Pentecost XIV, Proper 18

Proverbs 22:1-2,8-9,22-23
James 2:1-7
Mark 7:24-37

+ In the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost.  Amen. 

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IF YOU THINK BACK to the 1990s, you may recall the horrendous wars in the Balkans. The Siege of Sarajevo – from 1992 until 1996, almost four full years – is the longest city siege in modern warfare.[1] An average of 329 shells fell on the city each day. Nearly ninety percent of its buildings were either partially damaged or destroyed. The U.N. estimated 10,000 people were killed and well over 50,000 people injured in a city of about half a million.

Steven Galloway wrote a short novel, The Cellist of Sarajevo, imagining what the people endured, not merely the physical deprivations and dangers, but how some residents might have struggled to nurture and assert their dignity, their humanity, how ordinary men and women might have dealt with, and even resisted, the terror. In war, fear often makes people little, selfish, animal-like, absorbed with our own needs, callous to others.

Sarajevo, an ancient, beautiful city, straddles a river and is surrounded by hills. During the seige, the enemy army blockaded the city and encamped in the hills, and its snipers and artillery decimated the city. In Galloway’s story, one of the main characters is a gifted and accomplished sniper fighting back to protect her city. She hopes that her fellow Sarajevans “hate the men on this hills for the same reason she does. Because they made her hate. ... the men on the hills started to kill and mutilate and destroy. And little by little they got what they wanted, a victory as clear as it would be if they could drive their tanks through the town. They made her, and people like her, hate them.”[2]

I gasped when I read that. I thought of 9/11, of how we as a nation dealt with our fear and anger, and haven’t always conquered it. I thought of how giving in to fear and anger sucks away life, undermines our ideals, diminishes our humanity. I thought of day to day life, of my own feelings when I perceive hostility toward me, of how I react to incomparably less threatening behavior, of how my fears and anxieties direct me away from my better self and seem to enthrall me.

The great learning of the sniper – her breakthrough, her transformation, her blessing, the climax of the novel – is that she doesn’t have to allow the men in the hills make her hate, that she has freedom, that she can make a choice not to hate, not to react out of fear, not to let others control her behavior. She rises above the cycle of hate, the downward spiral of vengeance. She chooses civility, and at great sacrifice.

Another moment in the novel particularly caught my attention. Emina and Dragan, a couple of friends, long-time Sarajevans, meet on the street, a common, happy occurrence when peace and civility reign.[3] But in this war, people had to scurry like rats along walls, and when they went into open areas they kept cover behind burned out buses and trams trying to avoid the snipers in the hills.

While hiding behind a makeshift shelter, Emina tells about how the dangers of going outside her house have changed her geography, how she now travels on different streets. On one safe street, she came upon a woman picking cherries from a tree in her yard. They struck a conversation and had a nice chat. A few days later Emina’s husband came home with a huge, five-kilogram sack of salt. She thought of the woman and took her a kilo of salt, and the woman was beside herself with happiness and gratitude for this act of kindness and insisted on giving Emina a couple buckets of cherries, far more than she and her husband could possibly eat.

Dragan tells her that she was good to share the salt. Emina replies,

“I didn’t need it. She didn’t have to give the cherries, either. ... Isn’t that how we’re supposed to behave? Isn’t that how we used to be?”

“I don’t know,” Dragan says. “I can’t remember if we were like that, or just think we were. It seems impossible to remember what things were like.”

[Dragan] suspects this is what the men on the hills want most. They would, of course, like to kill them all, but if they can’t, they would like to make them forget how they used to be, how civilized people act.

Today’s readings from Proverbs and James exhort us to the basic decency, the basic civility of caring for those in need, that we in our abundance have the responsibility to assist with the fundamental physical needs of the poor – food, clothing, shelter. James recognizes the human tendency to show partiality to the rich, to favor the wealthy and powerful – those we perceive who can do something for us. It’s a sharp jab, pointing out to us our interest in the rich, our partiality, our preference and deference to them, is a way we neglect the poor.

Earlier this summer, the Pope issued Charity in Truth, his third encyclical. It’s about economics and the right use of wealth. Although Pope Benedict doesn’t call for Bolshevik-style class warfare, he has fierce criticism, and even condemnation, of global capitalism. He draws attention to our lack of focus on justice for the poor and vulnerable, that capitalism is harsh, exploiting the weak, leaving many behind. He targets our celebrity culture which diverts attention away from those in need to those with gross abundance, glamorizing the wealthy, the famous, the powerful and justifying greed, acquisition, profit above everything.

Benedict writes, “Once profit becomes the exclusive goal, if it is produced by improper mans and without the common good as its ultimate end, it risks destroying wealth and creating poverty.” Concern for the common good – that’s not a pressing concern in many boardrooms or even on Main Street. We’ve been nurtured on Milton Friedman’s teaching that the only social responsibility of business is to make money, that business exists to maximize shareholder profit, that stock prices matter more than customers, management, labor, the environment. [4]

Too often, we assume, not even really thinking about it, that money and profit are the primary goal, and then money and profit become more important than ethical living, and that diminishes not only the weak and poor, but the humanity of everyone. It’s not how civilized people act.

During his ministry, Jesus talked about money probably more than anything else. He may have seen it as our chief temptation drawing us away from the common good, away from God. He warned, “Take heed and beware of your desire for more; for life does not consist in the abundance of possessions.” (Luke 12:15) Later, he said, “No servant can serve two masters... You cannot serve God and money.” The Pharisees reacted by scoffing at Jesus, belittling him, because as Luke tells us they were attached to their wealth. I feel the Pharisee in me. The people who came down hardest on Jesus were those with wealth and property, those used to the perks of having enough. The gospel challenges us to seek God, to trust God.

We’re blessed that we don’t have an enemy in the hills, shelling us, sniping at us. Rather, our enemy is warring in our hearts and minds. The enemy is fighting for our souls. We can live following our fear and anxieties, accumulating, focusing on getting more for ourselves, leaving us small, self-interested, hollow, dead. Or we can trust God. Living courageously, generously, mindful of and responsive to the needs of others, enriches our humanity. But it requires sacrifice.

James says that we can’t have faith – and faith is just another word for trust, that we can’t trust God, have faith in God, without works. We can recite the creed and hold to every kind of orthodoxy, every right belief, as if any human being were able to know what all the right things are and believe them. Even if we did, that isn’t the fullness of authentic Christianity, that’s not what God wants most for us. Real faith is displayed in our lives, in how we live. Faith can’t be separated from works. We display our faith in our relationships, in our obligations, in our sacrifices, in our commitments, in our service for the common good. These are the choices that establish civility, humanity, peace, even prosperity. We really have nothing at all until we share what God has shared with us.

+ In the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

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