Gloria Dei Lutheran Church

Mark 6:14-29

What a wild story to gather around this morning. Remember last month when the assigned Gospel was Binding the Strongman, when Jesus was accused of being out of his mind, teaming up with Satan and breaking up the family? And now I get the beheading of John the Baptist. I’m starting to think that perhaps this some not to subtle hazing for the new pastor. 

In our collection of bible stories, this is one of the most dramatic ones. King Herod wanted and took his brother’s wife, Herodias. Yes, Herod married a woman named Herodias who named her daughter Herodias. And it sounds as if she liked this arrangement. So much so that she was looking for a way to end John the Baptizer’s life. Why? Because John kept telling King Herod that taking your brother’s wife was all kinds of wrong. King Herod had a strange relationship to John. He liked listening to him—even though he didn’t really understand what John was saying most of the time. Truth be told, Herod was afraid of John, because John was holy and he told the truth. That’s a terrifying combination if you are a King without a moral compass, with unlimited power and resources and an ego the size of Lake Superior.

King Herod throws himself a birthday bash and invites all the muckitee mucks in town. They had a feast and then the evenings entertainment was provided by Herod’s stepdaughter. She came in and danced for everyone. And by everyone we mean a room of powerful men. Right away our minds go to the worst possible sorts dynamics. The set up feels off. But who knows. When family and friends came to my house growing up, my parents would often make me play a song on the piano for them. Maybe Herodias came in with her accordian and tap danced while she played. Whatever the case, she must have been a pretty good dancer because the response from the room was immediate and outsized. King Herod was so pleased that he tells her make a wish and I’ll make it happen. You want half of my kingdom? It’s yours. You want that trip to Europe with your friends? It’s yours. She runs to her mom, King Herod’s wife, and they come up with a plan. The plan is this: they request the head of John the Baptist, on a platter. Because this will fix everything! and take care of the tiny problem of John poo poo everyone’s fun. And because King Herod made this bold, ego centered promise in front of all his guests—that she could have anything—they knew he would do it.

Sure enough, Herod orders the hit and John the Baptizers life comes to violent end, with the added cruelty of spectacle.

Pastor Moffet Churn said in the Christian Century that we can put our ear to ground and listen to this story, as hard as we can, and we will not be able to detect one note of Good News out of it.

We typically praise people for upholding oaths and promises. But in this case, don’t we wish that Herod had changed his mind at that party? Don’t we wish that he had become a dreaded flip-flopper, taken it in the teeth to save John? I do. Because John the Baptizer is one of my favorite ancestors in faith. I love him because I believe his calling made him weird. He might have been strange anyway but then add the God thing and well. (It’s possible that I over identify with him, but stick with me). 

From the womb, we know John’s calling was to prepare the way for Jesus. He wore odd clothing and ate strange foods and spent time in the wild. Honestly, I think he would have killed any good vibes at a social gathering. Leading up to the holidays, his family would sigh and say, “Well, I suppose we should invite Cousin John. Even though he makes it awkward.” John had within him a plumb line of truth. He was unwavering in living that out.

Do you know anyone like that—someone who says the thing out loud that the rest of us are trying desperately to ignore? If you have spent any time on the personality test called the Enneagram, these are the Type 1’s. I also believe it’s often our children. Man, they can call us to account with very little effort on their end. Because they haven’t built the filters we have yet. And they are seeing the world with fresh eyes, for the first time. And if something is off, they are going to point it out.

(I have permission to share this story) When my first born, Marley, was 5 years old, they took violin lessons from our friend. Each week, I drove Marley to our friends apartment in Minneapolis for these lessons. It was a trek, for a household that rarely leave a 1 mile radius of our home in St Paul. So Marley would look out the car windows and ask questions. We came through the same intersections each week, at one there were always a few people who were with card board signs, asking for help. Marley had so many questions. Why. But why. Okay, but mom, shouldn’t we help. You know exactly where this would lead us and I just wanted to get to this lesson on time. So about the third week, I started to take another route. 

We will take whole other routes in order to avoid the truth teller and what they are telling us.

And sometimes, telling the truth goes the way of John the Baptizer. At first those in power put him in jail, hoping to silence his voice. But that wasn’t enough. The truth rang out from prison walls. It took cutting his life short to put an end to his message, that Christ is coming, always coming, coming again. But ending John’s life doesn’t silence that Good News because here we are today, huddled up around it. John is still a voice calling to us in our wilderness, still preparing the way, still providing life. 

We have a Sunday morning Gospel story of ego and selling out and violence. Who needs that when we can read the same things in the news. This morning we are likely thinking about world leaders, politicians. Certainly we can find connections. But I’m asking you to not make them the scapegoat. Or Herod the scapegoat. We have to look at our own lives—-perhaps hiding under a few protective layers of denials. I’m guessing if we are honest, we all have stories in our own lives that hold the same elements. when we sell out for honor, to avoid being shamed in front of our friends, to avoid a hard truth that will require us to change. We plot and scheme for our own gain. I am thinking about the moment at King Herod’s birthday party when his stepdaughter came back in and told him she wanted John’s head. What might of happened if he chose another way? He didn’t, of course. But doesn’t it make you think of all the mountains that we die on? Stances we take where we dig our heals in and decide to die on that mountain if need be. Because it would way too embarrassing to admit we were wrong about something.

It’s okay to change your mind. Especially if you have new insight or new information or new learning. Especially if you see the hill you are willing to die on is leading to injustice or violence for someone else. It will cost you a bit. Your ego will get dinged up. But that is absolutely survivable. It’s okay to change your mind. 

This story of John isn’t the end. If we look beyond the margins, we see that John’s death launched a new phase of Jesus’ ministry. Even from the grave, the truth her carried continues to ring out and shape us. Sometimes the stories of our own lives that we are caught in are so bad not even the American positive spirit that we tend to eat for breakfast in this country can help us find a word of hope. Some seasons of our lives are so difficult that we put our ear to the ground and cannot find one note of good news. In those times, we have to look outside of what we are living in order to find it.. Out beyond the page we are on. In every terrible story, we can trust that God is present, working in and outside the margins—beyond what we can see or even fathom, bringing love and forgiveness to our worst moments.

Look beyond the main characters to see it. 

The last line of our Gospel perhaps gives us what we need for the week.  The last verse says, “When the disciples heard about the death of John, they came and collected his body and buried it.” Can you imagine the truckload of trust that must have taken for them. To go to that jail and request John’s body. The body of the man whom the most powerful man in the Empire had executed. The tried as best they could to violently squash not only the messenger but the message. And they are there, in a public place, telling the world they are not only associated with John but they are about that message of hope. I wonder if they were terrified that the same would happen to them.

Church, no matter what sort of news, good bad or otherwise, you are living in and among and through, we are going to continue to keep tending to the broken bodies, burying what needs to be buried—we will bury ego and violence and denial. And we will continue to trust that truth will not just be raised but will ring out that Christ is coming, ever coming, coming again.