Sermon for Pentecost 7 Year B 2015 The Truth, Nothing But the Truth, and the Consequences

Transcription

1 Sermon for Pentecost 7 Year B 2015 The Truth, Nothing But the Truth, and the Consequences What a handful of hard texts we have this morning! Between the harsh prophetic words of Amos and the seductive dance of a conniving stepdaughter that results in a beheading... perhaps there should have been a warning on the front of the bulletin: These texts contain sexual situations, scenes of violence and difficult and painfully challenging prophetic language. Not recommended for children. While the Lifetime Movie Channel is offering heartwarming Christmas in July movies the lectionary gives us Good Friday in July. This is a story we don t want to hear maybe ever but certainly not on a lovely summer Sunday morning. No, this is a story we don t want to hear. Especially this year because we are reminded that beheading is not just a thing of the past. We have seen the images of men kneeling before they were beheaded. We have felt the anguish of families whose sons were beheaded: aid workers, journalists, 21 Coptic Christians. And there are other people whose names we'll never know, including Iraqi Muslims, whose stories are not in our news. But John's brutal death did make the news at least, the biblical news. Mark gives a lot of space to this gruesome story. And that's quite remarkable because (as you may have noticed) Mark usually doesn't elaborate. Mark is generally a just the facts kind of evangelist reporter. For instance, Jesus' temptation in the wilderness gets only two verses in chapter one. Immediately after that story Mark tells us this, "Now after John was arrested, Jesus came to Galilee, proclaiming the good news of God, and saying 'The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God has come near; repent, and believe in the good news.'" Did you notice the concise and significant fact Jesus' ministry began after John's arrest? Mark wants us to see that John and Jesus are deeply connected. And there is something we need to know about Jesus by way of John. 1

2 But then Mark leaves us hanging. Why was John arrested? Did he stay in prison? Was he tortured? We don't find out what happens to John until we get to chapter six. Why did Mark wait so long to let us know what happened to John? Well, the main reason is that Mark is a gifted story-teller. This doesn't mean he made things up, but he puts the truth of the story together in a particular way. Last Sunday we heard in the first part of chapter 6 that Jesus was rejected in his hometown of Nazareth. Then he sent out his disciples and commissioned them to carry on the work he had been doing. This is where today's gospel story comes in. When Herod heard about this healer, this miracle worker, he said, "John, whom I beheaded, has been raised." After waiting for six chapters, we finally know what happened to John. We also find out why John was arrested: because he was a truth-teller. John dared to tell Herod the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth the truth that Herod had hoped would not see the light of day shining on it. John took Herod to task because he had sinned by marrying Herodias, who was the wife of his half-brother Philip. Now, to be fair, considering the customs of those times, that would have been accepted--even expected if Philip had died. But Philip was very much alive and Herodias was his wife! Apparently, the meeting of Herod and Herodias was worthy of an episode of Sins and Secrets or Dark Obsessions on the Investigation Discovery Channel. In fact, Herod divorced his first wife in order to marry his brother s wife; a plan he and Herodias had concocted together when she also divorced her husband, Herod s brother. For telling the truth about their marriage, John was sent to prison. And Herodias was furious! She wanted John dead. But for some strange reason, Herod protected John. Mark gives us this clue: "When Herod heard John, he was greatly perplexed, and yet he liked to listen to him." Yet, it's not clear when Herod had ever heard John preach. Did he go out to the Jordan with the crowds who were baptized by John? Quite frankly, I don t think this is very likely. 2

3 So, did he visit John in prison and talk with him? Again, I don t think that is very plausible either Herod, visiting the prisoner? No, highly unlikely! I do, however, imagine that Herod had John brought to him in chains. I can see Herod feeling comfortable with conversing with John on his own turf. Though Herod was raised a Jew And we need to know that his father Herod the Great (the Herod of Jesus birth) had converted to Judaism as part of what many scholars think was a kind of political maneuver to create an ersatz royal family so while Herod was a Jew, his loyalty was to the Roman Empire rather than to the Word of God, that plumb line which Amos spoke of in our first lesson. I ve always wondered, was there some spark of God that drew him to John's message? What would have happened had he allowed John s prophetic words to pierce his heart? Instead, Herod tried to get John's words out of his head especially at his own birthday party. Oh, he loved to give these lavish state dinners: tables weighed down with food; wine flowing from a fountain; toast after toast all in his honor. This is what he loved and coveted most about the Empire. Well, let s not forget, one very special gift: a young woman to dance for his guests. Now some accounts say she was Herod's daughter, but more likely she was the daughter of the wife he stole from his brother. So she was Herod s niece-slash-step-daughter. We can infer, perhaps, that she was an enticing younger version of her mother And, of course the added bonus she knew how to dance in a manner that pleased the king. (Here you are invited to use your imagine!) Herod was so captivated that he promised her anything "even half of my kingdom," he said. He should have known better for she ran to her mother. And her mother said, "Ask for the head of John the baptizer on a platter." And Herod, irony of ironies, was deeply grieved. He was grieved because apparently he considered John to be a holy man that is a prophet, a man who spoke the words of God. He was grieved because he was still drawn to what John said. But... his guests had heard the oath he had made. How could he lose face in front of them? What, me. be a sentimental bleeding heart? Who knows what they might tell somebody higher up? So Herod gave the command of unbelief. Soon the head of John the Baptist was brought on a platter; the last course of Herod's birthday dinner. 3

4 When John's disciples heard about his death, they came to get his body and laid it in a tomb. Once again Mark leaves us on the edge of our seats. Jesus' ministry began after John was arrested; so what will Jesus do now after John has been killed? Jesus will keep telling the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth in the court of Herod and in the court of Pontius Pilate... and in the court of public opinion. "The kingdom of God has come near. Repent and believe the good news." But, as we already have seen, truth-telling has consequences. We've seen this in our own time. This year we marked the 50 th anniversary of "Bloody Sunday." Perhaps we didn't want to hear that story again either. It was on that day that African-American men and women and teen-agers were viciously attacked as they walked across the Edmund Pettus Bridge. They were telling the truth with their bodies: we are children of God, we are citizens of this country, and we deserve the right to vote. Because millions of people watched these attacks on television, the mood of this country began to change. We saw the truth that we had denied before. The truth has consequences. And our country did begin to change. Three years after that bloody march, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. went to Memphis to stand with garbage collectors. They told him the truth about their working conditions, their wages, their humiliation. Dr. King knew that telling the truth had consequences. Airport security had guarded his plane all night before he flew from Atlanta to Memphis. Death threats had become more common. He was honest about this the night he spoke in Memphis. "We've got some difficult days ahead," he said, "but it doesn't matter to me now. Because I've been to the mountaintop. Like anybody, I would like to live a long life. Longevity has its place. But I'm not concerned about that now. I just want to do God's will. And He's allowed me to go up to the mountain. And I've looked over. And I've seen the Promised Land. 4

5 I may not get there with you. But I want you to know tonight, that we, as a people, will get to the Promised Land. And so I'm happy, tonight. I'm not worried about anything. I'm not fearing any man! Mine eyes have seen the glory of the coming of the Lord!" What King was saying is the kingdom of God has come near. And Jesus says Repent and believe the good news! John the Baptist said the same thing at the Jordan and from his prison cell, for he had seen what Herod could not see or refused to see and hear. Neither John the Baptist nor Dr. King sought death. Neither did Jesus. They told the truth because they believed God's promise of life was stronger than the threat of death. Mark wants us to see that, too. Immediately after John's death, Mark tells the story of Jesus feeding 5000 people in a deserted place. It was a meal that began with only five loaves of bread and two fish, but it became a bountiful feast. You could say that Jesus, the Good Shepherd, had spread a feast for us in the presence of his enemies. If you have the stomach for it, chew on this: Herod's banquet yielded one deadly left-over: John the Baptist's head on a platter. But Jesus' feast offered enough for everyone to eat with twelve baskets left over. Mark wrote his gospel so that we would hear these two stories side by side, so that we would remember that choices must be made in every generation. God calls you and me to tell the truth, nothing less than the truth, about whatever diminishes life and wholeness for any person. We don't speak up because we want to be martyrs. We speak and act because we believe God's kingdom has come near and that makes all the difference. You could say that is what the ELCA 2015 Youth Gathering is all about. We will be learning to look at the reality and suffering of the world through the light of Christ so that we will have the courage, no the boldness, to stand in solidarity with those who suffer because we live and act trust that God will always bring life out of death; we make our choices rooted in the promise of resurrection. Let us pray. Holy and gracious God, give us courage to choose your way in the midst of so many choices. Empower us to live the prayer Jesus has taught us: "Your kingdom come. Your will be done on earth--this earth, in our time and place--as it is in heaven." Grant that the light of Christ shine truth in the darkness. Amen. 5