Sermon: Contrast

Photo by Philippe Leone on Unsplash

Sermon Preached on July 15, 2018

Proper 10B RCL

The Rev. Vicki K. Hesse,

Director of the Whitaker Institute, 

Episcopal Diocese of Michigan

St. John’s Episcopal Church, Westland, MI

Good morning.  My name is Rev. Vicki Hesse and

I serve the Diocese as the Director of the Whitaker Institute.

The Whitaker Institute is the educational arm of the Diocese.

Ask: Who here has taken a class from the Whitaker Institute? 

Our overall purpose is (slowly)

to form disciples to carry on the ministry of Jesus Christ.

(that’s a big mission, but we have a big God!)

We do this forming in three ways:

by educating, equipping and empowering

members of our faith community with lifelong formation.

Three programs you may know include:

Safe Church courses (now being revised),

“Academy for Vocational Leadership,” a local school for ordained ministry and

“Exploring Your Spiritual Journey,” aka EYSJ,

for anyone (lay or called to ordination) to learn how God is calling them.

These are only three of several programs.

Perhaps there will be time at coffee hour

to learn more about learning and working together

for mutual transformation.

So thank you Fr. Steve, in absentia, for your invitation to be here today. 

Now, we take a deep breath and remember

we are always in God’s loving presence.

May the words of my mouth

and the mediation of all our hearts be acceptable to you,

O Lord, our strength and our redeemer. Amen.

This week, the gospel begins forebodingly:

King Herod heard of Jesus – Jesus’ name had become known. 

You can hear the background music…. Dum dum dum.

And then the story unfolds of the beheading of John the Baptist.

How Herod had imprisoned John

for telling him not to marry his brother’s wife.

Then at a party, John’s head was the door prize

for Herod’s daughter’s dance.

And John’s body

was all his disciples got of him.

Really?  I thought.  And, scratching my head, thought about this opportunity

to preach God’s love to a community

whom I had only met, partially,

some months ago under different context?

See, Mark’s gospel is brief, immediate, stark. 

And yet this author uses some 15 verses to elaborate on this flashback. 

15 verses where Jesus is not mentioned.

15 verses that seem peripheral to the objectives of the KOG.

15 verses that seem like a non-sequitur.

It would be too easy drive past this historical marker,

like one on the rural roads around Michigan,

as an interesting way point for which we don’t have time.

But “we act out such dismissal at our own peril.”[1]

Because, if we do pass up this opportunity to stop,

we ignore the challenge of the Gospel and the risks to our own survival.

So, join me in exploring the purpose of this flashback scene

for the author of the GMark. 

What if this is an extended parable? 

What if Mark is putting

the “reign of God that Jesus proclaims and exemplifies

alongside

the life in the world absent from God’s reign and rule”[2] ?

As a parable, this story provides a surprising contrast.

Here in the middle of Mark’s message and reflection on Jesus’ life,

Mark teaches a lesson, distinguishing sharply

what life is like without Jesus

where one is caught in worldly structures,

fueled by power, insecurity and exploitation

and

what life is like with Jesus

where he catches us in God’s realm, inspired by the Spirit and Love.

As a parable, this story provides a contrast.

And, like most parables, invites the listener

to draw one’s own conclusions.

What do you conclude, in this contrast?

In this parable, Jesus doesn’t judge.

In fact, Herod judges himself and his actions of murdering John.

We get a little insight about the bubble over Herod’s head

when Mark offers verse 16:  

“But when Herod heard of it, he said, ‘John, whom I beheaded, has been raised’”

So parables contrast. They don’t judge. They juxtapose.

They surprise in a way

to trigger an insight about yourself and about the world. 

They provoke you to reconsider your assumptions, values, actions.

What is being compared here?  Let’s look closely.

Until this point in GMark,

God’s reign is portrayed as Jesus, who does God’s will:

freeing God’s people

from all those forces that prevent abundant living –

that includes powers such as materialism,

possession, disease and dis-ease,

isolation, discrimination, grief,

remorse, even death.

You know these forces, don’t you?

God’s will is this: for God’s people

to be free of the forces that rob us from life.

Throughout this fast-moving gospel,

Jesus comes in and with compassion responds to everyone who asks.

Just like the story last week,

the only people whom Jesus has difficulty freeing

are those who cannot imagine they need release

or

those who believe that he is unable to do so.

And in the compassion of Jesus, he liberates.

He loves.

He lives into God’s will:

He assures us of God’s faithfulness.

In this in this parable,

GMark parallels, for an illustration,

what life is like in a world that is ruled by powers. 

This life falls short of what God dreams for us. 

Even though Herod feels bad for having killed John,

he never admits guilt or even reluctance. 

It’s better to save face in front of his peers, he must think. 

Which in and of itself is convicting –

haven’t you ever wanted to save face?

And absent Herod’s judgment, there is also no concern for justice. 

In this case, only power is the way decisions guide actions –

 leading to “might makes right.” 

We have seen this in our world

when leaders make decisions

without judgment or without concern for justice. 

For in this world where the strongest and fittest rule,

there is no mercy either. 

So Herod beheads John to save face, to show power,

rather than to admit a foolish promise.

What are the implications – for us – of this parable? 

The implications are jumping out onto our news

and our society all around us. 

While it is difficult to think of the brutal beheading of John,

we have to ask ourselves

if these actions (metaphorically) are far from

the callous manipulations of power in our society today? 

Is this parabolic story that far from

the way brutal autocrats

are praised for the sake of appearing strong

and

children are torn from their parents

in the name of law and order?

The implications of this parable reflect our world, our story.

It saddens me to consider if we have become numb to it.

What we share with Herod

is a willingness to cut our losses

in the face of these kinds of powers

and walk away from what we know to be right.

For the Gospel message can disappear

lest we take our eyes off this contrast. 

So stop at this historical marker

and pause for the deeper message:

Without Jesus, we cannot hope but fall prey to

the forces, potencies and dynamics of power

and the need for security

that leads us to avoid a sense of justice and give up our need for mercy. 

For without Jesus, we will fall prey.

This is our parable. This is our contrasting world. 

And what does our witness, our faith, tell us? 

Our faith teaches us, reminds us, no, insists…that

Jesus is with us and so we are living God’s dream.

We can candidly recognize the powers and principalities in the world

and we can resist them.

As our Baptismal Covenant says,

we can “persevere in resisting evil, and,

whenever we fall into sin, repent and return to the Lord”[3]

with God’s help.

You may know that last week,

the mayor of Westland, Mr. William Wild,

signed a letter from the US Conference of Mayors.

He added his voice to the collective call

for the immediate reunification

of immigrant children with their families.

As he stated in the press release,

“all of us descend from immigrants

and we must continue to fight to defend

those who cannot fight for themselves.”

This is but one example

of standing in resistance to the forces that lock us all in,

that keep us from justice and mercy.

With God’s help,

we continue to name the powers

that draw us away from the love of God,

AND we can be contrite about our participation in them.

That is one reason we say confession every week. 

AND we can re-commit to living like Jesus

in light of God’s promises to be free of these forces. 

We know that only the cross and resurrection

of Jesus can change the nature and course of the world. 

We are the ones marked by his cross.

And we are called by him to hope.

To hope in his resurrection today,

fueled with equal parts courage and confidence. 

In this hope, daily, moment by moment,

we can know the real presence of Jesus

who makes a difference in our liberation.

In this hope, the fine people of St. John’s Westland

can continue to serve God and your neighbors

through good works and community partnerships.

Today’s parable presents us with a contrast. 

We can choose the story of Jesus today –

the story that God offers,

and the narrative into which

we have been born and reborn. 

For God choses that for us:

a loving, liberating, life-giving dream of God

energized through our striving

for justice and peace among all human beings. 

God choses life for you today – and gives you this gift of love.

Know, my sisters and brothers, that God loves you and choses you

Because you are a gift to the world.

Your presence matters.  Your story matters. 

And through God’s grace, may you recognize the contrasts,

choosing Jesus as he has chosen you.

Amen

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[1] Cited on July 12, 2018, Karoline Lewis, “Beheading The Gospel,” at http://www.workingpreacher.org/craft.aspx?m=4377&post=5197

[2] Cited on July 13, 2018, David Lose, “Two Stories Two Truths” reflection here:  http://www.davidlose.net/2018/07/pentecost-8-b-two-stories-two-truths/on 2018.07.12

[3] BCP 293