Bible Tuesday for Sunday, September 6th, 2015

Isaiah 35:4-7

Say to those who are of a fearful heart,
‘Be strong, do not fear!
Here is your God.
He will come with vengeance,
with terrible recompense.
He will come and save you.’

5 Then the eyes of the blind shall be opened,
and the ears of the deaf unstopped;
6 then the lame shall leap like a deer,
and the tongue of the speechless sing for joy.
For waters shall break forth in the wilderness,
and streams in the desert;
7 the burning sand shall become a pool,
and the thirsty ground springs of water;
the haunt of jackals shall become a swamp,*
the grass shall become reeds and rushes.

The Israelites are being conquered by the Babylonians with siege laid against Jerusalem. The people within the city are terrified, panicked, and full of dread. It is to this situation that the prophet responds as he writes the above passage.

While I struggle with the idea of God reeking vengeance on anyone, (Certainly Jesus’ life, death, and resurrection are the example of the opposite of vengeance.) I really do appreciate this passage. The recompense that God will work is illustrated by new life sprouting from death. The blind, deaf, and dumb are receive restoration of their senses. Arid, barren, desolate places are promised to come alive with water, plant and animal life.

How is it that God will save these trapped, frightened Israelites? With abundant life in places they never thought they would find it.

Psalm 146

1 Praise the Lord!
Praise the Lord, O my soul!
2 I will praise the Lord as long as I live;
I will sing praises to my God all my life long.

3 Do not put your trust in princes,
in mortals, in whom there is no help.
4 When their breath departs, they return to the earth;
on that very day their plans perish.

5 Happy are those whose help is the God of Jacob,
whose hope is in the Lord their God,
6 who made heaven and earth,
the sea, and all that is in them;
who keeps faith forever;
7 who executes justice for the oppressed;
who gives food to the hungry.

The Lord sets the prisoners free;
8 the Lord opens the eyes of the blind.
The Lord lifts up those who are bowed down;
the Lord loves the righteous.
9 The Lord watches over the strangers;
he upholds the orphan and the widow,
but the way of the wicked he brings to ruin.

10 The Lord will reign forever,
your God, O Zion, for all generations.
Praise the Lord!

The psalmist celebrates a divine power that defines itself not with acts of wealth or military power, which sway with change in leadership, but rather the through creation of all that exists and who exerts power through compassion and constancy.

James 2:1-17

My brothers and sisters, do you with your acts of favoritism really believe in our glorious Lord Jesus Christ? 2For 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, 3and if you take notice of the one wearing the fine clothes and say, “Have a seat here, please,” while to the one who is poor you say, “Stand there,” or, “Sit at my feet,” 4have you not made distinctions among yourselves, and become judges with evil thoughts?5Listen, my beloved brothers and sisters. Has not God chosen the poor in the world to be rich in faith and to be heirs of the kingdom that he has promised to those who love him? 6But you have dishonored the poor. Is it not the rich who oppress you? Is it not they who drag you into court? 7Is it not they who blaspheme the excellent name that was invoked over you?

8You do well if you really fulfill the royal law according to the scripture, “You shall love your neighbor as yourself.” 9But if you show partiality, you commit sin and are convicted by the law as transgressors. 10For whoever keeps the whole law but fails in one point has become accountable for all of it. 11For the one who said, “You shall not commit adultery,” also said, “You shall not murder.” Now if you do not commit adultery but if you murder, you have become a transgressor of the law. 12So speak and so act as those who are to be judged by the law of liberty. 13For judgment will be without mercy to anyone who has shown no mercy; mercy triumphs over judgment.

14What good is it, my brothers and sisters, if you say you have faith but do not have works? Can faith save you? 15If a brother or sister is naked and lacks daily food, 16and 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? 17So faith by itself, if it has no works, is dead.

So frequently we read scriptures and struggle to understand the culture from which they are written. What is Jesus talking about? What do we have in common with these folks. James nails it for his own congregations and for us, as well. Because of human nature, the neuro pathways in our brains, we constantly judge books by their covers. Jeff and I both taught and practiced “looking professional”, “speak properly”, “act politely” in order to garner the best possible first impressions and all other impressions that follow. Firm handshakes and a straight look in the eye mean a lot in American society.

Of course James draws an absolutely true dichotomy between how the “beautiful people” are treated and how the poor are treated. But I think he over simplifies this lesson. “Has not God chosen the poor of this world to be rich in faith…?” It is as if James is suggesting that there is a converse relation between being poor and faithful and rich and faithless, with the middle class being dead center on both spectrums.

There is in Liberation Theology a tenet called “Preferential Treatment for the Poor” which teaches that God prefers the poor over the rich, tending and nurturing the poor the most. There sure is a lot of scripture that supports this: Rich Man and Lazarus, Camel through the Eye of the Needle, “Go, sell all you have and give your money to the poor. Then come, follow me.” In my own understanding of this tenet, I think that a) the poor are more vulnerable on Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs, and b) their desperate need gives them a more immediate opportunity to hear and receive God, a Theology of the Cross moment, if you will. But dearth of financial means does not equal wealth of faith in God. I have met people of amazing faith in all walks of life and socio-economic classes. Spitting on the cross also spans the socio-economic spectrum.

James goes on to states St. Paul’s point that “all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God,” therefore, no one, for whatever reason, deserves favor for anything. We serve, not because people deserve our service, but because God serves us. Our service to others our response to God’s service to us.

James’ last point in this passage can be a sticky one for Lutherans and sure seems to fly in the face of “Salvation by Grace through Faith apart from works of law.” As the Holy Spirit works in people, planting within them faith in the marvelous acts of Jesus, then that faith is bound to grow and produce fruit, works. If not, it is merely seed that landed on the path or was choked by the sun and weeds. Living faith is exemplified in acts inspired by and harmonizing with the Holy Spirit.

Mark 7:24-27

24 From there he set out and went away to the region of Tyre.* He entered a house and did not want anyone to know he was there. Yet he could not escape notice, 25but a woman whose little daughter had an unclean spirit immediately heard about him, and she came and bowed down at his feet. 26Now the woman was a Gentile, of Syrophoenician origin. She begged him to cast the demon out of her daughter. 27He said to her, ‘Let the children be fed first, for it is not fair to take the children’s food and throw it to the dogs.’ 28But she answered him, ‘Sir,* even the dogs under the table eat the children’s crumbs.’ 29Then he said to her, ‘For saying that, you may go—the demon has left your daughter.’ 30So she went home, found the child lying on the bed, and the demon gone.

31 Then he returned from the region of Tyre, and went by way of Sidon towards the Sea of Galilee, in the region of the Decapolis. 32They brought to him a deaf man who had an impediment in his speech; and they begged him to lay his hand on him. 33He took him aside in private, away from the crowd, and put his fingers into his ears, and he spat and touched his tongue. 34Then looking up to heaven, he sighed and said to him, ‘Ephphatha’, that is, ‘Be opened.’ 35And immediately his ears were opened, his tongue was released, and he spoke plainly. 36Then Jesus*ordered them to tell no one; but the more he ordered them, the more zealously they proclaimed it. 37They were astounded beyond measure, saying, ‘He has done everything well; he even makes the deaf to hear and the mute to speak.’

Last week’s gospel text was the verses that immediately precede these, where Jesus teaches that what defiles a person is not the absence of religious ritual, but rather sinful thoughts and actions. This week’s gospel is a set of stories which illustrate Jesus’ point. In both stories Jesus encounters people who are unclean by Israelite tradition, and yet Jesus, the God/Man, declares them clean and grants to them what they desire of God.

In the first story, Jesus takes his disciples out of the land of the Israelites, the land of Canaan promised to Abraham and his descendants by God. Jews don’t go there. Jews don’t eat there or sleep there or even travel there because the people there are unclean goyim, “not us.” The Hebrew scriptures do not instruct Israelites to leave their homes and work places and go out to evangelize the goyim about Yahweh. Israelites are supposed to “go to the land that I will give you,” and be faithful to Yahweh there, and the goyim will come to them. It was unheard of for a rabbi and his disciples to leave Israel and enter the house of goyim in a strange land. The disciples had to be unsettled by the whole thing.

Then here comes a goya woman begging Jesus to exorcise a demon from her little girl. The theme of humility before the master runs through this story. The woman’s demon possessed daughter is a “little girl” or a diminutive female child. The woman humbles herself by bowing down at Jesus’ feet. (Notice that none of the disciples or apostles ever do this, except the woman who washes Jesus’ feet with her hair. Rather, in the gospel of John, Jesus knees at the disciples’ feet.) Jesus seemingly chastises the woman by saying that food, literally bread in Hebrew, should not be taken from the children (as opposed to “the Israelites” or “God’s chosen people”) and throw it to the dogs. The woman replies, “Sir, even the puppies under the table get the children’s crumbs,” not “even the dogs get table scraps.” The fruits of this humble, beseeching exchange? The mother returns to her home and finds her little daughter healed.

Returning from foreign soil toward Galilee, Jesus is presented with a man who is deaf and unable to speak. Consistent with “Theology of Glory” alive and well in our own time, disabilities, as well as poverty, misfortune, and untimely death, were considered just deserts bestowed by God. When Jesus responds favorably to the begging of this man’s sponsors and touches this man, Jesus is defying defilement traditions in favor of mercy.

Almost two months ago, the gospel lesson was John’s version of the feeding of the 5,000. That miracle happens in Chapter 6 of Mark. Now in chapter 7, the idea of God feeding all who seek to be fed, both the Jews who are present, and everyone else who might eat from the leftover baskets, is expounded on in living color by the debate of what defiles, and then by the “feeding” of the demon possessed daughter and the deaf mute.