Pew Sheet Sunday, September 8th 2024, Fifteenth Sunday after Trinity, Creationtide 2
In last week’s Gospel reading we saw Jesus criticising the Pharisees, Scribes and Sadducees for their hypocrisy when observing every detail of the Law expecting others to do so as well, whilst completely disregarding its spirit. Their faith lay in the dry observance of each jot and iota of the law to such an extent that they became judgemental and self-serving, critical of those who did not live as they did, and considering themselves better than their neighbours, tithing the mint and rue growing in their gardens even though this was not required of them. In doing so, they surpassed the requirements of the Law, and had become proud, complacent, and self-righteous, confident that they could please God through their own efforts, the very thing the Mosaic Law was designed to prevent.
In today’s Epistle reading, St James reminds his readers about the ‘royal law’, namely that we should love our neighbours as we love ourselves, and in so doing, treat them as we too would like to be treated. Jesus says elsewhere that this fulfils all the Law and the Prophets; and is the basic essence of all that God would ask of us in addition to loving and serving him. If we do this, then we treat others with ‘unconditional positive regard’ which was an oft-used phrase throughout my nurse training back in the 1980’s which has remained with me ever since. This was tested far more than I could have imagined, especially when patients – or more often, their relatives were hypercritical or insensitive, or the conditions or situations we sometimes found ourselves trying to nurse in were not what one might expect.
I shall never forget one such occasion, when I went into London’s cardboard city under the Waterloo Bridge underpass, just outside the office I would one day occupy years later when using that phrase to teach the next generation of King’s College nurses myself. I accompanied my mentor Barbara Stillwell as she went from one flimsy shelter to another holding the hands of the homeless, dressing their sores, listening to their breathing, and urging those who ought, to seek medical assistance at the nearby St Thomas Hospital or Lambeth homeless shelter. On one occasion, one of the homeless men, drunk and dishevelled with beer-soaked clothes and the distinct smell of urine about him asked if he might have a hug on recognising her, and she did just that. It was no mere affectation, and there was no awkwardness in that embrace. It was born out of the same love or ‘unconditional positive regard’ – a concept I first heard from her lips she modelled there and then with a sincerity and authenticity I will never forget.
How unlike the situation St James describes within his letter, in which church members look to their own needs and value their rich and influential brethren over the poorer members of that same community. And there were many poor Christians in the Jerusalem church which James led. So much so that St Paul raised funds for the poor there from the many congregations he had founded on his way around the Mediterranean, showing a concern for the poor believers in Jerusalem which was clearly missing in those closer to home. James does not hold back in his criticism, and his comments here are stinging, going so far as to say that if they show no charity to their neighbours, their faith is as dead and dry as that of the Pharisees and their thoughts as evil as theirs.
In our Gospel passage Jesus shows that same ‘unconditional positive regard’ to the Syrophoenician woman, for in spite of his derogatory and racist language in calling her people ‘dogs’ – an attitude she would doubtless have experienced from her dismissive and self-righteous Jewish neighbours all her life, he already knows what his response will be, and is purely uttering these for effect, living up to the rabbinical or Pharisaical stereotype she is expecting, only to destroy it by throwing convention out of the window and breaking a few man-made rules in the process. This conversation, like the conversation with the Samaritan woman at the well is a turning point in the Gospel story, and it is surely no coincidence that he returns from there not to Galilee, but to the gentile Decapolis, where he works yet more miracles for those people his fellow countrymen regarded as dogs, but to God, are his beloved children to be healed and saved.
Collect
Lord God, defend your Church from all false teaching
and give your people knowledge of your truth,
that we may enjoy eternal life in Jesus Christ our Lord.
Isaiah 35:4-7a
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.’
Then the eyes of the blind shall be opened,
and the ears of the deaf unstopped;
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;
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.
James 2:1-10; 14-17
My brothers and sisters, do you with your acts of favouritism 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?
Listen, 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? But you have dishonoured the poor. Is it not the rich who oppress you? Is it not they who drag you into court? Is it not they who blaspheme the excellent name that was invoked over you?
You do well if you really fulfil the royal law according to the scripture: ‘You shall love your neighbour as yourself.’ But if you show partiality, you commit sin and are convicted by the law as transgressors. For whoever keeps the whole law but fails in one point has become accountable for all of it.
What good is it, my brothers and sisters, if you say you have faith but do not have works? Can faith save you? 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.
Mark 7:24-end
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, but a woman whose little daughter had an unclean spirit immediately heard about him, and she came and bowed down at his feet. Now the woman was a Gentile, of Syrophoenician origin. She begged him to cast the demon out of her daughter. He 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’.
But she answered him, ‘Sir, even the dogs under the table eat the children’s crumbs.’ Then he said to her, ‘For saying that; you may go—the demon has left your daughter.’ So she went home, found the child lying on the bed and the demon gone.
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. They brought to him a deaf man who had an impediment in his speech; and they begged him to lay his hand on him. He took him aside in private, away from the crowd, and put his fingers into his ears, and he spat and touched his tongue. Then looking up to heaven, he sighed and said to him, ‘Ephphatha’, that is, ‘Be opened.’
Immediately his ears were opened, his tongue was released, and he spoke plainly. Then Jesus ordered them to tell no one; but the more he ordered them, the more zealously they proclaimed it. They were astounded beyond measure, saying, ‘He has done everything well; he even makes the deaf to hear and the mute to speak.’
This Week’s Events
Today (Blessed Virgin Mary transferred from 15th August; Accession Charles III)
Patronal Celebration of BCP Evening Prayer, 6pm in St Mary’s Addington.
Monday (Charles Fuge Lowder, Priest, 1880)
Bell ringing at 7.30pm in St Laurence. Contact Jan on 07835 461361.
Tuesday
Zoom Morning Prayer at 9am ID: 748 9970 4493 Password: Trinity or contact Didier on [email protected]
Daytime Bible Group (2nd and 4th Tuesdays) contact Paula: 07722 808 988.
Evening Home Groups, contact Jo on 07803 942 687.
Wednesday
Morning Coffee from 10.00-11.45 in the St Laurence Rooms.
Midweek Holy Communion at 12 noon, St Laurence Church.
Thursday
Thursday Home Group, contact Jo on 07803 942 687.
Friday (John Chrysostom, Bishop of Constantinople, Teacher of the Faith, 407)
Junior Choir at 6.30 pm followed by full Choir Practice at 7.30pm. Do contact Derry on [email protected] if you would like to know more.
Saturday (Holy Cross Day)
Steve is away this coming week. Please call 07305 271148 for pastoral care and the churchwardens will pass any requests on to the other clergy.