Don't Judge A Book By Its Cover - Year B - Proper 18

In the name of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit. Amen.

It was a beautiful sunny Sunday morning, the congregation had just settled into their service and had begun to sing the first hymn, when their attention was disturbed by a young man who was aimlessly wandering down the aisle.

He was unkempt, and there was a subtle, yet unpleasant aroma around him, some ignored him and carried on singing, while others had a look of disdain on their faces. They could see that he was looking for a place to sit, but was struggling to see anywhere, so he simply walked to the very end of the aisle, and sat on the floor right there.

As the hymn ended, there were some murmurings as people took their place, and this ceased as people watched the churchwarden make his way down the young man. You could see in some eyes was the look of satisfaction, they all knew what the churchwarden was going to do, he was going to get him to leave, so their time in church wasn’t disturbed.

As he got to the young man, he bent over as if he was going to talk to him, but he continued in his descent, and simply sat next to him, so that he could share his service book with him, and the service continued, with the look of unapproving astonishment on some people’s faces.

While this is just a story, it emphasises the point that James is making in the epistle very well for us, how do we treat people, and does their demeanour change the way that we look at them? We may think this only happens to some people, which itself is our own unconscious bias at work, but this kind of thing can happen to anyone of us.

A couple of years ago I was in a position not unlike our young man in the story, you see I needed a new suit, and Mikki and I were on leave and had decided to go into Manchester as it was somewhere she had never been to before, you know what I’m like when I’m off duty especially in summer, shorts, t-shirt and often flip flops, and after visiting a couple of museums on our way back to the car, we walked past Moss Bros. so, I suggested that we popped in so I could have a look for a suit.

I had been looking around for about 5 or 10 minutes, and while we were the only people in there, none of the three assistants on duty acknowledged or approached me.

Eventually, I found a suit I liked, and asked one of the assistants if they had my size, and was greeted with and abrupt no, so feeling unwelcome we left.

Funnily enough about a week later I was in Manchester for a meeting, fully attired in my clericals, so I decided to perform an experiment. So, I popped back in, within 30 seconds of walking through the door the assistant who didn’t want to know me the week before immediately greeted me and was now by my side asking how he could help, saddened by what I witnessed I politely thanked him and left.

James in our epistle this morning reminds us that we should not judge another because of their outward appearance, instead we should be looking beyond the outer to the whole person and get to know them, because we never know what is there below the surface.

Each of these people is a child of, and loved by God, and as James rightly reminds us, that ‘you shall love your neighbour as yourself’ and continues by warning of showing partiality, instead calling us to demonstrate mercy instead of judgement, and reminds us of that which we considered last week, that we must be hearers and doers of the word, by ensuring that our faith produces works, otherwise what’s the point?

Now you may be wondering well how does this sit with our Gospel this morning? Readers could be forgiven for thinking that Christ was rude to the Syrophoenician woman when she asked for his help. In one sense yes, it could be seen in this way, but we also need to remember that at this point in his ministry his goal was to teach the house of Israel about who he was, and this gentile woman was not Hebrew.

But notice how when she replied to Him, He recognised within her the strength of faith that she had. The woman, knew who Christ was, she knew He could heal her daughter, and she wasn’t about to give up because she wasn’t a Hebrew.

Christ looked deep within this woman, he saw not only the deep need that she had, to protect her daughter, but that she was willing to do whatever was needed to receive his blessing, and because of this He healed her daughter, and she went away knowing that that personal encounter that she had with Christ had not only changed her, but had also saved her daughter.