A sermon by Associate Minister Elsa A. Peters, August 16, 2009
Mark 6:14-29
What do you do with a story like this? A young woman asks for a man’s head to be served to her on a platter. Really, what do you do with a story like this? This might as well be the evening news. It’s so terrible. It’s so awful. It certainly can’t be the work of God. And yet, this isn’t a story on the front page of the newspaper. It’s in the sixth chapter of the Gospel of Mark. It’s in the middle of the Markan version of the “good news of Jesus Christ.” But, how can any man’s head on a platter be good news?
Those of you that have braved the early morning fog for Beach Chair Theology are certainly scratching your heads and thinking, this sounds familiar. It sure does. In our study this summer, we’ve heard Esther’s experience with another man stuffed with food (and perhaps other things). He also promises her half his kingdom. However, unlike Herodias’ daughter, Esther doesn’t run to her mother or guardian or anyone else to ask what she should do. Esther’s intentions are not the same. She doesn’t have a grudge, but Herodias most certainly has a grudge. She’s out for blood – and she finally gets her opportunity at Herod’s birthday party. She’s wanted to kill John the Baptizer since the very beginning when he had the nerve to publicly condemn her marriage to Herod. John had good reason. After all, Herodias was married to Herod’s brother. They swapped. Not only is it against Biblical law to swap wives, it must have raised a few more eyebrows than John’s. Still, her anger is fixated on John the Baptizer. He’s the one to blame as far as she is concerned.
So, her ears perk up when she hears Herod promise her dancing daughter: Whatever you wish. You can have it. It’s yours. Whatever you wish. It’s the kind of promise that you hope he won’t keep, but he does. He has to look good in front of the boys. And so, John’s head is served on a platter “like the final course at a grand meal.”
Jesus is mysteriously missing from this story. He doesn’t say anything. He doesn’t do anything. He’s entirely absent from this narrative – except for the casual reference that Herod knows his name. After this passing comment, the story focuses on the would-be misdeeds of John the Baptizer. Jesus is completely missing.
And yet, when I hear Herod say to this young woman, “Whatever you wish,” it’s Jesus’ words that ring in my ears. My mind flips the Biblical pages forward to John’s Gospel where Jesus assures the disciples: “If in my name you ask me for anything, I will do it.” It may be my point of reference. I may be fixated on divine possibility. In fact, I know I am. I’m always looking for God. Literally. I look for God in everything.
The preacher Barbara Brown Taylor does the same thing. In her most recent book, she observes that when Jesus talks to us about “pay[ing] attention to the lilies of the field and the birds of the air, to women kneading bread and workers lining up for their pay,” it’s simply a message that we “could learn as much about the ways of God from paying attention to the world as [we] could from paying attention to scripture.”
And yet, the ways of the world are exactly what make learning about God so hard. War persists in Iraq. A healthcare debate escalates in our own country. Lobstermen are attempting to kill each other. There are shootings in Rumford. Really, what are we supposed to do with all of this? How do you explain the possible significance of these events? And where might God be in all of this? Can you even place God in the midst of these things?
I do. I go flipping ahead through the pages in search of God. I need God to be there – in the lilies, the workers and even the lobstermen. I need to call upon God’s name. I need that name on my lips, but not just any version of that name, I need the God that has meaning to me. I want my God to be intimately close when I read the words in the newspaper or the words in this gospel story. Oh my God, I need you. I need the God that is personally involved in the details of my life – not the God that is called upon by “evangelical sex scandals” or by “atheists trying to preserve the purity of science” or “politicians competing over who is the most pious of them all.” I want the God that knows me by name, created me in her image, and knows the number of hairs on my head. But, as a recent article on Religion Dispatches reminded me, we don’t all believe in the same God. Even though 80% of Americans believe in God, we don’t all believe the same thing about that God. There’s no universal agreement in our country or even in our own church community about who and what God is.
And yet, we each call on God by name. When I do call upon the name of God, after reading the news or the gospel, I’m not expecting God to do anything. Even though that’s what Jesus says, I don’t expect an action. I don’t expect things to suddenly shift. I don’t expect to get what I want, but I do expect for God to come and hold my hand. I expect God to embrace me. When I call out for my God, I want her to hold me close. That is what I wish.
I don’t know what to do with these similar words on the lips of a king in the book of Esther or here falling off the tongue of Herod in the Gospel of Mark. When either of these men say, “Whatever you wish,” it makes me shudder. I think they’re up to no good. I think they have an agenda. No matter what bad news I read, it’s nothing like the God that pulls me close and whispers in my ear the words of assurance I most need to hear:
Whatever you wish.
Whatever you wish.
Whatever you wish.
The world will not change because of this blessing. I will not get what I want. There will still be beheadings, killings and debates about who is responsible for caring for who; but, my faith doesn’t rest in the bad things. My faith relies on the assurance that we’re each known by name, created in the image of God and loved. I look at the world known that I am held in the palm of God’s hand – as are each of you. This is the good news that I think each of us hope to proclaim.