Hi everyone,
Welcome to worship this day, for the 8th Sunday after Pentecost, landing on July 14, 2024!
The bulletin for this service can be found here. You can use it to follow along with the service, or you can use the words that appear on your screen. The sermon can be found both in the bulletin and on this page below the video.
If you would like to enhance your online worship experience, you are welcome to have a lit candle in your space for the duration of the service and extinguish it near the end after the sending hymn. You are also welcome to participate in communion if you’re comfortable, by having something small to eat and drink ready for the appropriate time in the service. More instruction will be given then.
May God’s surprising and unending grace be upon you, today and always!
Eternal God, by the power of your Spirit, open our ears to hear your Word, soften our hearts to accept your grace, and strengthen our hands for building justice and making peace, through the righteousness of Jesus our Lord. Amen.
Remember back when the gospel meant good news? You know, we’d read a story from the gospel lesson for that day, get some good feelings from something Jesus said or did, then we’d say “praise to you, O Christ”, and then listen to an exhilarating sermon about it and call it a day. I love it when that happens, I mean it’s the stuff that dreams are made of. Pastor dreams, at least. Or at least Lutheran pastors, who love to preach about good news, God’s grace and love, and… you know… gospel. That’s just what we do, what we believe, what message from the bible that we want to share with the world.
You know what I mean, don’t you? Most of the time we get good stories with actual good news in the gospel reading for the day. The other readings could be up in the air, but the gospel almost never fails in the good news department. Sure, sometimes you’d have to massage it a bit to find it, but it wouldn’t be exactly that difficult to do so, most of the time. This year alone even, we got a lot of obvious good ones. Like Jesus healing the sick or in some cases the dead/sleeping. Or Jesus telling us about the glories and wonders of God’s kingdom. Or even Jesus protecting the disciples by standing up to a storm that was bullying them and putting it in its place with but a word.
Those are some feel-good stories, where we see the power and care and love of Jesus. Those are some prime sermon-preaching topics. Those were very clearly gospel.
But this? Today’s story of treachery, deception, and murder? Not so much. It’s hard to preach a sermon on such an unjust killing. We can’t get any good feels from this kind of manipulation, betrayal, and evil. There doesn’t seem to be any good news in this so-called gospel lesson.
So, as I was preparing for this sermon, I went through my regular routine of research, pulling out books and commentaries, but most of the things I read weren’t exactly helpful or even interesting. In fact, most of them seemed to be as perplexed as I am, they would just reiterate that this is a difficult text to preach on. Then I talked to some colleagues, and I got a lot of the same “this story sucks for finding good news” sentiment, and a few of them are intentionally not even preaching on this text. I even went so far as to look back on my own past sermons to see what I said before, and apparently July was a pretty popular month for holidays for me, especially in year B, which we’re in now, meaning there were slim pickin’s in my archives and those that I did find are probably best left in the past. So then I had to pull out the big guns… I prayed. A lot. But I guess thankfully none of them were answered because I’m still healthy enough to preach today and I have all my limbs in tact.
So we’re still left with this… story. This tale of evil. This anger-inducing text that seems to just take away joy, drown out hope, and give us a very bleak view of the world… and its power.
I mean, just look at what we get in this story. Well, it’s a story within a story, I suppose, as it starts off with Herod hearing about Jesus sending the 12 and the rumours that Jesus is John the baptizer coming back to life, then it kicks off Herod’s flashback on how he killed almost on a whim John the baptizer, who was his friend and whom he respected and actually appreciated. With friends like those, am I right?
And without getting into the gory details, as you just heard them, let’s just say that it wasn’t too difficult to manipulate him, especially by the charms of his own flesh and blood. Herod even remembers feeling guilty about it all because of his affections and respect for John, but he went through with it anyway because he didn’t want to lose face in front of his friends.
Imagine that. You’re this powerful king who could give away half of your unlimited wealth at the drop of a beat but you’re scared of what your drunken friends might think of you. Just say you’re too drunk to haphazardly sacrifice someone’s life. Just say you need time to sober up and think about it and you’ll get back to her in the morning. Or easiest yet, just say no. But Herod doesn’t do any of these things. The text tells us that he immediately calls for John to be beheaded. Immediately? When do things ever happen immediately in an organisation, a government, or even a church?
The truth is that Herod caved to the seduction of a young woman. He gave in to the lust of power and prestige. He fell for the manipulation of a vindictive woman who is perhaps just as power hungry as he is, and can’t take being called out for it.
What a tragedy. What an awful story. What an anger-inducing episode that almost makes us want to throw our bibles away and give up.
But then, that’d be a shame, wouldn’t it? I mean if we threw away our bibles, then we wouldn’t get the stories of the healings and the miracles, the grace and blessings, the community and humble service to others. If we just gave up, then we wouldn’t get the opportunity to see God in our relationships, feel the joy in God’s unifying love, and be encouraged by God’s grace in our lives. If we didn’t actively participate in this learning, we wouldn’t be able to see God in the world because we wouldn’t know how to look.
And maybe that is the gospel in this not-really-gospel story. It’s a gospel of contrast. In that this story is sandwiched between Jesus empowering and sending his disciples out in mission, and the feeding of the 5000. There is Jesus calling his disciples to go, do, and preach, and right away they catch a glimpse of what could happen when God is proclaimed in the world like John the baptizer did. They saw what happens when evil and privilege is called out. They saw what horrendous things people could be capable of when they are offended, insulted, or righteously shamed by the gospel. And yet, the disciples go and do and preach anyway.
I mean, of course there would be times where the world can be a bad place. Of course there will be times when its evils might leave us so disillusioned that it would just seem easier to throw in the towel. Of course there will be times when it would be hard to see God present in the messiness of life, when it’d be difficult to know God’s blessing for us, when it’d be downright impossible to feel God’s love for this whole world.
And maybe… we shouldn’t be focussing on those times. Maybe we shouldn’t allow the bad to determine our whole view and paradigm of the world. Maybe we shouldn’t be defined by the things that bring us down.
Instead, we can remember the times when we felt called and empowered, and be strengthened by them. We can recall the times when it was so clear that God was present with us in community and within this congregation. We can look back on all the times when we’ve found the joy in God’s blessing and love and welcome.
This doesn’t mean that the bad will go away or we shouldn’t acknowledge it. No, we’ll continue to face evil, we’ll continue to betray and be betrayed, we’ll continue lose faith in people. But it does mean that by focussing on the good, remembering the blessings throughout our lives, defining ourselves as God’s forgiven and saved people in the world, we will get better at seeing the joy, holding onto the grace, and recognising God working in us, through us, and all around us for the sake of this elusive gospel.
See even when we see all this hard to read passages and we don’t like them because of how they make us feel, it doesn’t make it any less scripture or pointing us to God. Just because life can get tough and do things to us that we don’t feel like we deserve, that doesn’t mean that we are any less loved or favoured by God. Just because there is bad and evil in the world, let’s not forget the ocean of good and righteousness, overflowing our cups with abundant blessing and grace, lifting us up and empowering us to live and act as God’s people, now and always.
So as we continue on through this season after Pentecost, let us allow the good and blessing in our lives strengthen us to navigate this world and bear the bad, for the sake of God’s Word, God’s promises, and God’s gospel, through Jesus Christ. Thanks be to God. Amen.