Good morning! This gospel text from Mark today is a retelling of Herod’s order to take the innocent life of John the Baptist. Herod likes John well enough but there are a couple of problems. First Herodias is looking to get back at John for telling the truth about her relationship with Herod. Secondly Herod feels he has to save face and do what his birthday-dinner guests expect of him. It is Herod’s spineless compromise that
leads to John’s death.
John the Baptist has the risky business of truth telling which was not popular in Herod’s court. His life and witness pointed to God. Truly it was John who showed the stronger backbone. Herod’s life pointed to his dysfunctional use of power and the triangulation between Herod, Herodias, and her daughter.
God’s power is such that even with John’s death there is a building up of the Kingdom. Herod’s attempt to save face is at the cost of considering what God wants, perpetuating a pattern of oppression and destruction.
When we are preoccupied with ourselves or primarily focused on pleasing others then we miss the mark of what God wants from us. When we abdicate responsibility and depend on others to make our decisions, to direct our actions, or to validate us – then the outcome can become a missed opportunity.
13th century theologian Thomas Aquinas referred to this confusion of wants and needs and off-centered priorities as inordinate desires. In other words, whenever we hope for something to happen that is not aligned with God’s purposes we have inordinate desires.
Becca Ehrlich talks about this in her book, Christian Minimalism. When we think our wants are the same thing as our needs then we become confused.
Our society suffers from a syndrome referred to as “Compare and Despair”. Compare and despair is what you experience when you look at people’s posts of their amazing trips, outstanding accomplishments, and life changing makeovers. We can feel envious and then a little depressed because Instagram or Pinterest has just sucked us into the black hole of wanting things and doing things for the sake of impressing others. In fact – there are online companies that will super impose, photo shop, your face onto a perfect body at the perfect beach to show what a perfect vacation you had.
Like an odd dream I wonder what my face on Brad Pitt’s body would do. Or his face on my body? We ARE the same age…
Oh, how Herod and Herodias would have loved – gratuitously posting on social media! Then perhaps a reality TV show called –
Keeping up with the Herodashians.
Inordinate desires. It’s not really Pinterest or Instagram, is it? It’s – us.
But there has been a movement, at least over the last 2000- 3000 years, a movement of faith to measure justice in this world and how we treat one another by the law of righteousness. This is the calling card of the Old Testament or Old Covenant as it is sometimes called. The New Testament is
God’s rule in Jesus as the new covenant. The law of love incarnate. As Christ’s body in the world today – We are the movement of God’s love as law.
In 750 BCE – Amos was responsible for waking up the movement for God’s people gone AWOL. Amos was not trained theologian. He even refers to himself simply as a herdsman and a dresser of sycamore trees.
But what God sees in Amos is the holy. God sees a humble man willing to yield to God’s spirit. God sees a can-do prophet.
It is important to note that Middle Eastern sycamore trees produced a little fig-like fruit that was covered in a thick hull or husk. The dresser’s job was to pierce the husk of each fig so that it could ripen. This was labor intensive as each fig had a little bit of fruit inside, which is why only the poor would have even bothered with it.
This prophet Amos, the dresser of impossible fruit, was whom God chose to prophesy to God’s hard-shelled people! “Amos, pierce the thick people of Israel with my word so that they will ripen and mature. And, BTW, it won’t end with them – They are supposed to be a light to the nations!”
God wants God’s people to focus on things that have Kingdom purposes. But God’s people have a propensity for messing up time and time again. Amos has to tell them “the God’s honest truth”, which is meant to free them and help them mature.
This is when Amos has his dream – his holy vision about God standing with a plumb line next to a wall. The plumb line is an ancient tool consisting of a bob, or weight, and a string. It measures the vertical straightness of just about anything. It has been used to line up bricks in a wall, to start straight foundations of buildings, and in lining up the large stones of the great pyramids.
Medically? – The plumb line’s straight line has helped detect scoliosis of the spine.
How is your spiritual backbone? Are you; are we, in alignment with the purposes of God?
Or do we suffer from – spiritual scoliosis?
Each one of us can become off-centered. Out of alignment. Or we become overwhelmed from cluttered lives with an obstacle course to God. And after a while we can become frustrated. We blame others. We blame God. We forget to be kind to ourselves. We close ourselves off for protection and into a hard shell. It takes the word of God to pierce through the husk of our prideful attitudes and the hull of our defensive rationalizations.
Enter the Good News!
Over the years I’ve heard people say that their “church” going was enjoying a nature hike on a Sunday morning. Or chilling at home watching TV– on a Sunday morning. Or playing golf, etc. God IS everywhere, right? However, the missing part in all of that is the Sunday morning community at church.
I have also heard how people start to make Sunday mornings at church a regular practice. It becomes “just what I/we do!”
We are entertaining our better angels when we remember that we are part of the communion of saints. We are part of God’s good creation and the truest story of redemption. We are all
about – being a new creation in Jesus Christ. “And not for solace only, but for strength.” (Prayer C)
Therefore, as Christians we mature in faith in order to pay it forward, to disciple others into and through their life of faith.
We partner with God to build up the Kingdom of God person- by-person, soul-by-soul, and day-by-day.
God’s plumb line is how you and I begin to build in a way that is solid and strong. With Christ as our cornerstone, we can build upwards in our relationship to God and outward in serving others knowing it is God that sustains us. We are not alone. We can build upwards in our friendships, in our families, in our workplaces, our schools, and last but not least – our church.
The plumb line marks our vertical connection to God.
Discipleship and outreach is the crossbeam – connecting us as a Koinonia – a community of faith. Then the vertical and horizontal – together – a cross.
And on that cross at Calvary Christ yielded his life for us.
Then they pierced his side with a spear. (We recognize this with the water that is added to the wine cruet during Eucharist).
They may have pierced his side – But he pierced this tough hull of this world by the power of his resurrection. And he has invited us to share from the fruit within to sustain God’s people.
Thanks be to God. Amen.