Collect
God, who in generous mercy sent the Holy Spirit upon your Church in the burning fire of your love: grant that your people may be fervent in the fellowship of the gospel that, always abiding in you, they may be found steadfast in faith and active in service; through Jesus Christ your Son our Lord, who is alive and reigns with you, in the unity of the Holy Spirit, one God, now and for ever.
or
Lord God, defend your Church from all false teaching and give to your people knowledge of your truth, that we may enjoy eternal life in Jesus Christ our Lord.
Post Communion
Keep, O Lord, your Church, with your perpetual mercy; and, because without you our human frailty cannot but fall, keep us ever by your help from all things hurtful, and lead us to all things profitable to our salvation; through Jesus Christ our Lord.
Readings
Old Testament – Proverbs 22.1–2, 8, 9, 22, 23
A good name is to be chosen rather than great riches, and favour is better than silver or gold.
The rich and the poor have this in common: the Lord is the maker of them all.
Whoever sows injustice will reap calamity, and the rod of anger will fail.
Those who are generous are blessed, for they share their bread with the poor.
Do not rob the poor because they are poor, or crush the afflicted at the gate; for the Lord pleads their cause and despoils of life those who despoil them.
Psalm 125
1 Those who trust in the Lord are like Mount Zion, ♦
which cannot be moved, but stands fast for ever.
2 As the hills stand about Jerusalem, ♦
so the Lord stands round about his people, from this time forth for evermore.
3 The sceptre of wickedness shall not hold sway
over the land allotted to the righteous, ♦
lest the righteous turn their hands to evil.
4 Do good, O Lord, to those who are good, ♦
and to those who are true of heart.
5 Those who turn aside to crooked ways the Lord shall take away with the evildoers; ♦
but let there be peace upon Israel.
Epistle – James 2.1–10 [11–13] 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. [For the one who said, ‘You shall not commit adultery’, also said, ‘You shall not murder.’ Now if you do not commit adultery but if you murder, you have become a transgressor of the law. So speak and so act as those who are to be judged by the law of liberty. For judgement will be without mercy to anyone who has shown no mercy; mercy triumphs over judgement.]
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.
Gospel – Mark 7.24–37
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.’ And 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.’
Sermon on Trinity 15
Part of our passage from the letter of James reads –
“My brothers and sisters, do you with your acts of favouritism really believe in our glorious Lord Jesus Christ?”
This question leads to his statement that faith without works is empty. Here is a real example of why he believes that. When we have favourites, we are not living out the love that the Lord expects of those who say they believe. How can we love our neighbour as ourselves when one person takes precedence?
I wonder, with James, do we show favouritism in our lives? Don’t we in little things show that we prefer one person to another? At a party, when we move from one person to another, don’t we reveal our preferences in some way? These choices may be altruistic, but quite often they are merely selfish. We say to ourselves, “Wouldn’t it be nicer to talk with that person than this one?” or “I would really like to go over to that person” and we move on to that momentary favourite. This happens all the time. At times we blatantly show that we desire to be in a “celebrity’s” company rather than to be with the plain vanilla of ordinariness. That is our penchant for the latest thing, isn’t it? – Paul wrote about that in one of our recent weekly readings, didn’t he? – This is just one more example of how we are swayed by popularity and the crowd.
We do have our favourites, don’t we? After all, don’t we marry one another to cement that relationship of the favourite? We wed ourselves to a perception of a loved one so that we will not be left lonely. I would say that the beloved is the highest form of “a favourite” in life. Marriage confirms us in our love of one other – however effusive or deficient it may in fact be. However, we have to admit that the public face of marriage expresses the fact that we have chosen a favourite with whom we wish to spend our lives.
Favouritism, I think, shows just how we lean toward inauthentic living. It shows that we don’t want to go against the crowd. The “they” of the crowd can often be wrong – they do not necessarily do the good for its own sake. Everything is evaluated against the project of remaining within the mass of humanity and its celebrated influence. When we favour the furtherance of the crowd’s wishes, don’t we deny our own choice in the matter of what is right and good in life? By showing favourites we don’t love one another as Christ loved the world. His love was complete, without let or hindrance. When we prefer one over against another – even if it is our life partner – do we show that same authentic love which Jesus Christ shed for the whole world – in the crucifixion, that self oblation given once and for all on the cross? Doesn’t the BCP say,
Jesus Christ “made there, by his one oblation of himself once offered, a full, perfect, and sufficient sacrifice, oblation, and satisfaction, for the sins of the whole world.”
Is this the act of preferential treatment? No, not at all! Jesus shows utter “indifference” to each and every one of us (to use a BCP prayer’s description of our rulers’ behaviour towards their subjects). All humanity receives this impartial largess, this grace of God – all have been offered salvation through the blood of Christ. Each and every one of us can experience this mercy of God, if only we would be faithful and believe. So how can we imitate Christ? How do we act with that same perfectly indifferent impartiality through the whole of our lives? How do we show our faithfulness in the little things of life? For instance, how do we show our love in that example of the party which began this reflection?
So we can see why James condemned favouritism, can’t we? He takes us to task because there is no even-handedness when we treat one differently one to another. We have to see that this inclination is wrong. If our politicians or civil servants behaved in this way, wouldn’t there be a dreadful outcry? And that is just the world looking on these acts of injustice. What then of God’s judgement on such behaviour?
Let’s turn this around. – What happens when we expect to be treated with great favour? I always remember the story of the guest at the feast to make it clear to myself about expecting favouritism to be directed towards myself. The guest at the feast took a seat at the high table as if by right. Then when the host spots another guest arrive, he moved that guest lower down in order to accommodate the new arrival – one of those late arrivals at the ball which were so well characterised on that radio programme, “I’m sorry I haven’t a clue”. – But I digress.
If I were the guest who took that seat at the high table, doesn’t it say something about my character? Am I so ambitious, or conceited that I expect such special treatment? How can I possibly justify such an attitude toward myself? – But don’t we do this all the time? Don’t we consider ourselves to be special in all sorts of ways? We need only look at any social media page to confirm this. We reveal our characters so blatantly if we were to take a disinterested view of our public activity there.
When we love others as our very own selves, everything has another look. Celebrity is forsaken, because it is seen for what it is. I think that the greedy concupiscence that distorts everything we find meaningful in our lives is to be found in favouritism. In contrast with true love the singular person becomes the focus of attention, and the crowd has no significance. In that prayer, we remembered that that “full, perfect, and sufficient sacrifice, oblation, and satisfaction” is nothing less than a complete selflessness. I no longer matter more than anyone else. That is to say either everyone matters or no one does. No one person can take precedence – no person can be a favourite. That is not the story that is painted everywhere in the media. The news is full of stories where the selfish gene is extolled, and generous selflessness is denigrated.
How can we change this? There is an old pop song which I remember from my youth called “What’s going on?” – in it we hear, “For only love can conquer hate / –
You know we’ve got to find a way / To bring some lovin’ here today”. – Sometimes even pop songs can point the way. – Only love can conquer the hate which favouritism engenders. If I focus only on that celebrity, how can I turn my attention to and love others? If I only look in the mirror, will I ever see anyone else to love? When we have favourites, we don’t have the capacity for any attention for anyone or anything else. Favouritism is a dangerous obsession and self-indulgence – everything that the media promotes in advertising to encourage our over-consumption of things we do not need. So we do have to ask, “What’s going on?” don’t we? We read in the gospel:
Jesus 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.’
Perhaps those crumbs are the proof of largess, the impartial sharing of God’s gifts to all. Perhaps we should be satisfied with the crumb of attention, whether we are giving it or receiving it. Like the dogs we should be happy to be at the table with everyone else. And in our lives here and now we should not worry who is the centre of attention – who is the favourite at the moment.
James questions favouritism in ourselves and in the one, holy, catholic and apostolic Church, both past and present – and it will always be a question to be asked in the future. It is a question for every generation – in fact it is a question for every person to ask at every moment. So how do we answer this question here in Slimbridge today? How do we guide this and future generations in this very difficult question of favouritism? How will we love one another as God loves all of humanity? I ask these questions as a prelude to the coming of the kingdom of God.