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Sermon for July 12, 2009
Pastor Sara Kay Olson-Smith
Sixth Sunday after Pentecost
Texts: Amos 7:7-14; Psalm 85:8-13; Ephesians 1:3-14; Mark 6:14-29
Grace to you and peace, from God our Creator, and from Christ Jesus our Lord.
It is one of those days, isn’t it, when we hear the readings and say, “Thanks be to God!” but think rather, “Thanks be to God?” Our gospel reading is certainly not one of those stories from the Bible that we heard a lot in Sunday School, hard to imagine a felt-board depiction of this one being too suitable for the youngsters, or for any of us for that matter.
It’s a hard gospel reading, one that disrupts all the inspiration and miraculous healing that we’ve been hearing of the past few weeks. We been on kind of a roll, hearing all the amazing things that Jesus was doing, healing the woman who’s been bleeding for years, raising a girl from the dead, healing many more, sending out his disciples, and they were healing, too! We’ve been hearing all the amazing stuff that Jesus was up to Then the Gospel writer interrupts this story of great ministry and incredible things happening to tell us of John the Baptist, about how he impressed and challenged Herod, about his strong words about righteousness and faithfulness, about his subsequent imprisonment and eventual beheading.
We see in the Gospel reading the righteousness of John played in opposition to Herod and his family. Herod and his family depict the very real and sinfully human way of encountering the world, one that we have seemed to master in 21st Century North America. Herod and his family are all about getting what they want when they want it. Herod wants his brother’s wife and takes her. Herod wants to look generous and fabulous for his guests so gives his daughter whatever she asks for. Herodias wants John killed, now. With immediacy, the daughter wishes to please her mother and demands John’s head. Immediately, their wishes are fulfilled. They all got what they wanted when they wanted it, with little respect for the good of others, for the well-being of the great prophet, for their own righteousness and faithfulness.
It's easy to see this story and distance ourselves from it, yet when we are honest with ourselves, we are closer to them than we’d like. We may not have the power and the prestige and platters of Herod and his family, but we encounter the world in basically the same way. We want what we want when we want it. We think its our right, our privilege, what we deserve. We even think that God can help make that happen, responding to our prayers and our desires like a vending machine. It is this kind of religion that shapes much of our contemporary North American Christian church, that God is here just to make us happy and help us get what we want when we want it. It's easy to jump onto this, as one pastor calls it, “ Superman-miracle-worker-healer-rock-star bandwagon.” The gospel writer challenges this skewed theology and puts the story of John’s beheading right in the middle of all these miracle stories. Mark reminds us that Jesus calls us to follow him, straight to the cross, where we will find not only suffering and struggle, but also life- eternal and abundant. We are reminded that righteousness and faithfulness is not always about ease and luxury and contentment, but is about service, self-giving, mercy and love.
God’s kingdom building way is not about me getting what I want when I want it, but rather God’s way is about the healing and blessing of this whole world, each one, me and you, and the prophet who sits in prison and the poor and hungry, and the rich and powerful too. Jesus calls us to a life where we are not the center of the universe, but where Jesus with his cross and resurrection stand squarely at its center to bring life abundant to all people.
We hear this story of the beheading of John the Baptist and realize that we live our lives much more like Herod and his family than like the faithful prophet. We are much more used to working and living and demanding that we get what we want when we want it, than we are used to challenging the powers to make sure that all people have enough and that righteousness persists. We are much better at phoning to God demanding our wants and wishing for them right away, than turning back to God to listen to ways we can give ourselves away for the sake of God’s mission to bless and love our world. We see in our Gospel today the story of Herod who wants it all for his own sake contrasted with John who gives it all for the sake of God’s kingdom.
We live a lot like Herod but we are called to be a lot more like John. Jesus calls us to follow him, straight to the cross, and while this might not be the greatest evangelism strategy, it is good news. It is good news because it is not at Herod’s parties that joy and life is found, but at the cross, in the empty tomb. It is good news because a lot of the time, what we want is not what is good for us or for the world. It is good news because Jesus pulls us from that which seduces us and tempts us and kills us. Jesus calls us back to what brings us (and this world) life. As we listen to this story, we are convicted and challenged. We are faced with the reality of our own sinfulness. We have a mirror held up to our own wanting what we want when we want it, but we are also shown a way of living which confronts that selfishness, sinfulness, and corruption of power.
This story shows us how much we are like Herod and how little we are like John. Like Herod, we seek fulfillment in fancy parties and exploitative platters. Unlike John, we seldom challenge corrupt authority, advocate for justice and demand righteousness. Yet it is for us, held captive by our demands and by our silence that Jesus came into the world. Jesus who gives everything, frees us, that we might lavishly know his grace and mercy.
While we seek to fill our platters with all the stuff we want and all the power we can seek, Jesus instead serves us a banquet of bread and wine, that is more lavish and amazing than we could ever imagine. Jesus comes to us, and, instead of giving us the stuff we want when we want it, stuff that will rot and empty and destroy us, he comes and gives to us the stuff we need, bread and wine, water and word, community and hope, opportunities to serve and reasons to advocate, and, especially, life eternal and abundant for each one of us and for all of us. Jesus challenges our wants by giving us all we need and more to share.
In Jesus, we who so often live more like Herod and less like John, are offered redemption and transformation through the death and life of Jesus, the forgiveness of our trespasses, because of the richness of his grace that he lavished upon us. As Eugene Petersen freely translates our reading from Ephesians, “Because of the sacrifice of the Messiah, his blood poured out on the altar of the cross, we are free people – free of penalties and punishments chalked up of our misdeeds. And not just barely free, abundantly free! Jesus thought of everything, provided for everything we could possibly need!” Jesus, by his lavish grace has given us, not what we want when we want it, but the only thing that we really need - life in him, abundant, transformative and eternal. With this gift, we can give ourselves away, too, living a little less like Herod and a lot more like John!
Thanks be to God.
Amen.
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