Scripture: Mark 6:14-29; Matthew 15:22-28; Psalm 127:1; Psalm 69:1-3; Mark 10:17-22 Series: After Pentecost
Preaching on the lectionary text of Herod’s beheading of John the Baptist (Mark 6:14-29), the sermon argues that difficult Scripture, like difficult films we avoid, must be faced because God finds us in the murk of life, not only its Christmas-card moments. Herod’s lies expose a truth worse than the lie itself, and his rigged court prefigures the unjust trial and death of Jesus. The preacher insists Christ saves all of us or none of us, that resurrection only makes sense if we refuse to skip the cross, and applies this to Covenant UMC’s 43rd anniversary and its real facility, financial, and ministry challenges. Hope lies in a God not silenced by sin, so the congregation is called to name their challenges and lay them at the foot of the cross.
Illustrations: difficult-films-vs-action-movies, lectionary-vs-self-chosen-sermons, covenant-umc-43rd-birthday-challenges, rich-young-ruler, canaanite-woman
July 14
“Not Easy to Watch”
“King Herod heard of it, for Jesus’ name had become known. Some were saying, “John the baptizer has been raised from the dead; and for this reason these powers are at work in him.” But others said, “It is Elijah.” And others said, “It is a prophet, like one of the prophets of old.” But when Herod heard of it, he said, “John, whom I beheaded, has been raised.” For Herod himself had sent men who arrested John, bound him, and put him in prison on account of Herodias, his brother Philip’s wife, because Herod had married her. For John had been telling Herod, “It is not lawful for you to have your brother’s wife.” And Herodias had a grudge against him, and wanted to kill him. But she could not, for Herod feared John, knowing that he was a righteous and holy man, and he protected him. When he heard him, he was greatly perplexed; and yet he liked to listen to him. But an opportunity came when Herod on his birthday gave a banquet for his courtiers and officers and for the leaders of Galilee. When his daughter Herodias came in and danced, she pleased Herod and his guests; and the king said to the girl, “Ask me for whatever you wish, and I will give it.” And he solemnly swore to her, “Whatever you ask me, I will give you, even half of my kingdom.” She went out and said to her mother, “What should I ask for?” She replied, “The head of John the baptizer.” Immediately she rushed back to the king and requested, “I want you to give me at once the head of John the Baptist on a platter.” The king was deeply grieved; yet out of regard for his oaths and for the guests, he did not want to refuse her. Immediately the king sent a soldier of the guard with orders to bring John’s head. He went and beheaded him in the prison, brought his head on a platter, and gave it to the girl. Then the girl gave it to her mother. When his disciples heard about it, they came and took his body, and laid it in a tomb.” Mark 6:14-29 NRSV
When I was in my twenties, I used to love watching great classics of world cinema: Kurosawa, Truffaut, Godard. It was enjoyable to see the history of film, to watch movies and languages in which I was not an expert.
Today, it feels like a lot of work to watch an “important” movie. I don’t really feel like watching a movie that is difficult too much anymore. If Alina is in a work trip and the kids are asleep, I watch bad action movies with simple plots. Go from a to b to c, and that’s it. You may have never gotten into foreign films, but I imagine that for a lot of us, if we’re gonna watch a movie or a show, we’re not really looking for something super difficult at 9 PM on a Tuesday. Life is difficult enough.
Life is difficult enough that it can be hard to read passages from the Bible like our gospel reads by for today. We have Herod and his daughter and the death of John the Baptist. This is not a passage of the Bible that is used for VBS. It’s not one of those passages that people hold up on signs at football games. Nobody paints this on their eye makeup. Nobody is putting Mark 6:14 with a hashtag under their social media profiles. People usually don’t come to church on Sunday morning in order to hear about a prophet getting beheaded, but that is what we have here.
When I first started ministry, I preached the lectionary. And then I went through this cycle of planning these elaborate sermon series on topics of my own choosing that I felt were relevant to the lives of the people in the church. I was trying to help take people from a to b, but the preaching and writing was too focused on me and my ideas and I needed to center myself more on God than my own plans The lectionary is a series of texts of the Bible split up over 3 years. It doesn’t cover everything. I wish it did, but most people aren’t really ready sit and hear a 15 minute scripture readings. And so they split it up a little bit. The lectionary gives you a text to preach. You don’t get to pick it; you receive it. You have to wrestle with it and deal with it. And like, many aspect of life, I feel like when I get to choose, I choose the easier path. I wouldn’t choose Mark 6, in the beheading of John just like I wouldn’t choose to watch a difficult movie at 9 PM on a Tuesday. Were I left to myself, I would probably choose a nice parable or a nice verse of Paul. Maybe a nice story about the young life of David. But, no, we are given a wicked king, this creepy relationship with his wife and daughter, and the prophet who loses his life. What are we to do with this?
This passage reminds us that God finds us where we are, not where we wish we were. God finds us in the murk and complication of our life, not just in the Christmas card or wedding photo moments of our life. When we read the Bible only for the nice and easy parts that make us feel good, we ignore those parts of our life that don’t feel good.
Christ doesn’t just save the good parts of us. Christ either saves all the parts of us, or none of us.
Mark 6 is worth thinking about even beyond simply being difficult. Herod hears a rumor that John the Baptist has returned from the dead. Clearly not everyone had heard the full story about what had happened to John the Baptist. If they had seen the head, maybe they wouldn’t have spread such a rumor.
But Herod is stuck because if he tells the whole truth, he looks like a creepy, scary, easily manipulated person. All of the people would see how weak he was and no longer acknowledge him as king.
Herod can’t tell the truth because it would expose a lie. The lies of his life go deeper than the surface.
This isn’t a simple action flick with a plot that’s easy to follow and a satisfying ending that makes us feel good about ourselves and the world. This isn’t a nice romantic comedy where the protagonists end up together after all the misunderstandings have been sorted out. The truth is worse than the lies.
The lie Herod promulgated is that John the Baptist was arrested and executed for disobedience, most likely. Herod was afraid of John. Herod knew that John was a holy man, but John had spoken against Herod marrying his brother, Philip’s, wife. Herod’s respect for John did not keep the king from arresting the baptizer. He didn’t want the truth of the whole affair to be let out.
The truth is that the king was manipulated, first by his wife, and then by his wife’s daughter into beheading a man beloved of the people.
How are we to respond to the reality of the lies we tell about ourselves and the world?
But like all of the Gospels, Mark 6 should never be read isolated from the eventual suffering, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ.
Mark 6, no matter how sour a taste it may leave in our mouth, gives us a foretaste of the eventual suffering and death of Jesus. We think about Christ’s death during Holy Week. We name Christ’s death in the creed and during communion. We sing about it and pray about it, but we don’t often linger with it.
Even during Holy Week, it is difficult to linger on the suffering of Jesus. It is easy to linger on the consequence of Christ’s suffering, on the resurrection, on the salvation he wrought for us.
So when we look to Mark 6 and the death of John the Baptist, we need to see the death of Jesus. We need to see the trial of Jesus.
We often try to give an aura of respectability to the trial of Jesus but the reality of it was just as dirty as Mark 6. Pontius Pilate holds no moral superiority to Herod. Both systems were rigged and unjust. One is a little more salacious than the other.
Christ died in a broken world and broken system. But his death is not the end of the story and John the Baptists death was no the end of his story.
We believe in a God who is not silenced by sin and destruction. We believe in a God is not excluded from a world by corruption and hatred. We believe in a God whose power is greater than all the brokenness and all the destruction and all the anger and all the lust and all the powers and principalities of this world.
We must admit and confess the times that our story and our life has been one of brokenness and sin but that is also not the end of our story.
These dark moments, though, should not be forgotten. The hard moments. The difficult moments to watch. The more we erase the difficulties of our life from memory, the less we give to Jesus.
The rich young ruler wasn’t desperate for Jesus. He had enough. He followed Torah. He cared an adequate amount. But when he asked Jesus what he must do, the answer wasn’t what he wanted to hear, so he walked away sad because he had many possessions.
The Canaanite woman in Matthew 15 did not walk away from Jesus. Matthew writes:
He answered, “I was sent only to the lost sheep of Israel.” The woman came and knelt before him. “Lord, help me!” she said. He replied, “It is not right to take the children’s bread and toss it to the dogs.” “Yes it is, Lord,” she said. “Even the dogs eat the crumbs that fall from their master’s table.” Then Jesus said to her, “Woman, you have great faith! Your request is granted.” And her daughter was healed at that moment. - Matthew 15:22-28
Jesus saves us from the midst of a broken world. Jesus doesn’t save full stop. Jesus saves us from the brokenness and self-destruction of this world. And that brokenness hurts and it is tempting.
Just like it is tempting to skip over a “serious” or “important” or “difficult” film in place of something you are more in the mood of. The thing is, we are rarely in the mood for challenges until we find ourselves in the midst of them or we find our loved ones in the midst of them.
Today we are celebrating the 43rd birthday of Covenant United Methodist Church. There have been a lot of wonderful things to celebrate over the last 43 years. There have also been some challenges. We are currently facing some challenges. Not like John the Baptist or Jesus on the cross, but they are not the movies that make for easy Tuesday nights. We have an aging campus with a number of roofs that will need replacing. We have the stucco on our walls that is separating and could separate further and cause eventual foundation issues. We have been replacing AC units but we will have to replace more of them. These are just facility issues I have been thinking about this week.
We have financial challenges that don’t go away. We are spending barely any money for expenses, as I lead the praise band and directed the choir in the spring, and yet our expenses are still greater than giving every month. Times are hard and I am grateful for every cent graciously given to God’s ministry, but if we believe in a God of resurrection, we can’t avoid the reality we are in, no matter how difficult.
We have challenges of ministry. We need to reach our immediate neighbors. We need to build relationships with the schools next to us. We need to connect the food pantry clientele to the life of the church and be welcoming for spiritual needs as well as physical needs. We need every single member making time to serve at least once a month.
We have challenges but we are not without hope.
As Psalm 127 says, unless the Lord builds it, in vain do the builders labor.
We believe in a God of resurrection. We lift up a holy book where there are challenges which are not dismissed. The Psalms are filled with challenges greater than Mark 6.
Psalm 69.
Save me, O God, for the waters have come up to my neck. I sink in the miry depths, where there is no foothold. I have come into the deep waters; the floods engulf me. I am worn out calling for help; my throat is parched. My eyes fail, looking for my God.
If we ignore the challenge, we miss the story. If we ignore the cross, we miss resurrection. If we ignore sin, we miss new life. But sin is not the end of the story. Challenge is not the end of the story, for Jesus or for us.
We need to face them and not ignore them. We need to speak clearly and honestly and not dismiss them. But we are not our worst. We are not our challenges. We are children of God. Redeemed by the blood of Jesus Christ for a purpose in this world.
If you are in the midst of challenge. If you are in the midst of movie you would rather skip, God is with you. We are with you. You are not alone. You don’t need to pretend to have it all together. None of us do. And the world which causes us to lie and cover up the challenges wants us to fail so that we could need it more.
Let it out. Let’s take a moment to let it out to God prayer.
Name those challenges and lay them at the foot of the cross. We need not ignore them, but we are also not defined by them. You are free. You are redeemed. You are loved.
In the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit. Amen.