Bible Text: Proverbs 22:1-2, 8-9, 22-23; James 2:1-10, 14-17; Mark 7:24-37 | Preacher: Reverend Helen Dean

A sermon for the 16th Sunday after Pentecost
When I was young I learned a lot of proverbs. I heard them at home and at school. You don’t hear proverbs as much these days but they had a lot of truth in them.

Sometimes, of course, although they were true, they weren’t universally true. Often, the opposite was also true. Can you fill in the gaps?

Look before you   …   leap.
He who hesitates   . . .   is lost.

Absence makes the heart   …   grow fonder.
Out of sight   …   out of mind.

Never put off till tomorrow   …   what you can do today.
Don’t cross the bridge   …   until you come to it.

You’re never too old to   …   learn.
You can’t teach an old dog   …  new tricks.

Many hands   …   make light work.
Too many cooks   …   spoil the broth.

I’m sure you can think of more.

Proverbs in the Bible were also wise sayings that were helpful in life. They were not commandments or judgements but lifestyle observations that could help you along the way.

If you look at the proverbs that we read today, you will see that they have been carefully chosen. They are generally wise, timeless, reflective of our understanding of God and so on. It can be educational to check your Bible and look at some of those that were not included today. Many of them are also wise, but some are now culturally inappropriate or illegal in our society and some are just mystifying. For example, I have made many excuses for laziness but I would never excuse my laziness by saying, I can’t do it. There is a lion outside! I shall be killed in the streets! (Proverbs 22.13) Perhaps that might be a good excuse for not going to school or not going to the shops to buy milk.

Our New Testament reading from James warns about partiality or favouritism and also about praying for someone but not being willing to do anything practical to help them. That kind of faith, says James, is dead. It is not a living, breathing, moving, making-a-difference-to-the-world faith.

The Bible says that Those who say, “I love God,” and hate their brothers or sisters, are liars. (1 John 4.20a) We may not habitually lie to others but we are often very good at lying to ourselves.

James speaks against categorising people into the more acceptable and the less acceptable, the desirable and the undesirable, the ones to be helped and those who can be ignored. In Christ, there is no them and us. There is only us. If we love our neighbour as ourselves, then we are all in the same category. What matters for one of us matters for all of us.

Martin Luther King said, Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere. We are caught in an inescapable network of mutuality, tied in a single garment of destiny. Whatever affects one directly, affects all indirectly.

You could say we are all in the same metaphorical boat, but that saying doesn’t always hold water.

On the Titanic, there were not enough lifeboats for all the passengers. There should have been 32 but there were only 20 so that the ship did not look too cluttered. Sometimes caring about other people is messy and inconvenient or just doesn’t look good, but it matters. And the lifeboats that were available were not all filled to capacity.  A couple of the collapsible lifeboats were not filled at all and floated off the ship as it sank. One of these was upside down and could not be righted but some people survived by standing on it.

The Titanic passengers were all in the same physical boat but their chances of survival were not the same.

About 60% of the first-class passengers survived.

About 42% of the second-class passengers aboard survived.

About 25% of the third-class passengers survived.

As James would say, If you show partiality, you commit sin and are convicted by the law as transgressors. (James 2.9) Clearly, the systems for helping people to survive this disaster were not equally fair to all.

Our Gospel reading tells two stories about Jesus. Both of them are about healing but only the first one is about partiality, and it is deeply disturbing. You could also call it, Jesus learns a lesson.

It is tempting to think that Jesus, perfect Jesus, knew everything that was and is and is to be. Was he born knowing his times tables and all the questions his disciples would ask? Maybe, although that sounds more like a cosmic fortune-teller.

If Jesus was truly human as well as truly divine, then he lived as one of us, struggled as one of us, and learned lessons as one of us. He would never have prayed, Father, if . . .  if he already knew the answer.

Throughout his ministry Jesus vacillated between saying that he had come for the lost ones of the tribe of Israel, and taking a more global view. Although he moved between both positions, the trend was one of more love and inclusion.

In this story, however, Jesus has said, in effect, not my problem.  Or as they say in Poland, Not my circus, not my monkeys.

Here Jesus seems to be the one who is being partial, so although we usually take our lessons from Jesus, perhaps this is one story in which we are meant to identify first with the Syrophoenician woman and see how to act when faced with partiality.

We know that she is an example of faith, persistence, confidence in the rightness of the cause, and being confident that the seemingly intractable can be moved to justice and mercy, to recognition of equality of need, and equality of worth. We know this because this is why Jesus said he was helping her – because of how she acted.

We are human and we are shaped by our culture. So was Jesus. We have assumptions and prejudices that we only slowly discover. So did Jesus. What do we do when we discover these things? Now we can focus back on Jesus. We can do as he did. We can listen to the needs of others. We can learn. We can change our minds, our attitudes and our actions.

We can say, Yes. I see your need and your pain. What can I do to help?

Like the simple wisdom of proverbs, life is not always as simple as we would like. May we all find ways to love and listen to God and our neighbours. May we, like Jesus, learn and grow in grace without partiality. Amen.