the cry for revenge

The Cry for revenge 071215

After psalm:  interruption of liturgy

wait a minute, did we really hear this psalm?

clean hands and pure heart?  Really?

How did we come into God’s presence today?  Psalmist asks us to have our hands and heart matching. Outside and inside, not just saying with our lips but praying with our hearts..

Look at your hands…..what do they do?  think of all the things your hands have already done today, that you do at home, at work, for pleasure.

Are there things your hands do that your heart may not be happy with?

So often we wear masks over our hearts, saying and doing one thing yet not really being true to who we really are, or who we are really called to become….

Look at our heart image (screen, painting)….is there something your heart is crying about that nobody would know?

Here, today, we set ourselves intentionally in God’s presence, so let’s take a moment to match up the outside and the inside…..for we are in a safe place…..acknowledge our heart, name our inner thoughts, (quote from prayer)

Our gospel this morning is another interruption, with what we hear interrupting Mark’s story about Jesus sending out the disciples to care for the world.  Let’s stand with open hands and hearts to hear God’s good news…….

Children’s message…..ugly story of what happens when people get mad about something someone else says or does, and want to get back at them…..called revenge.   This story is in the middle of another story…..a bit like a sandwich:  just before, Jesus has sent his friends out to care for people who are hurting, and just after this story he and his friends get together and go off to a quiet place to rest.

When we have people who hurt us, we need to remember we are part of a bigger story, and not get all upset about what they’ve done.  Jesus’ friends are about love and helping, not about hurting others.  We can always talk to Jesus about what’s happening.  (Prayer)

Sermon:

You may remember two weeks ago we noticed the writer’s penchant for bracketing a story with another…the bigger story here is what we heard last week, ending “the disciples (who’d been sent out) anointed many people with oil and healed them”   and after this story’s interruption, “the disciples returned and told Jesus all they had done”

We know that an inserted story has a literary purpose, and perhaps this time it’s to point out the wide-ranging implications of the Jesus movement.   Jesus people’s lives have an impact beyond the immediate….like ripples on a pond, they have an impact on the political system….hmmmm, makes you wonder.

Anyway, when Herod, the governor, heard about this movement and activity of disciples….. he wondered who Jesus really was, and his first thought, probably out of a guilty conscience, was ‘it must be John the Baptizer come back to haunt me’!

You heard the story:  Herod, an admirer of John the Baptizer, gets himself in a situation out of his own impulsivity and unclear thinking; he’s between a rock and a hard place as they say.   And he ends up saving face by misusing his power instead of doing what’s right.  He plays the political game that is only too familiar to all of us—to use the psalm image, his heart tells him one thing, but his hands do another.

His wife has been harboring a grudge and wants revenge; his daughter uses her sexuality to muddle his mind and she’s clear thinking enough to take her time about what wish she wants granted, looking to the wrong person for advice.

Now we might think this tale of ugly violence and revenge belongs in the first century, but it’s still incredibly relevant….whether its Isis beheadings or our own ‘don’t get mad get even’ attitudes, whether the intolerance of differences all around or our nation’s pathological hatred of admitting we’re wrong, it’s still all out there (hands), and in here (heart).  Violence often happens because we have to be right, or because someone has hurt us and we choose to retaliate.

Then as now, Herodias’ desire for revenge has implications for more than just her one victim…..first for herself, as Chris said last week ‘revenge keeps us in the past,’ and is a spiritual killer.  As Nelson Mandela is cited as saying, revenge is like drinking poison and expecting your enemy to die.   Then it ripples out: she draws her daughter into the web, her husband gets manipulated, John’s disciples lose a leader, and society’s leaders get to theological wondering—just who is this Jesus and his movement?

And that might be the bigger point of this interruption story…..Mark’s gospel is contrasting the kingdom of Rome with the kin-dom of God that Jesus and his people are acting out….between the political empire and the Jesus way.    A contrast that still stands starkly today.

Just who is this Jesus for us today?   Some ancient reincarnation, or someone who impacts our heart and hands?   Some historic character, or someone who makes a difference in our political system?

Are we the Jesus people who are sharing, healing, anointing, tending?  Ripples of grace? Or are we so enmeshed in the culture of the empire we cannot see ourselves clearly?   Does Christianity in fact send out Ripples of resentment and revenge as it is caught up in the politics of life?

May God grant us eyes to see ourselves honestly, and ears to hear God’s word for us, and may our hands  and hearts be undivided in following the Jesus way, inside and out.

Amen