Respect by the Rt. Rev. Andrew Smith
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15th Sunday after Pentecost B18 September 6, 2015
Trinity Church Hartford Labor Day weekend; TEC: Racism
Mark 7:24-37
This summer a friend introduced me to a book published in 1998, written by Sara Lawrence-Lightfoot, whose title is “Respect: an Exploration.” In the book Lawrence-Lightfoot, an African American writer, suggests that the word “respect” is a key to constructive, healthy relationships, and chronicles people from various professions in whose lives and work respect is a constant, and connections, attention, faith, curiosity and engagement are among the hallmarks.
Skimming through the book, got me thinking about the term “respect.” Here are some of the dictionary particulars of its definition: respect is an attitude, an understanding that someone, something, is important, or serious and therefore should be treated in an appropriate way.
Or, to put it another way, Respect is a significant focus and blessing which I give to someone or something I hold in high or special regard.
Interesting how most of the “Christian classical virtues” primarily are about one’s own being: chastity, abstinence, temperance, diligence, patience, humility. There are some, however, that define one’s relationship to others: for instance, forgiveness, liberality, kindness.
It’s to this latter group, virtues that relate me to others, that I now want to add a “new” virtue, “respect.”
Jesus had that virtue, in spades.
Listen to today’s gospel story of Jesus — venturing outside the towns and cities that would be native for him: first in Tyre and Sidon and then the region of the Decapolis. Unlike the hundred thousand persons running for President, Jesus wanted his presence kept secret. Bt it couldn’t be:
In Tyre a woman whose little daughter had an unclean spirit immediately heard about him, and she came and bowed down at his feet. 26Now the woman was a Gentile (not a Jew), of Syrophoenician origin (not a Galilean). She begged him to cast the demon out of her daughter. 27He said to her, ‘The children must be fed first, for it is not fair just to take the children’s food and throw it to the dogs.’ (“Dogs” — He put her off.) 28But she came back at him, ‘Sir,* even the dogs under the table eat the children’s crumbs.’ 29Then he said to her, ‘For saying that, you may go—the demon has left your daughter.’ 30So she went home, found is as he had said.
Whoa. Do you see what happened here?
Jesus saw that she was not “one of their own,” not a person of the people or the faith of the God of Israel. And so his reaction was to dismiss her. She wouldn’t have that, and her response to him led Jesus to stop and take a second look, re-focus, if you will, and he then responded differently.
That’s what “respect” is: it is the virtue of going beyond the cursory reaction, the stereotype, the “first look”, and to ascribe worth to the other, give attention, to engage in deeper way.
Look at the word, “respect.” The “spect” part comes from the Latin that gives us the word “spectacles (something to help seeing), and “spectator” (someone who [supposedly] attentively watches). And the “re” indicates “back, “again,” “for a second time.” So its root components describe an action in which you or I “look again” — more intently than we normally might.
Jesus respected Simon the tax collector and to the scandal of others, ate with him. He did the same when the disciples dismissed children brought to him, he brought them close and set them as an example. On hearing blind Bartimaeus. those around Jesus told him to be quiet, Jesus was going to Jerusalem; Jesus summoned him over, and Bartimaeus was healed. Or again, from this morning’s gospel: when he was implored for a healing by the friends of the deaf man in the non-Jewish Decapolis, Jesus touched the man who then could hear and speak.
Even in encounters with enemies, Jesus engaged them, drew them in, deemed them worthy of his attention.
Be careful of two “respects” we are not talking about. Jesus’s kind respect is not the miserableness you know is coming when someone says, “with all due respect” which more often than not is a prelude to being slammed with actually little or no respect. Nor does this respect in Jesus carry the sense of formal respect that requires that one must stay away, keep one’s distance.
Rather, this respect engages, draws in, sees worth in the other, gets closer, is an act of faith, brings healing. As the Epistle of James makes clear, it is not something that proffers favoritism or countenances exclusion, for any reason.
What then if we were to enshrine this “respect” as one of the classic Christian virtues? Always sought to practice it with each other? And with neighbors who may differ radically from us?
Respect for those who labor, hugely missing from the minds of the Robber Barons. Remember respect for creation. It’s not just people.
On this Sunday it is about people: The Episcopal Church urges us its members to confront our racism, to admit it, and work to heal it and its legacy. Jesus-respect is the virtue that makes us want to take a second look, to look again, to move beyond surface simple impressions and stereotyped pre-conclusions about each other, to look deeper and move closer, in Christ’s love.
Finally, imagine in the big picture how our respect in Christ for others — all others — whoever — how our respect could be, as it was in Jesus’s ministry, a door-opening for the love of God sweep to into their lives, and even for those we so respect to find new relationships with God.
There it is. This has been an effort to respect — to look again — at respect. Jesus showed it. So for us, let it be, too!