Amos 7:7-15, Ephesians 1:3-14, & Mark 6:14-29 on July 14th
Above is audio of the sermon pulled from the video and amplified.
Below is transcript pulled from the video and formatted by artificial intelligence. There may be inconsistencies or errors.
Good morning, good morning. It's a joy and a privilege to be with you today. One of my favorite things about my work is traveling from one congregation to the other and knowing that we gather even in separate places, we gather together because we're gathered around Christ's body and blood, around the water of Holy Baptism and in worship we have the opportunity to give praise to the Lord. So it's really quite a privilege.
This morning we come with some heavy hearts and things that are going on in our nation that truly make us wonder if we've lost all civility, if we've lost the capacity to talk with each other across differences, if we've forgotten our way. And in light of what happened last night, yesterday afternoon, I ask you to enter into a moment of prayer with me, would you bow your heads?
Holy God, gracious Lord, Jesus teaches us a new way. And we seek to be your disciples. Help us through the time of turmoil and trouble and the lack of civility that has entered into our land. Help us to learn how to speak to one another, to speak truth in love, to listen to each other, and to do that respectfully. For we know the models that you have put in front of us, O Lord. Today we pray for all those whose lives were drastically changed in a moment yesterday. And the gunshots flew out in Butler, Pennsylvania. We pray for healing for Donald Trump and for others who were injured. We pray for relief for families who grieve the loss of loved ones. And we pray for your peace to reign in our hearts in our minds and in our lives so that we may indeed be the disciples of Jesus that we're called to be. Now, O Lord, I pray that the words of my mouth and the meditations in our hearts would be acceptable in your sight, our strength, and our redeemer, amen.
Well, as I said earlier, I am sincerely delighted to be here with you. And I want you to remember that, even in spite of everything else that I'm going to have to say. Remember that I am glad to be here. Pastor Jason asked me several months ago if I would come and lead worship and preach while he was on sabbatical. I think that the sabbatical committee helped with that. I'm delighted that this congregation has supported your pastor in such a positive way and given him this time. And we decided together today would be the best Sunday for me to come and lead worship here. The best Sunday, according to my calendar. And I am indeed glad to be here.
But I also want to be completely honest with you. If I had read the scripture for this morning, when I agreed to come, I probably would have picked a different Sunday. I read the story from Mark's Gospel of the Beheading of our beloved quirky, faithful John the Baptist. And I thought to myself, good Lord, where's the good news in this story? You see, I'm called to preach the good news. I'm here specifically to preach the good news. And I presume you're here to hear the good news. Is that correct? Yes.
I've always been told and taught in seminary that it's the goal of the pastor to find the good news in the text and lift that up. So today I'm really wondering, where do I find the good news in this story? And further, why does Mark include this story in the Gospel? And I said to Pastor Beth, what's a guest's preacher supposed to do with this? Take it. Take it, take it. I hear you.
This story of the Beheading of John, it is truly one of the most raw, most depraved tales of human corruption and dysfunction that we will read in Scripture. It is simply horrible to read it. And it's horrible to think that humans can act so depraved. But it seems that history continues to teach us one example after another of how poorly human behavior is.
This story has got to be one of the worst dinner parties I've ever heard of. A birthday banquet that begins with a young girl dancing to please the king and his court and ends with the head of John the Baptist presented on a platter. The characters in the story? Oh my goodness. They include:
1. Herod, known as a weak king, the beholder of the emperor. And instead of caring for what the people needed, she cared more about the emperor and how he could impress him.
2. Herodius, first married to Philip Herod's brother, and now she's Herod's wife. She hates John because John spoke truth to Herod about their relationship.
The dancing daughter who conspires with her mom to get John's head on the platter. A girl so young that we have to wonder if she even understands how her parents are using her as a pawn in their ruthless games.
This tale is testimony to our most gruesome human tendencies and to what happens when truth speaks out to power. John calls Herod out for marrying his sister-in-law. Herod has John arrested and placed in prison. Herod hosts a state dinner. The daughter dances so well that the king promises her anything, even half of his kingdom. So she's off in a corner whispering with her mother and then comes and boldly asks for John's head. The king is so foolish and too proud to go back on a promise to the girl in front of all of the leaders from Galilee. And so what does he do? He calls for an execution.
It's really such a cast of characters and corruption. And it's a mirror into our society that truthfully, I don't know about you, but I don't think many of us really want to look at. However, if you listen carefully to the gospel reading, I wonder if you noticed who is not in the story? Did anybody of you, any out there, notice that there was somebody missing from this story?
You see, I believe that's the important point. Jesus is not there. Jesus is not in this story. There are very few messages in the gospel where Jesus is not included, and this is one of them. Yes, as we enter this today's gospel, it is acknowledged that Herod has heard about Jesus, but Jesus is not there.
Now, I've always been taught, and I believe, that Jesus is our good news. And in this story, the good news, Jesus is missing. And this is important for our understanding of the gospel, and what it means for our life as we leave worship today.
For that reason, I want to take a lens back, a broader view, and explore for a minute what's around this story:
Just before the story of John's beheading is the story of Jesus in his own hometown. If you remember that story, you remember that it was proclaimed that a prophet is not without honor except in his own hometown. And so Jesus is left at the end of that part of the story bewildered by the unbelief.
Immediately following the story of Jesus in his own hometown being rejected, so to speak, there is the story of the success of his disciples in carrying out the mission of Jesus. The disciples are out there. They're preaching, they're teaching, they're healing in Jesus' name, and the mission is growing.
Then of course, we have this story today where people are speculating about Jesus. And some are saying that he's John raised from the dead. And others are saying he's a liar or a prophet. And Herod, presumably in his guilt, believes that it is John who is raised.
Immediately following this story is the story of the feeding of the 5,000.
So this is a sandwich story, John the Baptist beheaded, between the story of the mission of Jesus, the mission of God growing and becoming successful, and the feeding of the 5,000.
Scholars have long described today's story as a flashback that's really a flash forward. It's a foreshadowing of what treatment Jesus can expect when he speaks the truth to power. The mission of God in Christ is growing, and that is simply threatening. God's mission is vastly different than the mission of the leaders of this world. God's mission is for love and peace and grace to prevail and the voices of God's mission are different than the voices of leadership. And so it becomes incredibly frightening for leaders who are in power. So scary in fact, that those in power will call for death.
Everywhere there seems to be such greed and such fear on display, both in John's story and in Jesus' story that we know so well. What I'd like us to remember is the focus today is on two banquets, two feasts and celebrations in this part of Mark's Gospel. Because this is where we will find the good news for us. The news of Jesus' way that can carry us, and I pray, will shape our lives and the way that we live with one another in our everyday life.
Of course we have Herod's birthday bash, which I've already described in the Gospel has so gruesomly laid out in gory detail. It was a celebration for those in power where truth results in terrible consequences, where princes and people in power look out only for themselves and make foolish decisions out of pride and ignorance. But notice at the end of the Gospel reading that the disciples, and by the way, they're referring to John's disciples. John's disciples come in to receive his body for burial. Imagine what kind of hope and courage it takes for them to come and take his body for burial after all that has happened. And remember that at that banquet, Jesus is nowhere to be found.
Then we follow with the story of the feeding of the 5,000. And when we contrast the two banquets, the feeding of the 5,000, we find Jesus right smack in the center as the host of the second banquet. Jesus, the heart of the celebration. And at this meal, the disciples and all God's children are gathered calmly and quietly, presumably on a hillside in the middle of nowhere with nothing but five loaves and two fish to offer. And yet this banquet is blessed. At this feast, there is no place for fear or greed or corruption. Each and every person is fed to their fullest and there are leftovers beyond our comprehension.
This feast is what Jesus and his disciples did. And what we continue to do week after week after week in hope and in courage, we gather around the table. Jesus, our host feeds us the bread of life and the cup of blessing. His own body and blood to nourish and strengthen us for our mission in God's world.
Jesus disciples live in hope and courage and grace and love. We sing praises to our God in worship and we include everyone as we gather at the table because this is what Jesus, our Savior, our good news teaches us to do. Jesus foresees God's mission and he gives us a vision of a different world where the love of God prevails for each and every beloved child of God.
Human society has always held the possibility of cycles of cruelty and misery that seem to grasp the world. Humans can inflict all kinds of pain and harm and even death on one another. People with toxic values will refuse to hear truth. The corruption and death, that's not the end of the story if you're a believer in Christ. In Jesus we have hope. Excuse me, we have redemption, we have forgiveness, we have grace.
St. Paul says in Christ we have obtained our inheritance so that we may live for the praise of God's glory so that we may know love and live in Christ's love with one another.
I pray, may the love of Jesus rain over our hearts in our lives such that our hope remains strong such that our courage causes us to live boldly as Jesus disciples who proclaim the good news of God's love with the whole world. Amen.