Sermon: Sixth Sunday After Pentecost

Angela Shelley Wiggins

Long ago, in a far away place, there lived a powerful king with a vast and wealthy kingdom. Well, actually, he wasn’t quite a king, he was more of a puppet for the real rulers, but he liked to think of himself as king. So we’ll play along, we’ll call him king.

To celebrate his birthday, the king held a great feast--the kind of party only a king would throw. He invited his most loyal supporters and advisers. People came from the far reaches of the kingdom to join in the festivities. The guests wore their finest clothes, bright colors, fine linen and silk.

The best meats and cheeses were prepared; the finest wines were poured. Everything was extravagant and the guests feasted. It was a night they would long remember.

There were speeches and toasts, congratulations, and well wishes. The king brought in entertainers – singers, musicians, jugglers, dancers, magicians, and acrobats. There was something for everyone.

Even the king’s sons joined in wishing their father joy and prosperity. One of his daughters danced; a beautiful and exotic dance. The king was so pleased with her, so pleased to have won her admiration.

He said to his daughter, “I will give you anything you wish for, anything up to half of my kingdom.” The guests heard this vow, heard the king declare to his daughter that she could have anything she wished for.

The king was pleased when she replied that she would ask her mother for advice. So wise, he thought, to ask advice of her elders. Most people, he thought, would reply hastily, and waste their wish on something small and trivial. But not this girl, she would choose wisely, carefully; she would choose something she would not forget. But remember, at this party, things aren’t always what they seem.

The girl ran to her mother and told her that the king had vowed to give her anything she asked for, up to half his kingdom. What should she ask for, she asked her mother. Another horse or a castle of her own? Jewels, silks, gold? What would befit such a vow? What should she ask for so she would never forget this night? She asked her mother, “what about you, Mother? What do you want most in all the world?”

It was an easy question for her mother to answer. She wanted revenge more than anything else, revenge on the man who had shamed her. Her husband, the king, wouldn’t grant it to her; he had locked her enemy in protective custody. But now she saw her chance. She knew the king wouldn’t go back on a vow made before his courtiers. All she had to do was to put her request in the mouth of her daughter, and it would be granted. She would have revenge.

Quickly she told her daughter to ask for the head of her enemy to be brought to her. With a reckless vow, the king had promised to grant anything the girl asked for. This is not what he had in mind, but he could not refuse her. He would not go back on a vow made so publicly and so boastfully.

When the girl approached the king, he looked down at her, eager to hear her fondest desire. He wondered what she would ask for. He asked for silence so that everyone could hear the girl’s request. The guests leaned forward to hear her. She made her request: she asked for the head of her mother’s enemy on a platter. There was silence, then a gasp from the guests.

The king knew he could not deny his daughter’s wish. He had promised her anything, and this is what she had asked for. He asked the musicians and dancers to begin again, and sent his soldiers to the jail to fulfill the girl’s wish.

In less than an hour the soldiers were back at the feast. As they carried in a platter with the severed head on it, the crowd cheered.

At this party, things are not always what they seem. What should have been a joyous celebration, a life-giving event, becomes a death watch.

We’re startled by how the story ends. It has a gruesome, grotesque ending, the kind of ending that lingers in our minds and dances around in our imaginations.

At first the story sounds like generous hospitality, but it quickly becomes a story of excess and recklessness. The whole story is a story of distortions, of things out of proportion and out of balance. We see the ugly side of almost everything.

It’s also a story of reversals, starting with Herod’s fear that the man he executed is now alive. Herod put John the Baptist in protective custody, but protective custody becomes death row; and a birthday becomes a day for killing.

The king plays at being powerful, but his wife and daughter subvert his power, and lure him into murder. The dance of delight becomes the dance of death, pleasure turns to grief.

The one sent to prepare the way of the Lord is dead. The one chosen by God to announce good news is chosen for execution. John the Baptist came to proclaim good news, and he was killed for that proclamation, killed because of the power of his words.

Everything that seemed good, seems to have gone bad. It’s a night they’ll never forget, but for all the wrong reasons. But remember, at this party everything is not what it seems. There’s more here than the story of a martyr’s death.

Mark the evangelist consistently positions the life and mission of the John the Baptist along side the life of Jesus. In life John the Baptist points to Jesus, and his death continues to point to Jesus Christ. In the introduction to this story, Mark has the people question whether Jesus is actually John raised from the dead. When we see John the Baptist, Mark wants us to think of Jesus Christ. He tells the Jesus story with John as a parallel. When he tells of the death of John, we know he’s looking ahead to the death of Jesus. Mark ends his story with the resurrection of Jesus, and that’s the beginning of our story.

And that’s where our hope lies, in the resurrection of Jesus Christ, in the new life we have in Christ. The Epistle lesson for today celebrates the giver of that new life, the life in which we are adopted as God’s own children. Unlike the king, the wicked stepfather, who promises half his kingdom, God has promised to us God’s whole kingdom, “every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places” (Eph 1:3). God has “lavished on us” the “riches of God’s grace.”

We don’t have to dance our way into God’s favor or trick God into doing what we want. Instead, God has “freely bestowed” grace on us, and has chosen us “to be holy and blameless before God in love.” Ephesians says we have “obtained an inheritance,” an “inheritance toward redemption as God’s own people” (v. 14).

Our story is a story of reversal, a story of adoption, a story in which we are forgiven, a story of life springing from death.

As the children of God, we are “marked with the seal of the promised Holy Spirit” (v. 13). We are Christ’s own forever. That’s something worth celebrating, that’s a reason to throw a feast.

And so we do. Today and every Sunday, not just any feast, but a heavenly feast. We have a feast around this table, and we celebrate mysteries we don’t comprehend. As the children of God, we remember our redemption, our adoption, and we join in the heavenly feast.

Thanks be to God.

Amen.