Sermon for September 5, 2021 Pentecost 15 B House of Prayer Lutheran Church

Mark 7:24-37; James 2:1-10, 14-17 Rev. Karl-John N. Stone

I was watching the Paralympic Games from Tokyo last week. It was track & field, the 5,000 meter race, and all of the competitors were blind! That’s 10 blind runners, going as fast as they can for 3.1 miles around a track. The gold medalist was named Yeltsin Jacques of Brazil, who ran at a pace of 4 minutes 53 seconds per mile. By comparison, the world record pace for a non-blind runner in the 5,000 meters is 4 minutes 3 seconds per mile; whereas a casual jogger might run a pace of 8, 10, or 12 minutes per mile. So these Paralympians were running really fast.

How did they do it? Each runner had a guide. Each runner-and-guide pair was connected by them holding onto a band that had a handle on either side. They each grabbed hold of one of the handles, runner on the left, guide on the right, the band in between; and then they ran in lock-step with each other, with the guide making sure the runner stayed in the proper lane, while also judging if they should try to run around slower runners and try to pass them. Each runner was allowed to switch to a different guide halfway through the race, so that the blind runner was always the one setting the pace and not having to worry about whether his guide was able to keep up.

I was amazed watching this, and how confidently they put their faith in their guides, and in their own abilities, trusting that the guides would allow them to run as fast as possible, while also staying on the track without crashing into anyone. The race wouldn’t happen without the guides, yet it was still the runners who made the race possible with their training, preparation, skill, and desire, as well as putting in the work day after day and year after year, and putting their faith in the guides who assist them, and in their ability to run.

I thought: what a great example of the verse we hear in the letter from James, in today’s first reading. “Faith by itself, if it has no works, is dead.” As Lutherans, we may be aware that Martin Luther famously hated this verse, because he felt he could never do enough good works to be worthy of God’s love. After reading Romans he realized that no one could ever do enough to earn God’s love--and instead God gives us his love and salvation eternally and unconditionally as a free gift through the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ. It was then that Luther found the faith to be truly free to love God, love other people, even to love himself. And when you actually look at how Luther lived his life, it seems that he did realize that truly putting our faith in Christ inevitably leads us to doing good works in service to others--it’s like a blind runner being connected to a guide in the Paralympics.

In today’s gospel we also see how faith in Jesus results in good works of love and service to help others. The background to this gospel reading is that Jesus' reputation for healing people is spreading beyond his hometown community, and even to the Gentiles, who were people that did not share his religion and background. And kind of like the runners and guides at the Tokyo Paralympics, we see examples in this gospel of how people with disabilities of some kind were able to connect with Jesus and find the help they needed to be guided to new life. In this case the band that connected them to God was the people who cared enough to go find the help they needed.

In the first example we see a little girl who is possessed by an “unclean spirit” or a “demon”. We don’t hear the details of how this unclean spirit was harming the girl, but it was serious enough for her mother to seek help from Jesus, whom she had never met before. Jesus doesn’t want to help her at first; he basically tells her “I know you’ve got problems but you’re going to have to wait. I have to take care of the House of Israel first, before I can take care of Gentiles like yourself.” But the woman doesn’t give up. She reminds me of the story of Jacob at the River Jabok (in the Old Testament), where Jacob wrestles the angel and refuses to let go until daybreak comes and God gives him a blessing. Instead of physical wrestling, this time it’s verbal wrestling. Yet in both cases, God doesn’t get mad at either Jacob or the Syropheonician woman. Instead, God recognizes the faith, the desperation, the passion, the plea, the prayer that doesn’t give up--whatever you want to call it--and blesses them.

In the second example we see a deaf man--who was also a Gentile--who had a speech impediment; so we can imagine the challenges he faced on a daily basis. Luckily, this man had friends who cared for him, and even though they had never met Jesus before either, they brought him to Jesus to beg for help. This time, maybe since Jesus has just been verbally wrestling with the Syropheonician woman, he has a different approach. Right away Jesus takes the man aside, puts his fingers in his ears, spits and touches his tongue. Jesus looks up to heaven and sighs the word “Ephphatha”, meaning “Be opened.” Immediately his ears were opened, his tongue was released, and he spoke plainly. With this healing, Jesus confirms that the Syropheonician woman was right; that it was good and beneficial that she verbally wrestled with Christ. And now, by opening up this man’s hearing and speech, Jesus is providing another person with the means to verbally wrestle with God.

These stories teach us a few things. One is that we have permission to wrestle with God. Let’s face it, sometimes God seems distant, or stand-offish, or to be ignoring you. Sometimes God seems to be listening, but you keep getting the answer of “Wait. Not yet.” And if you are in a spot like that, you can be like Jacob. You can be like the Syropheonician woman. You can be like the friends of the blind man. You can tell God: “Pay attention. I’m in trouble. I need help. My friend needs help. My daughter needs help. My son needs help. What are you going to do, God? How will you help? Whom will you send? Where should I turn? When will you answer? You know what I need, and you work in mysterious ways. I’m putting my trust in you. So help!”

A second thing we learn is that being connected to God doesn’t depend on being a “religious insider”. Everyone in these stories, besides Jesus, is a Gentile who is not part of the House of Israel and who doesn’t share the Jewish faith and upbringing of Jesus. They are all, from that perspective, outsiders. They don’t know the finer points of the Bible or theology or prayer that Jesus has been teaching to his disciples. Even so, Jesus hears them and one way or another answers their prayers. God is not hidden away, only to be found by being in the “right place” or using the “right words”. Christ is for everyone, and God’s presence is infused everywhere in the world.

And finally, we learn that people with disabilities often face challenges in connecting to a community of faith. It’s not because they lack faith, or that they don’t have God in their life, but because they often face roadblocks to being able to participate. In the gospel for today, they had help from family and friends who went out on a limb on their behalf; and Jesus made a place for them, just as Jesus makes a place for each of us. I’ve sometimes heard disabled people referred to as “differently-abled”--and that’s because they are not incompetent; they are able to do many things, and to live full lives. They just have to do them in a different, more creative way than others. And as Jesus himself showed us, the creativity that is required by the disabled and their advocates to work around their impairments can teach all of us a thing or two. Amen.