Tag: preaching

Owe nothing but love

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“Owe no one anything, except to love one another; for the one who loves another has fulfilled the law.”

Readings here.

We are in the winding-down phase of Paul’s Letter to the Romans. In fact, it will show up in our Sunday readings for only one more week. It has been a long journey with Paul this summer. And maybe, like me, you’ve grown a bit weary of all of this Romans talk.

But, overall, I would say that this “sermon series” experiment has been a fruitful one. It has allowed us to follow Paul’s argument from beginning to end, giving us a fuller picture of the early church, and, hopefully, a clearer understanding of Christ’s love and our own salvation.

As I mentioned in the sermon I gave at the other campus last week: “At the start of chapter 12, Paul has just completed his rigorous theology of salvation that validates the equal claim of all people to the eternal promises of God.”

Now that his readers are clear about their own salvation, they are invited to respond by following the example of Jesus and living differently than they did before. And Paul doesn’t leave them hanging. He outlines the values and behaviors that exemplify Christ-likeness.

As a writer myself, I can’t help but nerd out over Paul’s elegant framing for this section, which goes from chapter 12 to the beginning of chapter 13.

“Let love be genuine…Owe no one anything, except to love one another.”

Biblical scholar Brendan Byrne refers to this frame of love as a “bracket.” He writes that the bracketing: “enfold[s] all obligations, from the sublime to the most mundane, within the one central response of love. No domain of Christian life stands apart from this core requirement” (Sacra Pagina: Romans, 393).

“Let love be genuine.” That first sentence of chapter 12 gets to the heart of what it means to follow Jesus. The rest of the chapter describes how “genuine love” is made evident through our behaviors: “Rejoice with those who rejoice, weep with those who weep. Live in harmony with one another; do not be haughty, but associate with the lowly; do not claim to be wiser than you are, and so on.”

As chapter 13 begins, Paul reemphasizes the point, this time through the lens of law and duty: “Owe no one anything, except to love one another; for the one who loves another has fulfilled the law.”

God’s laws matter, Paul says, but they matter because love matters. Paul seems to know that we humans have a tendency to hyper-focus on the list of restrictions instead of focusing on the intention behind them. The intention of God’s law is and ever will be: “love your neighbor as yourself.” If you are operating from a place of love, you will make choices that fulfill God’s ethical requirements.

Start from love, and right action will follow.

“Let love be genuine…Owe no one anything except to love one another.”

Paul has answered the question of: “How do we follow Jesus?” with a resounding call to “love.” But the question that remains for us today is: “How do we actually love like Jesus?” Not in the romantic or family sense. Not as a one-off, or simply a nice thing to do when it is convenient. But as a habit that transforms every interaction in our lives.

If you’ve driven on any Austin highways this weekend, you may have seen the latest safety message for Labor Day Weekend: “Drive safe as a labor of love.”

When I saw this message on 290, it surprised me – because it runs contrary to most public safety announcements that warn about personal consequences, like getting pulled over.

Yes, it’s clearly an attempt to make a timely safety message for “Labor” Day. But it also promotes a social ethic: Pay attention out there, because your actions impact others. It could just as easily say, “Drive safe, to love your neighbor as yourself.”

It seems like the public safety people have been reading Romans! In its simplicity, this silly roadside message drives home the cause-and-effect that Paul keeps emphasizing: Start from love – and right action will follow.

This concept came together for me when I read a section of Martin Buber’s I and Thou with friends last week.

Martin Buber, a Jewish philosopher writing at the beginning of the twentieth century, believed that relationships operate in two modes. The most common one – the mode that makes up most of our interactions and experiences throughout life – is called the “I-it” relationship. This is when we interact with one another from a well-meaning, but superficial place.

For example, you and I meet and I make a series of judgments about you based on how you look, where you grew up, your gender, age, and profession. Likewise, you judge me in the same way, painting a picture of me based on a set of identity markers and personality traits.

When we’re done interacting, we might know a whole lot about one another, but we still don’t really know one another. We have seen each other as categories of people, but we haven’t encountered the whole person underneath.

The other mode of relationships is what Buber calls the I-Thou or “I-You” relationship. In this interaction, there is a breakthrough that goes beyond the surface. It’s like our souls meet, and who we are in God’s eyes becomes clear to each of us. Buber would call this, becoming “real.”

The I-You encounter makes us so powerfully aware of God’s love that we are filled with love for all living things. Buber says that, in these flashes of knowing between two people, we are so full of divine love that it is as if we are Jesus on the cross, willing to die for the love of the world.*

We become aware, as Byrne puts it in connection to Romans: “To all – even the most difficult and unlovable – believers owe a debt of love flowing from the love with which God love[s] them…”

In this “I-You” interaction between two people, we become able to love all people without judgment or resentment.

Depending on who you are, Martin Buber’s philosophy is either an “aha” moment or a head-scratching moment. But I bet all of us can remember a time that we connected with someone in a way that made us aware of a presence beyond ourselves and a truth beyond our comprehension.

In fact, I have had those connections with many of you – in the smallest moments. And they give me a sense that anything is possible – and that the world can be better.

“How do we actually love like Jesus?” We pay attention to God-moments in our interactions with our neighbors: with unhoused people asking for money on the street, in the profound observations of children, in the peace of nature, with friends at a football game, or at the “passing of the peace” in church.

We stay attuned to divine love under the surface of all that is – and how it binds us together and makes us whole. Because, when we experience real and genuine love, it enables us to see the whole world through God’s eyes. And we won’t be able to help but give what we “owe” from the abundance of love we have already received.

We will become each other’s labor of love. And we will keep laboring: when we disagree, when our ego gets the best of us, when we’re tired of saying we’re sorry.

We’ll keep laboring in love. Because we know that Love is who we really are in Christ. And what could be better than being real?

Amen.

Let Love Be Genuine | Paul, The Cross, Dolly Parton

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Watch the sermon recording here.
Scripture readings here.

Today’s readings from Matthew and Romans feel like they are meant to go together. Both provide actionable guidelines for living as a Christian. In other words, they teach us about “Christian discipleship”: how to be, act, and move through the world in a way that emulates the self-sacrificial and transforming love of Jesus.

In Matthew, Jesus boils down Christian discipleship into one difficult teaching: “Jesus told his disciples, “If any want to become my followers, let them deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me. For those who want to save their life will lose it, and those who lose their life for my sake will find it.”

That command – to “take up their cross” – is not a throwaway line on the way to some other point, but central to Christian identity. The image it evokes – of total self-sacrifice – is what differentiated the first Christians from the self-preservation and bravado of the surrounding culture. And it is what inspired the first Christian martyrs to endure persecution, knowing that what looked like death to outsiders was the way to everlasting life.

But death is not the only meaning of the cross. In fact, scholar Andrew McGowan says that Jesus’ call to “take up the cross” is not primarily about the death that comes at the journey’s end, but about the path leading up to it.

Crucifixion on a cross was reserved for those deemed least significant in Roman society: enslaved people, criminals, and traitors. Carrying your cross through the streets, moving slowly through the jeering crowds, was to be put to shame. It was to be told by everyone who mattered that you didn’t matter. McGowan says “the image of “taking up the cross” refers to that journey of shame.”

For those first disciples and for us, “taking up the cross” is not about death, but about life: both the life we dare to lead when we risk shame and misunderstanding to follow Jesus and the life that awaits us on the other side of death, in eternity with him.

Taking up the cross also invites us to enter the full story of Jesus, just as he entered ours in the incarnation. We are being invited to take a walk in Jesus’ shoes. To participate in his life, not just observe it with detached sympathy. And against common sense, to find that placing ourselves in circumstances of shame and suffering brings us closer to the beating heart of God.

And this is where Romans comes in. As you’ll recall from Rev. Mike’s sermon last week, Paul has just completed his rigorous theology of salvation that validates the equal claim of all people to the eternal promises of God. Paul will spend the final chapters of his letter sharing practical advice on Christian discipleship. In other words, he will connect the dots between what we believe and how that belief is lived.

The portion we read today works as a direct response to the question we might have after Jesus’ teaching in Matthew: What does it mean to take up our cross and follow Jesus? Put another way, what does it mean to practice Christian discipleship?

Paul boils it down to one, deceptively simple teaching: “Let love be genuine.” Everything that follows in this chapter describes the impact of genuine love.

Scholar Brendan Byrne says that, up until this point in Romans, when Paul mentions love, he is referring to God’s love (Romans, Sacra Pagina). But now, Paul says, “the ball is in your court.” God’s love and mercy have been poured out on us through the saving grace of Jesus Christ and we are empowered to share it.

This is what salvation means and does. It makes us, not just recipients of divine love, but participants in it. Genuine love compels us to respond to one another’s joys and sorrows as if they were our own. And when we turn toward others in this way, we are drawn closer to the beating heart of Jesus.

This is what it means to “take up our cross”: to love so well that, when people look at us, they see Jesus.

Who reveals Jesus to you? What can you learn from them?

Like many of you, I spent much of last week mourning the death of a modern-day saint, Dolly Parton. While I didn’t follow her career closely, I was always delighted to see clips of her interviews and guest appearances. As a singer myself, I have always admired her soprano voice that was both soaring and sweet, and the way she wore her heart on her sleeve, in her art and in her life.

This week, a group of us got to talking about what made her so universally beloved. Online eulogies crossed political, cultural, and generational lines. Even those who didn’t share her beliefs proclaimed their love for her. One atheist online commented that they were willing to believe in Heaven since that was the only place suitable for Dolly Parton.

Undoubtedly, Dolly Parton was human. As a public figure, there is much we will never know about her private life, but we can assume she had hard days just like the rest of us.

But, I think Parton had such an impact on people because the central ethic of her life was “genuine love.” She loved migrant workers and gay people and Republicans and Democrats. She loved poor Appalachians and rich, coastal elites, and everyone up, down, and in between.

When people got mad at her, she never retaliated. She simply apologized. And she didn’t entertain manufactured conflict. She was steady in her beliefs and her behavior. She lived her values. She carried her cross.

Which is to say, Dolly Parton loved so well that, when people looked at her, they seemed to see Jesus. They were able to love themselves and, in turn, love others, because she radiated so much resurrection light.

When we talk about Christian discipleship, it is easy for us to boil it down to a list of behaviors. Metrics by which we measure our progress in some kind of punishing Christian fitness program.

But Paul’s words are not a checklist. And carrying our cross is not about proving to anyone that we are worthy of salvation. Carrying our cross is an invitation to participate fully in the life of Jesus. To live and love as God intended, wearing our hearts on our sleeve.

Because it is here that we find abundant life: in laughter and weeping, in humility and vulnerability, in forgiving, in letting go. In admitting our faults so that we can love faulty people. In choosing each other when the world would try to make us enemies.

Living in love is risky. People will take advantage of us. People won’t understand. We might lose respect, or security, or friends. There will be times that we don’t want to keep trying. Where our patience wears thin and self-preservation wins over our good intentions.

There will be times that we resist it, because it feels like one more act of self-denial will make us lose ourselves. But, if Dolly Parton taught us anything, it’s that living in “genuine love” is not a process of disappearing for the sake of others, but of becoming more yourself. As Rev. Mike put it last week: “become what you already are.” Because, when we stop trying to fit in with everyone else and start trying to be like Jesus, we find that we are finally free. We have been loved into who we were meant to be.

Our cross is a weighty one. But, when we dare to take it up, we will find that it is not a burden, but more like a weighted blanket. Our cross is a holy paradox: signaling death and yet revealing resurrection.

The jeering crowds around us will tell us we’re walking toward our own grave. But we know better. We walk in love, and we’re more alive than we’ve ever been. Amen.

Jesus at Your Dinner Table

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Readings here

When I was a teenager, I spent three summers on the road in a touring worship band called New Way. Auditions were held every fall at the state youth convention. Then, the following July, after a week of rehearsal bootcamp, the band – teenage singers, brass players, a drummer, guitarist, bassist, and keyboard player – packed into a charter bus – and the tour began.

For two or three weeks, our friendly bus driver hauled us over more than a thousand miles of Florida highway. One year, we even went all the way up to Nashville to participate in the national youth convention.

Our venues were churches. We played at little churches in the swampland of central Florida; big churches in West Palm Beach and Sarasota; old churches in Jacksonville and Tallahassee; and the school cafeterias and auditoriums of church plants in Tampa, rural Alabama, and beyond. The premise seems pretty glamourous for just a regular kid from Florida. But there were many cost-saving measures.

For one, kids were split into work committees: Some unloaded baggage, some were roadies, some ironed the concert uniforms, some organized the snacks, and still others were on a prayer team. One year I was the head of the ironing committee…and that’s why I don’t iron anymore!

But the most impactful thing we did on the road was rely on the “hospitality of strangers.” At each venue church, a group of parishioners prepared the welcome meal. Then, after the concert, we were split into small groups to be housed at the parishioners’ homes.

The number one rule of New Way was to accept hospitality without complaining. No matter if the food tasted like mothballs, or the bedding was scratchy. Whether the parishioner talked your ear off, smelled funny, woke you up too early, or made you your least favorite breakfast – the only acceptable response was, “thank you.”

We were at their mercy – and sometimes it felt like a sacrifice. But in the end, what I learned from all these peculiar people with their peculiar lives was that accepting hospitality is just as important as giving it. Because, in the act of accepting hospitality, you humble yourself for long enough to really honor the giver’s intention – their heart, their sacrifice, and their dignity.

“Thank you” says, “You have been a blessing to me.” Warts and all.

…

In today’s Gospel reading, Jesus invites Matthew, a tax collector, to join his new way. Unlike many of Jesus’ followers, Matthew is not poor or marginalized in the typical sense. As an employee of Rome, he has higher civic status than most of his Jewish community. And the nature of his job means that he can set his own fee when he collects taxes and that commission he collects likely makes him a rich man. But these two aspects of his job make his community distrust him.

As scholar Danny Zacharias points out:

“…tax collectors were viewed as traitors within Jewish society. Working for Rome, they were associated with economic oppression, often collecting excessive taxes to benefit the empire and themselves. Matthew’s presence at a tax booth signifies his active role in this system—yet Jesus sees him, calls him, and invites him into his circle” (Working Preacher).

As Christians, we talk a lot about welcoming everyone and caring for everyone. But, oftentimes, I think the “everyone” in our mental image is someone who looks nothing like Matthew. When we think about who needs to be cared for, we often think of the sick, the poor, and the homeless.

But Jesus makes clear in his calling of Matthew that “all are welcome, no exceptions.” In other words, you don’t have to have the right identity or credentials in order for Jesus to seek you out. He will always seek you out – the way the world sees and judges you doesn’t change his mind.

Matthew’s identity as a tax collector is already a remarkable part of this story. But it doesn’t stop there…

As soon as Matthew drops everything to follow Jesus, the narrative jumps ahead to a shared dinner at someone’s house. While the text isn’t super clear on exactly whose house it is, most scholars believe that Matthew isn’t dining at Jesus’ house. Jesus is actually dining at Matthew’s house.

It would have been scandalous enough for Jesus to simply hang around Matthew. But receiving food and drink from Matthew is a bridge too far for their community.

As scholar Andrew McGowan puts it:

“…in dining with prosperous sinners, Jesus takes the more vulnerable position of guest. Scrupulous, observant Jewish diners would have been concerned about receiving food or drink from those liable to be impure, because their own ritual status would be at risk. It was not problematic in the same way to share one’s own (pure) food” (Andrew’s Version).

Because Matthew was involved in a lifestyle seen as impure by his community, they thought this impurity would basically “rub off on” others. In choosing to go to Matthew’s house anyway – and in choosing to accept his peculiar hospitality – Jesus is not just saying, “I tolerate you” or even “I accept you.”

He is looking at this lonely rich man and saying something no one ever says to a tax collector: “Thank you. You are a blessing to me.”

Can you imagine the sheer relief Matthew must have felt in Jesus’ acceptance of his dinner invitation? That this holy man would dare to have something of Matthew “rub off on” him? That Jesus would look past the gossip and the dirty glances, risking his own reputation, to be at the mercy of a lonely tax collector?

I imagine that Matthew’s initial acceptance of Jesus’ invitation to “follow him” was a self-conscious one. What if those who witnessed his faithful response thought he was doing it just for show? What if they dismissed him the way we sometimes dismiss people as “not a real Christian” – because his life was so different from their own?

When Jesus “deigns to be his guest” – as the Easter hymn says – he frees Matthew from self-consciousness, by taking him seriously. He becomes a part of Matthew’s household. And, in this, he recognizes his God-given dignity.

And this is what Jesus still does for us.

…Where do you see yourself in this story?

Are you like Matthew, beaten down by others’ judgment, but still working up the courage to say “yes” to his call? Are you like his community, trying to protect a God who doesn’t need protection, by determining who is in and who is out? Are you like Jesus, ready to humble yourself to accept love and care from someone who is different from you?

Do you trust that God will make you family anyway?

The beauty of God’s family is that everyone is invited to the table. Rich and poor, young and old – no matter your gender, your appearance, your profession, your identity, or your language. Jesus sees your heart, open in hospitality, and he wants to come to the potluck.

He wants to join you. He wants bless you, so that you may be a blessing. Don’t let anyone tell you otherwise. Amen.

You are his body

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Rubens painting of Teresa of Avila, public domain

“And after you have suffered for a little while, the God of all grace, who has called you to his eternal glory in Christ, will himself restore, support, strengthen, and establish you. To him be the power forever and ever. Amen.”

Today in the church year, we find ourselves living, again, in the absence of Jesus. As our Acts passage describes, after his resurrection and his appearance to the disciples, Jesus leaves earth and goes up to heaven. We call this event “The Ascension.” It is commemorated with a feast day that takes place 40 days after Easter Sunday – if you’re doing the math, that was last Thursday.

If you remember the events of Good Friday and Easter, you’ll recognize the pattern in this story…

When Jesus departs – first by death and then by ascension – the disciples are initially thrown into confusion. Strange messengers appear to remind them that Jesus will be back. The disciples – both men and women – regroup in the upper room of a house. They pray and wonder about all that has occurred. In the absence of clarity about the future, all they can do now is wait for something to happen…

In the first case, the risen Lord appears to them less than 48 hours after he died. The women run with joy from the tomb and Thomas touches the wounds on Jesus’ hands and side.

In the second case, the Holy Spirit descends on them. According to my rough calculation, the day of Pentecost arrives about a week after Christ’s ascension. This time, Jesus doesn’t show up in human form. But through the Spirit, God becomes present in the hearts, minds, and bodies – in the humanity – of his followers and friends.

But let’s not get ahead of ourselves…We haven’t gotten to that part of the story yet – and we won’t for another week. So, let’s wait here with the disciples for awhile.

Since we are living well after the arrival of the Holy Spirit, our faith teaches us that the Spirit lives in us today. In that sense, our wait is over. But, honestly, it can be hard to know what that even means. What comfort is it to us to know that some wispy “vibe” of God lives in us when we know that Jesus once walked alongside his disciples? What comfort is it to know that Thomas touched his scars, but we cannot?

It’d be so much easier to endure the suffering of this life if Jesus was here, in the flesh, grabbing our hand and pulling us in the right direction. In the absence of Christ’s body, it can feel like we’re living in the absence of God. Or, if not exactly absence, maybe something like benign negligence.

Sure, maybe the emptiness of Good Friday is behind us. And maybe we trust that Christ is alive, and seeking us out, and advocating for us. But life can be demoralizing. It’s not always easy to keep the faith when a loved one dies or a family member gets shipped off to war. When the diagnosis rolls in. When the bills pile up. When things don’t go the way we planned.

It’s not easy to keep the faith when we are faced with an unknowable future – and Jesus’ own response to our concern is “because I said so.” Or rather, as he says in Acts: “It is not for you to know the times or periods that the Father has set by his own authority.”

We may not always feel that our lives are filled with the glory of Pentecost: all flame and wind and possibility. There are seasons of life that feel like this week in our liturgical year, when Christ has gone up and the Spirit has not yet come down. There are Sundays when we huddle together in this room and pray – not because we know what’s coming, but because we don’t.

What I’m saying is: it’d be nice to see Jesus every once in awhile.

In John, Jesus prays to God the Father, describing his absence in this way:

“All mine are yours, and yours are mine; and I have been glorified in them. And now I am no longer in the world, but they are in the world, and I am coming to you. Holy Father, protect them in your name that you have given me, so that they may be one, as we are one.”

This is a remarkable claim for Jesus to make. He is saying that his glory – which is the very power of God – has now been passed on to his followers.

“It’s ok,” he says, because even though Jesus is no longer in the world, his God-(em)powered people are in the world.

And after that remarkable claim, he prays that our lives will reflect the full glory made evident in the inseparable relationship between God the Father and God the Son – that we will be folded into that relationship “as one.” In other words, even though we are still earthbound, he is inviting us into the identity and relationship of the Triune God.

Which means God is here, because YOU are here. Even when it feels like God is absent, our beating hearts, discerning minds, and moving bodies ever proclaim his presence. His presence is not a feeling or “vibe,” it’s simply reality.

One of my favorite descriptions of this reality comes from a sixteenth century poem by Spanish nun, Teresa of Avila:

Christ has no body but yours,
No hands, no feet on earth but yours,
Yours are the eyes with which he looks [with]
Compassion on this world,
Yours are the feet with which he walks to do good,
Yours are the hands, with which he blesses all the world.
Yours are the hands, yours are the feet,
Yours are the eyes, you are his body.

You are his body.

To be Christ’s body is different from working on behalf of Christ.

Jesus doesn’t say that you’re a paid employee of the Kingdom of God, who got the job despite your lack of qualifications. It’s not your job to make a list of “Christian obligations” and then strain to check all of them off. It’s not your job to ignore the hard parts of life. It’s not your job to keep it together when your world is falling apart. It’s not your job to try to convince yourself that you can make it work.

It’s ok if it feels like Jesus is absent, and the Holy Spirit doesn’t feel like enough. You are Christ’s body anyway.

And to be Christ’s body is to let God root around and take root in you. To know that the light is already lit. And to take a deep breath in and remember that the Spirit of God is ruah – it is the air you breathe.

To be Christ’s body is simply to trust that Christ lives and moves in you. You don’t have to grin and bear it. You only have to pray “Thy Kingdom Come” and respond to the Spirit that is already working in you.

Yes, in some ways, we are still waiting. We are waiting for the second coming of Christ. We are waiting for the perfect paradise of God. We are waiting for answers to our questions. We are waiting to hold onto Christ’s hand. But we are not waiting for Christ to be known to us, here, in the flesh. Because we are his body. It is not a job we take on. It is who we are.

So, we gather in this room and we pray that what is closed in us will open. We pray that light will break through, and peace will fill our hearts. We pray that we will inhale God and exhale love. That Our eyes will be full of compassion. Our hands will be open in blessing. And our feet will take us in the Way that leads to the Kingdom of God.

Amen.

I highly recommend the Teresa of Avila quote set to music, particularly this version

The Scandal of Suffering

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A Sermon on the Beheading of John the Baptist

Readings available here.

The beheading of John the Baptist.  

The mere thought of beheading is so gruesome that I want to avert my eyes as I read the story. 

Reverend Brin assured me that they did not read this passage during kids’ church this morning. Now, I’m normally not an advocate for censorship, but the moral ickiness and graphic violence of this event made me wonder, at first read, why the writer of Mark wanted it to be shared at this point in the story, and in this way. 

The story is disruptive, in more ways than one. 

For the last five-and-a-half chapters, we have been moving at a steady clip with Jesus and his disciples, as they have sought out the marginalized, healed the sick, and restored people to community. 

The narrative has become almost predictable: Jesus goes somewhere, he tries to take a nap or eat lunch, and then a great need arises to which he must respond.  So, he performs a miracle.  

Person by person, bit by bit, the culture of death in the ancient near-East is being covered by new buds of hope.  The Kingdom of God is spreading. 

Now, word of his deeds has reached the regional Jewish ruler, “King Herod.” This Herod is the son of the other Herod, who tried to kill baby Jesus. A Jew himself, Herod works for the Roman authorities, and lives the lavish lifestyle afforded to him by his compliance. Many in his religious community consider him a sell-out. 

By this point in Jesus’ ministry, John the Baptist has already been dead several months.  Mark tells us that John was arrested way back in chapter one. But something curious happens when news of Jesus’ “mighty deeds” reaches Herod:  His guilty conscience can’t help but think that John the Baptist has been raised from the dead. 

Herod’s shock seems to bend space and time, and the narrative suddenly takes a turn. We find ourselves in a flashback, watching horror unfold in the decadent courts of Herod and his family. 

— 

Herod didn’t want to kill John.  

While John had disapproved of his marriage to his brother’s sister, the story doesn’t suggest there was any danger in John voicing that opinion. After all, Herod knew, as well as John, what religious law mandated.  And the story even tells us that Herod “liked to listen to John.”  

But John’s insistence that Herod’s marriage to “Herodias” was unlawful disrupted Herodias’ game plan. She couldn’t risk having her husband change his mind. In a time when the only way for a woman to gain power was through a favorable marriage, she was determined to hold onto what she had. 

So, when Herod throws himself a big birthday party and promises the world to Herodias’ daughter – in front of powerful guests – Herodias knows exactly what to do. When her preteen daughter comes to her for advice, she instructs her in the ways of power: Exploit the fragile ego of the man who controls your future.  Make him kill the man who would put that future at risk. 

“Deeply grieved,” Herod has John killed. His head is paraded on a meat platter at Herod’s birthday party. In his power-drunk bragging, Herod backed himself into a corner. He murdered a holy man. There is blood on his hands. 

— 

This flashback, though only 14 verses long, is like a punch in the gut.  

Corruption and exploitation are oozing from the seams. Herod and Herodias’ self-involvement refuses righteousness at every turn. And they use their own daughter as fodder, training her up in the ways of power, and making her complicit in the death of an innocent man. 

The brutal violence and stomach-turning exploitation in this story are disruptive. The flashback doesn’t fit in with the hope that’s spreading, as Jesus meets and heals people across Judea and Galilee. It’s a crack in the story of the growing Kingdom of God, a near-halting of the narrative.  

So why would Mark place it here? 

Perhaps Mark includes it at this moment to remind us that, though our lives are relentlessly disrupted by cruelty and violence, these are not meant to be things we accept as part of the story of God. The story of God, in Christ, is the story of life. 

Theologian Henri Nouwen spoke of this when he wrote: 

“A life with God opens us to all that is alive. It makes us celebrate life; it enables us to see the beauty of all that is created; it makes us desire to always be where life is… If anyone should protest against death it is the religious person, the person who has indeed come to know God as the God of the living” (from A Letter of Consolation).

For those of us who have experienced even a taste of Jesus’ life-giving love, cruelty, violence, and suffering should feel disruptive. We should never accept them as inevitable or unavoidable or good. 

When they show up in our own stories – or the stories of others – they should stop us in our tracks, just like John’s beheading does in the Gospel of Mark. 

It is good for us to feel “deeply grieved” in the face of the world’s death-dealing. It shows that we have internalized the hope of the resurrection. 

It shows us that God is still working in us. God is still on the move. 

But beyond disruption, this story serves as a cautionary tale. By observing Herod and his family, we see that making decisions to protect ourselves or retain worldly power won’t save us, in the end. Because these desires are based in the fear of death, they have no power to bring about flourishing. 

Herod and Herodias “looked out for number one,” but it didn’t protect them from suffering. Herod was wracked with guilt after murdering John. And, in the end, he was deposed by family members. He and Herodias died in exile. 

Their self-involvement couldn’t ultimately save them. What it did do was help them justify other people’s suffering. 

When we focus too much on ourselves, it is easy to become complicit in other people’s suffering. It’s easy to justify violence if that’s what it takes to retain control. We make it our business to police, imprison, and do away with those who threaten our access to resources or our social position. 

We quickly forget that Jesus proclaims abundant life for all of us, not only a select few who know how to play the game. 

Herod teaches us that self-involvement, taken to its natural conclusion, causes more suffering than it quells. It is an impulse in direct contrast with Jesus’ other-centered, open-hearted, life-giving love. 

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The disruptive story-within-a-story of the John’s beheading reminds us that death-dealing does not belong in the redemptive, joyful story of the growing Kingdom of God. 

Our first task is to believe that. Our next task is to act like it. 

In our own lives, my prayer is that we are so steeped in the hope of the resurrection that we experience suffering, violence, and exploitation as disruptive to the story of God, of which we are a part. 

My prayer is that we have the persistence to resist the cycle of violence, the courage to risk embarrassment, punishment, and social standing by speaking out, and the open-heartedness to stop politicking long enough to love our neighbor. 

In a world marked by so much exploitation and brutality, my prayer is that we lead lives of loving disruption, always pointing to the righteous and peaceful Kingdom of God. 

Amen.