PROPER 18/B, 09/08/24: Ps. 146; Isa. 35:4-7a; James 2:1-10, 14-18; Mark 7:24-37
Works
“show me your faith apart from your works, and I by my works, will show you my faith (James. 2:18b).
Maybe you remember the iconic Wendy’s ad, featuring an elderly woman demanding from the competitors, “Where’s the beef?”
James’ epistle addresses the false notion that mere belief of Jesus’ identity saves us. A “faith” even devils possess—and shudder because they KNOW, even if humanity does not, just how much they lost, and what their future is in utter darkness. Speaking of such vacant “faith”, James demands from us, “where’s the beef?”, or in Lutheran lingo: where are the good works that give evidence of faith?
Still, it is unwise to speak of our works until the works of Jesus are in focus. Accordingly, we are warned, “not to put the sanctification cart, before the horse of justification.” Or said another way: “We love him because he first loved us.”
This is the seventh consecutive Sunday where Jesus teaches “about the loaves.” The beef if you will, sandwiched between two miraculous feedings. Five thousand on the Jewish shore of the Galilean Sea and the 4,000 across the pond at a Gentile location.
The fountainhead of these lessons is Mark’s commentary following the 5,000 that, because of hardheartedness, the Twelve did not “understand about the loaves” (Mk. 6:52). As for the crowd now fed to the full, they arrived in Capernaum thronging the Lord; but Jesus cared nothing for the exaltation, because neither did they discern the significance of what had been experienced. They “did not understand the loaves” but rejoiced merely in full stomachs.
In this the final age of the world’s history.
The age of the Resurrection with the END drawing ever closer.
It is crucial that the Church understand her Loaf, which is the Lord’s suffering, death and resurrection, freely given, and received in this Divine Service.
The “faith-works” dichotomy to which James refers is not per se our works in obedience to the law; but rather in Christ we are given to keep the Royal Law, which we keep as imitators of Jesus: “You shall love your neighbor as yourself.”
These. Seven. Tectonic. Words. If believed, and kept, would make all other legislation unnecessary and irrelevant.
When Jesus taught that he himself is heaven’s Bread of Life in Capernaum, the Pharisees, scribes and many of his own disciples were distressed at the implications! They were no less than a claim to being God’s Torah! Dwelling in the Flesh among us!
But they did not know the half of it!
So, Jesus put a fine point on his teaching, “Unless you eat the flesh of the Son of man and drink his blood, you have no life in you … For my flesh is food indeed, and my blood is drink indeed. He who eats my flesh and drinks my blood abides in me and I in him” (Jn. 6:53, 55, 56).
At this, the Apostles began to comprehend “the loaves” so that Peter is able to render their common witness:
“we have believed, and have come to know,
that you are the Holy One of God” (v. 69).
In the first feeding, that of the 5000, Jesus fulfilled God’s order of salvation, “first to the Jew.” But He was rejected by them because they did not recognize the He is the One of whom Moses spoke. Jesus then moved on to Gentile territory, Tyre and Sidon, the Decapolis region, and concluded by feeding 4,000 GENTILES with the seven loaves and a few small fish.
The question for us, who are assembled to participate in the Church’s Eucharist today is: how do these two feedings differ, 5,000 Jews from 4,000 Gentiles?
Both feedings were signals of Jesus’ self-donation on the cross for new eating in the Resurrection in whose shadow we now live and move and have our being. In Capernaum, Jesus obliterated the Mosaic dietary commands making himself the new Bread out of heaven which the Jews rejected. But Gentiles, not bound to Moses or works of the law, freely received Jesus’ gracious inclusion in heaven’s Bread.
Consider the faith of the Syrophoenician woman seeking more than a one-off miracle, an exorcism for her daughter. Rather their conversation concerned the broader matter of the Bread Jesus provides at his table. Ultimately … the woman desired what the Jews of Capernaum rejected: release from satanic dominion by receiving and abiding with Jesus and the food he provides, for the New exodus to God.
Did the woman, or the restored deaf-mute, understand that Jesus who is the New Israel invites all men to his Passover to escape our bondage to the world?
Hardly.
But the Gentiles, without Mosaic legal constraints, happily received their gracious release and restoration so that they, too, might participate in Jesus’ work, who was on his way to the cross to atone for the sins of all. Sins against God, and sins against one another.
Jesus tested the Gentile woman, “… it is not right to take the [Jewish] children’s bread and throw it to the dogs.” Still the woman laid hold of this negative word, in faith! Great faith! To her daughter’s advantage!
She did not argue her status but accepted that both she and her daughter were unworthy, no better than street-dogs. Confronted by Jesus’ “No!”, she trusted his reputation, his compassionate character, which was the only topic of conversation across that land – and which is the essence of saving faith. To know and believe God, and his Christ.
The woman had pressed Jesus for an unmerited place in his house, under his table. By faith in Jesus’ work, and for the love of her daughter, they were elevated into the family of God. Not as pets! But a new woman possessed of an absolute claim on Jesus’ New Loaf; even as are we here and now!.
Gentiles lived in a spiritual desert with no claim on promises from God; still by God’s work and word in Christ the Syrophoenician woman; and the former-deaf-mute all now proclaimed among the Gentiles their undeserved wholeness from Jesus; and by God’s word, 4,000 Gentiles would receive faith’s feeding!
We live in a world where man eats bread by the sweat of his brow (Gen. 3:19); but from Jesus we freely eat food, for holiness and heaven, by the bloody sweat of his brow.
Eating Jesus’ Bread restores us to true humanity! And commissions us for works of love as God teaches us in Sacred Scripture, by renewed reason and compassion for others. For all.
By the Spirit, James, like the Syrophoenician woman, appropriated to himself, Jesus’ holiness, both his works and his trust in God. And so James says from his place inside of Christ, “I by my works will show you my faith”. Amen.
PEM
DCK