Sermon September 5

May the words my mouth and the meditations of our hearts be acceptable to you O Lord, our strength, and our redeemer. Amen

Have you ever tried to get away? Away from the phone? Away from work? Just get away somewhere to get some rest and recharge your batteries—a little R & R. I know I have. When I was in practice, just to get away for a few days was a gift—just to get away from the worries of running a business and all the responsibilities that go along with it.

Jesus was trying to do that in today’s gospel reading. He had had tough conversations with the Pharisees concerning what made a person unclean. An unclean person couldn’t enter the temple or synagogue until they went through the process of becoming clean again which could take weeks, depending on the offense—just having a baby made a woman unclean and if it were a girl, the time it took to become clean again was twice as long as if she had a boy. But in our gospel reading today, Mark tells us that Jesus entered a house in the area of Tyre—in Gentile country. He didn’t want anyone to know it, but somehow it got out immediately; maybe it was because he had at least twelve other men with him. It was shortly after he got there that he was visited by an unnamed Gentile woman who wanted him to heal her demon possessed daughter. He was no more able to be alone in this Gentile country as he was in Galilee.

I wonder at this point how did these Gentiles get to know about Jesus. Who told them about his power and apparently his teachings? And she even calls him “O Lord, son of David” in Matthew. But that’s just a side note.

It turns out this woman had a better understanding of Jesus’ teachings than his opponents back in Galilee did and even his disciples. She stands toe to toe with him in the argument they had about the dogs eating what falls from the table. She accuses Jesus of feeding the children first, that is the Jews. She argues that the dogs, that is, the Gentiles, should somehow get the crumbs that fall from the table. And she was right. Matthew, in his record of this event, adds that Jesus tells her that he was sent only to the lost sheep of Israel. But he had compassion on her, and the woman’s daughter was healed. We are told by Mark it was because she confronted Jesus that he healed her daughter. Matthew tell us that it was because of her faith.

Jesus then went to the region of Decapolis, east of the Jordan River. It was there he was brought a deaf and mute man. This time rather than healing from a distance, he took the man in private. He opened his ears, and the man began to speak. Jesus ordered them to tell no one.

Jesus went to these Gentile areas originally to get away. But he wound up healing the sick. He was still working. The gospel writers record no teaching in these regions. His teachings and reputation had preceded him. The woman had faith. The people who brought the deaf and mute man had faith. Jesus went out even while on vacation and had compassion on the people he met; and cured them.

And so Jesus went about doing good among the Gentile people without preaching and teaching. There was an apparent knowledge of the one true God and the power he has, even through his son Jesus in these non-Jewish lands. So, he went about doing—doing things.

And maybe that’s what James was telling us in his letter. We Lutherans, as well as most main-stream Protestants believe we are saved by God’s grace through our faith. Without faith in our Lord Jesus Christ, we simply can’t do enough things to bring about our own salvation. Bottom line—we don’t do good things to gain salvation; we do good things because of our salvation.

But James makes some good points in which most theologians agree. “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?’” What good is it that we say the very same things about the Haitians and now the victims of hurricane Ida and don’t do anything? We are called to provide some sort of assistance to these people and others in the same sort of circumstances. Now we obviously can’t go to those places and do the work, but we can out of our abundance provide at least some financial assistance to organizations who provide for them in more efficient ways than we as individuals can.

Faith without works just isn’t faith. If one could faith without works, it is not faith at all. James describes faith without works as dead faith, no faith. But our faith, with works, is a living faith, a vibrant faith—one that does good in the world.

“Activity reveals the nature of a thing” is a quote used by many philosophers to identify what a thing is. A demon is recognized as evil because of what the demon does. The demons of addiction is recognized by what it does to the lives of those who possess it. Even evil demons recognize and know who Jesus is and what he teaches and shudder. But what do they produce? Evil. What do we produce? I pray good things. The things we need in this place and in this time. You see, our justification does not require works of the Law; but it does require a living faith, which performs its good works. They are works of faith.

And so, in our faith, we are called. We are called to do good in our time and place here on earth. And we are answerable to God when we refuse that call, whatever it may be, how insignificant it may seem, God calls us because it is important to him. He desires us to be as persistent as the woman and as accepting as the deaf and mute man. We must open our ears to his calling as individuals and as a congregation. We must open our mouths to proclaim in word and deed the good news. And with God’s guidance and his filling us with the Holy Spirit we can go about opening the ears of our neighbors and helping them to sing God’s praises. And so, we go with his blessing of joy and his love and God can say, “Well done, good and faithful servant.”