"Authority and Reconciliation"
Psalm 24 and Mark 6:14-29
Reverend Ryan Jensen
July 12, 2009
Before being ordained into this presbytery, I first had to meet with the Committee on Ministry. One of their questions to me was, “Would I preach a sermon that spoke the truth in times of difficulty?” This is something that ministers are generally called to do, especially during particular moments of injustice and tragedy.
So will I preach such a sermon? Yes. With fear and trembling, I will preach the truth of the Gospel as it relates to contemporary issues and matters of social justice. This is of course easy to say but difficult to do. I have to make sure that the truth is indeed that of the Gospel and not some social or political agenda that I hope to force upon others. I should never try and convince you that God wants all the sidewalks on my running route replaced... that God wants me to stop tripping and falling during those morning runs. If I had to guess, I would say that God is on the side of the trees and roots over which those sidewalks are laid.
What about offending others? Anyone who would do this just for the sake of getting a rise out of someone else would be foolish. It is also a bad idea to take something that you think is the truth and twist it into something else. Even though this was not my intent, I have been guilty of this before. For those of you visiting from South Carolina, please bear with me.
One of the first sermons I ever preached was in my hometown of Shelbyville, Tennessee. That sermon was delivered at a time long before seminary and committees on ministry. It was preached before I knew anything of hermeneutics or much of anything about Calvin. The interesting thing about that sermon though, was that it was on the same text as the one we have today, that being the story of John the Baptist’s death. As I was looking around for material to include in that sermon, I read the news about what was happening in South Carolina at the time. A debate was taking place on whether or not it was appropriate that the Confederate flag fly atop the state capitol dome. I thought, aha! An illustration that would link the trouble in the text to the trouble in the world. I then went on to preach about pride, comparing Herod with those who supported the Confederate flag. I figured that as a born and bred Southerner, I had the authority to preach this message and that I had the Gospel to back it up.
Unbeknownst to me, a member of my church was a South Carolina native. She was not happy. She approached me the next day to tell me how upset she was with my sermon. She wanted me to know that she had nothing in common with Herod. She said that there was more to the story and that my sermon was anything but objective. And you know what? She was right. For most of the reasons she named, it was an awful sermon. I regretted my mistakes and wrote her a letter of apology.
Now safely removed from that situation, I have come to think of that moment a little differently. Yes, I made mistakes but I do have regrets about writing that letter of apology. In mailing it, I pretty much confessed, “Forgive me, I meant nothing of what I said.” The truth is, I did mean some of it. There are things that we do that are incongruent with what Jesus calls us to do. In preparing a better sermon, I probably should have pointed out something in my own state or in my own hometown. But then again, that can be very difficult to pull off, especially as a twenty-something who lacks a degree in theology. To preach like a prophet, it surely helps to look like one too. As an older, bearded man, I would probably be taken more seriously. As we know, the older we become, the more authority we assume.
German philosopher Hans-Georg Gadamer has this to say this about authority: “Authority is not based on reason, but knowledge. It is therefore that authority cannot be given, but earned.”[1] In other words, someone cannot become the CEO or President simply because someone else gives them that title. In most cases, the title and office must come through the hard work of attaining knowledge that allows you to make judgments that others are unable to make.
For John the Baptist, it seems that he feels confident with the authority that he has to share. His knowledge is rooted in both the Mosaic law as well as in the power and promise of Jesus. As a result, he appears to have little concern about the offensive nature of what he has to say. “Herod, the laws of our faith say very clearly that you are not permitted to marry your brother’s wife.” Don’t agree? That’s something you will have to struggle with. “Herodias, don’t like what I have to say? Sounds like a personal problem.” As I said, it is against the rules.
How would this kind of delivery go over today? I really don’t know. I think that an interim or guest lecturer has an advantage here. They can lay it down and then hit the road, leaving the church to mull the whole thing over. John the Baptist, however, is not going anywhere; the man is in prison. Yet he goes on to preach the truth in times of difficulty and his boldness is similar to that of Jesus. The result? It is the same. To point out obvious flaws of those in power just isn’t good when it comes to the safety and security of the prophet. If the message is unsympathetic to those in power and is also widely received, we can be sure that the message will be stopped, even at the expense of the messenger’s life.
Maybe John the Baptist knows the risk and maybe he doesn’t. All the same, he refuses to back down. John is that kind of character. As for the other characters, there is also Herod’s wife Herodias, who is full of anger at what John has to say. There is then the daughter of Herodias, who all too willingly plays a part in the game of “don’t shoot the messenger, but listen to this!” Finally, we have Herod himself. He is a weak man who makes a foolish promise. Because he is too proud to back down in front of all those guests, his promise results in John’s death. He was not willing to take responsibility and took the easy way out. I have been this kind of person before.
It was when writing this sermon that I remembered something that happened back in high school. As a freshman, I became friends with a sophomore named Sal. I thought that he was a cool guy. Being a recent transplant from somewhere outside of the Southeast, he would crack jokes about how Southerners used certain words, like “fixin’” as in, “I am fixin’ to go to class.” He didn’t understand how this made any sense. There were other things that Sal thought were funny, but it turned out that Sal was funny and weird to others. For whatever reason, Sal was never included with the “in crowd” and once I realized this, I backed away quickly. Like Herod, I knew it was wrong, but I nonetheless turned my back on Sal. This was not a proud moment for me.
I have also been on the receiving end of harsh words and actions. After badly spraining my ankle during a game of Frisbee golf during seminary orientation, I went to see the doctor. I am not sure what I expected him to do, but after poking my grapefruit-sized ankle once or twice, he proceeded to say, “Well, it’s not broken. But let’s talk about your obesity.” My response to this was one of shock, insult and anger. Had I possessed the power of King Herod, I probably would have had the man thrown outside of the Austin City Limits. Instead, I had some time to contemplate his diagnosis. Could I lose some weight? Yes. After a few days, I realized that it was a good thing that my doctor had no intention of becoming my friend, but rather my John the Baptist of health. Without his honesty, I don’t know if I would have dropped the weight that I have since then. It took time, but I came to appreciate both his authority and his message.
In philosophy, there is an example of a hammer that applies to this kind of situation. The logic goes like this: a hammer, when placed next to other hammers, can be counted as the same. Generally speaking, it has the same weight, the same shape and the same kinds of qualities. It gets lost among other hammers. It is, however, when the hammer becomes broken that it suddenly reveals what a hammer truly is. The broken hammer no longer resembles the others and when you try to use it, you come to fully appreciate what hammers are designed to do. Not until my doctor broke through the way I was living was I able to see the full picture.
Maybe it takes people like Herod to fully realize other forms of brokenness. And Herod is not the only example, of course. Every Sunday, we join other churches in confessing our numerous sins. In seeking forgiveness, we join the worst of all of those sinners who have gone on before us: those who benefitted from war, those who turned a blind eye to starvation, and those who obtained land through the horrors of genocide. Returning to today, there are those like you and me. What are our sins?
Remembering that sermon that I preached several years ago, I made mistakes but I should have held my ground on at least one thing. The thing is, that church member had a lot in common with Herod. We all have a lot in common with Herod. We join him in going to great lengths for our families, in making promises that we should not keep, in doing things to avoid embarrassment, and in going along with the crowd, just to name a few. Again, his pride and arrogance serves well in pointing out the weaknesses that we ourselves possess.
Theologian Paul Tillich speaks to this kind of pride and arrogance. The issue begins with God. Remembering that God is the source and power of reconciliation, it makes sense that God needs no reconciliation.[2] God’s existence does not hinge on whether or not we are able to make amends. Now, some of us do not like this idea, because it means that there is nothing that we can offer God that God does not already have. God does not make deals. So if reconciliation is not easily found with God, it makes sense that we might try to go and fix things on our own. It is there, of course that we run back into the original problem. Because of our Herod-like qualities, we are not really in a position to fix anything.
Speaking again to our pride and arrogance, Tillich says that they are really the “superficial level of our being,” and that on a deeper level, “there is self-rejection, disgust, and even hatred of who we are.”[3] So where do we go with all that? John the Baptist is the only person in our story who offers any sense of hope. John is also the only person in this story who appears to be reconciled both to himself and to God. Searching further, we must also remember how this whole story begins in the first place.
The story begins with Jesus. Jesus, as we know, was also executed for the authority with which he taught. Among his teachings, Jesus told people about the new plan for the eye for an eye: if anyone strikes you on the right cheek, turn the other also. This teaching points exactly to what we need to learn and understand from Herod. When violence goes unreturned, the cycle breaks down. The fight comes to an end. This is the message of hope that bubbles up through the cracks of today’s story. Yes, John dies. Jesus will die after him. Through these deaths though, I believe that God is screaming out to us to stop the horrible things that we are doing. Stop killing people that God creates. Stop stealing money from future generations to pay for today’s mistakes. Stop with the pride and arrogance that only leads to more trouble.
Through Christ, God provides a new way to reconcile all of us to God. The reconciliation is there and it is free for everyone who believes in Christ. Our response to this gift should follow what Tillich calls the “Courage to Be.” We are to have the courage to live into the new way of Jesus. Again, this is something that is easier said than done. We will need that courage when standing in the way of injustice. We will need it when standing with the minority and speaking out against violence. We will need courage when turning the other cheek to attacks upon our character. The source of our courage? This is the authority that God provides through the power and mystery of the Holy Spirit … authority that is based upon the revelation and knowing of Christ.