September 6, 2009:  GOD BLESS THE WORKING POOR
Prov 22:1-2. 8-9, 22-23; Mark 7:24-37; James 2:1-7; Psalm 125
Eileen Parfrey -- Springwater Presbyter       

            The news came just in time for Labor Day Weekend:  the recession is over.  What I heard as I rushed out the door was that final details are still resolving, like people actually getting jobs and being paid a living wage and receiving benefits like health insurance.  But otherwise the recession is over.  Speaking of health insurance, if you are on Facebook, you might have seen what I’ve been seeing in the “What’s on your mind?” posts.  My Friends have been posting the same message,  “No one should die because they cannot afford healthcare. No one should go broke because they get sick, and no one should be tied to a job because of a pre-existing condition.”  Internet social networking as developing public opinion. 

            We might think of the book of Proverbs as ancient Israel’s Facebook, a collection of Solomon’s (or whoever put the book together) “What’s on my mind” postings.  A person could do worse.  One of my construction buddies and I discovered that the workers who got through the work day quoting momilies to themselves were more reliable employees than those who couldn’t.  Momilies are proverbs your parents and grandparents use to help civilize you.  Things like, “If it’s worth doing, it’s worth doing well,” and “Finish what you start,” and “You’re only as miserable as you want to be” and “If you open it, shut it; if you turn it on, turn it off; if you unlock it, lock it.”  The book of Proverbs is full of momilies, a series of one-liners—which is why it’s hard to read.  With skillful editing, it’s possible to trace a thread, and that’s what the lectionary committee did for us today.  Today’s thread essentially says, “God is on the side of the poor, so we should be, too.” 

            Simple.  It starts by concluding that the great equalizer of people is a good name.  The primary source of a good name is generosity, which is the same as treating people justly, especially poor people.  I’m reminded of a friend of mine who tried to help her neighbor re-activate her pre-paid cell phone.  It’s a complicated story, unfolding over several days, but the bottom line is that the cell phone company targets its business toward poor people, but structures their fees so as to take advantage of limited financial resources to charge more by attaching punitive charges to re-activate.

            The proverbist reserves a special warning for this.  In ancient Israel, legal activities were carried out in the city gate, rather a courthouse, but even being in court didn’t guarantee the vulnerabilities of the poor were protected.  You’ve heard about this, maybe even experienced it yourself, the travesty of injustice when bureaucracies and social service agencies and courts steamroller someone who doesn’t speak English or can’t afford an attorney who takes them seriously.  This constitutes legalized robbery of the poor, this steamrollering, and the proverbist warns the crooks that “the Lord pleads their cause.”  God is the lawyer for the poor, the advocate for the abused.

            Too bad poor people don’t have an advocate like that Syro-Phoenician mother.  Boy howdy, there was no stopping that woman!  The Son of God couldn’t even get her to shut up!  “Give fair treatment to my daughter!” she demands, and Jesus has to cave.  The gospel writer Mark loves to pair stories so they can comment on each other, sort of like a neon sign, pointing to his message.  A Gentile mother pleading for a sick daughter, a deaf man healed.  Two outsiders, folks completely not-like the nice Jewish boy, Jesus.

            The story of the Syro-Phoenician woman is recognized as a story in which Jesus learns something from a woman.  Right about the time Jesus’ disciples (the dunderheads) are showing less and less understanding of his ministry and their role in it, she shows up and requires Jesus to open up his ministry.   The next thing we know, Jesus heals the deaf man with the words, “Open!”  From a remote healing of someone Jesus doesn’t need to see, to an intimate healing requiring touch and spit.  From a woman so superlatively gifted in speaking that she can convince even a well-respected Jewish man and teacher, to a man hitherto unable to speak.  The message is, there is more than one way to be closed in understanding.  The reign of God will open them all.

            Egypt’s Coptic Church was invisible for centuries, its membership dwindling to under a quarter million, nearly disappearing into its monasteries.  When a new pope was elected to the Coptic Church, the monks were required to spend half of each year outside the monasteries, living and ministering in the community.  Problem was, because the churches in the community were almost non-existent so they had to re-establish the neighborhood churches so they could worship.  As the churches revived, as the monks and the little congregations began to minister in the communities, people began to take notice.  You see, the church worked among the poor and disabled—regardless of whether they were Christian or Muslim—people no one else considered worthy of attention.  Young people and students began helping, because the work of the church was compassionate and just and not limited to people who could reciprocate or pay for their services.  It was work that needed to be done, because the down-and-out always need someone to stick up for them, and within the space of fifteen years, the Coptic Church in Egypt grew from 250,000 members to five million. 
           
             What if Jesus had been able to escape notice in that Gentile territory?  What if he’d been able to ignore the Gentile woman or refused to heal her daughter?  Generations of hatred!  She was so not like Jesus and his friends.  What if the prospect of actually touching a beggar was too much for Jesus and he’d declined to heal him?  What if we were open to people not like us, people unpleasant and who can’t give back to us?  What if we didn’t just welcome those strangers who came here, who actually made it through our doors, but what if we went out and met them and ministered with them?       
     
            This is the year we celebrate John Calvin’s 500th birthday.  Calvin, one of the founders of the Presbyterian Church, said that human brokenness is not just a simple matter of “doing some things that are wrong while doing others that are right”  When he says “total depravity,” he doesn’t mean we’re rotten to the core, he means that “even our noblest, wisest, and most self-less acts are tinged with the sin that permeates even our virtues.”  And it’s not just individuals who sin, he says, but brokenness permeates even our finest institutions.  The news is good, though.  We’re not stuck.  As Christians, we believe that sin has a remedy stronger than spit and touch.  I speak of repentance.  By repentance I don’t mean “list your failings.”  I take the New Testament meaning of “repent,” namely “change your direction.”  We are not helpless nor are we hopeless, friends.  We have resources at our disposal even more powerful, pervasive, and rapid than Facebook postings.  I speak of the power of Holy Spirit permeating our lives and institutions.  I speak of the grace of God in Jesus Christ, giving us hope, in our individual lives and that of our nation, assuring us we are not stuck.  Transformation is God’s business.  “Serving the poor” as the Coptic Church did in Egypt, means loving even people “not like me,” the ones unable to reciprocate, the vulnerable ones unable to contribute to our looking good, the ones who are dangerous to the status quo.  Our status quo.  We will never be the same if we open our lives to God and the world around us. 

Michael Lindvall, “Course Correction,” Christian Century, July 28, 2009