7th Sunday after Pentecost

Grace be to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. Amen.

Every Sunday, the person reading the gospel lesson closes with the words, “The gospel of the Lord.” And the congregation answers, “Thanks be to God!”

Today, this response catches in my throat. What exactly is the “gospel” in this reading? What is the good news? What in this text makes anyone want to say, “Thanks be to God?”

The story of the beheading of John the Baptist is a terrible story. It’s full of violence and manipulation and abuse of power.

In the reading from the Book of Amos, the prophet shares a powerful vision: He sees God standing with a plumb line in hand. A plumb line is a string with a lead weight at the bottom; builders use it to make sure their walls are straight and upright. Now, in the midst of the people of Israel, God stands with a plumb line to measure if they are straight, if they measure up.

God is not pleased with what he finds, for next God announces the destruction of the land. “I will no longer pass them by”, God says. God has run out of patience. The king will die in battle and Israel will go into exile because they are found wanting against God’s plumb line.

Amos proclaims this vision and verdict in the state-sponsored sanctuary of Bethel. The priests there are on the king’s pay roll. And they do not want to hear this kind of talk. They object to Amos’ preaching, report him to the king, and have him thrown out of the kingdom.

It is a recurring pattern in history that those in power are perfectly happy with religion as long as religion concerns itself with personal piety and salvation and assisting the needy. So long as religion stays in that lane, everything is fine. Rulers can even use religion for their benefit by showing up for worship now and looking pious and by sponsoring temples or festivals. In this way, religion and power can arrange themselves quite nicely.

The priest Amazia at the temple in Bethel had such an arrangement with the king: You pay for our salaries and for the upkeep of the temple rituals and we pray for you and keep the people calm, and everyone lives happily ever after.

King Herod Antipas had such an arrangement with the Jewish leadership: He continued the construction of the huge temple in Jerusalem his father had begun, and the Jewish leadership prayed for him and made him look legitimate in the eyes oft the Jews and soothed the people.

Everyone stays in their lane. Everyone is happy.

Along comes someone like Amos and upsets the whole status quo by proclaiming God’s dissatisfaction with is.

Along comes someone like John the Baptist and questions the King and everything he stands for.

Just look at all that is deplorable about Herod Antipas in the story we read this morning.

King Herod had been married to a foreign princess, but then became infatuated with his sister-in-law Herodias. She was married to his brother Philip. They both got divorced and married each other. This was a big no-no in Jewish law. You simply cannot marry your brother’s wife while he is still living.

John was very outspoken about this affront against God’s law. Herodias didn’t want to hear it; she hated John. And what do the powerful do when they want to shut someone up? Arrest that person. That’s how John got into jail.

Then comes Herod’s birthday party. He and the country’s high and mighty have a great big party. At some point, Herod has an idea: ‘Hey, let’s have my daughter dance for us.’. The way this is worded in Greek, it sounds like Herod is making her do it and she accommodates him.

This is creepy, isn’t it? It get’s even more creepy when we realize that this dancer is not the curvaceous seductress so often portrayed in movies and artwork. No, this is literally “a little girl”. Prepubescent. She has no business dancing in front of her uncle/stepfather and his tipsy buddies.

The king is besotted by this dance. That really raises the hackles on my neck. So creepy! Herod is so delighted that he offers the girl whatever she wants, even half his kingdom. (Which is, by the way, not in his power to grant, since he is reining under the supreme power of the Romans.)

This little girl doesn’t know what to ask for and goes to consult with her mom. And doesn’t her mother have a great idea: The head of John the Baptist. Just what any little girl might want, right!?

Herodias abuses her daughter’s trust and love for her own selfish purposes. This is so terrible. Both of these parents are taking advantage of this poor child. Growing up in this kind of environment, she knows she better obey, and so she receives what she asks for: the head of John the Baptist on a platter. I see years of therapy in the future, not just to get over this gruesome sight, but to come to terms with growing up in such a violent, selfish, manipulative family.

God is holding his plumb line against this royal lot and finds it wanting - wanting badly. As God’s prophet, John spoke out against these kinds of abuses. He refused to put up and shut up. He preached and publicly criticized Herod and Herodias and all they stood for.

John refused to stay in his lane, refused to be part of a nice, quiet religion that solely focuses on individual piety. Instead, God’s desire for justice and righteousness was burning in him and set him on fire.

The only way Herod knew how to stop him was to kill him. Just like that, God’s prophet is executed. Just like Martin Luther King Junior on the hotel balcony. Just like Bishop Oscar Romero at the altar of his cathedral in San Salvador. Just like the religion faculty of the University of Central America. Just like Dietrich Bonhoeffer in Hitler’s Germany. Just like countless disciples who refused to stay in the church’s ascribed lane and instead worked to bring God’s justice, God’s peace, God’s equality, God’s morals, God’s love, God’s hope to all people.

That’s how Rome and Rome’s offspring deal with those who speak truth to power.

That’s how Rome will soon deal with Jesus. How can his death not ring in our ears when we read the line, “and they took his body and laid it in a tomb”?

In the beginning of this sermon, I asked where the gospel was in all this. These are points that give me hope and assurance.

In the beginning of the reading, Herod is afraid Jesus is John resurrected. Since Jesus and John were contemporaries, Herod can’t mean literal resurrection. Instead, he means that what John said and was passionate about echoes in Jesus’ ministry. Herod was able to kill John, but not John’s truth, John’s message. All these year’s later, we regularly read what John the Baptist had to say. Nobody knows, or cares about, anything Herod ever said.

There is hope in this. Prophets might be killed, and sadly, too often they do. But their words cannot be killed. We still read letters and sermons from Martin Luther King Jr., Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Oscar Romero and others. The voices of God’s prophets cannot be silenced through violence.

God stays involved in current events, and God sends prophets who speak truth to power. Be they reporters or lawyers or community organizers or clergy or protesters in the streets, God will raise up people who will say, “This is not right!” and will endeavor to change things. When the mighty have settled into their corrupt and self-serving ways, these modern-day prophets will dare to make noise and demand change. That gives me hope.

It also gives me power: I can be a modern-day prophet! God has anointed us in baptism with the Holy Spirit. God’s love, God’s will, God’s vision course through our veins. We are empowered by the Spirit of God to speak out, to speak truth to power, to call abuses out for what they are, to vote for ethical politicians, to support fair legislation. You and I have a voice in this.

Overall, though, what this story has to do with the gospel is this: It shows us just why we need the gospel of Jesus Christ in the first place.

This is how one author put is: “If ever we needed a reminder of why only the death of God’s Son can save this sorry world, this story provides that reminder. The world is locked in endless cycles of death and destruction. We are quite literally hell-bent on messing up, on following the desires of our hearts into all kinds of dead-end alleys that lead only to suffering.

“Something has to break through to this world of ours. Something has to snap these destructive cycles. Something has to narrate a different story and point in a different direction. Thanks be to God that we know what that something is: it is the gospel of Jesus Christ our Lord, the Son of God who became a servant of all. Because of the gospel, the bottom line of our lives does not need to be something like the sad way this story ends. Because of the gospel, the end of the story is finally resurrection, restoration, and the clarion cry, “Behold, I make all things new!””

Mark includes this story to remind us of what kind of terrible things often go on in this world. Mark sandwiches the story between the disciples being sent out with power over demons and power to heal, and the disciples being fed along with 5,000 people. Sometimes we have to endure terrible hardships and injustices, but we are not facing them alone. Other believers are with us. Jesus is with us. Jesus feeds us. Jesus cares.

Today we celebrate Ryker’s baptism. Today, God will say to Ryker what God has said to all of us: You are my beloved child forever. Like we all did, Ryker will be anointed with oil, marked with the cross of Christ and sealed with the Holy Spirit. Right there, the two realities find expression: cross and Holy Spirit, suffering and hope, death and resurrection – they are part of every disciple’s journey.

We are walking this journey together: together with God, together with one another, together towards the kingdom of God. Amen.