I'm getting hooked up with a lot of people thanks to new technology: Blackberry, Twitter, LinkedIn and other ways. Also it feels good to say that I have been able to get a little more work occasionally. However, this week I don't have any work, which is a mixed blessing. It gave me a chance to watch Michael Jackson's memorial service, it gave me a chance to make green chile chicken enchiladas with leftovers. Now I think I have about 5 dinners to last me a while. It gave me a chance to work on my sermon too.
Sermon Focus and Function:
Sermon Focus and Function:
Focus: When Christ is the Lord of our conscience, taking the time to listen to how we feel can lead us to new life.
Function: Let God rule our hearts, so we will always have a pathway to forgiveness, even when our choices lead to tragic consequences.
Introduction
Herod's moment has arrived. His moment to make the difficult choice between managing his image as a man of his word, and allowing a righteous man to live. He finds himself in a situation which he probably never dreamed of, the watchful eyes of his many important guests, the expectant, zealous innocence of his cherished little girl. It's a breathless moment for him, in which he is probably filled with regret for promising so much, for being so overwhelmed with pleasure. Mark's dramatic story of how John gets martyred is really a story of how Herod misses the moment of a lifetime to do what is right. What results is tragedy. If only, Herod, you had chosen the better way. If only you had given yourself just a moment of breathing room, to take a step back, and realize you don't have to go through with it.
Transition: It's hard to take a step back from all that is around us, for there is so much we worry about and feel responsible for...
Trouble in the World
Brenda Slaby says she was once an assistant principal and mother of two who tried her best to be "supermom.""It was very hard trying to be the perfect mom and the perfect employee," she says. "I try to be everything to everybody. … I've always been the kind of person that lived for doing things for other people."Then, on a hot August afternoon in 2007, she says she went from being a good role model for children, a good administrator and a good parent to being the most hated mom in America. She forgot her little Cecilia in the car that day, who was sleeping in the carseat in the back. Brenda attributed it, after months of grieving and hating herself, to being so overwhelmed with everything she had to do that day, and having a non-routine day, to letting her own little girl completely slip her mind. What started out looking like a good day, turned out absolutely tragic.
Her daughter died of heatstroke. This little girl whom she and her husband cherished, was gone because of her own forgetfulness, being overwhelmed by everything there was to do. Her husband says he doesn’t blame her because he understands how busy they are too. Yet, the tragedy from just “not thinking” seems so much worse. Brenda struggled for nearly a year before coming out and sharing this with other people. And the response has been unexpectedly supportive, as other women talk about how exhausted they are, how many things are distracting them, how little rest they feel like they are getting.
And for it being the summer, it sure has been stressful! Even if you're not a parent, it has been tough all over. The economy stinks, joblessness is higher than it's been in 26 years, a friend of mine has to ration gas every week because her husband lost his job. It takes every bit of our energy worrying about our shrinking 401(k)s and if that doesn't bother you, you can turn on CNN and see: troubles with N Korea, computer virus affecting US secrutiy, escalating activity Afghanistan, violence in China, riots in Iran, not to mention the state of our own nation's economy, joblessness, unsatisfactory healthcare... and still... there is also Darfur, the ominous and sad evil that continues. We feel a sense of responsibility, accountability and a need to DO SOMETHING about it! But if you feel like things are crashing down around you, you might feel paralyzed and not even able to enjoy the life we have been given by God. And we probably wish we could escape, find some peace, in the midst of all these stressors.
Transition: Sometimes we just want to get away, escape the situation, but we feel like deer caught in the headlights; wanting to fight evil with courage, yet feeling stuck.
Trouble in the text
Herod's entangled life distracting him from doing what is right: He is worried about keeping up appearances before his guests on his birthday. He is afraid to displease his daughter.
He is in this marriage that formed because he and Herodias divorced their previous spouses. Herodias wanted to John killed because he was proclaiming they were violating Jewish Law.
Time stands still as his daughter makes the executioner’s call, “give me his head on a platter, right away!” He must have known this came from her mother, yet the guests were all watching him. After all, he was King Herod Antipas, the tetrarch. He was experiencing a crisis moment because there was an opportunity to do what was right, letting a righteous man whom he actually kind of liked die a brutal death. But there was danger in that because he might look like a man who couldn’t keep his word, worried that all of these people whom he invited, watching him now, would see that. Conflicted, he became very sad, almost as if feeling forced to give his daughter what she asked for.
His feelings were over thinking he was “forced.” But he was not really forced, if he remembered his position as King, if he remembered that he was the man of the moment who could have set a new precedent. If only he had stopped to listen to his heart… His feeling of sadness could have been the message he needed to know what was the right thing to do. Had he taken those feelings seriously, as message from God, he would have made them much more important than anything else, than what his daughter would think of him, than what the guests would think of him, and what Herodias thought of him.
Transition: His emotional journey through this is like a path with markers, the breadcrumbs in his wilderness of confusion, the trail that could lead him to doing what was right.
Grace in the Text
Good News is in the utter sadness he feels about John, and in remembering how much he liked John.
He could have listened to his heart: That he was perplexed and/or fascinated with John, wanting to protect him, even enjoyed listening to John, and his feeling when his daughter asked for his head on a platter was a sign, that feeling of utter sadness. The feeling has been described by the NRSV as "grieved."
Mark's version of this story is long and detailed, compared to Matthew's and Luke's, including a great deal of drama, as some would call "shoveling the dirt" on Herod
Transition: While it's easy to get voyeuristic and fascinated with Herod's "Dirt," Mark is shoveling it for a reason - because we get to see another side of him - that his guilt and sadness can bring him out, disentangle him from the ways he is bound to what the world thinks of him.
Grace in the WorldWe are free, in Jesus Christ, to choose what God is whispering ever so softly in our ears. When entangled by fear of the world, afraid to do what is the right thing to do, this is when we find ourselves like Herod, standing in the midst of an audience, looking for a way to respond to the world according to what Jesus would have us do.
This is hard. This is when for a moment in time we need to stop, step back and take a second look at how we're feeling in the moment. It's scary. But listening to how we feel when we make our choices is the key to knowing if God desires us to do them. It's the freedom we can enjoy in Jesus Christ, when we allow Jesus to be Lord of our conscience. It's why we continue to make decisions that are in the interest of God's mission in this world, above all other concerns. It's why when we call people to vote for stuff in our church, we are voting for God's interests. We are blessed enough to know from reading our Book of Order chapter 1? that "Christ is the Lord of our Conscience..." If this is so, then we can trust our feelings to lead us into the right way of life, through thick and through thin, when life’s good and when life’s not so good.
We are bound to make the wrong choices, even in moments of major crisis. Those are times when it helps to have another friend to remind us to slow down, listen deeply, and pray for peace. Try it.
Recently I was listening to a radio talk show about a couple of single moms. They shared that they were struggling because they felt like they were making dangerous mistakes. They were exhausted and overwhelmed. They had an expert on who encouraged them, affirmed how hard it had been for these overwhelmed, weary and isolated women. Then she told them to wake up early! Because, she said, they should spend a little time alone before everyone else wakes up.
It’s true. God loves us so much that when we feel like that, we can take the step backwards that we need. When we are so confused or paralyzed by the way things have been going, listen more deeply, slow down, and claim that for yourselves even if the rest of the world thinks you’re crazy.
Conclusion
Herod’s story is more than a story of his cruelty. It’s a story of a man so caught up in his life and position in society he felt unable to do the right thing anymore. He worried more about what everyone else thought of him and how to maintain his appearances before others, he stopped caring for his own relationship to God. Despite his grief, Gary says he has never blamed his wife for Cecilia's death. "I could have done the same thing very easily," he says. On nights when his wife had to work late, Gary says she'd ask him to pick up the girls from the babysitter's house, a break from their normal routine. A few times, he says he forgot. If Gary is able to forgive his wife for this, I would imagine God would do the same for you. The good news is, even when we end up making a tragic mistake, there is still time for us to repent, following our grief, guilt and sorrow back to new life in God. You have 15 minutes in your life - try 30 minutes – to step away from everything and just listen - to yourselves, how you feel, what you hear happening, and above all, what is Jesus whispering into you. Listening Christ, when he is the Lord of our conscience will not make us perfect in every way. But it is like the breadcrumbs leading us home, into everlasting life, and, if we need, back into God’s good grace. Thanks be to God for that.
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Part of the inspiration from the above sermon draft came from a story I heard from Oprah. I found the story on oprah.com, quoted below:
"For any mom who's ever felt frazzled, overwhelmed or rushed, Oprah says this show is for you. "It's your wake-up call to slow down," she says. "What happened to my guest today could so easily happen to any of you."Brenda Slaby says she was once an assistant principal and mother of two who tried her best to be "supermom.""It was very hard trying to be the perfect mom and the perfect employee," she says. "I try to be everything to everybody. … I've always been the kind of person that lived for doing things for other people."Then, on a hot August afternoon in 2007, she says she went from being a good role model for children, a good administrator and a good parent to being the most hated mom in America.
"When Brenda woke up on August 23, 2007, she says she knew she had a busy day ahead of her. Summer vacation was coming to a close, and it was the first day back for teachers at her school. That morning, the rush to get out the door was more frantic than usual, she says.Brenda and her husband, Gary, got their two young daughters, Allison and Cecilia, dressed and ready to go. Then, in a departure from their regular routine, Brenda loaded 2-year-old Cecilia into her car to take her to the babysitter's house."I had a dentist appointment, and I asked Brenda to take Cecilia," Gary says. "I normally took both Cecilia and Allison, dropped Cecilia off at the sitter and Allison off at preschool."With Cecilia sleeping in the backseat, Brenda pulled out of the driveway at about 6 a.m. When she realized it was too early to drop her youngest child off, she decided to run a quick errand. Brenda stopped at the store to buy doughnuts, a treat for the returning teachers.After loading her car with snacks, she got on the road that led to her school and drove straight there. With her mind racing through all the things she needed to accomplish before teachers arrived, Brenda got right to work. "I had lots of things to set up," she says. "I was nervous and frantic that morning because it was such an important day to get the school year [off] to a great start."The day began with a staff meeting, followed by lunch. While chatting with new teachers between meetings, Brenda says she talked about her daughters. "My feeling was it was a great first start," she says. "It was going to be a great school year, and it was a great start to the day."At about 4 p.m., Brenda was in her office, getting ready to head home when all hell broke loose. "A good teacher friend of mine—sometimes I think it was a blessing it was her—was on her way home, and she walked by my car," Brenda says. "She ran into my office and she said, 'Brenda, your baby's in the car.
"Brenda immediately grabbed her keys and raced to the parking lot. "I knew what I was going to find," she says. "I opened my car door, and I remember hearing the voices around me. Teachers who were close to me [were] screaming."When she got to her car she found Cecilia in the backseat, still strapped into her car seat. Brenda says she grabbed her daughter out of the car as fast as she could, but she knew it was too late."I knew she was gone as soon as I picked her up, I knew," she says. "I remember I took her, and I ran through the parking lot with her, screaming her name. Then, what brought me kind of to consciousness, I guess, was somebody from the cafeteria yelled for me to bring her here."Brenda says she handed her lifeless daughter to someone who tried to revive her. Then, she retreated to another part of the cafeteria and began to pray. "I heard people yelling for ice, and I sat in a ball and I prayed," she says. "I prayed harder than I've ever prayed in my life. … But I knew she was gone."Cecilia died of a heatstroke after being left in the car for nearly eight hours. Outside, temperatures had reached 100 degrees.
"Gary was working when he received a frantic call from Brenda's principal. "He said, 'Get over to the school right now,'" Gary says. "And I said, 'What's up?' [He said,] 'It's an emergency.'"In the car on the way to his wife's school, Gary says he never considered that his child's life might be in danger. "The whole time I'm thinking, 'What disgruntled employee did something crazy?'" he says. "I said, 'Well, maybe something happened to Brenda.'"When Gary pulled into the school parking lot, he says he saw a lot of commotion. Brenda's principal pulled him off to the side to tell him what happened. "He looked at me and he says, 'Cecilia's dead,'" Gary says. "I didn't even think to ask him, 'How? Why?' I just got up and sort of walked off to be by myself. I was just in shock. I didn't know what to do."
"Despite his grief, Gary says he has never blamed his wife for Cecilia's death. "I could have done the same thing very easily," he says. On nights when his wife had to work late, Gary says she'd ask him to pick up the girls from the babysitter's house, a break from their normal routine. A few times, he says he forgot."I get out of work thinking about what I'm going to do when I get home, this and that. I'm going up the highway, [I realize,] 'Oh, my gosh. I left her at the sitter's,'" he says. "I would have to turn around, go back and get her."Gary doesn't hold Brenda responsible, but Brenda still blames herself. "I realized the most important person in the world to me lost out because I didn't plan well enough," she says. "She's the one that slipped through the cracks."
"The day Cecilia died, Brenda was taken to a police station where she was questioned for more than two hours. During her emotional confession, she says police officers were empathetic. "Never during the questioning did they seem accusatory," Brenda says. One officer assured Brenda that no one thought she meant to hurt Cecilia. Brenda, on the other hand, was not easy on herself. "Good mothers don't do this," she said during the questioning. "How could I not think of my daughter? I want to die. I just want to die."Brenda admits she had left Cecilia in a running car before, but she says she never made a habit of it. "The day that Cecilia died was so different because I completely forgot that she was there," she says.
Also from Oprah.com about taking time out from our busy schedules: "That moment may seem long or short. Time is an internal, not external, reality. Have you noticed that half an hour in the dentist's chair lasts longer than half an hour at a fun dinner party with friends? And five minutes waiting on hold on the phone passes more slowly than five minutes watching a movie. Time is how we live it, not what's measured by the clock (after all, the watch was invented fairly recently, in the 16th century). To be sure, our world operates on clock time, which is convenient and necessary; how else would we make it to that dentist's appointment or dinner party? But the clock is supposed to be working for us, not the other way around. If we feel too busy, we've mistaken a feeling for an objective reality and are held captive to that reality. It needn't be that way."
After my sermon on Sunday members of the congregation gather to talk about the sermon. I have prepared a few remarks (below) that emerged when I was thinking about this sermon.
Sunday Sermon Conversation
A guiding principle I followed was the question of genre of Mark 6:14-29. Comparing Mark’s version to the parallels in Matthew and Luke, we discover that Mark’s is distinctively descriptive, emotional and highly dramatic. Mark’s concern is in “airing Herod’s dirty laundry” by explaining it all from the omniscient perspective. Matthew cuts nearly all of these emotional issues, as well as downplaying Herodias’ pursuit of revenge. Luke lightly reports a brief summary that Herod had John beheaded and that’s it. All three of them, however, mention Herod’s belief that he has killed a righteous and holy man, because he is certain John the Baptizer has given Jesus powers from beyond the grave. This was a typical belief of the time, in which a holy person could empower the living to do miracles (like “Elijah” or “one of the prophets…”). So Mark’s purposes are beyond simply a report of John’s martyrdom. He uses it for more than a moment forshadowing the death of Jesus and the deaths of the many Christian’s after him. Mark also has a message for those who are NOT following Jesus, a story for us about what NOT to do. It’s a story of a man who is so caught up and entangled he has trouble seeing the way through well, missing what is right in front of his nose, his own conscience.
Another question that I asked was about what these emotional descriptions meant for Mark, and why spend so much more time describing these things, while so little on John the Baptist, our supposed “hero” in this story? Herod felt inner conflict over John. Herodias had externalized her anger at John, wanting him killed. It would seem the little girl is being used as a tool for her mother to achieve that end. Herod’s conflict seems the most complicated and fascinating because he believes John to be righteous and holy, not just some irritation. Herod “gladly” listens to John, seemingly taking advantage of John’s nearness while in prison. It says that Herod desired to “protect” John. So, when he is being asked for John’s head, he feels sad. I had to make a decision when he feels sad at this point in time, however. Why did he feel sad? What do you think he felt sad about?
Who was this King Herod? This was Herod Antipas, the tetrarch, who ruled from 4 BC to 38-ish AD. He divorced a Nabatean princess so he could marry the wife of his brother Philip. Tradition says Herodias and Philip had a daughter named Salome and that the “little girl” in this story is indeed Salome. We are not absolutely sure this is the same girl, for interpreters think Salome would have been a young woman of marriageable age. The Greek word in Mark is “little girl,” the diminutive form of the word “pupil.” Mark’s choice of word is rarely used in the New Testament, but translators say this would be similar to Old Testament places where the word “eye” is used to suggest something akin to “the apple of the eye.” The daughter in Mark was probably younger than Salome. She could have been another daughter, whom he considered the “apple of his eye.” No wonder he was so proud and pleased with her! No wonder he wanted to give her whatever she asked, especially as the many reveling guests are looking on.
"Oh what a tangled web we weave when first we practice to deceive." Hamlet This quote was flying through my head a lot because this story of Herod and his family reminded me a lot of the classic form of "Tragedy," which often occurs due to the tangled web of our lives when we let it imprison us and cause us to do evil. Tragedy as a genre in the gospel has to have some sort of message other than "don't do this..." The message is don't let evil happen just because it is to your personal advantage. Along the lines of James and Jude, both of these letters say that we are "tossed about like ships on the sea" if we do not stay concientious about what God is saying to us, if we let the storms around us prevent us from turning to God.
So, this sermon has a lot of components and it will probably look totally different by Sunday. But it's okay for the moment. I have a lot left to do, including writing a prayer for the congregation.
Your comments are appreciated. I'll be back in a couple days.
Peace
Amy
I went to a parade in Old Town, Albuquerque last Saturday. This was one of my favorites.
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Miss Periwinkle herself. She's so sweet and pretty.
