of the National Police (who we were sure was acting on order from above) placed a line of his men with rifles in front of our door and entered our quarters to tell us to get ready to go, he was going to take us out under heavy armed guard to a waiting helicopter.  But it didn’t work.  By this time, the local strong man was no longer present and his men had slipped away because, in fact, there was a judicial order in force to arrest him for previous actions.  Nevertheless, the local community was not about to have its prize possessions taken away by the National Police, so they did what we had seen them do on several occassions before:  they massed in front of the men with rifles – civilians without arms, a nonviolent protest of many who stood up together to say:  “your choice” – you can massacre us or you can desist from using your arms to solve this problem.  With the eyes of the world on this situation, the Police had no choice but to desist.  The National Police Chief never got us even to the door before his own men stepped aside for the local campesion leaders to enter and tell us that we were not going anywhere until the government met their demands.  

As a result we started a conversation and by the end of the day we had negotiated our release with the reasonable minds in the community and even arranged for the local residents and the returning refugees who were camped less than a mile outside the town to restart negotiations for their return the next day. 

I have to admit that it was only  a momentary victory for nonviolence as the cycle of violence is profound in Guatemala as it is in the world itself.  But, it was a moment of salvation when campesinos, unlike disciples, decided to nonviolently oppose the violence in which they themselves had participated.  For moment, the trangressors which were all of us who had caused the death of many innocents decided not to play the game the way they had been taught to play the game. There was a momentary victory for the servant, a moment of salvation that might even be remembered on occasion as a source of strength to stop the violence we do to each other in the future. 

In fact, a neighboring community heard of what had happened and decided they would take their lives in their own hands and reject the whole history of the awful civil war.  Two months after being taken hostage we returned to this neighborhing community for the ceremony where they gave back the guns given to them by the army as a way of saying that the returning refugees and the ones who took their place on the land would look for a way to live together in peace. 

Sam’s Ham Belongs to God, Pentecost 19

Amos 5:6-7, 10-15; Hebrews 4:12-16; Mark 10: 17-31

 

There are some things in these texts that we have read today which are

•  Difficult to understand if we do not take into account the reality in which Jesus lived;
• some things which are all too clear and disturbing, especially for those in power and those with wealth;
• and some things that are implicit but, perhaps, hidden from first view, that serve as a message to all of us.

 

For instance, it may not be apparent why Amos mentions the gate of the city in conjunction with the question of doing justice, unless we remember that it was at the city gate that judgments were given out in disputes that arose in the community.. and it was at the gate that decisions were made about who had access to the city and who did not. 

 It is not apparent to many, but very clear in the Gospels and especially in the Gospel of Mark, that it was a dangerous thing to follow Jesus.  In Chapter 1, when Jesus heals a Leper, he tells the Leper not to tell anyone, but the Leper tells everyone and then it says:  “he went out and began to proclaim it freely and to spread the word, so that Jesus could no longer go into a town openly, but stayed out in the country..” 

 At the end of Chapter 2 and the beginning of Chapter 3 Jesus has encounters with the Pharisees when he plucks grain on the Sabbath (supposedly against the law) in order to feed hungry disciples and heals the hand of a withered man on the Sabbath.  After these two incidents, Mark reports: The Pharisees went out and immediately conspired with the Herodians against him, how to destroy him.

 Jesus was a man on the move who tried not be anyplace too long in order not to give his enemies the chance to arrest him.  And, he staid away from his family home in order not to bring suspicion upon them.  And his disciples had to make this commitment.  The disciples immodestly say that this is what they have done – “Look we have left everything and followed you.” Nevertheless they never lacked for a place to stay or something to eat or for  many, many people who were like brothers and sisters to them… for they all were like a family, involved in a great undertaking of spreading the good news of a God who loved the outcast, healed the sick, forgave the sinner, calmed the people’s fear and created the possibilities of imagining a world of justice and of peace.  Jesus tells his disciples:

 Truly I tell you, there is no one who has left house or brothers of sisters or mother or father or children or fields, for my sake and for the sake of the good news who will not receive a hundrefold now in this age – houses, brother and sisters, mothers and children

And then he adds a bit of humorous irony

 …and fields of persecutions

and then he ends with what keeps them going – the prospect of some kind of better life:

 and in the age to come eternal life. 

 And so we understand that it would not be unusual nor strange for Jesus to say to the man who came looking for life and whom, our scriptures say Jesus looking at him loved him… You lack one thing, go, sell what you own and give the money to the poor and you will have treasure in heaven, then come follow me.

 Jesus assumed that, like his disciples, this man, in the words of the prophet Amos wanted to seek the Lord and Life.

 But it wasn’t to be that way, the man cannot envision this kind of eternal life, this way of seeking God or Life and so, our scriptures tell us:  When he heard this, he was shocked and went away grieving, for he had many possessions. 

 What shocked him and what perplexed the disciples and what made Jesus persona non grata and, therefore, a kind of wandering preacher, healer and Messiah was what Jesus says finally to his own disciples:

 

But many who are first will be last and the last will be first. 

 

In a society that was based on patriarchal, tribal and hierarchal systems for establishing who can have life, Jesus brings a radically new and disturbing vision that shocks the rich, makes them grieve and perplexes his own disciples. You get a taste of Jesus’ rejection of the existing system in the very beginning of our text when Jesus rebukes the man’s characterization of him as “Good”. 

 The man says:  Good Teacher what must I do to inherit eternal life? 

 And Jesus responds:  Why do you call me good?  No one is good but God alone.

 

In a society where wealth is the height of honor and poverty the sign of shame; Jesus says that God turns it around, or better said, turns it upside down in order to create some thing that looks more like the Kingdom of God and that offers some thing more than mere life, what the man calls eternal life.

 

This some thing new that Jesus offers as eternal life is really some thing as old as the prophets, but absolutely new to those who have forgotten the essence of the Kingdom they preached.  So, there are some things, when we read these texts that are absolutely clear about seeking the Lord and Life.

 It is impossible to read these texts and not realize that “seeking God and Life” means “doing justice”. 

 

“Seek the Lord and live or he will break out against the house of Joseph like fire and it will devour Bethel with no one to quench it.  Ah, you that turn justice to wormwood and bring righteousness to the ground…”

 

And it is equally clear that this justice is meant to restore the lives of those the society has left out… the poor.. and that the lack of this justice brings a harsh judgment from God.

 

Therefore, because you trample on the poor and take from them levies of grain, you have built houses of hewn stone, but you shall not live in them, you have pleasant vineyards but you shall not drink their win; you have transgressions and how great are  you sins… you who afflict the righteous and who take a bribe and push aside the needy in the gate.

It is equally clear that to do justice brings life:

 

Seek good and not evil, that you may live and so the Lord, the God of hosts, will be with you, just as you have said; Hate evil and love good and establish justice in the gate; it may be that the Lord, the God of hosts, will be gracious to the remnant of Joseph.

 

It is clear, in these scriptures that God has a special concern for the poor, who are often the ones who are excluded from having honor and who are heaped with shame by a society that decides they do not matter. If you want  to seek God and Life, then you ought to join God in this concern.   In Latin American, this concern was called the Preferential Option for the Poor.  Because in situations of extreme poverty it is impossible to believe in a God who is a Loving Father who would not have a kind of special concern, a special affection for the son or daughter who is left out, who is lost in society, who no one wants to serve, who is not welcome, who is ill, or marked with a handicap, a leper.. or a widow, a woman without the honor or a man, or an orphan, a child without the honor of a father..or, to put a name on it… a poor person. 

 Better to do away with such a way of living – turn it upside down – the first shall be last and last shall be first – sell all you have, give it to the poor and follow me.  Let the excluded ones sit at the gate and make judgment on the included ones, let the poor one take charge of the scales in the market….

 It is impossible to read these texts and not realize that seeking the Lord and Life means seeking justice, especially for the poor; that not seeking justice brings a condemnation, that doing justice brings life and that the Lord has a special concern for the poor and wants us to relate to them and each other in a new way.

 Such affirmations should strike a little bit of terror in heart of a society which calls itself the prosperous in the world, the most humane, the most generous when we realize that from 1992 to 2000 the wealthiest 400 taxpayers in the United States who account for more than 1 percent of all national income, more than doubled their share of income while the percentage they paid in taxes fell during that same period, so that by the year 2000 the riches 1 percent of American had more money to spend after taxes that the bottom 40 percent.  According to the Center for Budget and Policy Priorities, the year 2000 was the year of the greatest economic disparity between rich and poor for any year since 1979.

 

At this same time the number of people without health insurance has risen from 40 million to 44 million this year.  When an economist on National Public Radio was asked how it is that we can live in such a wealthy nation and have 44 million people without health care, the reply was… they are poor people.  30% of Senior Adults have no supplemental health care and no prescription drug benefit so that many just don’t get care or don’t take their medicine.  Most of the rest are men, women and children (15 million are children) who just don’t have any pull in our political and economic system. They may work, but get no health benefit. They have no Political Action Committees and they cannot make big contributions for the multimillion dollars budgets for acquiring offices in the government…. They are poor people – they are outside the gate, rejected at the gate, told to wait at the gate because the rich are rich enough yet… they need more.  It’s not about this current political administrations, the NPR expert says that it has been this way for 30 years – 15% of our population without health care – enough people to populate 8 countries the size of the one I just visited this last week – El Salvador. And the only reason they don’t have it (because really there should be no reason ) – they are poor.  Talk about shame…

 Assume for a moment that Jesus would come back next week… not to end history and set up his perfect kingdom, but just to have a meeting, as all politicians would like to have with these 400 richest of our taxpayers. And, just say that they would have an interest in “eternal life” – actually most would as they appear to think that you can buy it.

 And then Jesus told them:  Sell what you own, and give the money to the poor and you will have treasure in heaven, then come follow me. 

 What do you think would be the response?  Wouldn’t it be the same:

 “When he heard this, he was shocked and went away grieving, for he had many possessions.

So, without even being cynical, just realistic, don’t you think Jesus is right…

 It is harder for a rich man to enter the kingdom of God than it is for a camel to go through the eye of a needle.

 

The disciples, steeped in traditional thought about the meaning of wealth, are left with the question.

 

Then who can be saved?

HERE IS WHERE WE MEET THAT WHICH IS IMPLICIT, BUT HIDDEN AND IS A MESSAGE FOR ALL OF US. 

 

I tell you a story, not about a rich man, but about a poor man.  It is a true story told by Nancy Vernon Kelly who is a Lutheran pastor in Kitchener, Ontario. Evidently, her congregation serves a community meal for the down and out on Wednesday Evenings. She tells a story about one person in that ministry in an article entitled Under the Influence in the last issue of The Other Side magazine. The names have been changed.

 She writes:  It’s Wednesday and Sam says he needs a food voucher.  A sweet and angry yound man, he is once again in our face, begging for help. It is the era before people started lining up outside the church very early in the morning, before guidelines. We don’t ask many question. We give Sam a food voucher for Central Market and invite him back to the church for supper later in the evening.  It is a well worn script. He dances out the front door onto King Street, whistling to himself.  He won’t be at the supper.  I know from experience that this is the last we’ll see of him until a few days before the end of the next month. 

 This time though, the script goes awry, I am wrong… so utterly wrong that I’ve been questioning what I know “from experience” every since. 

 That afternoon, Sam is  back, a couple of hours before the meal is to start. Carrying a large ham under his arm, he cheerfully calls out, “Guess what’s for supper.”  Sam (who has no money in the bank and sometimes doesn’t have a roof over his head) is in the kitchen washing his hands and vesting himself in a gingham apron.  He’s smiling like an angel, putting the ham he bought with the food voucher in the oven to share with all the hungry folks who soon will gather for supper.  I am shaking my head. 

 

Now I can hear someone saying….what does this story have to do with Gospel where Jesus tells the rich man to sell everything he owns and give it to the poor?  Sam is poor and the ham is not even his, he got it with a voucher… how easy it is for him to give back to the poor.

 If you were thinking that, then you just about got the point of it…the ham doesn’t belong to Sam… it belongs to God…. Just like the possessions of the rich man in the story we read today from the Gospel of Mark… they belong to God and, therefore, they belong to the poor because Jesus teaches that no one is blessed except to be a blessing..  The problem is that the rich man has so many possessions that he cannot see what Sam can see – the ham belongs to God!!!

 That’s the underlying message of all thee scriptures we have read today -  Sam’s ham belongs to God.  Why do justice at the gate of the city?… because the city belongs to God and God wants the poor to get what they deserve… and what they deserve is justice.  Why sell you all your possessions and give it to the poor and follow Jesus, because life belongs to God and God loves the poor and following Jesus – seeking the Lord -  does also bring what the prophet promises – Life.

 This is a message for all of us – what we have belongs to God.   Our person and all we own, our family, the city, the nation, the world, the earth that provides all that we need to live, the air we breath, the money we make, the property we purchase…this church, Holy Trinity Lutheran Church, the land it is built on, its buildings and its endowment and all its vaunted history -  it still comes down to the same thing as Sam’s Ham… it belongs to God… and since it does, God says, use it for the purposes of the Kingdom… to do justice to the poor.

 And we shouldn’t thing that we can outsmart God on this one…. Hebrews says that:

 

Indeed, the word of God is living and active, sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing until it divides soul from spirit, joints from marrow, it is able to judge the thoughts and intentions of the heart.  And before him no creature is hidden, but all are naked and laid bare to the eyes of the one to whom we must render an account. 

 Then who can be saved? Which of us, our  families, the political powers that run our cities, states, nations and the world, the rich….  can be saved?

 

Nancy Kelly ends her article about Sam’s ham this way… There are no rules to say Sam can’t buy a ham with his food voucher to share with a group of hungry people…Sometime you see more than you can see and this one of those times. I see him in a gingham apron leaning up the wall by the kitchen… he’s positively glowing. I see him in the slicing of the ham, in the breaking of the Portuguese buns. It’s not supposed to happen this way and it does. It’s downright contrary and spectacular. 

 

It’s not supposed to happen this way and it does. It’s downright contrary and spectacular. 

 

It’s downright contrary for the rich to think that what they own belongs to God and therefore, should be used to gain justice for the poor, downright contrary for even the poor to think that what is given to them actually belongs to God…downright contrary for most churches to think that what they have belongs to God and should serve the cause of justice for the least of these… downright contrary for us to think that whatever American is or has doesn’t belong to us, but to God and therefore should be used to promote justice for the poor worldwide. 

 

Hebrews says that one thing is necessary for the contrary to become the spectacular– that we ask the High Priest to have mercy on us…

 

For we do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses, but we have one who in every respect has been tested as we are, yet without sin. Let us therefore approach the throne of grace with boldness, so that we may receive mercy and find grace to help in time of need.

At the throne of grace we encounter that power which makes the impossible, possible and turns that which is contrary into that which is spectacular.  This is what we are hoping for today as we come to the table of the Lord to encounter the Grace of God: 

• that the contrary will become the spectacular..
• that the city will seek the Lord and Life by doing justice to the poor who live in it..
• that the nation will finally wake up and spend the just the little bit of its national treasure that is needed  to provide health care and good education to its poor…
• that you and I will finally recognize that what we have been given is for a purpose and that purpose is God’s purpose…
• that finally all the  ones who are rich will realize that all their ham’s, just like Sam’s, belong to God.
• That our church and all the churches will do what is necessary, sell what is contrary to the way of God, leave what is holding us down or limiting us behind… to make the spectacular possible – that justice would be done, that the High Priest we call Jesus would be our Lord and that we would no long care who was first or who was last… only that we all belong to God

 

It’s not supposed to happen this way… but it can!!!!  Because all things are possible with God!!!!!

 

Amen.

Welcoming the Children, Pentecost 16

Mark 9:30-37

³⁰They went on from there and passed through Galilee. He did not want anyone to know it; ³¹for he was teaching his disciples, saying to them, “The Son of Man is to be betrayed into human hands, and they will kill him, and three days after being killed, he will rise again.” ³²But they did not understand what he was saying and were afraid to ask him.

³³Then they came to Capernaum; and when he was in the house he asked them, “What were you arguing about on the way?” ³⁴But they were silent, for on the way they had argued with one another who was the greatest. ³⁵He sat down, called the twelve, and said to them, “Whoever wants to be first must be last of all and servant of all.” ³⁶Then he took a little child and put it among them; and taking it in his arms, he said to them, ³⁷“Whoever welcomes one such child in my name welcomes me, and whoever welcomes me welcomes not me but the one who sent me.”

 

Why don’t you want anyone to know that you are passing through Galilee?  It’s not some perverse desire that some have called the “secret missiology of Jesus”.  It is just common sense for someone who proposes righteousness of the kind that comes from God in an environment that is hostile to any consideration of the need for their to be justice and peace in the land, concern for the poor, transparency in government, a stop to oppression and a desire for the powerful to empower those who have been left out, pushed out, stepped upon.  He did not want to cut his life short, especially before he had a chance to  go to Jerusalem. 

Some cannot understand why Jesus was so “secretive”.  But, the why is right there before our eyes:  “the Son of Man” is to be betrayed into human hands and they will kill him.”  This part they don’t understand because the Son of Man they know of from the Jewish apocalypic groups (Essense and others) have the Son of Man in a gigantic battle with the devil and the Son of Man beating the heck out of him and establishing the rule of God on earth.  It’s like the perfect emperor coming to power, like David who can kill the Roman Emperor as sure as Goliath was once destroyed.  They cannot understand it, or do not want to understand it because they want something out of Jesus which does not have to do with Jesus dying at the hands of the rulers.  They want to get back on top of the game.  This game, as James has indicated is full of conflict and disputes and they are disputing over who will be the greatest of them.  They are making a deal with the devil, a deal with death (you will remember that in an earlier text for this season, Jesus tells Peter to “get behind me Satan” because Peter cannot imagine Jesus becoming humble unto death). 

This is not the first nor the only time we have headr Jesus repeat words that the world cannot accept except as some form of real stupidity and weakness:  if you want to be first, you have to be last and if you want to be great, you have to serve.  This is not the game the disciples came to play. 

 

The disciples cannot accept, have no way of believing the second part of what he says either:  “three days after being killed he will rise again.”   In fact, not only did they not understand, they did not want to understand:  “they did not understand what he was saying and they did not want to ask him.”

But, Jesus, being a good teacher does not necessarily need a question to teach a lesson.  He takes opportunity in a dispute between them to teach what he meant.  Jesus turns the logic of the disciples (which is the logic of the world) on its head.  The greatest will be the one who decides to be the least.  In a society where the young were subject and subjected to the old, Jesus says the one who welcomes one of these little ones, the least of them, welcomes God. 

What does Welcoming the Children mean for us in our world?

What does it mean for our social and economic policy? What does it mean for the health care debate?  the war in Afghanistan ?  our own educational policy at home?  the way we develop and manage our relationships in the community?  our economic system?  our family system?  Put the three texts for this Sunday  together and you have a long list to choose from.   

One synthesis of the three texts might be:

 

A World Fit For Children

• A world where righteousness is pursued.
• A world where peacemaking is practiced.
• A world where the first are last.

 

Wisdom and Peace, Pentecost 16

James 3:13 – 4:8

¹³Who is wise and understanding among you? Show by your good life that your works are done with gentleness born of wisdom. ¹⁴But if you have bitter envy and selfish ambition in your hearts, do not be boastful and false to the truth. ¹⁵Such wisdom does not come down from above, but is earthly, unspiritual, devilish. ¹⁶For where there is envy and selfish ambition, there will also be disorder and wickedness of every kind. ¹⁷But the wisdom from above is first pure, then peaceable, gentle, willing to yield, full of mercy and good fruits, without a trace of partiality or hypocrisy. ¹⁸And a harvest of righteousness is sown in peace for those who make peace.

4Those conflicts and disputes among you, where do they come from? Do they not come from your cravings that are at war within you? ²You want something and do not have it; so you commit murder. And you covet something and cannot obtain it; so you engage in disputes and conflicts. You do not have, because you do not ask. ³You ask and do not receive, because you ask wrongly, in order to spend what you get on your pleasures. ⁴Adulterers! Do you not know that friendship with the world is enmity with God? Therefore whoever wishes to be a friend of the world becomes an enemy of God. ⁵Or do you suppose that it is for nothing that the scripture says, “God yearns jealously for the spirit that he has made to dwell in us”? ⁶But he gives all the more grace; therefore it says, “God opposes the proud, but gives grace to the humble.” ⁷Submit yourselves therefore to God. Resist the devil, and he will flee from you. ⁸Draw near to God, and he will draw near to you. Cleanse your hands, you sinners, and purify your hearts, you double-minded.

For James, envy and jealousy along with greed (selfish ambition) account for most of what is wrong with the world.  Why do we have conflicts?  because we want something and we do not get it.  So we murder.  We covet something and cannot get it, so we enter into conflict and division.  I suppose you could say it began with Cain and Abel.  We want the power, we want the woman/man to be ours, we want the oil for our cars, the shrimp for our dinner plate, the hummer in the garage, power over others and we do not have it…you got it right….conflict, division and sometimes even murder.

Problem, of course, is that when we get what we want, someone else wants it or resents that we got it or took it from them.  This is the wisdom of the world that ends only in division, conflict and death. 

The Wisdom from Heaven brings a harvest of righteousness sown in peace for those who make peace. 

The church has to get this very clear:   There is nothing in God that makes for conflict, division and murder….the wisdom from God is PURE, PEACABLE, GENTLE, WILLING TO YIELD, FULL OF MERCY AND GOOD FRUITS, WITHOUT A TRACE OF PARCIALITY OR HYPOCRISY!!!

It’s a tough row to hoe in a world full of the other kind of wisdom which is born of bitter envy and selfish ambition, which is not gentle and is full of parciality and hypocrisy.

Take the Middle East and see where the wisdom of the world brings us. 

How does the church, how do each of us get back to the Wisdom that brings a harverst of righteousness sown in Peace for those who make peace?

Here is what James says:

1. Submit to God
2. Resist the devil
3. Draw near to God
4. Cleanse your hands
5. Purify your heart

We can do it!  Why?  Because God yearns jealously for the spirit that he has made to dwell in us”? and just when we think we cannot resist the pull of the worldly wisdom, he gives all the more grace

Evil Analyzed, Pentecost 16

Wisdom of Solomon 1:13-2:24
¹⁶But the ungodly by their words and deeds summoned death; ^*
considering him a friend, they pined away
and made a covenant with him,
because they are fit to belong to his company.

2For they reasoned unsoundly, saying to themselves,
‘Short and sorrowful is our life,
and there is no remedy when a life comes to its end,
and no one has been known to return from Hades.
.
²For we were born by mere chance,
and hereafter we shall be as though we had never been,
for the breath in our nostrils is smoke,
and reason is a spark kindled by the beating of our hearts;
³when it is extinguished, the body will turn to ashes,
and the spirit will dissolve like empty air.
⁴Our name will be forgotten in time,
and no one will remember our works;
our life will pass away like the traces of a cloud,
and be scattered like mist
that is chased by the rays of the sun
and overcome by its heat.
⁵For our allotted time is the passing of a shadow,
and there is no return from our death,
because it is sealed up and no one turns back.
⁶‘Come, therefore, let us enjoy the good things that exist,
and make use of the creation to the full as in youth.
⁷Let us take our fill of costly wine and perfumes,
and let no flower of spring pass us by.
⁸Let us crown ourselves with rosebuds before they wither.
⁹Let none of us fail to share in our revelry;
everywhere let us leave signs of enjoyment,
because this is our portion, and this our lot.
¹⁰Let us oppress the righteous poor man;
let us not spare the widow
or regard the grey hairs of the aged.
¹¹But let our might be our law of right,
for what is weak proves itself to be useless.
¹²‘Let us lie in wait for the righteous man,
because he is inconvenient to us and opposes our actions;
he reproaches us for sins against the law,
and accuses us of sins against our training.
¹³He professes to have knowledge of God,
and calls himself a child^* of the Lord.
¹⁴He became to us a reproof of our thoughts;
¹⁵the very sight of him is a burden to us,
because his manner of life is unlike that of others,
and his ways are strange.
¹⁶We are considered by him as something base,
and he avoids our ways as unclean;
he calls the last end of the righteous happy,
and boasts that God is his father.
¹⁷Let us see if his words are true,
and let us test what will happen at the end of his life;
¹⁸for if the righteous man is God’s child, he will help him,
and will deliver him from the hand of his adversaries.
¹⁹Let us test him with insult and torture,
so that we may find out how gentle he is,
and make trial of his forbearance.
²⁰Let us condemn him to a shameful death,
for, according to what he says, he will be protected.’

²¹Thus they reasoned, but they were led astray,
for their wickedness blinded them,
²²and they did not know the secret purposes of God,
nor hoped for the wages of holiness,
nor discerned the prize for blameless souls;
²³for God created us for incorruption,
and made us in the image of his own eternity,^*
24but through the devil’s envy death entered the world,
and those who belong to his company experience it.

Many Protestants will not have the opportunity to hear this exquisite piece of literatura as it comes from hat they consider to be one of the non-canonacal books which Cathoics accept, but was not including in the Protestant version of the Scriptures.  The text reveals ancient ideas which are very relevant for both our understanding of faith as well as for an analysis of reality. 

The question at stake is not whether we physically die or not.  There is recognition, as in Ecclesiastes, that all physical life ends.  The question is what the meaning of life is given that we all die.  According to the writer, there are two views. One is that death is the friend that teaches us the meaning of life – it is short and sorrowful, so while we live we just need to take from the world all that can give us pleasure and power.   As a response to death, the “ungodly” decide that the only way to live is to take everything for themselves and leave nothing for others.  In the end, they decide to let “might be our law of right.”  Between pleasure and power the way of the ungodly includes oppressing the righteouspoor, the widow, the weak, the old.  There is no meaning to life beyond pleasure and power. When we die we have left no footprint, our body and spirit are lost for ever, no one remembers our name and what we have done makes no difference for the future. 

There is another view of death which sees death as the way that evil tries to convince us to desert what is truly immortal.  Righteousness is immortal.  We are children of God and God is eternal.  We are made for incorruption.  What determines the meaning of life is not death, but God and God loves righteousness and made us for it.

This is what happens, according to this part of scripture, when the envy of devil controls reality.  The devil’s envy is direct toward the righteous and what the righteous receive in life for being “weak” and “gentle”. According the author, the “ungodly” reason wrongly, first, taking as a premise that a life that ends in death has no meaning and that nothing we do matters in this or any other future world.  Second, they were led astray by their wickedness so that they do not see the “secret purpose of God” and did not recognize that we were bade in the image of God’s eternity nor that we were made to be incoruptable. 

So, here we have first century anthropology, social analysis and religion:  God created us for righteousness; this righteousness is our entry into “eternal” life.  This righteousness is a pure heart to work for what God desires for the world; to care for creation, not use it up for one’s own pleasure; to care for the ones who are in need.  Evil exists because the “ungodly”invite death, not Righteousness, to be the controlling reality of our existence on earth.  They make a deal with the devil who hates the witness of righteousness as “weak” and without power to bring life. 

For the righteous, ther is no need nor any demand by God to destroy the ungodly.  What would be good would be if they could come to their senses (realize the error not only of their ways b ut of their assumptions/beliefs about the nature of life). That would be true Wisdom. 

But the ungodly, according to this view of humanity, have a problem with the righteous.  They resent the fact that the righteous seem bent on proving, in word and deed, that the ungodly got life wrong.  The ungodly cannot tolerate that in front of them the “weak” seem to prosper not by taking for themselves but by doing God’s will and seeking right relations in all they do.  It bothers the ungodly that the righteous actually believe that death will not be the end of all they have been and done, but that all their deeds in the flesh make a difference in the future  and are taken up into the eternal arms of God.  In short, that righteousness is eternal and we were made for incoruption. 

So, it is, in the view of the author, the fact that the ungodly make a deal with death and devil to give them power by actively opposing the righteous as a kind of revenge for their witness, but more, to prove the point that death takes everything away and nothing is left.  And the ungodly want not only to make a point with a particular righteous person, they want to make a point with the righteous and righteousness itself… that righteousness does not last forever, the death is stronger than love (to make the opposite point that is made by Solomon in Songs of Solomon).  It has always been the pratice of the ungodly to use death as a weapon against the righteous and righteousness for the sake of preserving their perverse search for happiness in life through pleasuring seeking and power seeking. 

By the way, we might just stop to mention that there is commandment against this use of death as a weapon:  Thou shall not kill?  Why?  Because death is not a weapon to be sued against others, it is part of the human reality that should serve to bind us together in a community of common appreciation of life, caring for one another and working together to create a righteous (just and peaceful) society. The oppressors get it wrong according the Wisdom of Solomon, because death does not have the final word, God does and the righteousness of God always survives, outlives the power of death and those who use it to coerce a response from people and in society that goes against what the writer believes is the true destiny and nature of humankind: “God made us for incoruption.”

If we are tempted to see this text as primarlly addressing individuals and not applicable to the larger community or our social/political/economic life, then we ought to go back to the first verse of Wisdom of Solomon:   “Love righteousness you rulers of the earth, think of the Lord in goodness and seek him with sincerity of the heart.”  (1:1).

 

What makes some think that “might makes right?”  There is plenty of grist for the mill in all the lessons on the question of the psychological, spiritual and social realities that create and support the kind of evil that seeks to destroy the life that God has given to us all. This might be a place to start a sermon that leads to the Gospel message that proclaims the definitive defeat for those who use death as a weapon to protect their lifestyle decision to follow pleasure and power as the twin gods of their life.

Hold Thy Tongue, Pentecost 15

James 3:1-12

3Not many of you should become teachers, my brothers and sisters, for you know that we who teach will be judged with greater strictness. ²For all of us make many mistakes. Anyone who makes no mistakes in speaking is perfect, able to keep the whole body in check with a bridle. ³If we put bits into the mouths of horses to make them obey us, we guide their whole bodies. ⁴Or look at ships: though they are so large that it takes strong winds to drive them, yet they are guided by a very small rudder wherever the will of the pilot directs. ⁵So also the tongue is a small member, yet it boasts of great exploits. How great a forest is set ablaze by a small fire! ⁶And the tongue is a fire. The tongue is placed among our members as a world of iniquity; it stains the whole body, sets on fire the cycle of nature, and is itself set on fire by hell. ⁷For every species of beast and bird, of reptile and sea creature, can be tamed and has been tamed by the human species, ⁸but no one can tame the tongue—a restless evil, full of deadly poison. ⁹With it we bless the Lord and Father, and with it we curse those who are made in the likeness of God. ¹⁰From the same mouth come blessing and cursing. My brothers and sisters, this ought not to be so. ¹¹Does a spring pour forth from the same opening both fresh and brackish water? ¹²Can a fig tree, my brothers and sisters, yield olives, or a grapevine figs? No more can salt water yield fresh.

 

Just ask Bryan Hout (Boise State) and Legarrette Blount (Oregon) what trouble a tongue can cause.  Blount may have thrown away a career in the NFL and Hout will suffer some disciplinary action all because neither could hold their tongue (google the names if you want the whole story). 

The Eighth Commandment.

Thou shalt not bear false witness against thy neighbor.

What does this mean?–Answer.

We should fear and love God that we may not deceitfully belie, betray, slander, or defame our neighbor, but defend him, [think and] speak well of him, and put the best construction on everything

There is a reason that God considered it of utmost importance (among the top ten) for us human beings to control our tongues, what we say about the neighbor.  The tongue is incendiary in its power or it is empowering if used correctly. 

Again, we make the connection between the first and eighth commandments.  Having no other Gods means conforing the tongue to what the God who blesses desires – that we use this part of the body to bless, not to curse. 

A good place to concentrate in this text is the phrase:  ⁹With it we bless the Lord and Father, and with it we curse those who are made in the likeness of God.  Talk radio has taken the art of the evil use of the tongue to a new height.  Our society is marked, for the moment, by those who want to curse those who are made in the likeness of God. 

An interesting question would beto examine the issues of humanity around the evil use of the tongue.  On the one hand, to examine the effect the tongue can have on others and the society at large, both positive and negative.  What if we had the idea that everything we say had some power to bless those around us?  Maybe we would be silent (If you cannot say anything good about the other, do not say anything).  Maybe we would learn to talk in a way that opens up relationships instead of closing them down; opened up dialogue instead of shutting it down; opened up the possibilities for creative conversation instead of making every conversation a debate, a competition for who knows more, who has more power, etc.

What things in life cause us to lose control of our tongues?  Some we might categorize as chemical, our chemistry, including conditions which do not have to do with evil but with our physical make up.  When we are tired, when we are stressed, when we are anxious, when we are fearful, out tongue tends to go with the inner feeling and not the moral or common good. 

We cannot underestimate what gossip, slandard, misrepresenation of the facts, slander, etc have of effect upon our families, our community, our world.  How many times have international relationships been damaged, set back or even inflamed by the wrong use of the tongue?

The basic question is one of control…not just the control of the evil, but the ways in which we can encourage life, others and the growth of community by placing contrainsts, setting parameters, learning disciplines that channel the tongue’s activity into constructive, life promoting words instead of the opposite. 

I will give one instance, and you can provide many more.  In the debate that has surrounded the decisions of the Lutheran Church on questions of sexuality and the permission of the church to bless the civil unions of gay and lesbian couples and ordain committed and practicing homosexuals, there has been a considerable lack of concern for what damage the tongue can cause.  Just one little example would be the statement by many who opposed the inclusion of gays and lesbians within the ordained ministry that their opponents have deserted a commitment to the scriptures and a belief in the truth of scripture. The implication is that the majority of delegates at the most recent convention which approved the inclusion of gays/lesbians somehow have desserted the historic faith in favor of following cultural trends.  But, in fact, the biblical scholars of the church disagree on what the Scriptures say on this subject and, in many cases, delegates voting in favor of the changes cited scripture as one their reasons for such support.  It is as though on mattes of disagreement on interpretations only one side can be on God’s side and to defend one’s side, the tongue is used to defame the other, slander the other, accusing them of desserting the faith, denying the validty of Scripture, etc.  Honest talk would be to say that we have a disagreement on what Scriptures say and we have a disagreement on what the will of God on this matter.  Such a way of talking would not defeat the logic, reason or faith of the one who disagrees, but it would open up many possibilities for dialogue, continuation of community and creative relationships of mutual respect and future collaboration as members of the Body of Christ. 

James evidently knows how dangerous an uncontrolled tongue can be and wants the faith community to take seriously the challenge of making the tongue part of our life commitment to Christian disciplines which attempt to reflect the love of God in what we say. 

What we say about those we do not know, are not like us, come from a different culture, nation or have a different orientation to life than we have makes all the difference in the quality of life that we enjoy or do not enjoy under God on this earth.  Even our law recognizes a difference between free speech and hate speech. 

Unfortunately, those who use the tongue to curse those who are made in the likeness of God often invoke the name of God as support for what they say.  As Pascal stated:  “Men never do evil so completely and cheerfully as when they do it from a religious conviction.”

LET US STAND UP TOGETHER, Pentecost 15

Isaiah 50:4-9

⁴The Lord God has given me the tongue of a teacher, that I may know how to sustain the weary with a word. Morning by morning he wakens— wakens my ear to listen as those who are taught. ⁵The Lord God has opened my ear, and I was not rebellious, I did not turn backward. ⁶I gave my back to those who struck me, and my cheeks to those who pulled out the beard; I did not hide my face from insult and spitting. ⁷The Lord God helps me; therefore I have not been disgraced; therefore I have set my face like flint, and I know that I shall not be put to shame; ⁸he who vindicates me is near. Who will contend with me? Let us stand up together. Who are my adversaries? Let them confront me. ⁹It is the Lord God who helps me; who will declare me guilty? All of them will wear out like a garment; the moth will eat them up.

The First Commandment.

Thou shalt have no other gods.

What does this mean?–Answer.

We should fear, love, and trust in God above all things.

The Eighth Commandment.

Thou shalt not bear false witness against thy neighbor.

What does this mean?–Answer.

We should fear and love God that we may not deceitfully belie, betray, slander, or defame our neighbor, but defend him, [think and] speak well of him, and put the best construction on everything

What we say makes a difference.  What we say depends on which God we serve:  The God who invites us to defend the neighbor or the gods of pub lic opinion, popular culture and human ideologies.  The weary in this passage are those who are weary of bearing the burdens of a societybased the use of violence to enforce unjust distribution of wealth and power.  The first and eighth commandments feed each other.  The one who is afraid of what others say will not say a word to sustain the weary for fear of being the victim of what those who sustain a system unconcerned for the weary will say about them. 

The current health care debate is a good example of how those who belie, slander, betray and defame have taken control of our national discourse.  Who will say a word to sustain the weary (those 47 million without health care).  Who will decide that we should stand up together?  Who opens the ear to what God says? Who wakens their ears to be taught?  Who can decide not to turn backward?  Who worships only one God, the God who created each of us with the right (not the privilege) to good health?  Who knows that to speak up for the weary will bring no shame?  Who knows that only God can vindicate and not the angry voices of mean spirited citizens who call caring for the weary to be the beginning of a “socialist” world.  It is time to STAND UP TOGETHER, to honor the commandments, to speak a word to sustain the weary.  If we do, the opponents of weary will wear out like a garment and the moths will eath them up.

DEAD FAITH, Pentecost 14

James 2:1-17

2My brothers and sisters, do you with your acts of favoritism really believe in our glorious Lord Jesus Christ? ²For if a person with gold rings and in fine clothes comes into your assembly, and if a poor person in dirty clothes also comes in, ³and if you take notice of the one wearing the fine clothes and say, “Have a seat here, please,” while to the one who is poor you say, “Stand there,” or, “Sit at my feet,” ⁴have you not made distinctions among yourselves, and become judges with evil thoughts? ⁵Listen, 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 that he has promised to those who love him? ⁶But you have dishonored the poor. Is it not the rich who oppress you? Is it not they who drag you into court? ⁷Is it not they who blaspheme the excellent name that was invoked over you?

⁸You do well if you really fulfill the royal law according to the scripture, “You shall love your neighbor as yourself.” ⁹But if you show partiality, you commit sin and are convicted by the law as transgressors. ¹⁰For whoever keeps the whole law but fails in one point has become accountable for all of it. ¹¹For the one who said, “You shall not commit adultery,” also said, “You shall not murder.” Now if you do not commit adultery but if you murder, you have become a transgressor of the law. ¹²So speak and so act as those who are to be judged by the law of liberty. ¹³For judgment will be without mercy to anyone who has shown no mercy; mercy triumphs over judgment.

¹⁴What good is it, my brothers and sisters, if you say you have faith but do not have works? Can faith save you? ¹⁵If a brother or sister is naked and lacks daily food, ¹⁶and one of you says to them, “Go in peace; keep warm and eat your fill,” and yet you do not supply their bodily needs, what is the good of that? ¹⁷So faith by itself, if it has no works, is dead.

Dead faith is faith that is professed for the purpose of saving oneself with no concern for conforming one’s actions to the will of the God in which this faith is confessed. Dead faith is faith void of any meaning other than signing up for a Jesus credit card that you believe pays all your debts and gives you a free pass to heaven.  Dead faith is faith that is confessed to make one socially acceptable to the Christian majority that controls the local economy.  Death faith is faith that wants reward without sacrifice.  James wants to make a point of saying that not all “faith” is really “faith” at all… a lot of “faith” is just a game to try fool God and others.  At least God cannot be fooled.

Moving quickly from Dead Faith to Faith Alive, I offer the following comments/examples/quotes/stories.

 

1. What a beautiful, insightful and challenging passage from James.  Luther did not like the last phrase:  “So faith by itself, if it has not works, is dead.”  But listen to Luther on the matter most at the center of what James is proclaiming:  “Love does not consider its own reward or its own good, but rewards and does good. For that reason it is most active among the poor, the needy, the evildoers, the sinners, the insane, the sick and the enemies.  And in their eagerness to fight for the right and against wrong everywhere, Christians must remain aware of the temptation to be alert and courageous in defending the rights of the powerful but negligent and cowardly when the wrong is done to the poor and despised.  People who choose this easy path and take from the poor to give to the righ are hypocrites within and have only the appearance defending the truth. For they well know that there is no danger wheb one helps the rich, the powerful, the learned, and one’s own friends, and can in turn enjoy their protection and be honored by them….it is very easy to fight against the wrong which is done to popes, kings, princes, bishops and other big wigs. Here each wants to be the most pious, where there is no great need…But when something happens to a poor and insignificant man, there the deceitful eye does not find much profit, but cannot help seeing the disfavor of the powerful; therefore he lets the poor man remain unhelped. (Treatise on Good Works)

2. From a sermon entitled:  God Loves Justice and So Should We

“God wasn’t neutral in the dispute between the Pharoah and the slaves.  God takes the side of the poor, the oppressed, the downtrodden in order to make the world a place where the creation feeds the stomach and the dignity of all the people not just some of them.  Renowned theologian Reinhold Niebuhr, writing in a 1949 issue of The Lutheran magazine states:  “Nothing is quite so uninteresting as a religious moralism that is always on the side of the angels but never fights any particular evil, which advocates brotherhood, but never in a specific situation and which admonishes people to be just, but never hazards an opinion of problems of justice in current dispute. We must be willing to take sides if we are to make any concrete contribution to any moral issue.”   God has a history and that history is absolutely clear… it leads to a manger in Bethlehem, not a suite in the Waldorf Astoria.” 

 

3.  We could miss the point of James by concentrating on the controversy  created by Luther’s rejection of James’ insistence on woks in order for faith to be of any value.  It seems to me that that heart of this text really goes to the heart of our faith…i.e. what God we believe in.  “Favoritism” of the rich betrays a belief in a God who establishes a Kingdom of radical heirarchy – the rich, the powerful, the ons who court the righ and powerful, the poor and the needy.  You get to the top by climbingh over others.  Or the heirarchy could be racial, ethnic, gender or national in nature.  But The Kingdom of God that Jesus brings is one that shows no distinction, is radically egalitarian and absolutely inclusive without destroying what are the differences in abilities, skills, callings that make each unique, distinct and needed as part of the whole quilt of humanity. 

4.  The other heart of the matter is revealed in this phrase from James:  Mercy triumphs over judgment.  This goes to the heart of what faith really is, to be merciful as God is merciful.  Or, to put it another way – have the same compassion for those who suffer that God has.  This is faith and faith without this compassion is definitely dead. 

5. In terms of current events, this text is great for gaining perspective on the curent debate on health care in the country.  This debate has gone far astray from the central moral and social question related to health care – the fact that 47 million people in the world’s richest country do not have access to health care.  But, when the politicians begin to want to solve the health care problems for the rich – lowering health care cost and maintaining doctor’s style of life and pharmaceutical profits, etc, the poor, once again, get lost.  We in the church must stand up for the 47 million without access.  Which is the best way to accomplish this?  That is for the policymakers to determine.  It is reported that William Sloane Coffin, the recently deceased Chaplain at Yale University and pastor of Riverside Church in New York and esteemed justice advocate,  had an exchange with Henry Kissinger during the Vietnam War.  Coffin was criticizing government policy on the war and Kissinger said to him something along these lines: “If you’re so smart, why don’t you tell us what to do in Vietnam.”  Coffin replied in his usual high-handed way:  Mr. Secretary, my job is to say to you, “Let Justice roll down like mighty waters.” Your job is to get the plumbing in place. Let the church do its job and stand up for the poor.