September 6, 2024 – Sixteenth Sunday after Pentecost

Proverbs 22:2 provides a good summary of the thread that binds together these readings: “The rich and poor have a common bond, Yahweh is the maker of them all.”

There is an immediate application for us: rich and poor aren’t different species, and they shouldn’t occupy different spaces. But, in the U.S. at least, we’re “coming apart,” as Charles Murray has written, with the wealthy segregating themselves physically, socially, and educationally. Solomon would be appalled at the neglect of our derelict inner cities; he would be equally appalled at the isolation of our gated communities. We have organized our social space in a way that denies the “common bond” that we have as creatures of Yahweh. We recoil at our own flesh (Isaiah 58:7).

James begins the chapter we read today by denouncing favoritism to the rich. He reminds his readers that the rich are the ones “who oppress you and personally drag you into court” (2:6). This isn’t hyperbole or metaphor. James wrote his letter very early in the history of the church, to people dispersed by the persecution that began with Stephen’s martyrdom. James’s readers were in real danger from actual rich people, especially well-connected Jews who wanted to stamp out the early Jesus movement.

But that’s not the heart of James’s appeal. He envisions a social space where rich and poor mix and mingle, without favoritism. A wealthy, well-dressed person who enters a church shouldn’t be treated like a king; the poor shouldn’t be squeezed to the corners or shoved to the back or confined to the balcony. Making judgments is inevitable, but we need to have open eyes to make the right judgments. Valuing on the basis of wealth or clothing is “evil” judgment, a sign of “dark” eyes. A community full of darkened eyes cannot be a community of light. Without the spirit of just works, the faith we profess is no more than a corpse (2:26).

Chapter 7 of the Gospel of Mark is one of many passages where Jesus fulfills Isaiah’s prophecy. He gives hearing to the deaf and articulate speech to the mute. Like Isaiah, Mark is interested in more than isolated healings. These healings show us the kingdom of God; they are the kingdom in action. And the healings depict what is happening to the whole body of faithful people, the social body that is being restored in the new exodus that Jesus leads.

Ultimately, Jesus heals because he assumes the broken social body. When Yahweh’s servant comes, the arm of the Lord is revealed—the arm that rescued Israel from Egypt and swept away the Canaanites like gnats (Isaiah 53:1). But Jesus doesn’t look like the arm of the Lord. The servant’s face and form are marred, stricken, pierced, crushed, and scourged.

In his suffering and vindication, the servant restores the social body to health. To say that forging a bond between rich and poor is God’s work is not an encouragement to inaction. We shouldn’t reason, “Because God alone can unite rich and poor, we just have to sit back and wait for it to be done.” That reflects a zero-sum view of the relation of God and creation: if God is active, then we can’t be. That’s not how the world works. Rather, we are active because God is active. Thus, we should reason: “Because God alone can unite rich and poor, we must strive to build churches that welcome all sorts and conditions of people.”

It takes a cross to bind us together into one new humanity. It takes the cross of Jesus, re-enacted by the Spirit in the life of the church. The cross is re-enacted when we seek the good of others and not merely ourselves, when we are willing to suffer loss for the sake of our brothers, when we imitate God in welcoming people from the outside to the Lord’s feast, when we do what James commands and stop showing favoritism to the wealthy. The church will become the common space that James envisions; it will reflect the common bond of rich and poor, only when we all deny ourselves, take up our cross, and follow Jesus.

Jesus, open our ears so that we can hear you in the pleading of the poor, the cry of the environment, the war-torn, the immigrant, the hungry. Open our ears so we can hear you in the crash of waves, the sound of children laughing, the call of a friend. We want to know you well; wherever you are—and in all things. Open our deaf ears and loosen our tongues, and help us to strive to welcome all to you. Let us hear and speak your love to all the world. Amen.