"Hard to Hear." A sermon from Littlefield Presbyterian Church.

"St John Reproaching Herod", Artist: Il Cavaliere (1662-1666)

"Hard to Hear"

Amos 7:7-15; Mark 6:14-29

The prophets Amos and John the Baptist spoke truth to power in these hard-to-hear texts... and how that turned out. 

            Prophets are unpopular, and Amos is no exception.

            Amos prophesies to the Northern Kingdom-- Israel-- during the long and expansive reign of Jeroboam. This was a time of prosperity for the North. Amos is concerned about the concentration of wealth among the urban elites, and he repeatedly talks about their luxury goods as signs of their moral decay. He openly mocks their luxuries and calls them out for their failure to act justly.[1]

            This material prosperity seems to have come at the expense of the poor, and points to the growing gap between the rural poor and wealthier landowners:  “They sell the righteous for silver, and the needy for a pair of sandals -- they who trample the head of the poor into the dust of the earth, and push the afflicted out of the way.”[2]  

            God’s deep concern for human justice is a theme throughout Amos’ prophecy. As Amos kept proclaiming, God is not indifferent to human suffering, oppression, and injustice. In Amos chapter 3, we hear the prophet proclaim, “The lion has roared; who will not fear?  The Lord God has spoken; who can but prophesy?”   

            Amos and other prophets tell us that God’s love demands righteousness. Breaches of God’s call to justice and love cause God grief.

            In today’s lesson, Amos sees a vision of a “plumb line” beside a wall.  This “plumb line” is a symbol for God’s judgment for Israel’s failure to fulfill their call to justice and love.

            Amos preaches that King Jeroboam will die by the sword, and Israel will go into exile. He anticipates the fall of the Northern Kingdom to Assyria.

            Amaziah, the high priest, is a religious authority who speaks on behalf of his temple as well as his King.  Amaziah is an insider, and he has a vested interest in institutional stability.  He’s outraged by how Amos is threatening the status quo.

            This is a king’s sanctuary and a temple of the kingdom,” Amaziah says. Amaziah is supported by the king, so Amos’ prophecy is a threat to position and his way of life. Amaziah tells Amos to go away and make his living as a professional prophet somewhere else.

            But Amos insists that he isn’t a professional prophet. He’s an outsider-- “a herdsman, and a dresser of sycamore trees,” whom God called to prophesy to the people of Israel.

            Amos’ message is hard to hear.  But he lived to keep on prophesying.

            The gospel story we heard today from Mark is also hard to hear. It’s a terrible story.  Don’t you wonder:  Why on earth does Mark include this story in his gospel?

            Overall, Mark’s gospel is very concise. And yet, Mark gives a 16-verse account of John the Baptist’s beheading by Herod. This is the longest anecdote in Mark’s gospel, and the only flashback. Other than the discovery of the empty tomb, it’s the only story in which Jesus doesn’t appear.

            So, what’s so important to Mark in this gruesome story?

            When we look at this story in context, we see that it comes after the sending out of the Twelve. Jesus had been going around among the villages teaching, and he called the Twelve and began to send them out two by two. He gave them authority over the unclean spirits. The Twelve went out and proclaimed that all should repent. They cast out many demons and anointed with oil many who were sick, and they cured them.[3]

            Herod heard about this, and that some were saying, “John the baptizer has been raised from the dead, and for this reason these powers are at work in him.” Some others said, “It is Elijah.” And others said, “It is a prophet, like one of the prophets of old.” But when Herod heard of it, he said, “John, whom I beheaded, has been raised.”[4]

            This is where the narrative flashes back to how Herod had beheaded John the Baptist.

            Herod remembers that he had sent men to arrest John and put him in prison on account of Herodias, because John had been telling him that it was unlawful for him to marry his brother’s wife while his brother was still alive.

            Now, these relationships are complicated. This Herod is Herod Antipas, the son of the Herod the Great, who was king when Jesus was born—the Herod who ordered the killing of all the babies in and around Bethlehem when the wise men told him the Messiah had been born. 

            The son, Herod Antipas-- the Herod in today’s story-- divorced his first wife to marry Herodias, who at the time was married to his brother.  Mark calls Herod Antipas’ brother “Philip,” but the historian Josephus calls him “Herod,” which seems to be a family name.  To make things even more complicated, Herodias the daughter was also Herod Antipas’ niece.[5]

            As N.T. Wright says, if this had happened today, it would be all over the newspapers—and I think the internet and TV as well.   As Wright says, “It’s sordid, shabby and shameful—exactly the sort of thing that everybody likes to hear, however much they pretend otherwise.”[6]   You can imagine how people would react to the news of the scandalous goings-on at Herod’s birthday bash.  The lecherous Herod is so aroused by the dancing of his young step-daughter--who’s also his niece--that he promises to give her anything she wants. 

            The young girl can’t figure out what to ask for, so she leaves the banquet to ask her mother.  When she comes back, she brings her mother’s request for John’s head on a platter. 

            Mark tells us that the king was greatly distressed by this request, but he didn’t want to refuse her, out of regard to his oaths and the guests.  The guests have witnessed his oath, and he doesn’t want to lose face by reneging on his rash promise.  So, he has John executed and has his head brought in on a platter, like food for the feast.

            John, like Amos and God’s other prophets before him, spoke truth to power, at great risk to their safety.  It cost John his life.

            Mark gave all this space in his compact gospel to tell this story. So I think Jill Duffield is right that we need to sit with the ugliness and ponder where we find ourselves in the story.

            I doubt that many of us here would find ourselves identifying with Herod, or with either Herodias.

            I wonder if some might find ourselves with the guests at Herod’s party.  If you were invited, would you turn down the invitation? Even if you don’t agree with his politics or policies, he is the ruler, and it’s an honor to be invited. If you refuse to go, would Herod be insulted? What might that cost you?

            Would we have spoken up and said, “Herod, you don’t have to do what the girl is asking. You have a lot of power. You can show your strength by sticking to your principles, rather than giving in to your ego or your passions.”[7]

            That would be hard for Herod to hear.  It could cost us to speak up like that, to question Herod’s authority. 

           

            Maybe we find ourselves among the twelve disciples in the gospel story. We were sent out on a mission. Jesus told us to travel light, to teach and carry out a ministry of healing.  We’d hoped that following Jesus would lead to greatness--to power and influence. But, when we look around, it looks like the Herod--and Herodias-- are winning. They have the wealth. They call the shots. They even control the executioner.

            We’re not great people in our society. So, how can we believe that God is going to work through us to bring in God’s Kingdom?

            Jesus’ message is hard to hear, hard to believe:  God will bring the redemption of the world through the One crucified, dead, and buried. Whoever wants to save their life will lose it. But whoever loses their life for the sake of Jesus and the gospel will save it.

            The gospel demands our life, our all.  Speaking God’s truth has real life consequences.  As Jill Duffield puts it, “Engaging in God’s work of defeating evil doesn’t gain you worldly favor.  But rest assured, despite all the evidence to the contrary, God’s will and God’s Word will not be thwarted.”

            Archbishop Desmond Tutu wrote the words of a song that’s an affirmation of faith. Those of us who attend Taize probably know the words by heart, and I invite you to sing along:

Goodness is stronger than evil; love is stronger than hate. 

Light is stronger than darkness; life is stronger than death.  

Victory is ours, victory is ours,

Through God who loves us. 

            Thanks be to God!

            Amen!

Rev. Fran Hayes, Pastor

Littlefield Presbyterian Church

Dearborn, Michigan

July 15, 2018

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[1] Amos 6:4-6

[2] Amos 2:7

[3] Mark 6:6-13

[4] Mark 6:14-16

[5] New Interpreter’s Bible: Mark, Vol. VII, p 598.

[6] N.T. Wright, Mark for Everyone (Westminster John Knox Books, 2001), p. 75.

[7] Jill Duffield, ‘Looking into the Lectionary,” in The Presbyterian Outlook. https://pres-outlook.org/2018/07/8th-sunday-after-pentecost-july-15-2018/

"Ears to Hear, Eyes to See." A sermon on Amos 7:7-15; Mark 6:14-29; and Psalm 85, from Littlefield Presbyterian Church. Preached on July 12, 2015. This was an observance of the Week of Righteous Resistance, as we stand for racial justice and in solidarity with our African-American brothers and sisters whose churches have been burned. We received a special offering to donate to rebuilding..

    

The gospel lesson we just heard is part of a long story, that’s told partly in flashback.  The scene is suspenseful and as grisly as anything you’d see on television.  It’s really unlike anything else in Mark’s account of the good news, and it seems sort of out of place. 

            So it might make us wonder why Mark tells this story at all.  As David Lose points out, later evangelists must have asked the same question, because Matthew shortens it considerably and Luke leaves it out.[1]

            I think Mark was trying to show a contrast between the two kinds of kingdoms available to Jesus’ disciples—then and ever since.   Mark has placed this story just after Jesus has commissioned his disciples to take up the work of the kingdom of God and when he joins them in making that kingdom more tangible and real than they might have imagined.

            Herod’s Kingdom—the kingdom of the world—is dominated by the will to power.  This is the world of competition, fear and envy … the world we see on the evening news.

            How different the kingdom of this world is to the kingdom of God.  Jesus sends his disciples out in vulnerability, dependent on the grace and hospitality of others, to bring healing and mercy, with no expectation of worldly reward or recognition or gain.  

            Mark seems to be putting a choice before us: which kind of kingdom do we belong to and want to live into? 

           

            We have prophetic figures in both of our scripture passages today:  Amos and John the Baptist.    God calls Amos to leave his home in the land of Judah and prophesy to the rebellious people of Israel.  John is beheaded.   So this isn’t exactly Prophet Appreciation Sunday.  But then, God’s prophets don’t tend to get a lot of appreciation.  I think that’s because they bring messages that are hard to hear.   They bring judgment. 

            Amos sees a wall build with a plumb line.  A plumb line, as I understand it, functions to keep the wall vertically straight during construction.  The heavy lead at the end of the string judges how the wall is measuring up and helps to maintain the integrity of the building by providing a vertical reference point.[2]

            God is setting a religious and ethical plumb line in the midst of the kingdom of Israel to see how they stand, and they fail to measure up.  They’re not upright.  

            These words are hard for a lot of people to hear.  There are always people who want to silence a prophetic word from the Lord, to protect the status quo…  to protect the systems of power and privilege… to protect previously held and cherished beliefs.  Judgment is hard to hear.

            In the weeks since the massacre of 9 people at Emanuel AME Church, some of us have been thinking and talking a lot about race relations in our country.

            Whether the six African-American churches that have been burned since then are determined to be arsons or even hate crimes, when a black church burns—a half century after the Jim Crow era—it brings back troubling memories.

            It wasn’t so long ago that there were a rash of hate crimes directed at black churches.  Since at least 1822, when the first recorded burning of a black church occurred in South Carolina, church arson has been a default response of racists frustrated with progress on civil rights.

            Churches played a critical role in the civil rights movement and were targeted overtly.   One of the most heinous church attacks was that of 16th Street Baptist Church where four little girls were killed in a 1963 bombing while getting ready for Sunday school.       Torching churches such as Mount Zion persisted decades after the passage of the Civil Rights Act and the Voting Rights Act,  100 years after Booker T. Washington dined at the White House and 150 years after the end of the Civil War.[3]

            I know this is hard to hear for a lot of people… hard to think about.   A lot of us would rather not think about it.  For white people, it’s a sign of privilege that we don’t have to think about race every single day, or with the same kind of urgency as people of color.

            But I think God is calling us to a greater righteousness.   Our nation is still under construction, struggling to live more fully into a society where there is liberty and justice for all. 

            As people of faith, we continue to be challenged by God’s vision for us, the kingdom of God—if we have ears to hear.  Prophetic voices keep bringing God’s word to us.  They keep holding up God’s plumb line to our life together and calling us to greater faithfulness and righteousness. 

            To some people, it may seem like a hopeless cause.   But I believe the time is ripe for change.  And I believe nothing is impossible for God. 

            Today, I think many people in our society truly are against racism    and really long to live in a nation in which we have justice for all.  Throughout the 1700’s, many people were against slavery—in theory.  But a concerted, large-scale movement to end slavery seemed out of reach.             

            On New Year’s Day, 1773, in a small church in a market town outside of London, the congregation gathered for worship.  The pastor rose to preach, and began with a poem he had written to describe his conversion experience 25 years earlier—a poem we sang today.

            Amazing grace, how sweet the sound,

            That saved a wretch like me!

            I once was lost, but now am found.

            Was blind, but now I see.

            The preacher, John Newton, had been the captain of a slave ship.  While crossing the Atlantic on his way home, he and his crew encountered a terrible storm.  Assuming all was lost, the captain of the ship cried out, “Lord, have mercy on us!”

            They survived.  It was May 10, 1748.   John Newton never forgot that moment for the rest of his life. 

            For Newton, this initial conversion experience came suddenly and clearly.  One moment he was blind to the presence of God.  The next he could see.   For the rest of his life John Newton observed the anniversary of May 10, 1748 as the day of his conversion, a day when he subjected his will to a higher power.

            There are various versions of the story of John Newton’s conversion.   Some tell a story of how Newton’s life was so changed that he turned the slave ship around and sailed back to Africa and set the captives free.  Some tell how humanely Newton treated the slaves on the ship.

            The truth is,  at that point and for many years afterward, Newton was captive to his culture’s understanding of slavery.  Slaves were seen not as persons—but as property…  as cargo on a ship. 

            Newton continued to see his work in the slave trade as what he described as a “creditable way of life.”  He valued the time he had at sea to study the Bible.   On his voyages, while slaves were lying in shackles below them, Newton gathered his crew on deck for prayer,   “according to the liturgy…officiating myself.”[4]

            Looking back, Newton wrote:  “During the time I was engaged in the slave-trade, I never had the least scruple as to its lawfulness.  I was upon the whole satisfied with it, as the appointment Providence had marked out for me….   It is indeed accounted a genteel employment, and is usually very profitable.”[5]

            Newton continued to make his living in the slave trade for some years.  His last voyage on a slave ship was in 1953-54—six years after his conversion during the storm.  After leaving the sea, he eventually studied for the priesthood.  He was ordained a priest in the Church of England in 1764 and,  over time, gained a reputation for being a powerful preacher.

            During these years, Newton’s mind and his religious faith were focused not on changing the social order of his world, but its spiritual life.   He had come under the influence of the Evangelical movement.          

            To the Evangelicals of 18^th century England, theirs was a nation that had lost its moral bearings.  There was widespread alcoholism and prostitution.

            Evangelicals advocated studying the Bible,  frequent prayer, and rigorously keeping the Sabbath.  They disapproved of theatrical plays, gambling, most dancing, and pubs. 

            At that time, most people in Great Britain were convinced that the British Empire’s economy would collapse if slavery were abolished.  They couldn’t imagine the Empire without slavery.  They didn’t really see how their faith was a reason to oppose slavery.

            For fifty years, William Wilberforce and other activists, including the Quakers worked to end slavery in the British Empire.  

As for the preacher John Newton:  in around 1772, he wrote the words for “Amazing Grace.”  But it wasn’t until 8 years later, in 1780,  that he began to express regrets about his part in the slave trade--  thirty-two years after his conversion.

            In 1785 he began to speak out openly against slavery.  He wrote a pamphlet that was widely read, and he testified in court about the evils of the slave trade.  He continued to speak out until his death in 1807.

            Finally, in 1833, the House of Commons passed a bill abolishing slavery. 

            In 19^th-century America, religious revivalism was linked directly with the abolition of slavery and movements of social reform.  Christians helped lead the abolitionist struggle, efforts to end child labor, projects to aid working people and establish unions, and the battle to obtain voting rights for women.  Evangelical Christians fought for social causes.  For Evangelical Christian evangelists and leaders like Charles Finney, the gospel and the cause of working against slavery went together.

            Change can be hard.   Change can be slow.  But the church has done amazing things in the past—things that transformed the society.  

            When we have ears to hear… when we have eyes to see—God can use us.   The Psalmist sings of this promise:

            When we pray, “Show us your steadfast love, O LORD,

            and grant us your salvation.

Let us hear what God the LORD will speak;

For he will speak peace to God’s faithful,

To those who turn to God in their hearts…

Steadfast love and faithfulness will meet;

Righteousness and peace will kiss each other…

The Lord will give what is good,

And our land will yield its increase.

Righteousness will go before the LORD

And will make a path for God’s steps.[6]

May it be so!

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[1] David Lose, “A Tale of Two Kingdoms” at In the Meantime, at http://www.davidlose.net/2015/07/pentecost-7-b-a-tale-of-two-kingdoms/

[2] Since my construction knowledge is limited, I am grateful to Tyler Mayfield for his explanation, at the Working Preacher.  https://www.workingpreacher.org/preaching.aspx?commentary_id=2487

[3] Washington Post. http://www.washingtonpost.com/news/morning-mix/wp/2015/07/01/why-racists-burn-black-churches/

[4] Adam Hochschild, Bury the Chains: Prophets and Rebels in the Fight to Free an Empire’s Slaves (Mariner/Houghton Mifflin, 2005), pp. 71-75.

[5] Ibid., p. 71.

[6] Psalm 85