Mr. Rogers' Neighborhood

This sermon was heard at St. Andrew Presbyterian Church in Longview, Texas on Sunday July 14, 2013, the 15th Sunday in Ordinary Time.

Amos 7:7-17

Psalm 82

Colossians 1:1-14

Luke 10:25-37

May the words of my mouth and the meditations of our hearts be acceptable to you, O Lord, our rock and our redeemer. Amen.

If you know the lyrics, sing along. If you don’t, then just hum. Nobody is going to mind.

It’s a beautiful day in this neighborhood; it’s a beautiful day for a neighbor. 

Would you be mine? Could you be mine? 

It’s a neighborly day in this beauty wood; a neighborly day for a beauty. 

Would you be mine? Could you be mine?

Would you be mine? Could you be mine?

I’ve always wanted to have a neighbor just like you.

 I’ve always wanted to live in a neighborhood with you.

So, let’s make the most of this beautiful day; 

since we’re together we might as well say:

“Would you be mine? Could you be mine? Won’t you be my neighbor?”

Won’t you please, won’t you please, please won’t you be my neighbor.[1]

New episodes of “Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood” were shown on PBS stations from 1970 until 2001 and on National Educational Television two years before that. Reruns aren’t available on local stations, but they are through the PBS Kids web site.[2]

The show was characterized by its quiet simplicity and gentleness. Episodes did not have a plot, but they did have a theme. They consisted of Rogers speaking directly to viewers about various issues, taking the viewer on tours of factories, demonstrating experiments, crafts, and music, and interacting with his friends. The half-hour episodes were punctuated by a puppet segment chronicling occurrences in the “Neighborhood of Make-Believe.”

At the beginning of each episode, Mister Rogers enters his television studio house singing “Won’t You Be My Neighbor?” He hangs up his suit jacket, puts on a zippered cardigan, then takes off his dress shoes to put on his sneakers. One of Rogers’ sweaters now hangs in the Smithsonian, a testament to the cultural influence of his simple daily ritual.

Rogers covered a broad range of topics over the years, and the series did not shy away from issues that other children’s programming avoided. In fact, Rogers endeared himself to many when, on March 23, 1970, he dealt with the death of one of his pet goldfish. The series also dealt with competition, divorce, and war. Rogers returned to the topic of anger regularly and focused on peaceful ways of dealing with angry feelings.[3]

All of this happened in the context of Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood, a mystical place where the imaginary fourth wall of the television screen magically disappeared for a half hour and we were all welcomed into a world of peace and grace.

Considering Mister Fred Rogers was a graduate of Pittsburgh Theological Seminary and an ordained PC(USA) Minister, welcoming children into a world of peace and grace was his vocation as well as his passion.

So the expert in religious law came to test Jesus asking, “Teacher, what must I do to inherit eternal life?” Jesus replies in true rabbinical fashion, asking a question when an answer is sought. “What is written in the Law?”

The lawyer answers this question by a perfect recitation from Leviticus and Deuteronomy[4] saying, “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your strength and with all your mind; and your neighbor as yourself.” Jesus affirms the lawyer’s answer saying, “Do this, and you will live.” The experts in the law commonly accepted that observance of the Torah was essential to inherit eternal life.[5] So when Jesus and the lawyer agree on this point, they share the truth of thousands of years of tradition.

But the lawyer’s questions are more than an academic or rabbinic exercise. He wants to justify himself. So he asks Jesus another question, “Who is my neighbor?” This is an important question, more important than we may suppose. What gets lost in the translation of Leviticus is that the original command to love the neighbor specifies “your kin” and “any of your people.”[6] So the lawyer wants to be justified that by helping his family, his people, and his nation he will inherit eternal life.

Then Jesus tells the legal expert a story and asks him another question, “So which of these three, the Priest, the Levite, or the Samaritan, do you think was a neighbor to the man who fell into the hands of the robbers?”

The lawyer answers, “The one who showed him mercy was a neighbor.” This must have been difficult for the expert in the law. He knew it wasn’t his people, the Priest or the Levite, but he couldn’t push the name of his dreaded cousin past his lips. Instead he says, “The one who showed him mercy was a neighbor.”

Saying this, the lawyer, the expert in the law tells the world that being a neighbor is about more than just being kin or members of the same nation. It has to do with action and mercy.  Being a neighbor now means more than it did in Leviticus. Then Jesus gives him his charge, “Go, and do likewise.”

Jesus shares the vision of inheriting eternal life written in the Torah with the lawyer.  Then he shows him that the Living Torah, the person and the work and the word of Jesus Christ, expands the Torah given to Moses. Justification by the Torah now means that loving God and loving your neighbor are inseparable.[7] Being justified means more than just taking care of business as usual.

The hardest part about this story is that the holy men in the parable, the priest and the Levite, were doing what they were supposed to do. They were going to work. They were doing what was right in the name of the Law. They followed the rules and abided by the regulations approved by the General Assembly, er, the Presbytery, er, the law handed down to Moses. They did the right thing in the eyes of the law, but doing what was right was no longer enough in the eyes of God.

To the Greco-Roman world, the cradle of Western culture, mercy was a character flaw; the ideal was justice. Since mercy involves providing unearned help or relief, it was contrary to justice. This unearned relief, we call it grace.

Sociologist Rodney Stark put it this way. “The notion that the gods care how we treat one another would have been dismissed as patently absurd. This was the moral climate in which Christianity taught that mercy is one of the primary virtues—that a merciful God requires humans to be merciful. Moreover, the corollary that because God loves humanity, Christians may not please God unless they love one another was something entirely new.”[8]

Mercy is the new benchmark in justification. Mercy is the new benchmark in being a neighbor. Mercy has a place in the administration of justice in the Christ’s kingdom and only the Samaritan acted in accord with the living Torah.

Only the despised Samaritan showed love in an act of mercy. Only the loathed foreigner connected loving God and loving your neighbor as the way to being justified. Only the reviled outsider saw his brother left beaten on the side of the road. Only the detested alien saw the way to justification through mercy. Only the abhorred stranger showed the divinely required attitude we are to share with one another.

An ancient rabbi once asked his pupils how they could tell when the night had ended and the day was on its way back. “Could it be,” asked one student, “when you can see an animal in the distance and tell whether it is a sheep or a dog?” “No,” answered the Rabbi. “Could it be,” asked another, “when you look at a tree in the distance and tell whether it is a fig tree or a peach tree?” “No,” said the Rabbi. “Well, then what is it?” his pupils demanded. “It is when you look on someone’s face and can see… your brother. Because if you cannot do this, then no matter what time it is, it is still night.”[9]

In the past month, there has been quite a commotion about Mr. Rogers. The people at Fox News found a 2007 article by Jeffrey Zaslow from the Wall Street Journal titled, “Blame It on Mr. Rogers: Why Young Adults Feel So Entitled” [10] At the center of the article was LSU finance professor Don Chance who observed a “culture of excessive doting” in 21^st Century university students The article begins:

[The professor] says it dawned on him last spring.  The semester was ending, and as usual, students were making a pilgrimage to his office, asking for the extra points needed to lift their grades to A’s.

 “They felt entitled,” he recalls, “and it just hit me.  We can blame Mr. Rogers.”

Professor Chance notes Asian students, students who did not grow up with Mr. Rogers, accept “B’s and C’s as an indication that they must work harder, and that their elders assessed them accurately.” The article continues:

By contrast, American students often view lower grades as a reason to “hit you up for an A because they came to class and feel they worked hard,” says Prof. Chance. He wishes more parents would offer kids this perspective: “The world owes you nothing. You have to work and compete. If you want to be special, you'll have to prove it.”

If there is one thing I can agree with after working over ten years in higher education, it’s that there is a sense of entitlement among students. I have seen that sense of entitlement reinforced by some parents and grandparents who called to ask if there wasn’t any way I could give Junior one more chance. I don’t say that Professor Chance is wrong about that. I do say that his finger pointing is misdirected. I won’t say where it should be directed, but putting this on Mr. Rogers is wrong.

Looking at Mr. Rogers’ point of view, we need to remember that he was a Christian and a Presbyterian minister. He pastored children daily for over 40 years. He told children, the weakest members of any society, that in the eyes of God they are loved and have value. He told misfits they are loved. He told fat kids they are loved. He told bullied kids they are loved. He told poor kids they are loved. He told abused kids they are loved. Even if it is just in his neighborhood, they are loved.

He loves them. He is their neighbor. He invited children into that neighborhood daily not so that they could beg for grades from Professor Chance fifteen years later, but so that they could know grace and peace and mercy and love and hope. It’s true; this world isn’t looking to do them or anyone else any favors, but through Christ God offers us grace, peace, mercy, love, hope, and salvation. We are freely offered grace as a gift, not as payment for services rendered. If it were, it wouldn’t be grace. This is what Mr. Rogers offered his audience daily.

Gentleness, love, mercy, peace, grace; isn’t this what we want from our neighbors? It sure beats the scorn and ridicule, derision and division we see every day. We want people in our lives showing the fullness of God’s mercy to everyone, not just some.

We want to know what it is to receive divine mercy, God’s divine loving-kindness. We must realize that this mercy arises out of a mutual relationship one for another, not just as a winner-take-all justice the ancient Greeks favored.

If Professor Chance and Fox News want us to believe we have no value outside of what we can do for our economy and ourselves that is their business. It is after all the way of the world. On the whole though, I prefer to live a state of grace, a place where I know what is most important cannot be earned, it can only be given. A place where that grace is freely given, even if it’s just for 30 minutes a day with a man in a zip up cardigan.

Luke shows us the lawyer accepts Jesus’ revision of the Torah. He learns that the one who shows mercy like the Samaritan is the neighbor, not those who share family or heritage like the priest and the Levite. What might have started as a theological exercise between the lawyer and teacher becomes more when the Torah comes to life in Jesus Christ.

When the law comes to life, we can no longer answer these questions like we’re taking a college entrance exam. We now have to answer the questions with our hands even more than we do with our heads. Jesus commands us to be good neighbors; loving the Lord our God with all our heart, and with all our soul, and with all our mind, and with all our strength; and our neighbor as ourselves.  On this the words of the Law and the prophets hang.

This is our call, this is our vocation. It is no longer enough to do just what the written law tells us; now there is more. We are called to this new word of discipleship when Jesus charges the lawyer, “Go, and do likewise.” Or as Mr. Rogers once said:

When I was a boy and I would see scary things in the news my mother would say to me, “Look for the helpers. You will always find people who are helping.”

Friends in Christ, Mr. Rogers tells us, Jesus tells us, those who help are our neighbors. So, let’s make the most of this beautiful day; since we’re together we might as well say: Would you be mine? Could you be mine? Won’t you be my neighbor?

---

[1] Rogers, Fred, “It’s a Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood.”  Pittsburgh, PA: Family Communications, Inc., 1967.

[2] From the PBSKids.org websie retrieved July 12, 2013.

[3] Mr. Rogers’ Neighborhood, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mister_Rogers%27_Neighborhood, retrieved July 8, 2010

[4] Leviticus 19:18, Deuteronomy 6:5

[5] “Adlet and Blink,” Commentary section, from Homiletics Online, http://homileticsonline.com/subscriber/printer_friendly_installment.asp?installment_id=930000347, accessed June 10, 2007.

[6] Cousar, Charles B., Gaventa, Beverly R., McCann, Jr., J. Clinton, Newsome, James D., Texts for Preaching, A Lectionary Commentary Based on the NRSV, YEAR C. Louisville, KY: Westminster John Knox Press, 1994, page 427. 

[7] Kittel, Gerhardt, “Theological Dictionary of the New Testament, vol. vi, page 316

[8] Galloway, Paul, “How Jesus Won the West: Christianity became dominant because it offered better ideas and unexpected mercy,” The Lutheran, November 1998, 19.

[9] Thompson, Marjorie J. “Soul Feast” Louisville: Westminster John Knox Press, 1995, 127.

[10] Zaslow, Jeffrey, “Blame It on Mr. Rogers: Why Young Adults Feel So Entitled.” Wall Street Journal, July 5, 2007, retrieved July 12, 2013.

Set

This sermon was heard at the First Presbyterian Church in Berryville, Arkansas on Sunday December 13, 2009, the 3rd Sunday in Advent.

Zephaniah 3:14-20
Isaiah 12:2-6
Philippians 4:4-7
Luke 3:7-18
May the words of my mouth and the meditations of our hearts be acceptable to you, O Lord, our rock and our redeemer. Amen.

A couple of weeks ago[1] I lamented the way that preparations for Christmas are getting earlier and earlier each year. On Tuesday, I read a posting on one of my favorite websites by a Mr. Mike Kowalski of Rancho Cucamonga, California. He writes, “[I] Went to Disneyland on November 24, in search of, among other things, Disney-themed Christmas ornaments for 2009. Alas, none could be found. But there were plenty of Christmas ornaments with the date 2010.”[2]

In that sermon two weeks ago, I said that before Labor Day seemed excessive to begin preparing for Christmas, but compared to over 13 months in advance of the next Christmas August seems downright reserved.

Disney, in a kind of a sick way, is calling us along side toward the celebration of our dear Savior’s birth. Of course I think they’ve gotten ahead of themselves and that’s what I love about the liturgical calendar as opposed to the marketing plan of a major multi-national corporation and their mouse.

The joy of the liturgical calendar is that at this time of year it prepares us for the coming of the Lord and the coming of Christmas. The discipline of the liturgical calendar also exhorts us not to get ahead of ourselves. We get ready; we get set for the season that is to come. This exhortation is where we start this morning, leading us into John’s exhortations to the crowd.

But first, what is exhortation? According to the dictionary,[3] exhorting is like urging, advising, or cautioning earnestly. It also means admonishing urgently. It can also mean giving urgent advice, recommendations, or warnings. According to my big biblical dictionary,[4] the goal of exhortation is to persuade someone or some ones to act, or think in a particular way. Going back to the Greek roots of the scripture, exhortations came in two ways,[5] as comfort and as admonition. So in by whatever measure you use, exhortations contain elements of discipline and of soothing. There is not necessarily reprimand, but neither is there molly coddling.

Just as important, the Greek version of this word also involves calling the people to the exhorter’s side.[6] The one who exhorts calls the one who receives the word to come together and walk together. This becomes no more evident than when we discover that the Greek root of this word is later used by theologians to describe the Holy Spirit, Paraclete.

Our passage contains four very specific exhortations. I want to start with the last three before returning to the first.

In the first of the set of three exhortations, the crowd asks John “What then should we do?” In reply he said to them, “Whoever has two coats must share with anyone who has none; and whoever has food must do likewise.”

John’s exhortation calls the people to share. But there is an important condition he places on this giving, a qualification which makes a great difference. John calls for those who have two coats to share and those with food to do likewise. John calls those who have more than enough to share with those who do not have enough.

What John advocates is radical. In a way, it is a privately supported welfare system which provides that those who have enough share with those who do not. It requires people who have enough coming forward to share, and it also requires those in need to come forward and receive what they need that they may survive.

This is truly a tightrope of love. While many people with more than enough are more than willing to share, there are others who are not. While many people with need seek help and assistance, there are others who are ashamed to ask. There too are those with surplus and those with need who manipulate the system, causing skepticism among all. Still, when this tightrope is walked with love, when those with more than enough walk alongside those with need; there is enough for everybody.

The next exhortation is directed at the tax collectors that came to be baptized who ask John “Teacher, what should we do?” John tells them, “Collect no more than the amount prescribed for you.”

As the old Revolutionary War saying goes, “Taxation without representation is unfair.” As the old Mad Magazine corollary goes, “Taxation with representation isn’t all that great either.” John exhorts these men to be honest, and more than being honest is the exhortation to be fair in assessing taxes.

Lurking just below the surface of this exhortation is a little known fact. Being a tax collector wasn’t always the job of “robbing from the poor” we think of when we think of tax collectors. The tax collector’s job is to pay tribute to Rome through the proper middle men. It didn’t matter if the people didn’t pay the tax collector; the tax collector still had to pay the state. So if an individual failed to pay their taxes, the collector was left in a lurch with the Roman overseers. Since this position was also often inherited much in the same way as a family farm, the problem became multi-generational.

In short, some tax collectors were as poor as the people they were collecting taxes from. Some of the tax collectors were in as big a pinch as those they were collecting taxes from. In a way, the only way a tax collector could be assured that they would have no need to over-collect from those who had more assets is for everyone to pay their prescribed taxes. How’s that for an odd exhortation, while directed at the tax collectors to collect no more than the prescribed amount, it also exhorts the people to pay the prescribed amount so that the tax collectors wouldn’t be tempted to take more than was due.

Again, this is a call to be fair in dealings, even paying taxes in love. Again, there were those who manipulated the system. The gospel story of Jesus dining with the tax collector is a fine example. When the tax collector promises to repay those he has cheated three times what he cheated them, we learn both that there’s a lot of tax cheating going on and it can be profitable, but this is not always the case. John exhorts us to respond in love, even in paying taxes.

The third exhortation was in response to the soldiers who asked “What should we do?” John tells them do not “extort money from anyone by threats or false accusations, and be satisfied with [your] wages.”

John tells those with direct and immediate authority to act justly. I can’t speak to the wages of what were probably local men serving as soldiers protecting the tax collectors. But John made their call to the general well being, protecting all manner of people from all manner of evil.

At least one scholar posits that the soldiers were paid poorly and expected to shake down the people to make ends meet[7] making manipulation a part of the system. So this is more than just a call to the soldiers to do their jobs and be satisfied with their wages, it is a call to the government to pay soldiers enough so that they won’t need to shake down the people to make ends meet. It is a call to the people to pay workers equitably so that they not be tempted to steal.

In all three of these cases, John illustrates the “fruits worthy of repentance.” John calls for radical and sweeping reform of the way business is handled in first century Palestine. He calls for the people to take care of each other and the government to take care of the things individual people cannot. People are to refrain from exploiting their positions for their personal gain at the expense of others. People who have wealth, power, and authority are to care for those who are less powerful.

But before we leave the specific exhortations, let us look at the first exhortation. John cried out to the crowd, “You brood of vipers! Who warned you to flee from the wrath to come?” I see this as more the discipline element of exhortation than the soothing.

He sees many of those who came out to be dead trees unable to bear fruits worthy of repentance. He sees the unrepentant as ax fodder, kindling for the fire which burns hot the chaff. Still, this is the same crowd he addresses with the exhortation on sharing. John knows that as God can raise children for Abraham out of these stones, the people can repent. John also knows that the people have come, and that is their start.

The crowd comes out to see John. Last week he tells the crowd to get ready. He tells them to prepare the way of the Lord, making his ways straight. This week he tells them to get set. He shows the crowd different ways that they can make straight the ways bearing the good fruit of repentance through a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins. He also warns that those who do not follow will face horror of unquenchable fire.

The last verse in our gospel this morning reads, “So with many other exhortations, he proclaimed the good news to the people.” John walks beside us, providing examples to prepare us for the one who will baptize us with the Holy Spirit and fire. Comfort and admonition are how we get ready and set for the Advent of the Christ child. Next week, we complete the set.

[1] Coming. http://timelovesahero.blogspot.com/2009/11/coming.html
[2] Easterbrook, Gregg, Tuesday Morning Quarterback. http://sports.espn.go.com/espn/page2/story?page=easterbrook/091208&sportCat=nfl, retrieved December 8, 2009.
[3] Exhort, dictionary.com. http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/exhort, retrieved December 12, 2009.
[4] Exhortation, The New Interpreter’s Dictionary of the Bible. Vol. 2.Nashville, TN: Abingdon Publishing, page 366.
[5] parakale,w, Theological Dictionary of the New Testament. Volume V. Gerhard Kittel, Editor. Grand Rapids, MI, Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing, pages 779-780.
[6] parakale,w, Bauer, Walter, A Greek-English Lexicon of the New Testament and Other Early Christian Literature, Third Edition. Frederick William Danker, Editor. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 2000.
[7] The New Interpreter’s Bible. Vol. IX. Leander E. Keck, Senior Editor. Nashville, TN: Abingdon Press, 1995, page 84.

The More Things Change...

This sermon was heard at the First Presbyterian Church in Berryville, Arkansas on Sunday July 12, 2009, the 15th Sunday in Ordinary Time.

2 Samuel 6:1-5, 12-19
Psalm 24
Ephesians 1:3-14
Mark 6:14-29

May the words of my mouth and the meditations of our hearts be acceptable to you, O Lord, our rock and our redeemer. Amen

Old expressions are a dime a dozen, so they say. What I like about them is that because of the associations we make with old expressions, because of our history and our culture, just a few words become greater than the sum of their parts, if you know what I mean. Consider this from a book I’m reading right now:

Gradually, the whole horrible truth about the war is being revealed. Every new book destroys some further illusion. How can we ever again believe anything when we compare the solemn pretensions of statesmen with the cynically conceived contest for power between two great alliances of states in which the caprice of statesmen combined with basic economic conflicts to dictate the peculiar shuffled in a different way and the “fellowship in arms” will consist of different fellows.

So do you think this is from some new liberal take on the war in Iraq? Is this a passage from Scott McClellan’s Dick Cheney bashing “What Happened, Inside the Bush White House and Washington’s Culture of Deception?” I wouldn’t blame you if you thought it did. This paragraph comes from Reinhold Niebuhr’s “Leaves from the Notebook of a Tamed Cynic.”[1] Niebuhr wrote this passage in 1923 in response to what he saw as the missteps of political leaders after World War One. Or as the old saying goes, the more things change, the more they stay the same.

Of course, as I am trying to tell you that things don’t change much, I read one of the most unique texts in Mark’s gospel. This is the longest passage in Mark not immediately focused on Jesus. Fifteen verses with nary a mention of Jesus; twelve full verses without him at all. Of course, this foreshadowing is a part of my point.

The powerless are at the mercy of the powerful. A prophet singing a song of repentance is taken by a government official and sentenced to death. The official doesn’t really want to kill the prophet. Sure, the prophet is a pain, but the official knows that the prophet is righteous and holy. The government man is perplexed by the prophet; he may even ask the prophet “What is truth?”

In the end of the story, the leader is moved by circumstances to do what he really doesn’t want to do. He does it to save face. He offers alternatives to death; but this won’t save the prophet’s life. After his death, the prophet’s disciples come and take the body and put it in a tomb.

The powerless are at the mercy of the powerful. So, who am I talking about, John or Jesus? I guess it’s true; the more things change…you know.

The parallels and foreshadowing between the stories of the lives and deaths of John and Jesus in scripture are there for all of us to see. There is even a flashback to the baptism of the Lord as in both places John calls for repentance.

So from a literary point of view, in this nearly Jesus-Free-Zone, there is enough of the Messiah to make a connection. If just talking about words were enough, this would be more than enough. But as followers of Christ, we must be about more than words.

There is one other element of this story, another parallel that we receive in this scripture; an attitude of the church toward power. But don’t expect this set of parallels to connect to the time of the gospel; this is a call for our time.

Here’s a story, tell me if it sounds familiar. A man, a great king, finds a woman who appeals to his, shall we say, baser instincts. He finds her so appealing that he gets rid of her husband and fathers a child. So, is this the story of David or Herod? Well, as a matter of fact it is. It’s either one and both. How’s that for ironic, two kings, one who knows God’s heart and the other who crucifies God. There’s a pendulum swing that is difficult to wrap our heads around, but still, it is found in our holiest of scriptures. There are some things about scripture we should never try to get used to and that’s certainly one.

But I promised you a more current list of scandals. Let’s begin with the most recent. South Carolina Governor Mark Sanford admitted during a press conference less than a month ago that he had traveled to Argentina to continue an extra-marital affair with an Argentinean woman. He then resigned as head of the Republican Governors Association. He’s still governor of South Carolina, but at least he no longer sits at the head of the table of Republican Governors.

Strangely enough, Governor Sanford isn’t even the first politician involved in a sex scandal with an Argentinean, that honor goes to the Honorable Wilbur Mills, the Democratic House Representative from, yes, you guessed it, Arkansas in the 1970’s. His dalliance was with a stripper named Fanne Foxe. Just to show the world what kind of people we are, Mills got reelected after the scandal, although he did later resign after he gave an intoxicated press conference from Foxe's burlesque house dressing room.

Lest you think I spent too much time on Governor Sanford, I have two more words: Bill Clinton. (Long pause, eyes turned to the left…) Yeah, that brings back some memories.

Sure, nobody killed the spouse of the apple of their eye, but let’s face it, powerful men have had trouble with their zippers long before the invention of the zipper. To say anything different denies both the witness of history and the nature of sin. But this passage is about more than sexual scandals, it is also about power and how it is exercised.

Herod’s relationship with John must have been very interesting. Scripture tells us that Herod liked to listen to John, but Herod’s choice of a wife, rubbed him the wrong way. Still he knew that John was a righteous and holy man. Herod also knew which way the political winds blew; he knew that the people, led by John’s disciples, would be upset if John were executed. John irritated Herod, but Herod still knew that killing John was not in his best interest.

It was his wife Herodias who had a grudge against John.

As powerful as Herod was, he still needed to court those who were also powerful to keep them happy. This is the reason for the State Dinner, er, banquet. Herod throws a huge banquet with entertainment, his dancing daughter. So enraptured with her dance, Herod promises her anything, anything up to half of his kingdom. A broad gesture to be sure. Just as surely, it was a gesture, hyperbole. He didn’t mean “take half,” but the offer impresses the company and after all, isn’t that the object of the banquet?

His daughter Herodias is no dummy though; she asks her mother what she should request. Mom asks for the removal of the thorn from her side. So Herodias asks for John’s head on a platter. I wonder if the platter was worth thirty pieces of silver. It would not only be a poetic foreshadowing of Jesus betrayal; but it would also be consistent with the ancient price of a hit.

Should Herod have made his offer to Herodias? No, but he was acting like a big shot, he was caught up in the moment. Could Herod have stopped this request? Not without looking weak; and that’s the last thing the lackeys need to see, their king acting weak. Herod had to save face.

Again, the powerless are at the mercy of the powerful. Yet, it is the powerful who are convicted by the words of the powerless. John was a prophet. John was the man in a hair shirt who looked more than a little crazy. Yet, there was something about John that made Herod take notice. That thing was the truth. That thing was the word of the Lord. That thing was a vision for a world greater than the earthly realm of power and State Dinners, er, banquets.

This is the real importance of today’s text. Yes, the powerless are at the mercy of the powerful, but in reality, it is the powerless who have the high ground over those with political and social authority. It is the church, not the state, which is called to be the beacon of light, God’s light, over creation. It is our call to seek out the injustices the world imposes on the poor and the weak and lift them so that they may know God’s peace.

William Sloane Coffin wrote: “‘Woe unto you, scribes, Pharisees, hypocrites!’ Jesus never hurt anyone, except deliberately. He hurt them only because he loved them, and wanted to save them rather than please them. And in true prophetic fashion, he attacked none more than the nation’s leaders because their one-sided righteousness was the source of such blindness to themselves and the source of such suffering to others.”[2]

Jesus called on the leaders of the land to seek justice, love kindness, and walk humbly with God. John did the same thing with Herod. Mother Teresa did this for any world leader who would take the time to listen. The church is called to continue this role in the world. It is our duty not to please the world but to do God’s work in it.

The Church is called to be the eyes and hands of God to hold the powerful to account for the injustices against the poor. It is our call to do that which is dangerous, that which is perilous. Herod and Pilate are out there and they want nothing more than the way things are now. They are comfortable in their places. We are called as the Body of Christ to seek justice for those who are oppressed in a world gone mad.

Coffin also asked, “Why is goodness forever on the scaffold, wrong upon the throne? Because what human beings seem most to fear is not the evil in themselves, but the good—the good being so demanding. Never would we have crucified Christ, the best among us, had we not first crucified the best within us. But never mind! Don’t follow the crowd. Follow Christ, cross and all.”[3]

Anyone who says it is not the role of the church to be critical of the government is sorely mistaken. Anyone who says the role of the church is to stay within its walls and seek piety for the sake of the body is sorely mistaken. Anyone who says we do nothing is mistaken, but anyone who says we do enough is also mistaken. Anyone who says I am only speaking to this part of the Body of Christ is mistaken and anyone who says I am speaking to a generic church is also mistaken. Seek God’s justice; this is the clarion call to us as a body, and us as followers of Christ, cross and all.

Since the Watergate scandal of 1972, there have been over 100 scandals that have been given the suffix “–gate.”[4] From Bill Clinton’s “Troopergate” to Elliot Spitzer’s “Troopergate” to Sarah Palin’s “Troopergate;” founded and unfounded, scandal is a part of the American political landscape. And political scandal is as old as the hills, as old as Herod. The more things change…

And it is the will of the Lord that the Body of Christ on Earth continues to seek justice for those who face injustice. It’s not easy, it is not without danger. The example of John proves this; the example of Jesus proves this. But it is their example that shows us the value of their sacrifice; and ours.

Jesus may not have been the immediate focus of this passage, but his fingerprints are all over it.

[1] Niebuhr, Reinhold, “Leaves from the notebook of a tamed cynic.” New York: Da Capo Press, 1929, page 42
[2] Coffin, William Sloane, The Collected Sermons of William Sloane Coffin, The Riverside Years, Volume 1. Louisville, KY: Westminster John Knox Press, 2008, pages 403-404.
[3] Ibid, page 408.
[4] Wikipedia, List of Scandals with –gate suffix, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_scandals_with_%22-gate%22_suffix, retrieved July 11, 2009.