Fifteenth Sunday after Pentecost
SCRIPTURE: Hebrew Bible: Proverbs 22: 1-2, 8-9, 22-23
Epistle:
James 2: 1-10, 14-18
Gospel:
Mark 7: 24-30
MEDITATION: What’s in a Name?
Our names are important. When we meet someone new we always share our names. Sometimes our
names are recognizable because of what folks have heard about us before they meet us and sometimes
no one knows of us and who we have been in our lives before we first meet. The first circumstance is
sometimes a good thing and sometimes not so much. I can remember meeting someone for the first
time during a time when I was involved in some rather controversial issues in our church around
relationship with First Nations Peoples. I had been speaking out about issues of residential schools that
some in the church did not want to hear. My voice was strong – maybe sometimes inappropriately so, I
will admit. This person I was meeting for the first time looked at me and without stopping to think about
his response said – “Your Donna Wilson? I thought you would be bigger!” I just spontaneously broke out
in a chuckle. This man had made a visual image of me before we ever met. He had formed an opinion of
who I was because of what he had heard about me. There can be “something” in our name before we
ever meet others. And that can be a good thing or a bad thing! The scripture today is telling us to be
careful about that. It is warning us that there is something in our name that speaks about who we are
and we need to be careful that “who” we are is an accurate projection of “who we really are.”
The Proverbs passage says it clearly – “A good name is more desirable than great riches; to be esteemed
is better than silver and gold. Rick and poor have this in common: The Lord is the Maker of them all.”
Have you noticed in our society that names we know, before we know the person, are generally not
those of people who we might say are “poor.” That is just the reality of a capitalistic society. We are in a
political campaign right now and so name recognition is pretty paramount. The four leaders of our
political parties are not “poor” people. In fact the way our political system works probably not very
many of the candidates would be considered to be “poor” people either. It costs money to run in an
election and therefore it can exclude people who are “poor.” That got me to thinking about the
importance of the scripture passages that tells us “do not exploit the poor because they are poor”;
“don’t show favoritism”; “don’t you dare to say to a brother or sister without food or clothing – “Go, I
wish you well; keep warm and well fed.” Wow, how true is that! In our society, in our city and our
country, how true is it that we don’t really see and recognize the need of those who we might judge as
being “poor.” More and more as I engage with people in my role as minister I find myself having a
greater admiration for those who are “poor.” Being poor takes a great deal of energy, it is a full time job
to find your way through the systems of our society to ensure that you can keep yourself and your
family “Warm and well fed.” I have found myself in the position of being an advocate more than once
this last while with the “poor” who are not being heard by those in positions of power and wealth. I
have had to use that “inappropriate loud voice” with a particular social worker who thought being
“poor” meant that not taking care of and showing respect for that person was OK. It was only when I
expressed that I was out of patience with this kind of behaviour (and expressed that forcibly) that things
began to change. You see the person that I was advocating for was indeed poor, and native, held back
by a system that barely recognized her need, and whose clothes were inadequate. Her voice was almost
just a whisper of desperation and it wasn’t being heard. That’s a “poor” person who I have come to
admire greatly – for her persistence, for her courage in the face of rejection and racism, for her deep felt
belief in her value as a human because she had been taught at an early age that God created us ALL to
be equal in our value – rich or poor doesn’t matter with God – it only matters with the rich who have
forgotten that truth and who use their position to exploit and ignore those who are “poor.” We are all
reminded in the scripture – be careful about who you are and how you conduct yourself. God has a
different vision than we do. The good news of Jesus Christ is good news for the desperate. Jesus reached
out to those living in desperation who were outsiders. He showed us God’s compassionate love of those
in need. We in the church, need to be reminded from time to time of the powerful, expansive,
miraculous love of God in Christ.
People in Jesus time flocked to see him, not because they knew him but because they knew “of him.”
People were talking, they were telling stories about this man. Stories about miracles were flashing
through the villages. Jesus had a way of attracting desperate people and he had a way of loving
desperate people. The woman who comes to Jesus in desperation in today’s Gospel is a gentile, a pagan,
from what is now Lebanon. She is not a Jew. She has no “right” to approach a rabbi, a teacher of the
Jewish faith. But she is desperate, maybe she has tried every pagan god already and gotten no relief and
so because her child’s life is in the balance she pushes her way into a place where she does not belong.
And at first Jesus says, NO. He is exhausted; he has been trying to find a place to get away from the
demands of the people. His mission is to Israel and to the Jews not to some poor and worthless gentile
who knows nothing of the faith. And yet, Jesus allows himself to be corrected, to be reminded, “Even
the dogs get the crumbs from the children’s table.” And in this you and I are reminded who this person,
Jesus is, who he “really is.” You and I, gathered together here this morning, are mostly not desperate
people. We are not at the end of our rope, and in need of a miracle. We are mostly the rich and the
privileged and we are reminded by this story that we have a calling if we are to be followers of this
Jesus, who we haven’t known in his earthly life, but who we have heard about, learned about and
admired because of who he REALLY was as he lived his life. This story reminds us who we are REALLY
meant to be. The whole world got this lesson this week in the image of a tiny dead toddler on a far off
beach in a country that most of us will never see. In that picture, despite all the news of all the horrific
things that have happened this summer in the middle east and Europe we are stopped in our tracks,
somewhat like Jesus was, and we remember. We saw on the news cast the different responses from
Hungry and from Germany and from our different political leaders here in Canada. Which one of us
didn’t want to be like the Austrian people holding up signs saying “Welcome to Austria.” People who
handed out candy and food and warm clothes? We ARE a compassionate people and we just need to be
reminded sometimes of that reality. We don’t need to feel guilty that we sometimes forget this, Jesus
forgot as well – if only momentarily. We at our heart want to be all that God would have us be. We want
to be known for the good we do and not for those times when we slip back into selfishness and “rich
people” mode. We can do and be so much more than we are and our faith community is a reminder of
that as well. We don’t do it alone, we have each other, we have God and we have the knowledge that
we are all equally loved and cared for by God – no matter who we are. We just need to keep striving
forward to live up to the name we have as followers of Christ.
Pray with me:
Compassionate God, help us also, in our times of comparative comfort and contentment, to notice and
embrace others whose needs may be greater and whose desperation may be deeper than ours.
Preserve us from drawing boundaries and limits to your love. Stir up in us and in our church a willingness
to reach out to those on the margins, the defeated and the desperate, showing them in word and in
deed that your love is more than enough; your love is a miraculous sign of God with us.
AMEN