The Perils of Preaching

 

Jesu Juva

St. Mark 6:14-29                                                                     

July 11, 2021

Proper 10B                             

 Dear saints of our Savior~

          American culture was once defined by freedom of speech.  You had the legal right to express your opinions—the constitutional right to speak your mind.  You had the right to argue, to oppose, to criticize, to offend, to articulate, and pontificate.  But now we live in a different culture—a culture some have described as “cancel culture.”  Now, if you say the wrong thing, or express the wrong opinion, or offend the elite and powerful—now you get canceled, censored, banned, de-platformed, demonetized, and kicked off the internet.  If the people at the top decide that your opinions are disinformation or misinformation or don’t comply with their community standards—well, then, you get canceled. 

          But it turns out that “cancel culture” is as old as the Bible.  Cancel culture is as old as the Old Testament.  And not surprisingly, the people most often banned in the Bible were prophets and preachers—men whose words were the very words of the Lord.  The prophet Amos got canceled.  Why?  What was the charge?  Famous Amos predicted the downfall of Israel and the death of Israel’s king.  But Amos’s critics claimed that was “fake news,” which their fact-checkers had determined to be false.  “The land is not able to bear all his words,” they claimed.  For speaking the Lord’s truth, Amos was censored.  Amos was canceled.

          But few prophets were canceled in more spectacular fashion than St. John the Baptist.  John was the last of the Lord’s prophets who fully and freely exercised his freedom of speech.  He was the voice of one crying out in the wilderness, calling sinners to repentance that they might escape the wrath to be revealed at the coming of the Lord.  And one of the sinners John called to repentance just happened to be the most powerful man in Judea—King Herod.  And when you call out the king—when you criticize the king (or the first lady)—there’s a good chance you get yourself canceled.

          Politicians behave badly, as a general rule, and Herod was no exception.  He had taken his brother’s wife, Herodias, for himself.  Of course, it often takes two to tango; and Herodias likely saw this exchange of husbands as a pathway to more power for herself.  John had the temerity to tell Herod that shacking up with his brother’s wife was sinful.  It was contrary to God’s holy law.  It was wrong on every level.  Plenty of other people probably thought the whole situation stunk to high heaven too, but had the good sense to keep their mouths shut.  Not John.  John had all the tact of a porcupine.  He was the Lord’s bull in the world’s china shop.

          Now, interestingly enough, it seems that King Herod took John’s criticisms in stride.  But hell had no fury like the “new” Mrs. Herod.  Herodias held a grudge against John and wanted him dead.  It seems she didn’t appreciate John preaching publicly about her sin.  Still today, nothing gets people madder—nothing gets people more furious—nothing incites a riotous mob more quickly than to scrutinize and criticize their sinful behavior.

          It’s true; we always want to justify our sin.  We’re all guilty of that.  From adultery to idolatry to pornography, we have no trouble coming up with plenty of good excuses.  All of us can lay out a reasonable rationale for why our sin isn’t really sin at all.  But when someone like John comes along, points a finger at us, and says, “Repent,” well, nothing makes our molars grind more furiously.  Nothing stirs up resentment and hatred in our hearts more quickly than when someone dares to unmask our hypocrisy and point out our sin.  Together with Herodias, we join in the refrain of revenge: “Heads will roll!”

          Confronting unrepentant sinners is actually part of a pastor’s job.  Not only do pastors preach and teach and encourage and comfort and exhort.  They also rebuke and correct those who have gone astray, in the hope that it leads to repentance and restoration.  As you might imagine, this is the part of the job that most pastors enjoy the least.  What would you do if one of your pastors confronted you about some unrepentant sin in your life?  Would you listen and take his concerns to heart?  Or, would you be more inclined to ask for his head on a silver platter?  (Maybe I should ask for a show of hands here. . .)

          One interesting fact about the placement of John’s martyrdom in Mark’s gospel: Today’s account gets sandwiched by St. Mark.  He records it right after Jesus sends out the Twelve two-by-two to preach repentance; and it comes right

before the return of the Twelve from their preaching assignment.  It’s kind of hard to miss that St. Mark wants preachers—those who are called and sent by Jesus—to sit up and take notice of what happened to John.  Preachers need to be faithful to death—like John was.  Preachers need to treasure the truth of God more than they treasure the approval of their hearers, more than they treasure their paychecks and pensions.  Preachers need to preach the truth in love and to avoid preaching only what itching ears want to hear.  God, be merciful to me, a sinner.

          Of course, the law and gospel God gives us today isn’t only for preachers in the pulpit—but also for people in the pews—baptized believers—people predestined for adoption into the glorious grace of God in Christ.  (That’s you!)  Don’t you be like Salome, Herodias’s dancing daughter, whose birthday party striptease was a dishonorable use of the body God had given her.  Christian women are always clothed with modesty and with good works.  Don’t be like Herodias, her mother, nursing grudges, hateful thoughts and vengeance against those who do not deserve your wrath.  Be kind, tenderhearted, and forgiving.  Do not be like Herod and fear looking bad in front of your friends more than you fear the Word of God and the wrath of God.

          If John were among us this morning, I suspect he would point his prophetic finger at the crucifix behind me, and reprise the best line he was ever given to say:  Behold the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world.  That Lamb is Jesus.  And one strange thing about the martyrdom of John in Mark’s gospel is that Jesus doesn’t react to it.  Jesus offers no comment—no eulogy—on John’s devastating death. 

          Maybe that’s because Jesus had His own devastating death awaiting Him in Jerusalem.  Jesus had a date with cancel culture.  Jesus had a sacrifice to make that would deal once and for all with the sins of the whole world, including the sins of corrupt kings in their adulterous bedrooms.  God doesn’t deal with the sin of the world by instituting a program of moral improvement, or by recruiting an army of social justice warriors.  No, God deals with human sin—our sin—by sending His Son into our flesh—to put sin to death, in His flesh, on the cross.

          That is the way it is with Jesus.  That’s how His kingdom comes.  Earthly kingdoms are about power—about whether power is held by the people or by the powerful few.  The kings of this world just cancel their critics or lop off their heads.  But God’s kingdom is about the mercy of a King who dies for the people—a King who dies for all the people, including His worst critics.  It’s about the kindness of a King whose glorious grace embraces the worst of the worst, the lost and the lowly, who redeems us by the blood He sheds, and who forgives our every trespass against Him.  John had to decrease.  Jesus had to increase.  John had to get out of the way for Jesus to be the way, the truth and the life.  John was safe in death because Jesus was going the way of the cross to rescue him—and the whole world.

          We would do well to live like John, and even to die like John.  Let cancel culture do its worst.  Our citizenship is in heaven.  And we eagerly await the return of our Savior from there.  We should, as God gives us the ability, speak out and stand up for what is right:  defending natural marriage, protecting the unborn, affirming the distinctive goodness and beauty of human life, created in the image of God, as either male or female. 

          But don’t forget:  John was not a culture warrior.  John was a witness for Jesus.  John served best when He pointed to the Savior and said:  Behold the Lamb.  There, in Jesus, is God’s answer to cancel culture.  There is God’s solution to the world’s problems and to your own sin and death.  The one thing needful has been done.  Christ has died.  Christ is risen.  It is finished.  In Him we die; and in Him we live forever.

          In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.  Amen.