Sunday 11 July 2021 - Ordinary 15

Note: I know that through July we have the option of celebrating a series of special themes/matters in the life of the church: Sea Sunday, Social Services Sunday, Bible Sunday ... The fact that I am not providing material specific to those Sundays should not be inferred as meaning I do not think we should focus on such themes/matters. We can and it is right and proper if we do so choose. Unfortunately I do not have the time to develop exegetical material on the readings for these important Sundays.

Theme(s): John the Baptist /

Sentence: 'See, I am setting a plumb line in the midst of my people Israel' (Amos 7:8)

Collect:

God our strength and our hope,
grant us the courage of John the Baptist,
constantly to speak the truth,
boldly to rebuke vice
and patiently to suffer for the truth's sake;
in the name of Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

Readings (related):

Amos 7:7-15
Psalm 85:8-13
Ephesians 1:3-14
Mark 6:14-29

Comments:

Amos 7:7-15

One of the roles of the prophets was to hold power and authority to account, to hold up a 'plumb line' by which the deviations from the Lord's ways were measured - though here it is the Lord himself who holds up the plumb line (8-9). Amos was such a prophet and John the Baptist was too.

Like John the Baptist, Amos has come to the attention of the king (Jeroboam, through Amaziah who is a tell tale!). Amaziah the priest says to Amos to clear off (12-13).

Amos' response is tell the story of his calling: 

"I am no prophet ... the Lord took me from following the flock, and the Lord said to me, 'Go, prophesy to my people Israel'."

The king is less powerful than the Lord God.

(Amaziah and his family, incidentally, suffer greatly because of his antagonism towards Amos, verses 16-17).

Psalm 85:8-13

If we read this passage from the psalm in the light of the gospel reading then we see the promise of God's reward (peace, salvation, good, 8, 9, 12 respectively) for one such as John who is 'faithful' (8), who 'fears' God (9).

Ephesians 1:3-14

We now switch from 2 Corinthians passages to passages drawn from Ephesians.

Ephesians is a profound theological letter, which explores the great plan of God to bring all things in the universe together into unity (10), charting the role Jesus Christ plays through his death in putting wrongs to right in order that what has been divided might be unified.

In this passage we see Christ mentioned frequently: actually, in every verse, as "Jesus Christ" or "Christ" or "the Beloved" or "he" or "him."

Christ's role, especially through verses 4-7 are to enable us to be adopted into God's family (5), as holy and blameless children (4) because we have been redeemed and forgiven (7). The great overcoming of disunity, we could say - Paul is saying - is the reunifying of humanity with God through the blood of Christ through Christ sacrificed that we might be reconciled to God.

Beyond that, there is a lot we can say - there is a sermon in every verse here!

So, just one more thing here: verse 3 is an extraordinary and wonderful claim, that 

"the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, ... has blessed us in Christ with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places." 

Every spiritual blessing means that there is nothing we are missing out on, nothing we need to seek for the blessed life which is apart from Christ. As Christians we follow Christ who gives us every spiritual blessing. When we talk about being "in Christ" - our participation in Christ, Christ dwelling in us and we in him - we are talking about the greatest life we can ever live, the fullest life possible.

Are we enjoying those blessings?

Mark 6:14-29

Mark performs a trick of narration through word association.

Our reading last week (6:1-13) finished with the disciples succeeding in their mission. This week's reading begins with Herod hearing 

'of it, for Jesus' name had become known' (14). 

Then Mark reports that some were explaining Jesus' mission in terms of 

'John the Baptizer has been raised from the dead and for this reason these powers are at work in him' (14).

Verses 15 and 16 then report that others were saying that Jesus was Elijah and yet others thought him one of the other prophets while Herod dismisses the alternatives and declares 

'John, whom I beheaded, has been raised.' 

Thus Mark creates the cue to begin telling the story of John's execution (17-29): 

'For Herod himself had sent men who arrested John ... (17).

Observation: Mark always through his gospel is exploring and explaining the identity of Jesus. (He is slightly biased!) Here he presents the possibility that Jesus' (by now) obvious mighty power and impressive authority is related to other human figures such as John the Baptist, Elijah or another famous prophet. His plan is to show that Jesus is more than this and immediately after the story of John's death he will tell us the story of the feeding of the five thousand (6:30-44), a miracle which goes beyond anything anyone else has done. In 8:27-30 he will take up this presentation again, and nail down, through Simon Peter's confession, that Jesus is 'the Messiah.'

Question: Why does Mark tell us about the death of John the Baptist and tell us at such length? (Neither Matthew nor Luke, both of whom almost certainly knew Mark's Gospel, rate the story as worth the length Mark gives it). Let's see if we can answer that question at the end of this comment!

Back to the story: This Herod is Herod Antipas. For more details on his life, marriage and its political implications, head to Wikipedia. The key point here is that John the Baptist is not merely critiquing the morality/legality of Herod's marriage (for which, see Leviticus 18:16; 20:21) but he was touching on the political toxicity of Herod offending Aretas the Nabatean king who was father of his first wife (17-18).

Unsurprisingly, Herodias the wife has a grudge against him (19) but she cannot have him killed because Herod is hesitant. He may have miscalculated the political fallout with Aretas but here he calculates the local political fallout if he has John - respected widely as a holy man - killed. Besides, Herod himself (somewhat intriguingly) has a personal regard for John: 

'Herod feared John' (20).

But Herod has to reckon with not one but two clever women. His daughter (either called 'Herodias' or 'the daughter of Herodias', also known from other sources as Salome) dances for him and when he offers her whatever she asks, she doesn't reply straight away but seeks her mother's advice (21-24). Herodias (senior) takes her opportunity by telling her daughter to ask for John's head (24).

The story then goes through unsurprising details about Herod's sorrow that he will have to give the young woman her wish lest he embarrass himself before his guests (26). (Note that shame and honour are important to his cultural world).

So the orders are given and John is beheaded (27) - an outcome sadly all too familiar to us in recent years in news reports from Syria and Iraq. The head is brought 'on a platter' and given to the girl. She, of course, gives it to her mother (28). That part of the story has a completed circle.

The last part of the story is poignant.

'When his disciples heard about it, they came and took his body, and laid it in a tomb' (29). 

When we read this verse we realise that Mark is anticipating the death of Jesus himself (compare 6:29 with 15:46).

So Mark takes time here to tell at great length why and how John died because he is anticipating the later story of the death of Jesus. A death which will need to be explained (how does a good man die the death of a criminal?) just as John's death has needed explaining. Here he lays the ground work for how the story of Jesus will unfold: Jesus challenges power and authority; that power and authority resists the challenge, and responds by negating the challenge through the finality of death (so they thought).

Along the way, we have also seen that John the Baptizer was a brave and bold prophet who spoke truth to power.