16th Sunday after Pentecost

Texts: Mark 7:24-37, James 2:1-17, Isaiah 35:4-7
Grace, Peace, and Mercy from our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. Amen.

We all play favorites at one time or the other. I imagine here we all have our favorite baseball teams, and I’ve learned to be careful if that favorite team is not the Boston Red Sox. I think I told Ed during my call interview that I was partial to the Toronto Blue Jays, and he gave me the greatest of Christian answers: “We will forgive you”. So what great news that not even the Red Sox can break the fellowship at House of Prayer, thanks be to God for that. So we can be partial to certain foods, tastes, places, aesthetics, politics, you name it. As human beings, we are always drawn on being partial to something. However, partiality can become something that harms rather than a mere preference. Partiality can lead to rejection, to marginalization, to even disregard other human beings’ existence. And we have no shortage of experiences of that through history and even in our own times. The Segregated United States was a relatively short time ago, and today we are witnessing a similar partializing dynamic in Israel/Palestine, with all kinds of sides being raised. Rejection due to ingrained or learned partiality leaves its mark in people’s lives. Even in my life I have memories of rejection due to partiality. I have this vague memory of when I was a child, it’s mostly my mother who remembers it. I was in a family trip to Disney in Florida. And so we wouldn’t get lost, the family made these shirts with the American flag on them and printed on the shirt in Spanish was “La Familia Correa”, The Correa Family. I remember I was on a line to get some ice cream, and I was among other kids. When it came to my turn, the white lady that was serving ice cream sent me to the back of the line various times, she didn’t want to serve me for some reason. What I remember next is that my parents joined me on the line, and requested to be served, to which the person begrudgingly gave in, without looking my parents in the face. This was a fractional moment in time, barely a blip in my life over something very small and harmless, but I somehow retain the vague memory of being rejected for reasons I didn’t understand at the time. My mother confirms to me, that in fact yes we had encountered a racist. Unfortunately, racism is a reality that can intrude into people’s lives very early on. I thank God it wasn’t something too disturbing, it was just ice cream anyways, and I can only pray this person might have found more charity and appreciation in her heart for all kinds of people.

But it stings doesn’t it? To be on the other side of partiality? To be seen as the non-favored? To know there are all these borders that human beings build around themselves, excluding others from fellowship and love? In today’s Gospel text, in Mark, we have a rather upsetting episode which depicts Jesus, at first, seemingly rejecting a Syrophoenician woman who pleads with Him to liberate her daughter possessed by a demon. Jesus was traveling through Gentile-majority land, and the Jewish population was not very partial to these Gentiles; we however witness in other Gospel stories that Jesus welcomed gentiles, but it’s not apparent in this Markan story. But then there is this bold Syrophoenician woman, who has heard of Jesus, and even if He is seeking to not be noticed at that time, she is in dire need, and will not be denied by Him, He who has the power to liberate her daughter. And talk about Jesus not saying the things we would want Him to say, He says the following rebuffing words to her, which sound harsh no matter how you slice it: “”Let the children be fed first, for it is not fair to take the children’s food and throw it to the dogs.” There is of course a context to this rejection, yet the context does not eliminate the harshness one can find in this text. Jesus is out there gathering the Israel that God desires, the Israel that fulfills its purpose for the world, a light for the nations, by which God becomes accessible and His ways become manifest in the world. So Jesus’ ministry, the signs and proclamation is first for the Jewish people, the children in this saying, God’s people. This gentile woman, however, is not the main focus at the moment, she is “the dog”, the food of the proclamation of God’s reign is not meant for her just yet. But this woman will not be denied. She turns Jesus saying on its head: “Sir, even the dogs under the table eat the children’s crumbs.” The faith of this woman! That at the intransigence of Jesus Himself in this particular moment, she affirms and holds on to the proclamation and the liberation of God’s reign for herself and her daughter, God’s reign and its reality are also for her! This bold faith, this reckless and intrepid trust, Jesus surrenders to: “For saying that, you may go–the demon has left your daughter… And when she went home, she found the child lying on the bed and the demon gone.” Even while I confront the difficulty of our Lord Jesus’ harshness with this woman in the beginning, we must go through the gauntlet of the difficulty of human living to reach the good news of God’s salvation. And there is powerful Gospel here. The movement of this moment reveals the potency and reach of the Gospel. We are first confronted with the reality of partiality, of perhaps prejudice, of rejection, and from that exclusionary beginning, the movement of the Gospel message reaches towards inclusion, towards impartiality, towards collective liberation. To hold on to Christ, to struggle with Him, like Jacob and the angel, that until you bless me I am not leaving mentality, to have the faith of this Syrophoenician woman, that takes God’s promises for herself, because they are for everyone, because God’s mercy and love cannot be cordoned off, we see the truth that this moment reveals. God cannot help Himself to be moved for our sake, the movement of His reign is for the world to know, that because He loved the world so much, He sent His only Son for us. He has dwelt among us and persists alongside us until the end. God’s grace moves beyond the borders and prejudices, it brings all people to the table he began to set with His people Israel. That is the movement of the Gospel story.

And thus, from that moment, we can trace how in Christ and through Christ, God has torn down partiality altogether in all kinds of configurations and has placed love of neighbor as the main disposition of the Christian. In the Epistle of James, we witness the clarity of the author as to where Christians stand on issues of partiality: “My brothers and sisters, do not claim the faith of our Lord Jesus Christ of glory while showing partiality.” And he names a very specific partiality that even today is acutely felt, perhaps even more blatantly in some aspects: “For 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, and if you take notice of the one wearing the fine clothes and say, “Have a seat here in a good place, please,” while to the one who is poor you say, “Stand there,” or, “Sit by my footstool,” have you not made distinctions among yourselves and become judges with evil thoughts?” Meaning, if we favor those who are rich over those who are poor, we are missing the mark. I’ll give you a scenario, if the President of the United States, or any other billionaire, decides to grace the sanctuary of House of Prayer, we should not escort them to any place of privilege. There is only One who receives honor here, and that is Jesus Christ. The president or the billionaire can find their own pew and drink the same church coffee we drink Sunday to Sunday, we are all equals here under God. What an amazing reality, where in this gathering we don’t have to posture with titles, and fame, and money, and power. In Christ’s Body, we are one, nobody above the other, we can be truly just who we are, called by God to be together in community; God is the center of gravity, His love, His reign, His grace. But there’s more; not only are we not to show partiality to the rich and powerful, but we are to love and break bread with those that are excluded and rejected because of their poverty. God places in the same table the migrant that sleeps in a tent somewhere in Quincy at this very moment and the President or the billionaire; and perhaps God might put more attention on those migrants because like in the story of Hagar in the desert, He is the God that sees, for He is drawn towards the forgotten and the afflicted. God’s partiality is for the whole of humanity, and with a more ardent and needed emphasis on the poor. For this faith we try to hold on to by the grace of God, fuels itself on love and mercy. Trough faith, God instills in us this way of praising Him, this radical way of life that does not cordon people off from their fellowship, but rather is ever more desirous to live out the love of Christ that overcomes partiality, death and sin. To love in this radical way that God opens up in Christ is a sign of faith in God’s way of doing things. It is the way people know, ah there is something different here, and that difference is God acting in the midst of us through Christ.
What movement, what power, what radicalness we are gifted in Jesus Christ. What barriers are broken down, what love that can’t keep itself shut. Let us be taken in by the movement of the Gospel, let us be awashed in this yes of God to all people, and praise Him with the same love He pours out on us. Let us be bold like the Syrophoenician woman, to hold on to and trust mightily in the liberating power of God for all peoples.

So Let us pray: 

Lord God we forever praise You for your wonderful Yes to our lives, that You did not withhold your power from the poor and the outsider, but instead you move us in the direction of total and manifest fellowship, that You desire to break apart the yoke of sin and hatred in our midst. Like the deaf man, that our hearing, speech and understanding may be opened up, and we might run with the good news of Jesus to all places. Thank You God, for this radical gift of a community of non-partiality, that You are no respecter of persons, but rather You open the table, and feed us from Your plenty and move us to do the same. In the name of Jesus, move us powerfully to this reality. Amen.