The Cross or the Courtroom

Amos 7:7-15

Mark 6:14-29

Adirondack floating bog bridge © mylifeoutdoors.com

Our two lessons today both feature kings behaving badly. In the Old Testament lesson, we hear Amos being exiled after calling King Jeroboam to account for his apathy and neglect of the poor. In the Gospel lesson from Mark, we hear the story of John the Baptist beheaded by King Herod after John speaks an uncomfortable truth about Herod’s marriage. In each instance, we witness the violence of the state against those who might dare to “speak truth to power.” How we receive these stories, and the lessons that we take from them, depend on how they are embedded into the broader stories we tell ourselves. The same story can have radically different lessons depending on how it is received.

Allow me to offer an illustration of how different perspectives produce different reactions to the same story. Almost ten years ago, I sat down to play Ticket to Ride with my wife and her two brothers: Andrew and Johnny. All four of us have levels of enthusiasm for board games. My wife begrudgingly agreed to play the game, unconvinced that this was the best use of our time. Her younger brother, Andrew, tends to go with the flow; he was happy to do whatever we wanted so long as he didn’t rock the boat. I had never played the game before, so Mary’s older brother, Johnny, explained the rules to me. Johnny is an engineer by trade, so he is disposed to orderly accounting and accuracy. He started from the beginning of the game and explained in detail how the game would unfold; however, from my perspective, Johnny failed to convey clearly the most important piece of information: how you win the game.

When Johnny finished his instructions, I incorrectly thought that I would win the game by completing the tickets that I drew from the pile. In fact, those tickets are only one of three different ways to earn points, and the winner is NOT the person who completes their tickets first; rather, the winner is the person who earns the most points before the pieces run out. This set the scene for a moment of humility that my wife won’t let me forget. Having completed my tickets, I thought I’d won the game. Flush with what I believed was a quick and rather stunning victory, I threw my completed tickets down on the board, and then I inquired proudly (and with obvious swagger), “What do I say now? Ticket to Ride?” Mary and her brothers were confused at first, wondering what I was talking about, and then they burst out laughing.

You can probably imagine that each of us would tell this story in different ways. There is a true story to be told, which is my wife’s favorite version, that focuses on my hubris, which I must admit was thick and palpable in that moment. There is another true story to be told, which is my preference, that focuses on Johnny’s poor instructions. And there are other versions to be told as well, which might include my poor attention to detail, which I also must admit is a recurring theme in my life. In any event, I may never live down the tagline “What do I say now? Ticket to Ride?” Surely, most of us can imagine moments like this, stories in our families and communities that have competing and mutually valid narratives: disagreements about which details are most important for a particular story.

The complexity of our narratives and the concurrence of mutually valid perspectives is easy enough to admit in a silly story about a family board game. When the story in question deals with injustice and murder, the stakes are higher. The nuance that multiple perspectives bring are more likely to be lost in the fever of emotion. It is much harder for us to admit that our particular focus of attention needs to share space with other, valid perspectives when we are dealing with the kinds of injustice that are featured in today’s lessons.

I want to draw our attention to one particular variance in perspective that might affect the way that we engage with the world of politics, power, and injustice. To highlight this variance, listen to two short summaries of John the Baptist’s death that we just heard:

Here’s version number one:

John was a nonconformist radical who spoke truth to power without regard for his own well-being. He was jailed unfairly because he was a threat. When he challenged the validity of the King’s marriage, the foolish King and his duplicitous wife killed him. John’s death was tragic and inexcusable: he died on an executioner’s block after rotting in a prison cell without a fair trial.

Here is version number two:

John always marched to the beat of his own drum, but he discovered a calling that gave his life purpose and meaning. His vocation came to fruition and his deepest desire was fulfilled when he met and baptized Jesus. In that encounter, John was freed from the fear of death to speak truth to the world. He was jailed and executed, but he died as a free man, liberated from the lies that surrounded him, secure in his sense of purpose and grateful for his life.

Both perspectives on John’s life and death are valid, and both versions are rooted in the witness of scripture; however, the point of emphasis is different. The first version focuses on the King and his abuse of power. The second version focuses on John and his vocation. In the world of politics, power, and injustice, I submit that our culture places too much emphasis on version one. As I have already conceded, version one is not “wrong,” per se, but I find it to be incomplete and less compelling than version two. This is not to say that we shouldn’t focus on institutional evil and structural injustices. This is a valid perspective. However, it is not the only story to be told.

Too often, when we are confronted with an imbalance and abuse of power, we are inclined to focus our attention on the powerbrokers: the king, the executioner, the jail. In doing so, we may overlook the fact that the poor, the oppressed, and the weak are often worthy of our admiration and emulation. From this perspective, we might realize that the homeless woman is more fulfilled in her life than the woman who is a VP at a prestigious investment bank or corporate law firm. We might realize that that man sentenced to life in prison is freer than the man who is drowning in credit card debt to cover multiple mortgages. We might realize that the social pariah is more secure in his sense of identity than the prom king and valedictorian.

Like Amos, when we see injustice, we are right to call for reform. Too often, however, we conceive of reform according to the powers of this world and enacted through the powers of this world. We assume that justice will entail a new regime or a change in laws. Amos prophecies the return of David’s line and a new kingdom to emerge from the ashes of Jeroboam’s reign of injustice. This prophecy could point towards the construction of the second temple after the Babylonians burn Jerusalem to the ground – a new kingdom indeed. But Amos’s prophecy also points towards a kingdom that isn’t built with bricks and mortar. Amos points towards a baby, a descendent of David, who rules a kingdom that is not of this world, whose temple is the body of Christ, whose power is made perfect in weakness, who blesses the poor and the persecuted and the meek.

One mistake we often make in engaging with scripture is thinking that God operates the way that we operate. Over and over again in scripture, God uses people on the margins like Amos, a poor shepherd and fig tree farmer, and John the Baptist, wearing camel hair and eating locusts dipped in honey. God constantly challenges us to broaden our perspective by telling our shared story with a different emphasis. Could it be that John the Baptist and is the lucky one, the free one, the blessed one? If that is the case, we might do well to spend more energy emulating John than we do trying to persecute Herod.

Only a short time after John’s death, Jesus is crucified by Pontius Pilate. Pilate finds himself in an almost identical position as King Herod in today’s story. Like Herod, Pilate is forced to execute a man he knows is innocent in order to preserve Rome’s worldly power. It is notable that, after Jesus’s death and resurrection, he never mentions Pontius Pilate and the injustice of his death. On the contrary, Jesus is clear with his disciples, “If anyone would come after me, let him […] take up his cross and follow me.” Jesus never speaks of vengeance on Pilate, nor does he start a petition to reform the Roman legal code. Jesus is suggesting to us that there is more life on the cross than in the courtroom. This is the same story, but with different point of emphasis. Which story do we tell, and will we choose to spend more of our lives emulating John or persecuting Herod?

Amen.