Oikonomia — Equity & Justice for All People
James 2:1-17; Mark 7:24-37 - Season of Creation — Sunday, September 5, 2021
Pastor Ritva H Williams
Throughout this month we will be celebrating the Season of Creation, dedicated to prayer, protection and advocacy for God’s good creation. Our theme is “A Home for All? Renewing the Oikos of God.” The question mark after the first part of this title encourages us to ask: is Earth really a home for all people and all creatures? It should be, but is it really?
The second part of the title suggests that if we renew “the oikos of God” Earth can and will be a home for all. But, what is the oikos of God? Oikos is a Greek word — Christian theologians around the world love studying Greek! Oikos means a house and everything attached to it, including the people who live in it. Oikos captures the ideas of house and household, home and family. God’s oikos is rooted in the biblical claim that “the Earth is the Lord’s and all that is in it” (Psalm 24:1).
A related word: oikonomia = the ordering, organizing, and managing of a house and everything associated with it; root word of economy.
Today’s scripture readings speak directly to our management of God’s household, highlighting how we mess up. James gets right at the heart of what is wrong with the way we organize the human world. In verse 1 he highlights “acts of favoritism.” In verse 9, he says, “if you show partiality you commit sin.” Favoritism and partiality are English translation of a single word that points to the problem of distorted judgment. Distorted judgment shows itself in favoritism, partiality, bias, prejudice, and discrimination.
James provides a real life example in the way we treat rich and poor people. A well-dressed affluent person enters the church, is greeted respectfully, politely, warmly, and escorted to a comfortable seat. A person dressed in dirty, raggedy clothes is curtly told to “stand over there” at the back of the room, or even worse to sit on the floor “under my footstool.” The poor person is dishonored. Our distorted judgment manifests itself as overt discrimination against the poor person even though they are a child of God, gifted with faith, and chosen to inherit God’s kingdom. Our distorted judgment manifests itself as overt partiality toward the rich and powerful even when they are the ones who oppress ordinary people. James insists that favoritism and partiality are a violation of the “royal law … You shall love your neighbor as yourself” (2:8).
Our distorted judgment of others sets us up for God’s judgment, as James insists: “For judgment will be without mercy to anyone who has shown no mercy; mercy triumphs over judgment” (2:13). Our distorted judgment of ourselves leads us to think of ourselves as wonderfully godly, pious, faithful people even when our actions are not. When we Christians offer thoughts and prayers for our needy neighbors without making any effort to provide food, clothing, shelter, medicine, basic hygiene products, and other necessities, our faith talk becomes just empty words.
Today it is James, the brother of our Lord who delivers the rebuke that challenges us to examine our distorted judgments about others and about ourselves, who challenges us to act with mercy and not distorted judgments rooted in unacknowledged biases. For good news we turn to Jesus.
Our gospel reading picks up immediately after criticizes the Pharisees for being preoccupied with external purity practices while ignoring the evil intentions within the human heart (Mark 7:1-23). “From there, Jesus set out and went away to the region of Tyre.” Jesus wants some downtime, and seeks it in foreign territory, among strangers. He tries to stay out of the public eye but to no avail. A woman with a sick child enters unaccompanied by husband or male relative. She is Syrophoenician, a Gentile. The disciples see her as foreign, ungodly, and unclean. She is a desperate mother, begging Jesus to heal her daughter. He responds, “Let the children be fed first, for it is not fair to take the children’s food and throw it to the dogs” (Mark 7:27).
What? Did Jesus just say that Israelite children should be fed before Syrophoenician children? Did Jesus just call this woman a dog? Yes, it appears that Jesus did. How could he? Why?
Kenneth E. Bailey draws on over 40 years of living and teaching in the Middle East to interpret this scene through the lens of Middle Eastern culture and values. He writes:
The woman’s love for her daughter and her confidence in him impress Jesus. He decides to use the occasion to help her and to challenge the deeply rooted prejudices in the hearts of his disciples. In the process he gives the woman a chance to expose the depth of her courage and faith … Jesus was voicing, and thereby exposing, deeply held prejudices buried in the minds of his disciples … The reference to dogs is primarily for the disciples’ education. Jesus is saying to them, “I know you think Gentiles are dogs and you want me to treat them as such! But — pay attention — this is where your biases lead. Are you comfortable with this scene? … (Jesus Through Middle Eastern Eyes, pp. 222, 224).
The woman shows herself to be Jesus’ equal when she boldly responds, “Sir, even the dogs under the table eat the children’s crumbs.” She turns the insult into a renewed demand for Jesus’ help. He promptly acknowledges her equality and worth by declaring her daughter healed.
From Tyre, Jesus continues to travel in foreign territory through Sidon into the region of the Decapolis. There, villagers ask him to heal a deaf man with a speech impediment. Like the Syrophoenician woman this man is an outsider, cut off from the world by his inability to hear and speak. Without hesitation Jesus heals the man, restoring him to his community.
In this gospel lesson Jesus shows us how mercy triumphs over judgment. Mercy involves using one’s power for the benefit of others. Jesus does that by healing the woman’s daughter, and the deaf man with the speech impediment. Jesus shows us that God’s love and care are not restricted by ethnic, religious, social or even physical boundaries. In a curious way, Jesus shows mercy to his prejudiced disciples. He knows the distorted judgments lurking in their hearts, but does not lecture them or publicly shame them. Instead, he gives voice to their unspoken, perhaps even unconscious biases, not because he believes them or agrees with them, but in order to expose them. As Ken Bailey explains, “Evil cannot be redeemed until it is exposed.” I imagine long conversations during the journey from Tyre to Decapolis that helped move the disciples toward greater compassion, sensitivity, and respect for all members of God’s oikos. Mercy is the key to renewing the oikonomia of this world so that it can truly become a home for all.
Please pray with me:
Dear God, there is so much we miss as we look through our eyes trained to see only the familiar the expected, the safe.
Thank you, God, that you don’t see this way. You look at each of us female and male, intersex and trans,
black, brown, red, yellow, and white, old and young, rich and poor, gay and straight, and you love what you see.
Even in the shadows of our shame and sin, even in the cold valleys of our grief and regret, you see us – not just as we are but as we can be – as you made us to be. You see the glory and the giftedness and the possibility, the nobility and the divine likeness which you placed there.
Thank you for how you see us, God. Please give us new eyes to see ourselves and others the way you do — with mercy and grace, compassion and love. Amen. (adapted from “New Eyes” by John van de Laar, sacredise.com).
