In the name of God: our Creator, Redeemer, Sanctifier, and Friend

You’ve heard it before—that funny line by Groucho Marx:
I would not join / any club / that would have someone like me / for a member.

“Someone like me for a member,” he says. ‘I won’t join a group like that. You can’t make me!’ Now there’s an attitude!

It reminds me of a comment I heard once in a recovery group meeting—a recovery-from-addiction meeting: “I may not be much / but I’m all / I really think about.” Reflect on that for a second: “I may not be much, but I’m all I really think about.” There’s a lot going-on with that comment too, isn’t there?

Well, how about a little more self-esteem here? ‘Let there be more self-esteem!’ So consider that bumper sticker that’s appearing in more and more places nowadays: “Be the person / your dog / thinks you are.” The person your dog looks up to, as if you were God’s gift to the world. Be that person. Try to live up to that expectation. [laugh] And if only everyone would be the person their pet thinks they are, then the world would be . . . Wait a minute! I’m getting a little carried away with this dog philosophy, don’t you think?

Well, maybe I am. But let me try one more version anyway. This one focuses not on self-esteem, but rather on the esteem or dis-esteem that the rest of us have for an entire group. You’ve probably heard this one too: There are no bad dogs, only dogs who haven’t been trained yet! That’s right: don’t blame the dog, blame the owner who hasn’t invested the time and care to properly train the poor beast!

Actually, it’s the gospel reading that has put all these issues on my mind today. But it’s not only today’s gospel, but also the gospel reading appointed for next Sunday’s in these ‘dog days’ of summer. (Right, I couldn’t resist another ‘dog’ reference.) To start with this Sunday, consider the verse that’s actually left out of the assigned reading—verse 19 in Mark, chapter 7:

[Jesus] said to them . . . Do you not see that whatever goes into a person from outside cannot defile, since it enters, not the heart but the stomach . . . ?’ (Thus he declared all foods clean.)

Thus he declared all foods clean ! That’s the missing line in today’s gospel passage. And I can never hear that verse without hearing also this echo of it in the book of Acts:

“What God has made clean, you must not call [unclean]” (Acts 10.15).

Remember when the apostle Peter had that vision about calling Gentiles ‘unclean’?

He saw the heaven opened and something like a large sheet coming down. . . In it were all kinds of four-footed creatures and reptiles and birds of the air. Then he heard a voice saying, ‘Get up, Peter; kill and eat.’ But Peter said, ‘By no means, Lord; for I have never eaten anything that is profane or unclean.’ The voice said to him again, a second time, ‘What God has made clean, you must not call profane.’ This happened three times, and the thing was suddenly taken up to heaven . . .

While Peter was still thinking about the vision, the Spirit said to him, ‘Look, three men are searching for you. Now get up, go down, and go with them without hesitation; for I have sent them.’ So Peter went down to the men and said . . . ‘You yourselves know that it is unlawful for a Jew to associate with or to visit a Gentile; but God has shown me that I should not call anyone profane or unclean. So when I was sent for, I came without objection . . .”

Then later in their exchange Peter makes this unorthodox declaration for a Jew of his time: “I truly understand that God shows no partiality, but in every nation anyone who fears [God] and does what is right is acceptable to [God]” (Acts 10.10-34).

And that declaration sets a new standard for Christian inclusivity. Indeed, it’s the standard we have been trying to live-up to for the past two millennia. Even St. Peter himself relapses a few chapters later in the book of Acts. But the rest of us are also still trying to live-up to its requirements and its nobility. Am I right?

So consider this a case of ‘progressive revelation.’ First, in today’s gospel Jesus only goes so far as to declare “all foods clean”—all foods clean. But in next Sunday’s gospel he is challenged to treat a Gentile woman as ritually clean too.

“It is not fair,” Jesus the first century Palestinian Jew says to a Gentile woman in next Sunday’s gospel. “It’s not fair to take the children’s food and throw it to the dogs.” That’s what he tells a woman who begs him to cast a demon out of her daughter. Indeed we might go so far as to acknowledge that when he refers to granting her request as ‘throwing children’s food to the dogs,’ he uses a common ethnic slur of his day.

But what the gospel finally achieves is a rehabilitation of the woman’s group identity. The gospel reclaims her integrity—as a biracial Phoenician of Syrian extract—by showing how Jesus himself acknowledges her self-esteem working in concert with her faith. For it’s her self-esteem working in concert with her faith that changes Jesus’ mind and moves him to grant her favor:

“Sir [she persists], even the dogs under the table eat the children’s crumbs.” And he said to her, “For this saying you may go your way; the demon has left your daughter.” (Mark 8.26-29)

So that’s the progression that these two Sundays take us on. We start today with Jesus reversing the dietary code that regards some foods as defiled or ritually unclean. Then next Sunday he reverses his own observance of a tradition that would treat a Gentile woman as profane or ritually unclean. And finally what is implicit in that reversal, becomes explicit in the revelation to St. Peter in the book of Acts: “What God has made clean, you must not call [unclean]” (Acts 10.15).

Now what do all these issues of clean and unclean, esteem and disesteem, have to do with us here today? I’m glad you asked that question! Stay with me now as I turn a corner and make a more demanding application of our Gospel themes for these two weeks.

But I promise, as we do so, that we are still on route to the good news of the Gospel. Yet to fully grasp this good news we must also [quote:] “be doers of the word,” as the Epistle of James tells us in the other New Testament reading for today. “Be doers of the word and not merely hearers who deceive themselves.” (James 1.22)

Consider in this connection some of the racial revelations from last week’s anniversary observance; the anniversary of hurricane Katrina’s landfall in the city of New Orleans just a year ago. For in New Orleans last year there were organizations and agencies who claimed to be doing rescue and evacuation work, but who deceived themselves and the rest of us too.

In the week that followed the hurricane, rescue and evacuation efforts failed because of widespread rumors that crime and violence had taken over the city. Somehow in a matter of hours and days the rumor spread that thugs and vandals were ravaging the Superdome and the Convention Center. This misinformation spread beyond the region and throughout the nation, impacting both the media and emergency agencies. So virulent were these false rumors that many evacuation and rescue personnel essentially boycotted the city.

We now know that unused buses were available to drive into the city and rescue people. But some drivers of those buses refused to enter what they heard was a city infested with lawlessness and violence. Guardsmen assigned to rescue hurricane victims were intent instead on defending themselves from mythical criminals. Even aid agencies entered the city more concerned to assess the risk factors and report back to headquarters; more concerned to investigate than to evacuate.

And thus a great mass of desperate and abandoned people failed to receive some of the aid and resources actually available to rescue them. It is this crisis of the human spirit that the gospel calls us to renounce this Sunday and next: our perennial compulsion to fear and suspect whole groups of people as inherently prone to crime and lawlessness.

“Criminal tribes” is one expression that has been used in the past to describe an entire people. The term was codified in British law in the 19 th century to label an ethnic community in (Rajasthan) India . This “Criminal Tribes Act” was finally purged from India ’s laws in 1952 after the people involved waged a long struggle to escape the stigma of that label, “criminal tribes.” [www.chowk.com/show_interactor_page.cgi?membername=lgusain ; accessed 9/1/06 ]

More familiar to many of us is that other British expression from an earlier century, “the great unwashed,” which originally referred to England ’s working class but which now means any general mass of ordinary people. But let me offer a current-day example: most of us could probably use “the great unwashed” to describe our reaction to the homeless population in our city. Right?

Indeed, we don’t need to go as far as England or India to find our own version of labels like “criminal tribes” and “the great unwashed.” For a final example consider the history of our own city. Here in Atlanta we have the forgotten story of our own 1906 Atlanta race riot. I’m sorry to have to tell you that another tragic September anniversary is upon us, in addition the more recent anniversary of September 11 th , 2001 . This very month, September 2006, is also the centennial or one hundredth anniversary of a four day race riot that most Atlantans have never even heard of.

For four days, from September 22 nd to the 25 th, thousands of white Atlantans led a rampage that resulted in the death of at least 25 if not a hundred or more black Atlantans, with dozens more random assaults and injuries. Now remarkably, those four days of murder and assault were also induced by a media frenzy of false rumors about a black crime wave.

Headlines in both the Atlanta Journal and the Constitution warned readers that violence was erupting from black nightclubs and neighborhoods and threatening to take over the city. Assaults on white women were claimed in addition, and on the evening of September 22 a mob of thousands formed on Decatur Street near Five Points, downtown, and the riot began.

Weeks and months after the militia restored order the city’s black and white leadership began to meet and consolidate a new Atlanta—the now familiar city that proclaimed itself, [quote:] “too busy to hate.” But years after this civic resolution between blacks and whites the riot continued to be blamed on the victims and attributed to their criminal nature.

But what about the good news?

One hundred years ago, also in 1906, our sister parish of St. Luke’s completed building the sanctuary at its present location on Peachtree Street . And because of that convergence, for the past several months St. Luke’s has been meeting regularly with the historically black congregation that was also involved in helping create the new Atlanta : First Congregational Church downtown. Together with Central Presbyterian Church downtown, these three churches have been researching their common history and seeking ways to redeem the tragic events of 1906.

In addition, our own Cathedral Community of the Cross of Nails is prepared to host tours for Cathedral members in the coming months. We will offer opportunities first to view the downtown route of the riot and then to meet afterwards and reflect on the reconciliation issues and opportunities in this year 2006.

Perhaps you may prefer to accompany a Cross of Nails group to view the new exhibition about to open at the M.L. King, Jr. National Historic Site, followed by another reflection opportunity. There will also be a four day Centennial Remembrance program beginning on September 21; four days that will mirror but also reframe the four days of the riot itself that began on September 22 in 1906.

[And] Why go to all this effort to observe something that happened one hundred years ago? Because the gospel of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ is determined to rescue us from our perennial fear, prejudice and suspicion of one another. The gospel is determined to draw us into beloved community with one another—a community that is ‘deep and wide’ and inclusive as heaven itself; as inclusive as the good gifts of our heavenly Father, whom the reading from James describes as granting us every good gift.

Every generous act of giving, with every perfect gift . . . coming down from the Father of lights, with whom there is no variation or shadow due to change [and who] In fulfillment of his own purpose . . . gave us birth by the word of truth, so that we would become a kind of first fruits of his creatures. (James 1.17-18)

But the way to that heavenly vision is to acknowledge and recover from—rather than simply deny—the “evil intentions” that Jesus says come “from within, from the human heart.” For it is those things that defile or corrupt or group of people, and not merely their identity as members of that people or group.

As so to paraphrase today’s gospel in combination with next Sunday’s gospel—‘Thus he declared all people clean.’ Thus Jesus declared all people clean! In the name of Jesus, you and your people or group are declared inherently clean! But whether you are experientially clean or corrupt is not based on some superficial basis like your identity or membership in a particular class, ethnicity, orientation or your region or origin.

Rather people are clean or corrupt on the basis of something deeper: the deeper intentions of their hearts as fellow beings created in the image and likeness of God.

Therefore let us pray with renewed intention—pray with a renewal of our self-esteem and esteem for others—the Collect appointed for today and found on the front of your service leaflet. [ The Lord be with you . . . Let us pray: ]

Lord of all power and might, the author and giver of all good things:

Graft in our hearts the love of your Name;
increase in us true religion;
nourish us with all goodness;
and bring forth in us the fruit of good works;
through Jesus Christ our Lord,
who lives and reigns
with you and the Holy Spirit,
one God for ever and ever. Amen.

Comments? Contact The Rev. Thee Smith: tsmith@stphilipscathedral.org

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