September 6, 2015: May God’s words alone be spoken, may God’s words alone be heard. Amen.

I hope you are enjoying this beautiful Labor Day weekend – a time for days at the beach, bbqs with friends, or getting around to those last of the summer plans. This unofficial end of the summer brings some sadness to those who love the fun in the sun…and to a few teachers I know. I remember one of my golf buddies, a retired teacher, telling me how she used to hate it when she’d pick up something in the grocery store in late August, and it would have a September expiration date. Ohhhh noooooooo – not yet! But there are others who LOVE this time of year. They’re called “Parents.” Remember that Staples commercial from a few years ago? The dad is shopping in Staples, as his kids trudge along looking like they are heading to prison. And as he shops, he joyfully throws school supplies in the cart as the Christmas favorite “It’s the most wonderful time of the year!” plays in the background. Of course to us clergy, hearing THAT song in September brings about the same reaction as my teacher friend with the September expiration date.

Still, this weekend, whether greeted with joy or with trepidation, started as something else all together. It began in response to injustice – the exploitation of human workers. It symbolized a response to the horrific working conditions, inhumane hours, and pay that kept people in abject poverty. It began in response to the Pullman railroad strike in which many were killed in the government’s brutal response, but truthfully, that was just the tipping point. It would seem we usually need a tipping point, usually of people dying, to push us out of our complacency – then and now.

It is incredible timing that these are our readings for this Sunday – this proverb, this epistle, this gospel. The Proverb proclaims:

Whoever sows injustice will reap calamity,
and the rod of anger will fail.
Those who are generous are blessed,
for they share their bread with the poor.
 
Do not rob the poor because they are poor,
or crush the afflicted at the gate;
for the LORD pleads their cause
and despoils of life those who despoil them.

In the epistle of St. James, the author warns of favoring the rich over the poor, and then writes:

What good is it, my brothers and sisters, if you say you have faith but do not have works? …If a brother or sister is naked and lacks daily food, and 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? So faith by itself, if it has no works, is dead.

And in this gospel passage, Jesus learns a lesson himself about the difference between human kingdoms and God’s kingdom, and that all are worthy of God’s grace.

These texts are all saying something so fundamental, so essential, to who we are as children of God. But it is clear that we still need something to shake us out of our complacency. And when it does, it is never pretty.

The image of a three year old child lying dead in the surf of a Turkish beach was undeniably difficult to look at. Like the image of a Sudanese child about to die from starvation as a vulture looked on, or the images of the survivors of the Holocaust, the victims of the bombing on Hiroshima, or the animals killed by the gulf oil spill, this image – this child – has shaken the world. We will never be the same, and for that, at least his death will have meaning. For awhile, this child was nameless, just as the Syrophonician woman and her child were nameless in the gospel story.

Why is it that the poor, the marginalized, the ones we don’t want to see – why are they nameless? It’s easier that way. There’s a reason the people in the concentration camps were given numbers. A name makes them far too human. We might have to look them in the eye, to recognize them.

But, this boy is no longer nameless: “The Kurdish boy who washed up on the beach was identified by Turkish officials as 3-year-old Aylan Kurdi[…]. He was in one of two boats, Reuters reported, carrying a total of 23 people that set off separately from the Akyarlar area of Turkey’s Bodrum peninsula, apparently headed to the Greek island of Kos, where they could have attempted to enter the European Union. Reports suggested that their ultimate destination was Canada. Instead, officials said, the boat capsized, and Aylan washed up a few miles to the northeast in Turkey, not far from a beach resort. The dead included five children — among them Aylan’s 5-year-old brother — and one woman […] the boys’ mother, Rihan, [who was all of] 35 [years old]. Seven were rescued, and two reached the shore in life jackets. […] The boy’s father, Abdullah, survived [and was left to bury his children and wife with no hope remaining].”[1]

The Syrophonician woman, it turns out, does have a name…it is Rihan, it is the name of all the women across the world who will stop at nothing to protect their children, their Aylans, to save their lives, even at the expense of their own. Tragically, it resulted in the death of her and her children. And yet, when confronted by Rihan’s, by these Syrophonician women of our day, far too often we act like Jesus. Now usually acting like Jesus, well, that’s a good thing, but not in this case, at least not as he initially does.

As I said in a sermon last year titled “It’s A Dog’s World” “Jesus, our Christ, not only initially refuses to help this woman, but insults her people in the process, calling them dogs.  He tells her that his food, his grace, is for the children of Israel – outsiders are not welcome at the table.

Not welcome at the table.  [Foreigners] need not enter –  Israelite seating only.   Really?

But, like others who have stood ground against those who seek to marginalize them, [She] was not about to be cast aside, not even by the Messiah, who in this moment would initially appear to be showing much more of his fully human, rather than his fully divine, nature.  No – she was not about to be sent away with her [Syrophonician] tail between her legs.  Defiantly she answered Jesus that even dogs get the crumbs that fall from the table, and her faith and persistence is met with God’s grace.”[2]

This crisis of refugees coming out of Syria into Europe is, sadly, just the latest in humanitarian needs all over the world, and we, those who are people of faith, are called to action. The words of St. James and the Proverb should be our guide, and the Syrophonecian woman our model. That is how we are to be in the world. We need truth tellers to shake us up, and thankfully we have them.

The Syrophonician woman spoke truth to Jesus, and he was never the same. This child, Aylan, lying there in his blue jeans, red t-shirt, and tennis shoes on that Turkish beach speaks truth to us, and we can never be the same.

For far too long we have considered national & cultural boundaries to be a sign of who is worthy and who is not. Jesus did the same, until he encountered the woman who spoke truth. His ministry was forever changed – he was forever changed. That is what happens when we open our eyes to the truth, to the ones crying out in distress, standing in front of us, begging us to see them. If Jesus can take a moment to consider that he may have not gotten it right, that perhaps God is speaking new wisdom to him, why do we find it so difficult for us to do?

With this image seared in our hearts we can never go back to thinking of these refugees as a problem for Europe, as nameless, faceless, people in some far off land. Aylan won’t allow that anymore than the Syrophonician woman would allow Jesus to ignore her.

God is calling us to be generous, sharing what we have with others, as we heard in Proverbs. Christ, in his call to love our neighbor, calls us to put our faith into action as we hear in the epistle. The gospel is imploring us to look beyond these human boundaries we create – the nations, that act as walls of separation – as though God created the world divided up into nations of the have and have nots. God didn’t do that – we did.

The Syrophonician woman, the one who sought what anyone should have – health for her child, justice for herself, she is still with us. We see her in the pictures of the refugees, of Aylan, of those on the cover of our bulletins today. We can respond with bread – and today, I ask you to do that – to write a check, put cash in the offering plate, or go online to our website, and to donate to help those refugees.

But we must go a step further, because as a people of God, as followers of Jesus, we are always called to go a step further. We must do something beyond feeding and clothing the poor. We must work to dismantle the systems of violence, poverty, and oppression that starve people physically, emotionally, and spiritually. Break down the walls that divide us, and feed not only crumbs, but the whole dang loaf of bread to those in need. Nothing less can ever be enough for anyone who is part of the body of Christ.

And that is when our work truly becomes the life we are called to live, and it is when – for reasons beyond comprehension, that road becomes more difficult – when we meet the greatest resistance from those in power.

Dom Hélder Pessoa Câmara, a Roman Catholic Archbishop in Brazil and a liberation theologian once said, “When I give food to the poor, they call me a saint. When I ask why they are poor, they call me a communist.” Câmara was speaking truth. I wonder then what would be said today of Jesus, a long haired, poor, uneducated, itinerant, preacher who hung out with everyone that society deemed unworthy and advocated for justice, compassion, and peace. Crucifixion comes to mind, because generally, those who stand up for justice, sometimes die for it too.

I haven’t said a word about the healing of the deaf man in the gospel reading today…but we, like that man, must allow God to open our hearts to see the world not only as it is, but as it could be. We must allow Jesus to open our lips that we might speak truth as the Syrophonician woman did. And we must follow the Holy Spirit out into the world, standing up for those who have no voice – and never, ever, being satisfied that our work is done.

People all over the world are hungry – hungry for food, hungry for love, hungry for warmth, hungry for human touch, hungry for dignity, hungry for respect, hungry for hope. Mahatma Gandhi once said, “There are people in the world so hungry, that God cannot appear to them except in the form of bread.”

Let us be that bread – that image of God – for we called to nothing less than this.

Amen.

 

[1] http://www.washingtonpost.com/news/morning-mix/wp/2015/09/03/a-desperate-refugee-family-a-capsized-boat-and-3-year-old-dead-on-a-beach-in-turkey/

[2] “It’s A Dog’s World” https://christchurchepiscopal.org/?p=1921

[Sermons as written may not be as delivered on any given Sunday]

The Rev. Diana L. Wilcox
Christ Church in Bloomfield & Glen Ridge
September 6, 2015
Pentecost 15 – Year B – Track 1
1st Reading – Proverbs 22:1-2, 8-9, 22-23
Psalm 125
2nd Reading – James 2:1-10, (11-13), 14-17
Gospel – Mark 7:24-37