It costs!

tells of the disciples returning to Jesus and reporting what they had been doing. And today we hear what lies between those two things: the arrest, imprisonment, and execution of John the Baptizer by Herod Antipas in a drunken whim.

Is it an accident? Is it a clumsy way for Mark to arrange his material?

Not at all! Mark is telling the story with great care, and he does it in a way that these two episodes have everything in the world to do with each other.

Theologian Thomas Long gets to the point this way:

“Mark wants us to know that when the disciples go out to do the work of the kingdom, when the church rises up to be the church, that the world rises up to be the world.” And this means conflict!

The hymn that we sang at the close of worship last week has a lively tune and great words that are easily sung...but not so easily lived.

We sang: Rise up, O saints of God!

From vain ambitions turn;

Christ rose triumphant that your hearts

with nobler zeal might burn.

Speak out, O Saints of God!

Despair engulfs earth's frame;

As heirs of God's baptismal grace,

His word of hope proclaim....

Quickened by the Spirit's power,

Rise up, O saints of God!

And in a few minutes we'll sing another stirring hymn:

Lead on, O King eternal,

The day of march has come,

henceforth in fields of conquest,

Your tents shall be our home.

Through days of preparation,

your grace has made us strong.

And now, O King eternal,

We lift our battle-song.

Unless we think about it, we can be tempted to regard the Christian life as easy and its song as a transparent song of triumph. But not so fast.

The disciples go out to preach and teach...and that is good.

But we dare not forget that John the Baptizer also preached ...a strong message of repentance,

and he baptized many to prepare the way for the Messiah, ...and the world beheaded him.

The disciples went out to heal and to exorcise demons, and that is good.

But John the Baptizer sought to exorcise the demons that raged in Herod, ...

and it cost him his life.

Mark wants us to know that when the church rises up to be the church, the world rises up to be the world.

Perhaps we have blinders on and think that it is not that way anymore.

We rise up to come together for worship, an activity that is truly subversive,

and the world seems to gently ignore us, at least until we become too much of a bother to have around.

We preach a gospel that is heard only through filters of what one wants to hear, and so we get invited to join civic clubs, an invitation that may last until we raise inconvenient questions.

We reach out to heal in a true and complete way, and the world will not recognize the transformation that is part of healing, and try to co-opt us by making us a part of the government's social service network.

Mark would understand all of this.

According to Mark, at first Herod did not want to harm John, just to domesticate him, to keep him around as entertainment, a curiosity, a debate sparring partner for occasional fun.

Herod was bemused by John, but as long as he could keep him in chains, he would trot him out and listen a bit now and again.

But at the crucial moment, he did not have a strong enough reason for keeping him around as he felt obligation to keep an illegal and drunken promise.

And so John was beheaded.

When the church rises up to be the church, the world rises up to be the world.

And it means conflict.

In March 1980, a pastor preached a sermon that concluded this way:

In the Gospel of Christ...one must not love oneself so much as to avoid getting involved in the risks of life that history demands of us...The experience of a new earth must not weaken but rather stimulate our concern for this earth...May we give ourselves like Christ, not for self, but to give justice and peace to our people..”

It could be an excerpt from lots of sermons, but this one ended differently.

A few short minutes after saying this during the service,, the pastor was assassinated by thugs acting on behalf on his country's government.

And then the 50,000 or more mourners who came to his funeral were fired upon by snipers on top of government buildings, and more than 50 mourners were themselves killed,

When the church rises up to be the church, the world rises up to be the world.

And it means conflict.

Many times across the years folks have said things like... “The church has to be more like the society around us.

Come on, let's get with it! etc.”

Often, as we rummage around in church history, we will find that the “new” opinion or practice is not new at all, but is one that was rejected by the church one of the other times it came into fashion.

They may come dressed differently, but they are the same old sins and failings ready to trip up another generation.

Lust, greed, envy, thievery, ignoring God...

This list of about 10 things has a depressing sameness about it over the centuries.

We ought to remember Moses cataloging God's directions : Thou shalt not..., as well as Luther's explanations which focused on a positive response to the command: but instead, help your neighbor in every way.

Come on, get with it!” the world says to us, and it may be costly to us not to go along with the crowd.

No, we can't participate in that illicit money-making scheme.

No, we can't bless that inappropriate relationship.

No, we shouldn't waste our time with the useless drivel that is today's so-called entertainment.

But yes, we can help and encourage one another in lawful pursuits.

Yes, we can do things that strengthen the family in honorable ways.

Yes, we can share the source of true and lasting joy...

...even at the cost of being rejected and scorned.

We have the opportunity and freedom as Christians to do these things.

From whence does that come?

Mark wants us to know this and to rejoice in this:

even as the church rises up to be the church, and the world rises up to be the world, that Jesus Christ rises from the dead!

In an ironic way, Herod even foretells it.

When he hears about Jesus' preaching, he says “I thought I had this nailed down. Somebody must have risen from the dead!

When the world is busy being the world, Jesus Christ is busy being Lord.

Remember the line from Luther's hymn:

the body they may kill;

God's truth abideth still;

his kingdom is forever.

Last week we thought about “traveling light”, focusing on what is central truth and not getting weighed down with many other things.

No amount of baggage or armor will spare us from the evil intent of the Herod-types in the world.

But we know who truly has the staying power, who can endure.

A man had been in prison for preaching Christ.

Every few weeks they would drag him out of the horrible conditions in the prison and into court where they wanted him to recant his faith, so they could broadcast it.

He was so worn down , so alone, so weakened that he almost complied.

But one day when he was nearly ready to give up, he saw his wife and Christian friends in the gallery.

As he stood to speak, they called out “God is alive! God is alive!” before they were quickly silenced and thrown out of the room.

But it was enough. He sat down without betraying his faith, renewed in his confidence that God is, indeed alive.

When the church rises up to be the church, and the world rises up to be the world, there will be conflict.

But while the world rises up to be the world, Jesus Christ is risen from the dead, a greater thing by far.

We follow not with fears,

For gladness breaks like morning

Where'er your face appears.

Your cross is lifted over us;

We journey in its light;

The crown awaits the conquest;

Lead on, O God of might.

Amen.

Please note: The preceding sermon is provided as a resource for the thought, prayer, and meditation of the members and friends of St. Mark's. It is the residue of a verbal event, and thus it does not have academic footnotes and other details that would be expected in a written document. The writer gladly acknowledges the prior thought and work of many Christians before him.