BProp10

Amos 7:7-15; Psalm 85:8-13; Ephesians 1:3-14; Mark 6:14-29

July 12, 2009

This morning’s gospel reading caused me to reminisce

about Halloween when I was at seminary.

Virginia Seminary has a nice large campus

with all the main buildings situated around a green.

And nestled among large trees and down long narrow lanes

behind those buildings were 14 faculty houses.

Large two-story houses, many of which were built in the 1800’s,

A perfect setting for trick or treat.

Each year the faculty would be waiting at their homes to hand out candy

to all the children of us seminarians.

After that we would head to one of the men’s dorms where the guys

would have a haunted house set up.

We would encounter such characters as:

Jonah fresh out from the whale – drenched and draped with seaweed.

A darkened hall with six-winged seraphim flitting in and out.

Goliath with the stone from David’s slingshot embedded in his forehead.

You get the idea.

The most memorable character appeared

when we turned a corner and walked into a room

with a long banquet table with a floor-length table cloth.

A big silver platter was in the middle of the table.

And there on the platter was the head of…Brooks Keith.

Brooks was one of our youngest seminarians.

Most of us were second career – most between 35 and 45.

Brooks Keith was in his early twenties

with surfer blond shoulder length hair

and a Maynard G. Crebbs’ goatee.

There was his head, tilted on the platter –

eyes rolled back, mouth slacked open, and a few other gory details.

My five year old daughter who adored Brooks,

shrieked until I took her over and pulled up the table cloth.

There we could see the whole set-up

of his body crouched under the table

with his head sticking up where a missing table leaf belonged.

Laura tickled Brooks, which she loved to do whenever she got the chance

and felt much better after she made him wiggle -

and oh how he tried not to laugh!

This Halloween story is a bit out of place in the middle of summer.

But so is the story of the beheading of John the Baptist

where it is found in the gospel of Mark.

This story occurs in the sixth chapter of Mark.

John’s arrest and the end of his ministry

have already been stated by Mark in the first chapter.

Jesus has, by the sixth chapter, called his disciples

and begun his ministry of teaching and healing.

We’ve been through scene after scene of him

Revealing the life-giving power of God’s love to heal and save.

He has hung out with sinners,

broken the rules to reveal God’s true will.

He has just commissioned the twelve

and sent them out to work in the villages

to build his movement of renewal.

Sandwiched between this sending out

and the return of the apostles

who gather around Jesus and tell him all they have accomplished

is this striking tale of John’s beheading.

Two enemy brothers.

A woman who was wife to one is now married to the other.

She resents the prophet who speaks against this illegal union.

A man could not marry the wife of his living brother.

A young girl – not a beautiful young adult who can dance seductively -

but a young girl – pre-adolescent –

who is yanked out of what would have probably been

an innocent desire of a 10 year old who is offered anything she wants.

Maybe she would have asked for a pony for pleasing the king–

But instead she is told to voice the vengeful desires of her mother.

Why does Mark place this story here?

In the middle of Jesus’ ministry gaining strength and support?

This story of the beheading of John is the longest story

in the entire Gospel that does not include Jesus.

Why interject it here?

One thing we notice is that

it shares every element of Jesus’ crucifixion.

The sovereign who has authority to issue the decree of death

does so under the pressure of the crowd.

But Herod does not want to behead John

any more that Pilate wants to crucify Jesus.

Both leaders, as individuals,

do not think the prophet placed before them deserves death.

They want to spare the victim, but they don’t dare confront the crowd.

There are people whose desires conflict.

And a scapegoat is chosen to satisfy the tension among them.

The faithful followers who come and take the body away

for a proper burial.

Several similarities exist between the beheading of John

and the crucifixion of Jesus.

But, aren’t they universal similarities found in so much of human drama?

This story stands here to remind us

that it is not Jesus’ death that is unique.

Jesus’ death is a universal death.

Jesus’ death is every death that comes from power and desire devoid of God.

The ‘Son of Man’ is every man,

Every person whose life is affected by human power and desire

divorced from God’s power and desire.

What is unique about the cross is its power to expose all such deaths

for what they are.

Let’s look at power and desire.

Power determines desire.

It is where we locate power, that we find our desire springing from.

Who tells us what to want?

Who tells us what has value?

Who compels us to make choices?

In this case, the power of the crowd.

It can drown out the truth that dwells deep within.

What will we do to avoid the truth that our deep self is whispering to us?

We will lie. We will silence the truth tellers.

We will even corrupt our children into complicity?

I remember as a much younger woman, in college,

seeing an outfit that was perfect.

I couldn’t afford it and knew well my financial obligations.

I had enough outfits. But this one was perfect.

Who told me it was perfect?

Who told me that I had to figure out a way to buy it?

Some message was strong

because the thought of doing without it made me wince and squirm –

made me restless and resentful.

When I gave in and took it home and put it in my closet

And could picture myself wearing it, I felt relieved as if everything was in place.

Did I enjoy the creative bookkeeping I had to do for a few months

to cover up this expenditure?

This gaping number that flashed with neon lights

every time I opened my checkbook register?

Buying something you can’t afford isn’t exactly a death-dealing blow.

But it’s an everyday example of how strongly we are compelled by our desires

and how adept we are at denying them.

Mark has done us a favor with this haunted scene tucked in to his gospel.

The message of Jesus that was spreading like wildfire was to

let go of the ‘powers that be’ and their marching orders.

To discover the power of God to bring life and freedom.

And to see what life looks like when our desire springs from God’s power.

Jesus wasn’t the only prophet to be sacrificed for the sake of

misplaced power and the desires that spring from it.

John the Baptist and Amos with his plumbline,

and countless lives and situations,

even petty shopping sprees,

that are dictated by misplaced powers and the desires that develop from them.

I can hear Jesus whispering through the ‘crowd’ I gave power to:

Consider the lilies of the field…

The cross forever reminds us of such powers over us.

And, the cross forever reminds us of God’s power in Christ power over them.