Sermon: September 8, 2024
Readings: James 2:1-17 / Mark 7:24-37
The letter from James shows how easily people can make distinctions and pass judgment on others, and if we are honest, it’s something we all have done from time to time. James uses an example that he has witnessed; people in the church happily receiving and offering someone a seat who is rich and dressed in nice clothes while telling someone who is dressed in rags and is poor to stand over there out of the way. One person is accepted while the other is insulted and rejected when what should have happened is simply recognizing a child of God, making no distinction between the two.
James is making the point that you can’t go around saying you have all this faith, that you are a Christian and believe in Jesus Christ, but not demonstrate God’s love. How often do you hear someone claim that they believe in God and then, in the very next breath, demean or belittle another child of God because they are different? Whether it is because someone is on welfare, unemployed, or unhoused and without a home. Maybe someone is gay, transgender, or self-identifies a little differently than others will accept. Maybe they eat with defiled hands like the disciples and ignore other man-made rules like standing for the national anthem and instead kneeling. And as it is so popular to do today, we make distinctions and divisions based on political views if someone is Democrat or Republican.
Rather than recognizing that we are all children of God and just showing one another God’s love, people are treated as outcasts, like the proverbial scroungy mangy dog, not even worthy of having scraps that might fall from the table. Yet God, in his love and mercy, welcomes all people to sit beside one another at his table as equals, loving all equally. It is solely by God’s grace that we are all accepted as his children, given a place at the table, and fed.
Perhaps the purpose of today’s scripture, as troubling as it may be, is to shock us and remind us that God’s love surpasses all understanding and that God’s table is immeasurably larger than we can imagine. Maybe that’s the overall message and Good News we need to embrace from our gospel passage: That God’s love is available to all of us, and as God’s children, it is a love we are to demonstrate to all people because every human being is worthy of God’s love and grace.
