September 12:
24th Sunday in Ordinary Time

Reading I: Isaiah 50:5-9a
Responsorial Psalm: 116:1-2, 3-4, 5-6, 8-9
Reading II: James 2:14-18
Gospel: Mark 8:27-35

Linda carries the cross of poverty, pain, frustration, and overwhelming responsibility. Four courses shy of her social work degree she had to take a leave of absence due to illness. Now her health is better and her children are in school, she has taken in her ex-husband’s teenage daughter from another of his relationships, AND she provided mental health advocacy and care for another of his women. One of her sons is disabled; all were abused by their father and his other children; all are traumatized.  

Nancy gave her sister her share of the rent each month only to find her sister had not used it to pay the rent. Eviction caused Nancy, her sister and all of their children to move in with their parents. Imagine eleven people living in a three bedroom house! Imagine the grocery bills! Nancy quit her health care job because the local coffee shop pays better and gives her regular hours! What a cross we lay on our health workers when we don’t demand a living wage for skilled med techs, for those who care for our elderly and infirm, for those who work forty hours a week. Her nurse supervisor is still singing Nancy’s praises after five years of working together. In the last five years, she watched Nancy go from job to job looking for better wages. 

Linda and Nancy pray with great faith. They pray with their children who are delightful and helpful. You would be impressed by how they cope with poverty, how they do in school, at play, at home, waiting for their mother to return from work.  

I asked both Linda and Nancy, “Who do you say Jesus is?” Their silence was sober and then Nancy said with a tear in her eye, “Oh Jesus suffered far more than I do. I can take this. He endured more. I am not alone. I can help others.” 

Linda offered, “I don’t know anymore. I wonder why God lets horrible things happen and why me ...and then I just ask for his help to get through this, to help my boys grow to be good men: reliable, responsible men. That is what matters; Jesus helps me raise them. Jesus helps me make all the calls to the doctor, to get the help my son needs.”    

Nancy wondered, “He is my Lord and my Savior but I want my words to mean something and those words are what I say but what do they mean? Was Jesus in the woman who told me to come and see the house for rent but not in her husband once he saw me? Why was she so nice and he so mean? Are we ever going to get a place for my children and me to live? Rents are so high and pay is so low. When I walked one hour to work each day and took double shifts and walked one hour home so late each night or early the next morning, I talked to Jesus all the way. I’m not afraid. Jesus is with me.”  

I hear Isaiah’s suffering servant in these women. Their ears are open; they have not rebelled and God is their help but oh how I want them to have more help! God is near to them in their suffering; God is hearing their pleas. Our parish’s Mercy fund; our local interfaith pastoral association’s Good Neighbor fund and a collaboration of people who respond to those in crisis offer some support but systemic racism and ignorance on so many people’s part are making poor people poorer. A priest pronounced, “poverty is generational.”  That may be true for some families but not for Nancy or Linda. Both come from families where both parents worked and maintained their own homes. Both Nancy and Linda have parents who continue to work well past retirement age.  Linda and Nancy’s parents earned living wages in the 1970s and their parents did as well in the 1950s and 60s. Their daughter’s poverty is a cross they now bear.  

Today’s letter of James cautions us against merely saying to those who suffer, “Go in peace, keep warm and eat well.” As followers of Christ, we follow Jesus who says, “Whoever loses his life for my sake... will save it.” How do we lay down our lives for the Nancys and Lindas of this world AND for victims of climate catastrophes like Hurricane Ida? Our parish is a founding member of RocACTS whose member congregations and agencies collaborate to transform injustices perpetuated on the Nancys and Lindas of this world. 

~Dr Deni Mack, Pastoral Associate Emerita