Proper 10B 2 Samuel 6:1-5, 12b-19 Ephesians 1:3-14 Mark 6:14-29 July 12, 2015 St. Thomas Church, Abingdon The Rev. Canon Kathy Dunagan

Transcription

1 1 Proper 10B 2 Samuel 6:1-5, 12b-19 Ephesians 1:3-14 Mark 6:14-29 July 12, 2015 St. Thomas Church, Abingdon The Rev. Canon Kathy Dunagan I am struggling to find the good news in today s readings. A friend of mine had a baby premature and struggling for life. As he told me about this he told me that he decided after seeing her in the neonatal intensive care unit that he needed to pray. He was not much of a praying man, a Christmas and Easter only sort of Christian, a physician who cared for others constantly, who lived a full and happy life but a man who was rarely in the position to ask for help. You d think he would have known his way around a hospital so it was funny that in his story he said he went into a closet to pray. I imagined, as he told me this story, that he was upset, crying, because he and his wife were about to lose their baby daughter and so he jumped into the nearest place to hide. so that no one would see him in this vulnerable state. He said that in that closet he began to pray and that all that came to mind for him was to give his baby daughter back to God. He said that this experience changed him forever because he realized at that moment that we are all God s children, on loan to each other and therefore we are all adopted in some way. Well, the child survived and she became a lovely young woman. I knew this when he told me the story. I could tell though that this profound experience of her father marked how she was raised. Maybe that is why she turned out so well. Today s lectionary readings are so political that most preachers would choose to preach on the Psalm or maybe even one of the hymns rather than to enter into these messy stories of fame, blame, deceit and treachery. One scholar suggested that the preacher of today s lectionary ought to be congratulated for originality and guts. How do we make sense out of the death of John the Baptist? How can I speak of politics from the pulpit? Years ago, or only yesterday, The Washington Post quoted a lavishly paid lobbyist: There are only two engines that drive Washington: One is greed, and the other is fear. Well, that is a fine description of Herod s birthday party.

2 2 Greed and fear. I for one am not interested in standing in this pulpit and bringing to mind any modern examples of the sins of kings like David and Herod. I want to run screaming from any anecdotes from our lives that might describe this Biblical messiness. On the other hand. And we always must look at the other hand. All of life is messy. Passions rise and politics happen. We are faced with messiness and deal making in our secular lives and so as Christians must we must consider how to be civic leaders and at the same time followers of Jesus. So, bear with me as I trudge through this looking for good news. David danced for joy at the return of the Ark of the Covenant from having been captured by the Philistines. This was one of the first actions of his reign as king, and the beginning of an era of stability for the Judeans. David s wife, the daughter of Saul, the queen, called him out as treacherous to the law for dancing in the way that he did. Tradition tells us she was upset because he was dancing naked! O.K. This is funny. It reminds me of an I Love Lucy episode, though I m not sure of a particular episode. It just seems silly to us, trying to understand this story from our perspective, without context. The king dances naked and the queen rebukes him because he s either embarrassing her or perhaps getting all the attention. I can just see Lucille Ball dressed in a gypsy costume crying, But Ricky! I wanted to be the dancer! Actually, further study reveals David wasn t really naked so much as not wearing the appropriate garments of a king. The ephod was a priestly garment. And besides that, only women danced. So, however David was clad it is the story of a power struggle between king and queen and it is a precursor of a similar power struggle in other Bible stories, particularly our Gospel lesson today. Herod, like David, was king in a chaotic and tumultuous time and apparently, like David, became complicit in the less-than-godly ways of the people. Herod, unlike David, inherited the role and had learned from birth how to operate within corruption by acting in ways of avoidance. He avoided looking bad, he avoided getting caught with his hand in the cooke jar, he avoided catching the blame when it came around on the political merry-go-round of an occupied nation.

3 3 In this story from the Gospel of Mark, Herod gets bamboozled by his wife and stepdaughter. Defying the law of the Torah (Leviticus 18:13-16; 20:21), Herod had married his widowed sister-in-law. John the Baptist had called them out about this. Herod admired his accuser, believing him righteous and holy. But, nursing a grudge, Herod s wife wanted John dead. Herod compromised: he arrested and jailed under protective custody this threatening preacher to whom he enjoyed listening. His wife s opportunity came at a state dinner, at which her young daughter danced and pleased Herod and his guests. The lecherous fool, Herod promised her whatever she asked for in return for her performance. After consulting with her mother, the girl sprang the trap: I want John s head on a platter -- right now. Herod was caught. Saving face was an issue; worse, defaulting on an oath could be reckoned tantamount to taking God s name in vain. Birthday morphed into death day for Herod. John s head was delivered to Herodias. And Herod saved face avoiding further losses, like his kingdom or his life. Now, this sounds like the kind of mess folks get themselves into when participating in the greed and fear of the powers-that-be. I ll choose to let you imagine or recall your own examples of this from current affairs. That list is simply too long to read and get to coffee hour on time. Plus, I would rather spend these moments reflecting on what this has to do with Jesus and how we, the people of St. Thomas are to follow Jesus. And here s the answer. These stories are foreshadowing of the crucifixion and we are commanded to follow Jesus all the way to the cross. I m still looking for good news. This story is one of the longest stories in the gospel. The beginning of the story is actually detail of what comes much later, after John the Baptist has been dead for some time and Herod hears about the works of Jesus and wonders who he is. That first sentence or two is sort of like a prequel, like Darth Vader as a boy or something! But it is important to consider this prequel part. Last Sunday we heard the previous story, of how Jesus went to his home town and was rejected there. At the end of that story, Jesus chose the twelve, trained them and sent them out. They were offering healings and exorcisms all over the place, in the name of Jesus, and the secret had gotten out. So, when Herod heard about Jesus, and all of this, he was intrigued and wondered who this Jesus might be.

4 4 It is interesting to me that he considered the possibility, amongst those discussing this, that Jesus was the resurrected Elijah. This is interesting because Elijah was also manipulated by another murderous wife. But it is also interesting to learn that resurrection was not unheard of. Herod decided to go with the idea that Jesus was the resurrected John the Baptist. But of course, we who know the rest of the story, know he was wrong. This Jesus was so much more. The setting of this story is when the twelve have just returned from this first sending out and the first thing they do, after telling of their many accomplishments in the name of Jesus, is to go and bury John the Baptist. This is foreshadowing. What will they do after Jesus is also gruesomely murdered? Will they scatter? Will they continue to follow the risen Lord? This is the part of the story that stands out most for me. The end of the story. The sequel, before the prequel. After Herod and his family and friends squabble and gruesomely murder the great prophet John the Baptizer as part of a dinner party, they exit the stage, never to be heard from again in this telling of the story. After all that, the disciples of Jesus come and retrieve the body of John and prepare a proper burial. This takes me to one of my favorite Bible stories of all. Jump forward to chapter 15 of Mark and find the story of Joseph of Arimathea. He was a civic leader, yet also a disciple of Jesus. Joseph used his status to secure a proper burial for the body of our Lord. In other tellings of the story, Joseph placed the body of Jesus in his own tomb. (Matt 27:57-59; or at least a good tomb in a garden - John 19:38-42) Joseph was a quiet, behind the scenes sort of disciple who made a big difference in the story. Which brings me to our epistle lesson for today. Well, if it seems I m jumping around a bit here, I m still looking for good news. The Ephesians were also apt to fight amongst themselves. This story is based on political strife too. The fact of human difference may no longer surprise us, but what may surprise us in this passage is that the author of the letter to the Ephesians stops to thank God. And not just thank God for life and love but for the foresight and grace to actually plan this messy human diversity. You see, Ephesians is a letter about living together in the midst of human differences. The author writes as a Jew to a largely Gentile audience with the message that, in Christ, God has made both groups into one and has broken down the dividing wall. God has broken down

5 5 the hostility between them. It is not easy living together as two groups who have previously been at odds with one another. The letter acknowledges that living with differences requires effort: it takes humility, gentleness, and patience. The author thanks God for all this messiness. So, this is how we are to follow Jesus. In this messy, political and even corrupt world around us, we follow a king who walks in humility and teaches all of his followers to love others rather than become complicit in power struggles. We follow a king who laid down his life for his friends and then rose again to lead us further on. And so we follow in humility and love and patience and offer our best to a God who adopts us as his own and breathes in to us the life of the Spirit. The letter to the Ephesians reminds us that we have been lavished in grace. We have been adopted by God through Christ. In our Baptisms we have been sealed in the Holy Spirit as Christ s own forever. This is the good news. This is how and why we can bear the messiness of life. We can bear the challenges before us. We can bear the grief of loss. We can bear the weight of mission and be sent forth to help to heal and help to exorcise the demons of greed and fear and hate. We can bear all these things because we are sealed in the Holy Spirit as Christ s own forever. Thanks be to God. Amen.