No Middle Class in the Kingdom of God!

A Sermon for the 15^th Sunday after Pentecost (RCL B) 9-9-2012

Offered by Nathan Ferrell for Trinity Episcopal Shared Ministry

Texts:            James 2:1-17; Psalm 125; Mark 7:24-37

Themes:        the poor and the rich, God’s family, God's vision for a new society

Title:              No Middle Class in the Kingdom of God

O Lord, make us masters of ourselves that we might become the servants of others.

Take our minds and think through them; take our lips and speak through them; take our hearts and set them on fire. Amen.

My brothers and sisters: last week, we were introduced to this Letter of James, and we heard about how James is pre-eminently practical. This brief Letter is jammed full of calls and exhortations and encouragements for the Christian community to act in ways that are consistent with the ways of God.

Here today we see one of the primary concerns and themes of James:

God’s vision for a new society which is marked by generous sharing and by mutual love.  

James presents a scenario where a rich person and a poor person both walk into the gathered Christian community and are treated differently simply as a result of the appearance of wealth, or the lack thereof.

“My brothers and sisters, do you with your acts of favoritism really believe in our glorious Lord Jesus Christ?” (James 2:1).

That’s a fair question, and one which we need to face as well.

How do our actions match up with the teaching and the example of our glorious Lord Jesus Christ, who demonstrated God’s clear preference to care for the poor?

During this presidential election season, especially during these last few weeks of the party conventions, we have been hearing a lot lately about the middle class.

Everyone seems to be thinking and speaking a lot about the middle class in America.

And in the political realm, I suppose that makes good, practical sense.

But not in the church! Not here among the people of God.

Did our glorious Lord Jesus Christ say, “Blessed are you who are middle class, for you will retire in comfort”? (That's a joke, BTW). No, he said, “Blessed are you who are poor, for yours is the kingdom of God” (Luke 6:20).

In that famous parable of the sheep and the goats, did Jesus say, “Come, you that are blessed by my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world; for I was middle class, and you helped me get a loan for college; for I was middle class, and you supported my small business; for I was middle class, and you extended my prescription drug benefit”?

Is that how it goes? I don’t think so.

Now, someone might argue and say, “Well, of course, the Bible does not speak of the middle class, because there was no middle class at that time!”

And that is true enough. At that time, there was only the rich and the poor. No middle class. But this does nothing to lessen the overwhelming preference of God clearly expressed in scripture.

My friends, there are more than 500 verses which call us, as the people of God, to imitate God by caring for the poor. There is no way to avoid this reality, if we are going to take the Bible seriously.

So let us be clear and let us understand this well: God is on the side of the poor!

Whose side are we on?

Listen: I know that it is easy to get settled in life, to become comfortable with your circle of family and friends, your pattern of life, and then not to be concerned about those who are forced to live without the bare essentials every single day, not to think about the more than 1000 children under the age of 5 who will die during this hour of worship from preventable diseases and malnutrition.

We become numb to this reality, I think, by the normal routines of our life. 

I get it. I understand it.

But this is one of the crucial reasons why we must read and study the Bible every single day: to break through the settled patterns of our life, to allow God’s vision, God’s desires, God’s will to shake us up, to disturb our lives, to interrupt them, to change them.

This is the strategy for softening and changing the human heart.

This is the way to let the things that break the heart of God break your own heart as well.

And do you know what it is that breaks the heart of God?

The people walking by on the street right now who have no hope for the future, who find their only rest in drugs or alcohol or the pursuit of money. The families that are torn apart by poverty and drugs, so that children grow up without parents to love them. The people who go through this life with no one to visit them, no friends to care for them.

If you can leave this place this morning and drive home and not care about the children of Camden just a few miles away who are being forced to live in a dangerous, violent place with no police to keep the peace – if you can ignore this, and then go home and plop down in front of your big screen HD TV – then, my friends, you have missed the boat. You are not walking with the Lord.

Now, don’t misunderstand. I’m not saying that you will leave this place and go solve the problem of Camden. It’s a huge problem. There is no easy solution; there is no quick way to fix Camden.

But if you don’t feel it, if you don’t care, if you don’t notice because you are too absorbed in your own little problems, than your heart is not beating with the heartbeat of God.

“What good is it, my brothers and sisters, if you say that you have faith but do not have works?” (James 2:14).

My prayer for you is that you will allow God to mold and shape your inner being until you share God’s vision, God’s desires, God’s will for this world.

If you will allow that to happen, then you will act to care for those in need. You will find a way to help the children of Camden. You will reach out in concern for those in this town who are lost and without hope.  

You won’t be able to stop it, because this is the heartbeat of God which compels us to action.

But let’s not forget that this is, after all, a community letter. James speaks of what happens when certain people enter into the “assembly”. The Greek word is synagogue, and this is another reminder that the Letter is written to Jewish followers of Jesus who gather together for worship and fellowship.

Listen to what John Chrysostom, the great Bishop of Constantinople in the fourth century, spoke about the symbolism of the Eucharist in our assemblies:

“Bread and wine represent the fruits of our labor, whereby we turn the things of nature into food and drink for our sustenance. So at the Lord’s Table, we offer our labor to God, dedicating ourselves anew to his service.”

(Now here is the key part!) “Then the bread and wine are distributed equally to every member of the congregation; the poor receive the same amount as the rich. This means that God’s material blessings belong equally to everyone, to be enjoyed according to each person’s need” (On Living Simply: The Golden Voice of John Chrysostom, Robert Van de Weyer, p. 56).

Do you see it, my friends? What happens here at this sacred table is a symbol, an acting out of God’s hope for the world. Everyone shares, and everyone gets enough! 

This is how it’s meant to be! And as crazy as this might sound to you right now, this is why I believe that the local church is the hope of the world.

I believe this with every fiber of my being! The local church is the hope of the world – WHEN we act in accordance with the teachings of Christ!

Consider it: what happens when someone who is obviously off of the street walks into our assembly? How do we respond? Do you honor and respect that person as if they are the very presence of Jesus in our midst? Do we treat that person with the same honor and care which we give to the blessed sacrament?

Well, that is what Jesus said, isn’t it? In Matthew 25, he said, “I was hungry and you gave me food, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you welcomed me” (Matthew 25:35).

I’m not making this up! This is the standard for judgment in the Bible.

We can gather here every Sunday and say the Nicene Creed until we’re blue in the face. 

But if we cannot welcome the stranger who walks into our assembly, if we cannot care for the needs of the poor, then is our faith really alive? 

So let the politicians worry about the middle class.

But let the church worry about the poor. And let us welcome the stranger and be about the works of God. And let us live and worship and learn together as a living sign, as a sacrament of the kingdom of God where all share equally in the mercy of God. Amen.