Sunday, September 24, 2017

I Am My Brother's Keeper

• Sixteenth Sunday after Pentecost
with James 2:1-13
www.FirstChurchBville.com  FirstChurchBville@gmail.com  @FirstUMCBville  @kerrfunk

• Although we just read James 2:1-13, let me turn to the story of Cain & Abel, in the 4th chapter of Genesis. Cain is Adam & Eve’s firstborn, and he worked the soil. Abel is Cain’s younger brother, and he kept flocks. Cain “brought some fruits of the soil” as an offering to God, and Abel gave fat portions from his best animals. God accepted Abel’s offering but was not pleased with Cain’s, and Cain slew Abel. (Genesis 4:1-9). Cain’s anemic answer when God asked about Abel’s whereabouts: Am I my brother’s keeper?
• James answers the question: Yes. I am my brother’s keeper.
And my brother is in peril, my sister is in peril.
My brother is in jail and the mother of his children is an addict who sometimes sells herself to get another fix and not only are her children my children she’s my sister.
How shall we treat them when they knock on our door?
My brother receives a disability check although I’m not sure what the disability is. There are five people living in my brother’s home and I’m not sure they have electricity and there is mold.
How shall we treat my brother when they knock on our door?
My sister’s divorce ate up all her money and her ex is bleeding her dry financially and emotionally by taking her to court for made up issues.
How shall we treat my sister when she knocks on our door?
James answers the question: treat her like you’d treat your doctor. Treat her better than that. Have mercy and compassion on her, and be an advocate for her.
My brother is late. My sister has messed up.
It costs me on multiple levels to be gracious to my brother.
Give grace anyway. You have received grace,
a gift paid for willingly by another.
As grace-needy as your brother is, so much are you.
• Receiving the poor, indeed, preferential treatment of the poor
is a way of living grace.
I am poor with respect to God,
and I receive God’s favor by grace not by merit.
I wish to thank God, to pay it forward, to imitate God.
“You will never be asked to forgive someone else
more than God has forgiven you.”
– Rick Warren
“People won’t listen to you or take you seriously unless you’re an old, white man, and since I am an old, white man I’m going to use that to help the people who need it.” Patrick Stewart, advocating for Amnesty International. (I shared this on Oct 27, 2013, my fourth Sunday here).

• Hymn  434 When the Poor Ones

James 2:1-13 (CEB)
2 My brothers and sisters, when you show favoritism you deny the faithfulness of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has been resurrected in glory. 2 Imagine two people coming into your meeting. One has a gold ring and fine clothes, while the other is poor, dressed in filthy rags. 3 Then suppose that you were to take special notice of the one wearing fine clothes, saying, “Here’s an excellent place. Sit here.” But to the poor person you say, “Stand over there”; or, “Here, sit at my feet.” 4 Wouldn’t you have shown favoritism among yourselves and become evil-minded judges?
My dear brothers and sisters, listen! Hasn’t God chosen those who are poor by worldly standards to be rich in terms of faith? Hasn’t God chosen the poor as heirs of the kingdom he has promised to those who love him? 6 But you have dishonored the poor. Don’t the wealthy make life difficult for you? Aren’t they the ones who drag you into court? 7 Aren’t they the ones who insult the good name spoken over you at your baptism?
8 You do well when you really fulfill the royal law found in scripture, Love your neighbor as yourself. [Lev 19:18] 9 But when you show favoritism, you are committing a sin, and by that same law you are exposed as a lawbreaker. 10 Anyone who tries to keep all of the Law but fails at one point is guilty of failing to keep all of it. 11 The one who said, Don’t commit adultery, also said, Don’t commit murder. [Exod 20:13, 15]  So if you don’t commit adultery but do commit murder, you are a lawbreaker. 12 In every way, then, speak and act as people who will be judged by the law of freedom. 13 There will be no mercy in judgment for anyone who hasn’t shown mercy. Mercy overrules judgment.ò

Isaiah 58:6-9 (NIV)

6 “Is not this the kind of fasting I have chosen:
to loose the chains of injustice
    and untie the cords of the yoke,
to set the oppressed free
    and break every yoke?
7 Is it not to share your food with the hungry
    and to provide the poor wanderer with shelter—
when you see the naked, to clothe them,
    and not to turn away from your own flesh and blood?
8 Then your light will break forth like the dawn,
    and your healing will quickly appear;
then your righteousness will go before you,
    and the glory of the Lord will be your rear guard.
9 Then you will call, and the Lord will answer;
    you will cry for help, and he will say: Here am I.
ò

No comments:

Post a Comment