July 11, 2020 Sermon: Prophet on a Platter

In Mark 6:14-29, Mark interrupts his Gospel story about Jesus with the story of John the Baptist’s beheading by King Herod. This glimpse into Herod’s power-hungry world gives us an alternative vision to God’s kingdom of grace.

This week was also VBS at St. Peter (watch the recap video here) and with everything going on this week, much of this sermon is a reprise of my sermon on this same lectionary week in 2018.  July Thanks to Pastor Erin Coleman Branchaud for inspiration in the ELCA World Hunger Sermon Starter this week in 2018 for helping me find a direction to go with this text, and to Pastor David Lose for his column on this text in 2018 as well.

Grace to you and peace from the one who was, who is, and who is to come, Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen

Well, as you know, this week was Vacation Bible School here at St. Peter and down the road at St. Mary Catholic church, and we had a lot of fun looking at stories in the Bible of God rescuing us.

We did not, however, look at this story of John the Baptist being beheaded. Somehow, no one ever picks this story for their VBS curriculum. The craft projects would be hard to explain to parents.

In fact, it’s kind of a strange story even to read in worship. For one thing, this is the only week when Jesus is not a character in the Gospel reading. Did you notice? In the first verse as Mark sets the context for the story, he mentions King Herod has heard of Jesus, but the rest of the story is a flashback scene, Mark catching the audience (that is, us) up on what’s been happening while Jesus has been busy teaching and healing.

Now, usually in the sermon my job is to highlight for you the good news in God’s word. But it’s tough to find good news here.

I’ve seen a few suggestions on how to approach this story. Someone I know suggested looking for John the Baptist bobbleheads for a children’s message. Pastor Laurel over at First Lutheran in Dows talked about serving John the Baptist Sundaes, where you scoop the ice cream into a head shape and add some strawberry syrup.

John’s execution isn’t exactly a fun story. But Mark includes it in his Gospel story about Jesus for a reason.

He’s making a point for us, contrasting two different approaches to power. He’s illustrating the differences between the kingdom of God Jesus has been proclaiming, and the kingdom of Herod.

This story is an example of what life looks like without Jesus. Herod’s world is based on power. The rule is “might makes right.” As the ruler, as the king, all authority belongs to Herod, and whatever he says goes. If he wants to arbitrarily execute anyone who dares question him, he can. There’s no appeals process or checks and balances. He has the power, and he surrounds himself with a court of ambitious people focused on getting that same kind of power.

At the same time, though, Herod is not secure in his power. Mark calls him a king, which is correct, but he’s the king of a captive country, subject to Rome. In fact, historically he had to petition the Roman emperor Augustus to even become king. The king Herod in this story is the same King Herod who will go back and forth with Pontius Pilate in condemning Jesus to death.

His full name is Herod Antipas, and you might remember his father, King Herod the Great. Herod the Great was the one thirty years earlier who heard from the wise men that the Messiah was born, and because he was afraid that this baby would eventually be a threat to his own power, he had all the two-year-old and under baby boys in the region around Bethlehem murdered.

That’s also a terrible VBS story, by the way. But Herod Antipas is carrying on the family business of paranoia and brutality. This is not a nice family.

But it is a good example of what the world can look like without God, without morality, without Jesus. It’s the opposite of God’s reign.
In the story Mark has been telling about Jesus, people are being healed. Good news is being proclaimed.

Immediately after this flashback scene about John and Herod, Mark will tell us about Jesus multiplying loaves and fishes to provide a great feast for thousands of people. We’ll hear that story in a couple weeks, a story about God’s generosity, God’s abundance.

Herod’s world is very different. In Herod’s kingdom, the feast ends in death. Instead of healing, there is manipulation, backstabbing, and killing. The goal of Herod’s world is to acquire power and wealth, and then do whatever it takes to hold on to it. It’s the farthest thing from God’s kingdom.

In God’s kingdom, all people are valued – not for their power, but for their identity as children of God. It’s a realm where suffering and death are no more, where greatness is found not in the size of an army but in serving neighbors.

As Paul says, when Jesus is Lord, he lavishes the riches of God’s grace on us. Redemption and forgiveness come through Jesus’ loving sacrifice, not through political manipulation or earthly power.

And of course, the power Herod does have turns out to be hollow. He foolishly gets so caught up in his step-daughter’s dancing that he promises to give her whatever she wants, even half of his kingdom. Then, when she consults with her mother and comes back to ask for something he doesn’t want to give, he doesn’t have the power to stand up to her.

He’s so worried about his reputation that he feels he has no option but to go ahead and have John killed. If he doesn’t keep up the appearance of strength, he’ll lose his power.

Eventually, he does lose his power. Herod’s story ends with his removal by Caligula, another Roman emperor, and he dies in exile.

In this world’s system of valuing power, any threat to power must be eliminated. John the Baptist is killed because he is a prophet. We talked at Bible School about what a prophet is. A prophet is someone who speaks messages from God. It’s a tough job, because God’s message challenges the world’s power systems.

We learned this week about Jonah, who was given a hard message for the city of Nineveh and tried to run away rather than deliver his message, but of course God wouldn’t let him run away, which is where the giant fish came in.

Jonah knew that prophets in the Bible tend to have a pretty short life expectancy, because the people in power don’t like God telling them what to do. Sometimes prophets call out kings for enabling idol worship; sometimes their message is about treating the poor with compassion, standing up for justice, against oppression, watching out for widows and orphans.

In John the Baptist’s case, he got in trouble with King Herod for preaching against Herod getting divorced in order to marry his brother’s wife, who by the way was also his niece. Remember, this is a messed-up family.

This was an historical scandal as well, involving an army marching to attack Herod Antipas on behalf of the father of the woman he divorced. It’s a pretty good picture of what the kingdom of God is not.

It’s easy to look at this story and be grateful we don’t live in that world. But even though our rulers don’t have the same kind of arbitrary power Herod did, we can still understand that system of power, because we still live in a broken world.

Sometimes our world can seem closer to Herod’s kingdom than God’s kingdom. We’re still longing and praying for God’s kingdom to fully come, and we’re not there yet.

We still need prophets to speak God’s word to us, to call us back to God, to point out the problems and injustices in our world. We need to be reminded about the inequity in our world where there are people who lack the things we take for granted, like access to clean water, food, and vaccines.

We need to be called to account for how we and our society treat people who look or act different, how we treat the poor and vulnerable among us, the widows and orphans and immigrants and those with mental illness and those who don’t fit in. There’s plenty of marital unfaithfulness and sexual sin, plenty of power-hungry rulers looking out only for themselves.

Perhaps the purpose of this story is to help us see the contrast between our world and the kingdom of God. Perhaps the point is to help us see where we are called to work for change, called to build God’s kingdom, a kingdom where all are welcomed and given a place at the table, where we see and value one another as siblings; a kingdom built on an currency of grace, freely-given abundance rather than scarcity, justice and mercy rather than vengeance.

We are called to proclaim that there is a different way, that this is not the world God intended.

For John, speaking out gets him killed. This story ends with his disciples taking him and burying him.

Not very long after, Jesus himself will come to a similar end, executed by those with religious and political power who feel threatened by his message, those with something to lose.

But the good news in this story is that it’s not the final story. Despite Herod’s fear that Jesus is some sort of reincarnated John, John stays dead when he’s killed.

But Jesus doesn’t stay dead. Instead, he rescues us from the power-mad ways of this world. The story doesn’t end with a head on a platter, but with an empty tomb.

Jesus is alive and God’s kingdom is coming. Thanks be to God.
Amen

Before you go, check out this recap video of our great week of VBS here in Greene!

[youtube_sc url=”https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZBc3x3fcidM”]