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September 20, 2009 – Sixteenth Sunday After Pentecost,
Proper 20
Year B
By the Rev. Dr. Susanna Metz
(RCL) Proverbs 31:10-31 and Psalm 1 (Track 2: Wisdom of
Solomon 1:16-2:1, 12-22 or Jeremiah 11:18-20 and Psalm 54);
James 3:13-4:3, 7-8a; Mark 9:30-37
Sometimes the expanse of centuries between when the
scriptures were written and when we, in the twenty-first
century, are reading them seems to disappear. The readings
today that supposedly come from Wisdom and James couldn’t
possibly have been written that long ago. They must have been
written in our time – in our generation, or at least only as far
back as our parents or grandparents. They’re too current – too
modern – too right between our eyes, don’t you think?
This is true for James, especially. You don’t often hear people
say that the letter from James is their favorite. Maybe it’s not
used often enough, or maybe it makes us uncomfortable, but
we must admit that James is nothing if not practical. James’
very practical outline of behaviors and exhortations on what
one must do to live a Christian life is very, well, no nonsense.
James really spoke out to his readers back then, but today’s bit
of James should still give us a lot to think about. In fact, if it
doesn’t, then the bumper sticker that should be speaking to us
is the one that says, “If you’re not outraged, you’re not paying
attention.”
Listen again to what James says:
“Those conflicts and disputes among you … do they not
come from your cravings that are at war within you? You
want something and do not have it; so you commit
murder. You covet something and cannot obtain it; so
you engage in disputes and conflicts.”
That almost hurts to read out loud because it’s so true. Look at
the world we live in. Many of us continue to ask why, in this
day and age, the only way we seem to be able to deal with
problems among the countries of the world is to arm mostly
the poor and kill until someone gives up or one side has no one
left standing.
But even closer to home, look at our own congregations.
“Those conflicts and disputes among you, where do they come
from?” James writes. Where indeed? What is it about us
church folks that makes it so much easier to exclude than
include, when we should know better. What Christian can’t
recite by heart the two great commandments: love God and
love your neighbor as yourself. And the bumper sticker adds,
“No exceptions.” What don’t we understand about what we
can recite by heart?
And then, of course, we have to look at ourselves. It gets really
uncomfortable when we read “Adulterers! Do you not know
that friendship with the world is enmity with God? Therefore
whoever wishes to be a friend of the world becomes an enemy
of God.” Jesus says pretty much the same thing in the gospels –
but “adulterers”? That seems a little harsh.
And we can wonder what’s so wrong with “the world.” The
world, after all, is beautiful – it’s a gift from God, not
something that should put us at enmity with God. But that’s
not what Jesus and James were talking about when they used
the word “world.” They were referring instead to the
“operating system,” so to speak, of the world; the way we
interact with each other, the systems we set up to run the
world, our rules. That’s where we get into trouble. That’s
where we let our conflicts and disputes, our cravings and
selfish ambitions prevent us from truly living out those two
great commandments that we all say we believe.
And then there’s that rather scary reading from Wisdom. “The
ungodly by their words and deeds summoned death;
considering him a friend, they made a covenant with him,
because they are fit to belong to his company.”
Well, surely that’s not any of us: “ungodly … summoning
death … belonging to his company.” That’s the stuff of a
Stephen King novel, this personification of evil. So, we can
comfortably read on until we get to verse 10:
“Let us oppress the poor man; let us not regard the grey
hairs of the aged, let our might be our law of right, for
what is weak proves itself to be useless.”
That should make us squirm, because we have to understand
that as long as there is oppression, disregard for anyone, old or
young, as long as there are laws that ensure only the powerful
get ahead, as long as God’s people are at enmity with God’s
people, we’re a part of that. We share in the life and behavior
of all God’s people.
This all sounds pretty negative – bordering on desperate
perhaps. So where’s the good news? Is there good news?
I think so. But we may need to turn off our TVs and put down
our newspapers so we can better focus on the good that is in
our “world,” our “operating system.”
There are innumerable good things being done by people in
our country, in our church – there are good that each of us do.
When James says, “Who is wise and understanding among
you? Show by your good life that your works are done with
gentleness born of wisdom” – that says to us that he knows
there are those who are wise and understanding among his
hearers. We know the same about ourselves.
The connection of gentleness and peace and mercy with
wisdom is lovely. Elizabeth Johnson, a Roman Catholic
theologian, writes:
“The world as a whole is shaped by Wisdom’s guidance.
… This ordering is a righteous one, inimical to
exploitation and oppression. Sophia hates the ways of
arrogance and evil but works to establish just governance
on the earth.”
Like James, she talks about an orderliness in the world. She
reminds us that Sophia (“Wisdom”) works to establish justice
and righteousness.
Wisdom is a fascinating image. We use it to talk about the
nature of God, we use it to describe the gift of understanding
that we seek from God. Wisdom is personified as the most
hospitable of women. Elizabeth Johnson describes this
feminine aspect of wisdom:
“The female figure of Wisdom is the most acutely
developed personification of God’s presence and activity
in the Hebrew scriptures. ... The biblical portrait of
Wisdom is consistently female, casting her as sister,
mother, female beloved, chef and hostess, teacher,
preacher, maker of justice, and a host of other women’s
roles.”
Women can’t leave the doing of justice and the spreading of
the Good News to men, and vice versa. We’re all expected to
share that work. So there is good news in today’s readings.
And of course, we only read one small bit of Wisdom this
morning. If we’d read just a few more verses, we would have
come to that most beautiful passage that’s often read at
funerals:
“The souls of the righteous are in the hand of God, and
no torment will ever touch them. In the eyes of the foolish
they seemed to have died, and their departure was
thought to be a disaster, and their going from us to be
their destruction; but they are at peace – their hope is full
of immortality.”
That speaks of the dead, but it also speaks of us who still live in
this world, especially if we believe in the communion of the
saints as we say we do in the Creed. All of us – those who have
gone before us and those of us still here – are connected. We’re
all kin, all a part of the people of God.
So, to play with this passage a little: “All those who are
righteous are in the hand of God. In the eyes of the foolish, the
righteous may seem to be weak, to be useless; but they have
peace. They have hope, and that hope is full of the promise of
immortality.”
And isn’t that God’s promise? Isn’t that what we hope for
finally, for union with God? We can experience that here as
well as in the hereafter, and part of our ministry is to make
sure that we welcome all our brothers and sisters on that
journey.
These readings give us a lot to think about. This is just a start,
and there’s good news all though it. Because even when we’re
brought up short and challenged about how we’re living, and
even when we’re at our most unlovable, there’s always the
promise of God’s love for us.
Several chapters later in Wisdom we read: “But you, our God,
are kind and true, patient, and ruling all things in mercy. For
even if we sin, we are yours.”
Thanks be to God!
― The Rev. Dr. Susanna Metz is executive director of the Center
for Ministry in Small Churches at the School of Theology,
Sewanee, Tennessee, and assistant professor of Contextual
Education. She is also publisher of Tuesday Morning, a
quarterly journal of ministry and liturgical preaching.