Stark Choices
Lent 3
March 19, 2006
Mark 6:17-29
Mark 8:1-9
What are you willing to put on the line? What are we willing to put on the line? It matters what you're putting out there. It matters what your choices are adding up to. We're right in the middle of a war these days. Everyday we are asked to put things on the line, our lives, our families, our work, our consumerism. We are bombarded with one choice after another struggling to keep going, and to stay ahead, to understand, to know. How do we know when to give? How do we know what to give? How do we do all that and survive? Today, the gospel comes to us reminding we are called to put it all out on the line. And, that we are the people who must choose which empire we will go the distance for.
The entire gospel message centers around the concept of empire. Anceint empire was a cruel and dangerous place if you were not elite or the upper nobility which only made up 15% of the population, you were considered human trash. Your only role was to support the lifestyle, the empire of the 15%. This is the world of King Herod. His picture is minted onto all of the coins of the day with the motto son of god stamped into it. King Herod is considered by all of Rome to be the man. And, as the all powerful son of god, King Herod is required to keep control of the empire. He has been alerted that a man known as John the Baptist is going around talking about the coming of a new king. It had been reported that he had a small following. This sort of thing was not acceptable. Particulary by the likes of this John the Baptizer, he was a nobody. He lived outside of the city walls, he was not of family, he was what was considered human trash. King Herod solved this problem by having the Roman Guards capture him, bind him, and throw him into prison. However, when they brought John to the King for his trial, the King was drawn to John. This man was blasphemous! He was willing to speak of another sort of King and used King Herod's life as an example of what not to do. In spite of the embarrassment of John calling King Herod's life into question, King Herod sensed this man was not just speaking on his own behalf. There was just something about this guy, clearly he was a holy man. And, because of this, each time John was brought to the King, the King protected his life. Each time John came before the King he questioned the King's practices and way of living. The King each time thought John was speaking a truth, unafraid of the consequences, but so true, it occurred to the King this thing shall be pondered. One of these situations was the King's marriage to Herodius, his brother Phillip's wife. John told him he should not have married his brother's wife. Word spread quickly of this accusation and Herodius, wanted to kill John for dishonoring her marriage to the King. How she lived her life and ran her family was none of his business. After all, he was a nobody, human trash, why was the King, the son of god, listening to this nobody? Well, time passed and the King had a birthday coming up and in true form, threw himself a birthday bash. He invited all of the dignitaries, the government officials, the rich and mighty. All came. The feast was enormous, piles of food to the excess. Wine beyond what anyone could drink. And dancing girls for entertainment. His daughter of Herodius was one of the dancers. And, she so pleased him, in a moment of great compassion and pride he told her she could have anything she asked for, even half of his kingdom. After asking her mother what she should do, she asked for the head of John the Baptizer on a platter. And, because Herod had to save face. Because the King had sworn an oath. Because he had to toe the line for the insider, dominant cultural force, he sent his soldiers away, who beheaded a man for sport and brought the head of a dead man to a birthday party for show. This is a brutal world of living in surplus. A world where the rich and powerful must constantly be gathering more to them, that they continue to toe the line. It begins with seemingly unimportant decisions like birthday parties, guests and wishes of parental pride and ends with maintaining a new challenge of loyalty and having to cover any vulnerability. What are you willing to put on the line? What are we willing to put on the line?
Jesus had been teaching the crowd for three days. He had filled them up with spiritual sustenance and now before sending them away he realized they must feed their physical hunger as well. And, after being with these people for three days, he had compassion for their well being. He wanted to send them home strong physically and spiritually. He told the crowd to sit down. And when taking stock, they had 7 loaves of bread and a few fish. They were out in the wilderness, in the middle of nowhere. There were 5,000 gathered. And, Jesus took the bread and blessed it, gave thanks for it and broke it up for the disciples to distribute. He did likewise with the fish. After all were filled up they collected the leftovers and there were 7 baskets of pieces of bread left. What are you willing to put on the line? What are we willing to put on the line?
We claim to be part of the Jesus movement. We claim to be God's people. When we claim this it means that our hopes are to put everything on the line against the concept of empire. Our King is one who hangs out with the human trash. The invisible people. The nobodies. Our King is the one who can be grateful and thankful and feel blessed from five loaves of bread and a few fish when 4,000 people come to dinner. Our King can hold a banquet in the middle of the wilderness, in the middle of chaos. The phrase Good News was first spoken by the Empire. It was the Good News of the empire. The Jesus movement stole this phrase to stand against the empire. We have the good news that can sustain our hope in living this existence. The Good News for us today is that there are benefits of utopian living beyond the economics of scarcity. We can choose to not be the people climbing on the backs of others who we demonize and degrade for our own glory. We can choose instead to be gathered with the nobodies, the human trash, the faceless creating a world with enough. We can choose instead to be the people gathering together to share what we have creating a community where everyone is welcome. WE can choose instead to share our power bringing 85% of the people along with us flipping the power pyramid on its head throwing it all on the line.
There was a man in ancient Rome who wrote a treatise about Jesus and his movement. And, it infuriated the early church so much that it was destroyed. However, so many people copied pieces of it to refute the document it has been pieced back together. Calcus is speaking as a member of the dominant culture. And he was madly opposed to Jesus and this movement. With all of his knowledge and religious training, this Jesus was no son of god and anyone can see that. He didn't do anything. He perhaps could do a little magic, but he didn't do anything to change the world. He didn't drive out armies. He didn't change anything. That's why his followers were all so simple. The ultimate proof this movement is a joke is that his followers were all nobodies. For Calcus, Jesus couldn't be divine. His followers were the illiterate, unintelligent, laborers, tradesmen…the human garbage of society.
We need not be high minded idealists as people of the Jesus movement. We simply need to live what we believe. And, when we see Jesus in these ways, we recognize his work of bringing the presence of God into our midst. When we see God living with Jesus in these ways, it is a clear rejection of empire. Jesus is living in contradiction to the empire. So how is it that we are going to live? To see in Jesus the Divine, is to live in the image that it all was true. Living as if it is true. Faith is what you are wiling to put on the line.