Sunday, September 8, 2024

Sixteenth Sunday after Pentecost
Isaiah 35:4-7a
Psalm 146
James 2:1-10 [11-13] 14-17
Mark 7:24-37

Even so faith, if it has no works, is dead in itself.

Have you ever known someone whose very presence changed the atmosphere in a room? Perhaps it was a favorite aunt whose sweet demeanor was able to calm the nerves at a family reunion. It may have been a very good teacher who could cause a room full of rowdy children to be quiet and attentive in an instant. These people have something special that brings about transformation in the world around them.

I think for most of us, transforming power comes to us in a more personal way. A romantic partner can change our mood in a heartbeat. A kindhearted neighbor can help us to see that we should not trample through her flower beds. A Sunday school teacher can plant the seeds that make us want to know more about Jesus. The transformation from these one on one encounters is longer lasting; it transforms not only the mood of one moment, but our lives forever.

Israel was in a bad place. They were exiles in Babylon, far from home and far from the dwelling place of their God. They felt abandoned. They had little hope. However, Isaiah spoke words of hope into their lives, words that promised transformation. God promised that the day would come when He would save them, and that day would be the most spectacular experience. God’s presence among His people would change the entire atmosphere, even the desert would be transformed. God promised that He would heal their brokenness and restore them to wholeness.

The promise would not be fulfilled immediately; they heard the promise of what was to come. However, trusting in the promise, the people were called to be strong and to not be afraid. They might have been in a bad place for a moment, but God would not allow them to stay there forever. He would come and bring change. The enemy would be punished and those who were hurting would see God’s grace.

This promise was fulfilled when God saved Israel from Babylon, but this text also looked forward to a better day: the day of the Messiah. Isaiah points to the reign of Jesus Christ, whose very presence would bring healing, freedom. He would make the blind see and the deaf hear. He would give walking legs to the lame and words to those who couldn’t speak. All of creation would be transformed: the world would be brighter, cleaner, and fresher. The thirsty would have cool, clear water to drink. Jesus is the promised Messiah who is the living water that nourishes those perishing people who are caught in the darkness of sin and death.

It would be a joyous time.

The Gospel lesson shows us the fulfillment of the promises found in Isaiah. In this passage we see two examples of people healed by Jesus. The first story is about a mother who believed that Jesus could heal her demon possessed daughter. The second story is about a group of friends who brought a deaf and dumb man to Jesus for healing. These stories don’t mention faith, yet their acts of approaching Jesus showed that they believed Jesus could do something. Jesus answered their boldness with transformation, healing, and wholeness.

The woman in the first story was definitely not a person we would expect to be a typical follower of Jesus. She was a foreigner. She was a pagan. She was a woman. She probably did not feel comfortable talking to a man, particularly a Jewish man who was seen as a rabbi. Yet, she sought Him out and interrupted a well-deserved and long needed moment of solitude with her request. Jesus seems to reject and ridicule this woman and shocks us by calling the woman a dog. It isn’t something that we would expect from Jesus. Why would He refer to the woman as if she were a mangy street mutt begging for a morsel that might keep her alive?

This has been explained in a dozen different ways, from Jesus pushing the woman to demonstrate her faith to Jesus being convinced to change His mind. Mark tends to leave some questions open so that we’ll ponder the purpose of these stories for our own faith and see the different faces of Christ that affect our lives in different ways at different times.

From the woman we learn about humble boldness. She knew her place in Jesus’ world, even if Jesus did not really think of her in that way. She knelt before Him and agreed with His assessment that she was a dog, but she was bold enough to seek His grace, even if it was just the leftovers. Her words made Jesus act. He said, “For this saying, go your way. The demon has gone out of your daughter.” At first Jesus seemed to indicate that He would not do anything for her, but her words seemed to change His mind. Whether Jesus planned this all along or the woman convinced Him, the child received the healing the mother sought.

We learn from the woman that we can approach our God with humble boldness that knows our place and trusts God’s mercy even when we think there’s no chance to receive an answer. He will hear and He will be present in our circumstances. We will know and experience the transforming power of His grace. It might seem odd for Jesus to treat the woman as He did, but Jesus was teaching His listeners a lesson through this woman who had faith enough to seek Jesus and ask Him for help. Jesus knew her heart. He knew she was there because she believed. He knew that faith gave her a humble understanding of her place in the world but also the faith to know that God is merciful. She receives the mercy she seeks not because she deserves it, but because she seeks it from the One who can grant it. That is faith.

The second story is about a man who is deaf and dumb. Jesus follows a strange ritual and in the end the man can both hear and speak clearly. What do you think about Jesus’ actions in the second story? He put His fingers in the ears of the deaf man, spit and then touched his tongue. This sounds like some sort of pagan practice; I can almost see the old witch doctor in a frightening feather mask and cape screaming some strange words at the demons that caused the deafness and muted voice. Jesus often healed with just a word, why were the weird acts necessary in this healing? Was Jesus reaching out to this man in a way he might understand? The same, perhaps, is true of the woman. She expected to be treated as a dog; anything else, even compassion, might have been frightening to her.

Even stranger in this story, however, is that Jesus told the man and his friends to be silent about what happened. Yet, how can someone possibly keep silent when their tongue has been loosed? We don’t know how long the man had suffered, there were surely a million things he wanted to say. He was able to thank his friends and tell his family how much he loved them. He would finally be able to hear those sentiments returned. It would have made it possible to do business to earn a living. Jesus transformed His life. Yet, with all these wonderful things to say and hear, the most important would be praise to God for this incredible gift. When you are transformed by the presence of God, how can you remain silent?

Though Jesus repeatedly told the man to keep silent, his joy was so great he could not keep silent. Do we feel that same sort of joy? Do we receive God’s grace with such an enthusiasm that we can’t help but share it with others? No matter what Jesus said, the man’s joy was so great he could not help but sing for joy. I can almost hear his voice joining with the Israelites singing today’s Psalm, “Praise the Lord!” After living as a deaf and dumb man, unable to hear or speak, it was natural for the man to sing “Hallelujah!” His life was transformed by that encounter with Christ.

An encounter with Jesus transformed both the woman’s world and the man’s life. What can an encounter with Jesus do for a congregation?

It is natural for us to be drawn to those who have wealth. After all, people with wealth can get things done. If a wealthy person is happy, they might just do something that makes our life better in some way. Yet James asked if they were really manifesting faith in Christ by showing favoritism to the rich. By favoring the rich we trust in them and their money more than we trust in our God to provide us what we need. This favoritism is divisive and judgmental. Even worse, however, is that we miss out on an even greater wealth in the hearts of the poor, for God has given them such a great measure of faith and love.

There is a story about a pastor who dressed in old, dirty clothing, covered his head with a hat and disguised his appearance with a beard. He laid on the church steps while the congregation gathered for worship in the hope that at least one of the members would do something for the stranger on their doorstep. He was sorely disappointed. He overheard them grumbling about the dirty man on the steps. Some of the people pointedly spoke loud enough for the stranger to hear, calling him lazy and disgusting and unwelcome. The pastor was disturbed to discover their attitudes. When everyone was seated, the pastor came in the front door. The congregation was shocked as he approached the pulpit. He took off his hat and his false beard and gave a powerful sermon about their Christian responsibility to help their neighbors.

In another story, the congregation was seated in their pews waiting for the service to begin. A young man in ripped jeans, a t-shirt, and long hair came in to the church. He walked down to the front of the worship space and plopped himself on the floor. The congregation was shocked that anyone would do such a thing, but no one dared say anything. As the pastor prepared to speak, an elderly man got up. He slowly moved to the front of the church. Most of the congregation could understand why he would want to confront the young man. He was a long-time member of the congregation. When he reached the young man, you could almost hear the members holding their breaths. Instead of chasing him away, the old man slowly sat on the floor, enjoying the worship with the young man so that he would not be alone.

What did those congregations learn in these two stories? It is said that the Gospel should be preached in a way that both comforts the afflicted and afflicts the comfortable. The first pastor was brokenhearted to discover how self-centered were the members his congregation. In the second story, the pastor began his sermon with the statement, “You won’t remember a thing I say in this sermon, but you will always remember what you have just seen.”

In both these stories, the members of the congregation made judgments based on what they saw with their eyes through their own world views. These stories may not happen often in today’s modern churches that are more often more open to cultural differences. As a matter of fact, many churches pride themselves in how open and welcoming they are to everyone. “Come as you are” is the mantra for so many Christians today. Yet, James’ words are still important. We have our own biases. We still show favoritism to the detriment of those who don’t fit into our boxes. All too often, our favoritism falls to those who are willing to give us exactly what we want. It wasn’t much different in the days of James, was it? Fancy clothes indicate wealth, and wealth can be used for our benefit. Poor people seem to have nothing of value to offer. We forget that in God’s Kingdom, wealth has nothing to do with money, and that through the eyes of mercy we can see incredible value of those whom God sends our way to teach us how to live according to His grace.

We who have been given mercy have been called to be merciful.

When James asked, “Can faith save you?” in relation to the good works he described, he wasn’t suggesting that good works would ever save a person. He taught that those who are saved, who live in the faith that comes from grace, will have mercy on those they see that need to be saved. We see Christ in those who are hungry or naked and offer them what they need. It is not enough to wish them well in their hunger and nakedness. God sends us opportunities to serve Him so that we can respond in faith with the gifts we have been given. Faith without works is a dead faith.

Jesus was God’s presence in the world. We don’t always understand everything He did. Why did He call the woman a dog? Why did He perform a strange ritual and then command the man and his friends to silence? Whatever His purpose, we read these stories and many others in the scriptures and see that God came to save in an active and powerful way. We are then sent into the world to be God’s hands and share His grace with others.

Isaiah talked about the work God is going to do in the world. The eyes of the blind will be open, the ears of the deaf unstopped, the lame shall leap like a dear and the tongue of the speechless will sing for joy. God transform people those who couldn’t do things and made them into people who could. Faith calls for action: seeing, hearing, leaping and singing! Faith is about praising God for His mercy and grace. And then faith is about going out into the world to help others see, hear, leap and sing. God gives us the faith and we respond to that faith, and in that faith, with action.

As children we learn the Golden Rule, “Do unto others as you would have them do unto you,” but there is a greater law at work, the law of God, the “Royal Law.” God’s law is not about equal action and reaction, it is about love: “You shall love your neighbor as yourself.”

This is why James followed up his treatise on favoritism with a comment about works. We are called, by faith, to a life of mercy. If we do not show mercy, our faith is as good as dead. Mercy means loving our neighbor as we love ourselves. Mercy means loving our neighbor whether they are rich or poor, native or foreigner, healthy or sick, young or old, in dirty rags or the latest fashion. Mercy means being God’s hands, feet and mouth for those who need to see God and hear His Word. We are to be God’s presence in the world so that the world will be transformed by Him.

That’s what Jesus did and what He calls us to do.

I’m not an expert, but in the simplest terms the electricity from a battery is created by a chemical reaction. The chemical reaction is started by the movement of electrons from the positive to the negative terminal. When an appliance is turned on, the current is allowed to move in and through the battery causing the chemical reaction that creates more electrons. If you just take a wire and hold it to both ends of a battery, you will create electricity in the wire. An appliance (load) is placed along the wire to slow down and control the electrons, using the electricity for practical purposes. If there is no path along which the electricity can run, the battery does nothing. It just sits there, lifeless.

Faith is like a battery. It is a gift from God, who places it in our hearts to transform our lives. Faith moves us to action. When we are “turned on” we can make things happen. By faith we can be God’s hands, His feet, and His mouth. By faith we are His presence in this world. What happens when a battery is not used? Batteries have long shelf life, but they do not last forever. Eventually they become useless. It is even worse if they sit too long in an appliance without being used because they become corroded and destroy the appliance. It is best to use the battery once it is installed, to make the light bright or the radio sing. The battery is useless otherwise. Isn’t it interesting that the appliances are lifeless without the battery and the battery is lifeless without the appliance? We need faith to accomplish God’s will and God installs faith into our hearts so that we will be His hands, feet and mouth. James writes, “Even so faith, if it has no works, is dead in itself.” Just like a battery.

Mark tells us that the more Jesus ordered the people to be silent, the more loudly they proclaimed God’s glory. They sang praise to God, and they told everyone about the good things Jesus could do. They were so amazed and proclaimed how Jesus made the deaf hear and the mute sing. This brings us back to the Old Testament prophecy from Isaiah. Jesus was, from the beginning of His ministry, fulfilling the very things that were promised of the One who would restore Israel. And we see in the story of the Syrophoenician woman that Jesus’ power was not limited to Israel. Jesus would restore all people to God. Our faith makes us part of that salvation story: first as recipients and then as God’s hands sharing His grace with others, no matter who they are.

You’ll note that the lectionary reading from James is missing a few verses. These simply expound upon verse 10, but the passage as a whole is about how we judge others. It is not about eternal judgment but about how we treat our neighbors. James focuses on the difference between how the rich and the poor are treated. We cozy up to the rich because we know that they can be of some benefit to us, but we ignore the poor because there is nothing they can do for us.

What I found interesting about the missing verses is the two commandments James decided to use in this comparison. “For he who said, ‘Do not commit adultery’ also said, ‘Do not commit murder.’ Now if you do not commit adultery, but murder, you have become a transgressor of the law.” We know that these things are wrong. Even in modern America where too many people are frivolous with their love, renaming adulterous behavior and justifying certain infidelities as being harmless, we admit that adultery and murder are wrong. We have a little more trouble with some of the other commandments, however. Do we not covet? Do we not have idols? Do we not steal and cheat and lie? Oh, most of us don’t rob banks or scam our neighbors, but we all tell little white lies, which are still lies even if they seem harmless. I once knew a woman who justified keeping the extra dollar a cashier gave her by saying, “It was her mistake and God knew I needed that dollar today.” She praised God for her sinful behavior instead of considering that He was watching her dishonesty. She accepted His grace without admitting her sinfulness. Where is her faith?

Faith does not justify sin. It is faith that gives us the courage to admit our sinfulness and trust in God’s mercy. Like the woman who accepted that she was a dog, as people of faith we recognize that we are sinners in need of a Savior. We trust that Jesus Christ has saved us. We might be able to say we are living a good life, but the reality is that none of us are good. We might do good works in the world, but our good works will never save us. James makes us ask ourselves if our faith is alive if we do not live as God has called us to live. Do we have faith if we justify our sin? Do we have faith if we make judgments based on what we see with our eyes through our own world views? Do we have faith if we seek what is best for ourselves rather than responding to the opportunities God has sent our way?

Jesus was God’s presence in the world, not only in word but also in deed. He brought transformation. He gave sight to the blind, hearing to the death, feet to those who could not walk and voice to those who could not speak. He did this for us, too, even though we may not have ever thought ourselves as blind, deaf, lame or dumb. We were once prisoners to sin, but He set us free and brought us through the desert with life giving water. He gave us sight to see the truth. He gave us ears to hear His Word. He gave us feet to go out to serve, and He gave us the voice to sing praises to God. He calls us to live our thanksgiving in very real and tangible ways, ways that will transform the world. He’s put the battery of faith in. Now turn it on and go. Praise God and do whatever you can to make a difference. Manifest the faith that has been given so that the world will see the glory of God.