September 8 | Pentecost 16, Year B
Prov. 22:1-2, 8-9, 22-23 or Isa. 35:4-7a
Ps. 125 or Ps. 146
James 2:1-10 [11-13], 14-17
Mark 7:24-37
Sometimes an ethical injunction that may seem obvious to our present sentiment has been passed down precisely because it was once far from obvious. If we are honest with ourselves, it is not always treated as obvious today. Here is the saying: “Do not rob the poor because they are poor, or crush the afflicted at the gate” (Prov. 22:22).
In many cultures and throughout human history, there has been a widespread valorization of power and wealth, supported by a system of often explicit violence. In such a view, power, strength, and wealth are signs of providential favor. Conversely, weakness, illness, disability, poverty, and all the afflictions that may beset a person were seen as evidence that divine protection had been withdrawn. Do we not still ask ourselves, as Jesus was asked so long ago, “Why was this man born blind?” and carry within a grim and soul-crushing answer? He is blind because he deserves to be blind. He has sinned, or perhaps his parents sinned. One way or another, the fault rests with the anguished. If the afflicted deserve their sorrow, adding to it by meanness of spirit, ridicule, rejection, and bullying is, in a sense, to join in the cause of the gods.
Commenting on his years of researching and writing about Roman and Greek antiquity, popular historian Tom Holland tells how he became increasingly uncomfortable, sensing that that he was imaginatively living in a world he could no longer recognize as his own. In his words, “It was not just the extremes of callousness that unsettled me, but the complete lack of any sense that the poor or the weak might have the slightest intrinsic value” (Dominion, p. 16). Again, for so long, it was assumed that the poor, the weak, and the disabled were fair game for exploitation and vitriolic cruelty, and even death.
Everything changed when a Jew named Jesus of Nazareth turned the world upside down. All the distinctions about who is rightly fortunate and who is not melted away in his presence.
While in the region of Tyre, Jesus is approached by a Gentile woman of Syrophoenician origin. She begs him to heal her daughter. There are, of course, social and religious norms to impede that from happening. Jesus should not speak with this woman; he should have nothing to do with a foreigner. And yet Jesus and the woman engage in a kind of banter that, at first, presumes this view. He should not cast the children’s bread before dogs. For her part, she insists that “even the dogs under the table eat the children’s crumbs” (Mark 7:27-28). Impressed by her wit, her insistence, and her perseverance, Jesus says, “For saying that, you may go—the demon has left your daughter” (Mark 7:29). In the region of the Decapolis, also in Gentile territory, Jesus heals a deaf man. In each case, he responds with compassion to the foreigner, the sick, the suffering — precisely those who were regarded for so long as without inherent worth.
St. James, drawing from the implications of Jesus’ ministry, says, “Listen, my 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 promised to those who love him?” In Jesus Christ, God gives justice to those who are oppressed, food to those who hunger, sets the prisoner free, opens the eyes of the blind, lifts up the lowly, cares for the stranger, sustains the orphan and widow (Ps. 146:6-8). These are the forgotten of the world.
I understand Jesus as saying, “Do not abuse the poor, or put a stumbling block before the blind” because they are children of the Almighty. “Harm them, and you are harming me.”
Thus, Jesus opened the door to a new world.
Look It Up: James 2:4
Think About It: Making no distinction, Jesus is everywhere among everyone.