Word to the Wise
Sunday, September 6, 2009 - Twenty-third Sunday in Ordinary Time
[Isaiah 35:4-7A; James 2:1-5; Mark 7:31-37]Show no partiality as you adhere to the faith in our glorious Lord Jesus Christ. For if a man with gold rings and fine clothers comes into your assembly, and a poor person in shabby clothes also comes in, and you pay attention to the one wearing the fine clothes and say, "Sit here please," while you say to the poor one, "Stand there," or Sit at my feet," have you not made distinctions among yourselves and become judges with evil designs.
There are some scriptural passages that have more than usual ability to make a person squirm! The Letter of James has several with that quality! The one quoted above is an example! Judging by appearances and classes or castes is a very old problem, and there's no place for it in the gospel and Christian life! We see no such discrimination in Jesus' conduct but we do see a lot of it in the early Christian community if the Letter of James and St. Paul's First Letter to the Corinthians 11:17-22 are to be believed! The problem is still around. It would take volumes to address the various ways in which we as Christians (let alone folks of other religious traditions) discriminate against one another. Besides the major forms - race, ethnic origin, faith, economic/class, education, sexual gender/orientation, age - there are other more subtle ways we have which exclude others or result in unequal treatment in the Church. We find lots of ways to justify these categories of discrimination. One of the most subtle arguments is based on "difference." This argument provides a platform for all kinds of discrimination even when certain "differences" require treatment that appears to be unequal. In the Church this appears most pernicious in the way women are treated. When we hear the words from St. James, we need to begin not with what we see going on in our community (although we do need to do that), we should begin with our own attitudes and practices. It would be a matter of removing the log from our own eye before we look for the splinters in our neighbors' eyes! Having done that task, however, we need to address the problem "root and branch." It will be an ongoing struggle and, at times, an emotionally charged challenge. But the gospel demands that we do more than squirm in the pew. AMEN
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