The Shout Out!

A Sermon Preached by

The Rev. Paul Debenport

September 6, 2009

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Hear God’s word from selected verses of today’s lectionary epistle text in

James 2: 1-10; 14-17

My brothers and sisters, do you with your acts of favoritism really believe in our glorious Lord Jesus Christ?  For 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, and 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,” have you not made distinctions among yourselves, and become judges with evil thoughts? … But you have dishonored the poor.  You do well if you really fulfill the royal law according to the scripture, “You shall love your neighbor as your self.”  For judgment will be without mercy to anyone who has shown no mercy; mercy triumphs over judgment. … If a brother or sister is naked and lacks daily food, and 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?  So faith by itself, if it has no works, is dead.

Today’s lectionary Gospel lesson is from Mark 7, but since the language is more vivid, I’m reading the same story as found in Matthew 15: 21—28. Hear God’s Word:

“Jesus left that place and went away to the district of Tyre and Sidon.  Just then a Canaanite woman from that region came out and started shouting, “Have mercy on me, Lord, Son of David; my daughter is tormented by a demon.”  But he did not answer her at all.  And his disciples came and urged him, saying, “Send her away, for she keeps shouting after us.”  He answered, “I was sent only to the lost sheep of the house of Israel.  But she came and knelt before him, saying, “Lord, help me.”  He answered, “It is not fair to take the children’s food and throw it to the dogs.”  She said, “Yes, Lord, yet even the dogs eat the crumbs that fall from their masters’ table.”  Then Jesus answered her, “Woman, great is your faith!  Let it be done for you as you wish.”  And her daughter was healed instantly.

The Word of the Lord.  Thanks be to God!

It’s comforting, I guess, to see that even Jesus can have a bad day.  Now I’m assuming Jesus is flat-out fried, here.  He’s been trying to get away for some much needed spiritual renewal, but the crowds and the accusing Pharisees kept pursing him.  He was exhausted and in serious need of a day off.  I’m also assuming that he chose Tyre and Sidon because that was a non-Jewish, Canaanite district.  But even there the word on Jesus must have been out, at least to this particular woman, who saw her chance and went for it.

She had a sick daughter, and we know what having a sick child can do to a parent:  it makes you desperate.  It can make you say horrible things to receptionists who won’t give you an appointment until mid October.  It can make you rude to doctors who give you the diagnosis and then hurry off.  It can make you scream at the insurance company rep who tells you that your coverage does not include experimental treatments.  We know what having a sick child can do to a parent.[1]

Frankly, I’m surprised that the disciples don’t.  Like bouncers, “Send her away,” they grumble to Jesus, “she keeps shouting after us.”  Haven’t we heard that before?  Haven’t we heard people in the Bible who keep shouting out to us God’s persistent, insistent Word?  Like the prophet Micah thundering, “What does the Lord require of you?  Do justice, love mercy, walk humbly with your God.”   Like the apostle James, “Show no partiality [against the poor]…. What good is it, if you say you have faith but do not have works?”  And of course, Jesus proclaiming, “What you do unto the least of these, you do to me.”  These and many others all persistently keep shouting out at us to “Get back to God’s word and work where you belong.  Be who you really are, who God created you to be.”  That’s what prophets do—keep on calling us back to our calling.

And this woman was a prophet, to Jesus, no less.  Even Jesus got tired, overwhelmed with the need around him, and in need of getting back to his calling.  And this woman called him out, reminding him of who he was and what his mission was.  And it was effective.  Though he was as tempted to give in to fatigue, to donor fatigue, to giving-of-himself-for-all- those-in-need fatigue, but he heard and acted upon God’s “call back” and opened God’s grace to all, even to this persistent outsider and her daughter.

Though I admit I find some comfort in knowing that even Jesus got tired and tempted to let someone else do God’s work for awhile, I also find great discomfort here.  Appropriate discomfort.  Needed discomfort.  Useful, perhaps even saving discomfort, for at times I need, you need, and as a church we need God’s “shout out” to call us back to be and do who and what we are to be and do as Christ’s beloved disciples.  That’s the useful and saving power of this word to us today.  It’s the way, the truth, the life.  It’s the way back.  The way back from Tyre and Sidon, where a lot of us go to hide at times, and where God sends persistent prophets to call us back.

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Who’s shouting out God’s call to us today?  The poor, of course, always.  And, although I’m uncomfortable in the role, I guess I am.  I’m a better pastor than prophet, but, as Jesus and the disciples learned from the Canaanite woman, often God calls us through our discomfort.

Last week I appealed for new volunteers for this week’s hosting of homeless families.  No one new signed up.  No one’s heart was moved.  And the same people will have to double up.  Life’s too busy, I know.  We’re all overworked and overextended and we all need some R. and R.

But God through James shouts out at us yet again, “If a brother or sister is naked and lacks daily food, and 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?  Faith by itself, if it has no works, is dead.”

In addition, though I hate to mention it and we all hate to hear it, despite our significant budget cuts for this year, like all churches in this recession, our church’s budget is way underfunded now, directly affecting mission most.  And I hate to even say this, for I know some in the church are suffering job losses and that fixed incomes for others are not so fixed, but actually have shrunk.  But there are others of us who can and need to do more.  It’s God’s “shout out,” calling back to who we are.

And I’m sure we all have uncomfortable personal callings from God that, like Jesus here, we’d just as soon ignore.  But for our own sakes, and Christ’s, we can’t.

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When I started my research for this sermon some weeks ago, I had no idea it would turn out this way.  But God’s Word can do that to and for us—thank God.  May we all have ears and hearts and wills to hear and act on God’s good and gracious “shout out” to be the disciples and the church God still is graciously calling us to be.

Amen.