The Adventurous Lectionary – Pentecost 15 – September 6, 2015 Proverbs 22:1-2, 8-9, 22-23

Last updated on: August 27, 2015 at 12:33 pm by Bruce Epperly

The Adventurous Lectionary – Pentecost 15 – September 6, 2015 Proverbs 22:1-2, 8-9, 22-23 2015-08-27T12:33:51-04:00 Bruce Epperly

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The Adventurous Lectionary – Pentecost 15 – September 6, 2015

Proverbs 22:1-2, 8-9, 22-23
Psalm 125
James 2:1-17
Mark 7:24-37

God’s realm breaks down the barriers of friend and stranger and rich and poor and invites us to do likewise. God’s children deserve our reverence and respect, and this is revealed in our political advocacy and personal relationships.

Wisdom literature, as exemplified in the passage from Proverbs, is grounded in the discovery of God in the ordinary affairs of daily life. A good name, fairness, and justice are not abstractions but lived out in each day’s adventures. Having a good name suggests the interplay of the inner life and external behaviors. As we cultivate holiness in the spirit, the natural fruits are consideration for all people regardless of their social standing and economic situation. Rich and poor alike deserve respect, and to shun the poor leads to alienation and diminishment of the soul, not just the souls of the poor but our own.

While we may not affirm the strict act-consequences theology of cause and effect suggested in the Proverbs passage, we can connect blessedness with justice and compassion. Generosity expands the spirit and frees us from the prison of self-interest. Injustice may very well lead to calamity. But, sadly the impact of injustice falls disproportionately on the marginalized and vulnerable. Still, Socrates’ notion that committing injustice is the greatest evil and that is better to suffer injustice than perpetrate it is insightful. Those who commit injustice may experience a famine of hearing God’s word, as the prophet Amos asserts. Their world shrinks to the size of their personal well-being; their spirits atrophy rather than grow.

Psalm 125 connects trust in God with personal endurance. Trust in God or another suggests a reliance on grace and a willingness to follow God’s pathways regardless of immediate reward. Like the attitude of a young child toward its parent or grandparent, trust roots us in relationship to the source of safety and blessing. We can endure because our interest embraces God’s vision and not just our own idiosyncratic and narrow self-interest. Walking God’s path leads to the joy of a clear conscience and the comfort of knowing that God will supply our deepest needs, including our need to sacrifice for the well-being of our community and the planet.

The Epistle of James invites us to an embodied faith. Our vision of God as the lover of all creation inspires us to welcome the stranger and uplift the impoverished. Beneath the exteriors of wealth and poverty and power and weakness, God’s Spirit lives. In the spirit of Matthew 25, we treat the poor with grace and hospitality – with equality – because our care for the creature and the Creator are one and same reality. As we have done unto the least of these, we have done unto Christ. So, with the Benedictines, we seek to treat everyone as Christ, experiencing God in all of God’s varied and sometimes distressing disguises.

Jesus’ encounter with the Syrophoenecian woman presents Jesus in an ambiguous light. Jesus initially appears to dismiss her cry for help because she is a foreigner, undeserving of the blessings inherent in being one of God’s chosen. The passage begs a variety of questions: Is Jesus buying into the racism of his people? Or is Jesus testing her faith? Does the desperate mother teach Jesus about the unlimited nature of divine hospitality or does Jesus use this encounter as a type of parable, acting out a racist attitude, only to break down the barriers of race and ethnicity by healing the woman’s daughter?

Jesus’ miraculous power is revealed in a distant healing. First, Jesus heals the alienation between Jews and Gentiles. All are deserving of God’s grace. There are no outsiders in God’s healing realm. Second, Jesus heals the child at a physical distance. Prayer is not limited to those beside us, but shapes the lives of whom we pray, regardless of distance, creating a field of force that enables God to be more effective and energetic in their lives.

Our faith can transform the world and challenge us to leave our comfort zones behind. The stranger also deserves reverence and is entitled to the same well-being as we seek. God wants us to embrace the joy of a good name cultivating the inner and outer journeys and seeking for others what we must desire for ourselves.

(For more on the healing stories in Mark’s Gospel, see Bruce Epperly, Healing Marks: Spirituality and Healing in Mark’s Gospel and Mark’s Holy Adventure: Preaching Mark’s Gospel for Year B)

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