Seventh Sunday after Pentecost Proper 10 Yr B July 11 2021

Seventh Sunday after Pentecost Proper 10 Yr B July 11 2021

2 Samuel 6:1-5, 12b-19, Psalm 24, Ephesians 1:3-14, Mark 6:14-29

 

Once upon a time, there was a party that no one would ever forget. No sooner did glasses empty than they were filled. When the feast was finished, desserts that dazzled the eyes were set out. Every key player in the kingdom was in attendance, and the most beautiful women in the land danced to delight the king. This is our story today in Mark, but it may very well be indistinguishable from any one of a number of TV shows and movies we’ve seen recently, where this one is jealous of that one and has an affair with the other one and decides to behead the first one? None of them hold a candle to this bizarre story we read today in Mark.

 

John, being held in the king’s prison, being kept safe at the king’s command, heard the sounds of the party. John had captured the king’s curiosity and even his respect. Even though the king was often perplexed by what John had to say, he knew the man to be a man of God. So the king feared John, even though the king held him a captive.

 

But everything changed at the party. When King Herod had had too much to drink and was too excited to think clearly, all his fine promises of security to John the Baptist vanished before the movements of an exquisite belly dancer. The executioner burst into the prison cell and emerged with John’s head on a platter. Herod’s promises to John expired upon the enticements of beauty and the stupidity of drunken oaths. It’s a tale as old as time. But there continue to be Herods today, rulers that are hungry for power and will do anything to stay in power, politicians that twist and turn their words to make themselves look good.

 

Why does Mark tell this tale? Let’s look at where it is in Mark’s story. Right before it, what we read last time, is Jesus sending out the disciples two by two, along with instructions about who to stay with and how to respond if they are not welcomed into a community. These are Jesus’ instructions about the practical matters of discipleship. Jesus has given the disciples authority to heal and cast out demons. And by all accounts, the disciples are successful. 

 

After this story Jesus gathers the disciples to go off to a deserted place to pray. They had been working so hard, and in such a hurry to proclaim the kingdom, Jesus wanted to pull them away for a while. But what happened was that the crowds figured out where they were going, and they showed up on the beach, and Jesus had compassion for them and taught them many things. And then fed them with five loaves and two fish. 

 

Before and after we have these wonderful stories of discipleship, of following Jesus, and of healing and feeding happening. So why this story? I wonder if it’s Mark’s warning. Is Mark saying that following Jesus isn’t all fun and games, there is a cost to discipleship. 

 

One lesson the disciples simply do not want to learn is that, when they follow Jesus, the end of the road will more likely be a platter or a cross than a spotlight or a toast. There are people like Herod in this world, people like Herodias, people who are pumped up with their own importance. It is enticing to be on a first-name basis with a guy like Herod, but the results are almost always deadly. 

 

What does that mean for us? We claim to be followers of Jesus, like the disciples that first followed. But there is a cost. It may not be as horrific as losing your head, but there is a cost. Mark goes on to describe some other grizzly things, like chopping off your hand or poking out your eye. But what if this is less about dying a grizzly death, and more about living a true and authentic life? Maybe it’s a description of what happens to us when we get caught up into the kingdom of God. 

 

Remember way back to 1999 when we first watched the Matrix? Maybe the cost of following Jesus, rather than a taking away of life and limb, is more like being freed from the Matrix. Humans were unwittingly plugged into a computer organism and the characters that had been unplugged, who had been freed from the Matrix, were identifiable by a scar on the back of their necks. The back of the neck was where they had been shackled to the Matrix. And when they chose to have a real life and not be in bondage to the machine, they were unplugged from it. But it hurt to be unplugged. Maybe like having something cut off their body, it hurt to have the illusion pulled away. But in exchange they got life, real life, not an illusion, but live with real freedom and real purpose. 

 

Following Jesus is costly in ways that we can only begin to imagine. Following Jesus demands that we unplug from the Matrix, unplug from the stuff that keeps us from being free to love like Jesus loves. What are we so attached to that giving it up hurts? For some that is addiction to drugs or alcohol, for some that is food. For many these days it is screens. 

 

But I think that is what Mark is telling us. Being free to love like Jesus loves means unplugging from the machine. It is not easy, and its cost is dear. It means setting aside our pride, our grudges, our own efforts at perfection and pleasing others. It means that we forgive ourselves and our neighbors. And it most especially means that we accept and receive God’s grace, God’s word, God in the flesh. 

 

Dietrich Bonhoeffer, who was known for his staunch resistance to the Nazi dictatorship, wrote the book, The Cost of Discipleship, in it he writes,

 

“Costly grace is the gospel which must be sought again and again and again, the gift which must be asked for, the door at which a person must knock. Such grace is costly because it calls us to follow, and it is grace because it calls us to follow Jesus Christ. It is costly because it costs a person their life, and it is grace because it gives a person the only true life. It is costly because it condemns sin, and grace because it justifies the sinner. Above all, it is costly because it cost God the life of his Son.”

 

Following Jesus is costly because it costs a person their life, and it is grace because it gives a person the only true life. You see, therein lies the rub. Following Jesus is about laying down that which is killing you, it’s like a part of you must die, in order for the new life, the true life, to grow. 

 

This is not the life our culture encourages. But it is the life of following Jesus. This is a life of love that demands our very best self. In a world where a very best self is about success and happiness, this love and grace calls us to work for the very best of the beloved. In a world where a very best self is about beauty and health, this love and grace calls us to be our very real self, which is beautiful. In a world where the very best self looks like a charade of bluster and lies, this love and grace calls us to live a truth of forgiveness and healing.

 

And, it is a promise. Jesus promises that when a part of ourselves dies, there will be resurrection, there will be new life, and there is always hope. Amen.