Church on Morgan
The Self-Directed Life
[MUSIC PLAYING] From Church on Morgan, a United Methodist congregation whose desire is to be a reminder of the beauty of God and each other. This podcast is a collection of Sunday teachings inspired by the revised Common Lectionary and recorded weekly in Raleigh, North Carolina. And now a moment of silence before this episode begins. [MUSIC PLAYING] Now Lord, may the words in my mouth and the meditation of all of our hearts be acceptable in your sight. Lord, our rock and our Redeemer, amen. Today's gospel passage, and it's a struggle to call it that. But we're going to find some good news in it. Comes from the Book of Mark, chapter 6, verses 14 to 29. Here now the word of the Lord. Mark writes that when King Herod heard of it, that is the expansion of Jesus' movement. When King Herod heard of it, for Jesus' name had become known. And some were saying, John the baptizer has been raised from the dead. And for this reason, these powers are at work within Jesus. But others said, it's Elijah. Others said it's a prophet, like one of the prophets of old. But when Herod heard it, he said, John, whom I beheaded, has been raised. For Herod himself had sent men who arrested John, bound him, and put him in prison on a counter-herodius, his brother Philip's wife, because Herod had married her. For John had been telling Herod, it's not lawful for you to have your brother's wife. And Herodius had a grudge against him and wanted to kill him. But she could not, for Herod feared John, knowing that he was a righteous and a holy man. And he protected him. And when he heard him, he was greatly perplexed. And yet he liked to listen to him. But an opportunity came when Herod on his birthday gave a banquet for his courtiers and officers and the leaders of Galilee. And when his daughter Herodius came in and danced, she pleased Herod and his guests. And the king said to the girl, ask me for whatever you wish, and I will give it. And he solemnly swore to her, whatever you ask me, I'll give you even half of my kingdom. Well, she went out and she said to her mother, what should I ask for? She replied, the head of John the baptizer. And immediately she rushed back to the king and requested, I want you to give me at once the head of John the Baptist on a platter. The king was deeply grieved. Yeah, out of regard for his oaths and for his guests, he did not want to refuse her. And so immediately the king sent a soldier of the guard with orders to bring John's head. He went, he beheaded him in the prison, and he brought his head on a platter, and he gave it to the girl. And the girl gave it to her mother. And when John's disciples heard about it, they came and took his body, and they laid it in a tomb. Friends, this is the word of God for us, the people of God. All right, I'm going to open with a really unpopular take. But first, I kind of need to know where we're at in the room. If you would, 30 seconds. Turn, introduce yourself. Talk to someone you came with. It doesn't really matter to me. But birthdays, birthday parties, big fan, all in. Give me a break. Where are you on this, right? Birthdays, are you a big birthday person or not? Where are we at? Where are we at in the room? Go ahead, take a minute, talk to the person next to you. I'll call you back in a sec. Where are my fans of birthdays? Raise your hand. Where are the big fans of Bradiah? I see you. I feel your energy. All right, where am I not so much crowd? Yeah, not so much, God. This will be an unpopular take. I think that people who throw lavish birthday parties, especially for themselves, are monsters. [LAUGHTER] I'm sorry, Sarah. I'm sorry. Here's exhibit A. And I've got to give you a little bit of background. Herod, this is Herod Antipas. This isn't the same Herod that killed all the babies when Jesus was born, but it's his nephew. One commentator said, if you met one Herod, you met him all. Herod Antipas, he is the Herod or the ruler, kind of the governor over the area that Jesus grew up in and performed his ministry in a galley. He's kind of like the governor. He serves underneath the Roman Empire, but he oversees this entire group of people. He himself is Jewish, but now he serves this pagan empire that's oppressed his own people, but he's got a lot of power and a lot of authority. What we know from just history and other gospel accounts is that Herod goes on vacation with his brother Philip. They both go with both their wives. And when they come home, Herod comes home with his brother's wife instead. He kind of decides, I want to upgrade, and I'm into her more than I'm into you. And I'm the king, so I get what I want. So he divorces his wife. He marries his brother's wife. Her name is Herodias. Now, there's this prophet. His name's John the Baptist, and he's an interesting cat. He kind of lives in the desert. He's down by the river. He's starting what feels like a cult. He's the first one to begin this practice of baptism, at least in the kind of way that we understand it. People are coming to him. They're hearing this unique message. He wears strange clothes. He eats weird food. He has really strong things to say about the abuse of power and those in it. But most people don't typically pay much attention to him. But when he sees that Herod has divorced his wife and married his brothers, he can't take it. And so he finds an audience with King Herod and says, me on the same right, you can't just be like wife swapping. I know you're the king, but this is wrong. And we're all watching. Well, Herod's new wife, Herodias, apparently, didn't appreciate this as she sounds like enjoying the perks of her new husband. And so she says, you're the man, kill this sucker. The problem is, Herod actually really won. He's afraid of John the Baptist. Deep down in his gut somewhere, he knows that he calls him a holy and a righteous man. There's something unique about this individual. He lives in a way that no one else lives. He speaks with an authority that no one else speaks with. And Herod is afraid. He's got just enough superstition in him that to kill this man isn't like killing any man. And the ramifications might be severe, not just in this life, but in the life to come. But he's got this wife who wants him dead. And this is like the first test of their new marriage. And so trying to figure out a political way through this, he decides, all right, I'm not going to kill him because I'm afraid to do so. And honestly, I really enjoy listening to him, even though every time I listen to him, he calls me out on my BS. There's still this thing that I can't help that I love his company. And so what I'm going to do is I'm going to put him in prison, basically protective custody to keep him away from my wife who wants him dead, but keep him alive so I can still get counsel from him. This is a situation that's unfolding. Well, Herod's birthday, he decides he's going to Michael Rubin out. He throws the most epic white party, everybody, everybody. Everybody is there. All the most influential, powerful people have all shown up. And as he's sitting there at the head table with all of the political powers, all the commercial power, all the CEOs, all the generals kind of lined up, he gets this idea that he's going to have his new wife, his daughter-in-law come and dance for them. What we know from kind of the Greek here and other stories is that the way that she's referred to is as a little girl. Basically, she was likely 10 years old, 10, 11, 12 years old. But there was something about her that was appealing to these men. And so he invites her to come and dance in front of them. And it says that these men were so pleased with her dance. Nadi Vultweber says, we know she wasn't doing the chicken dance. Like, they were so pleased by her dance that in a flex of power, he turns and says to these disgusting men on either side of him, watch this. Hey, that was so good, I'll give you anything you want. I can give you anything. I give you half this kingdom. What do you want? Kind of showing off his power. What he had him plan for is that she then goes to her mother and says, hey, Herod just told me I can have anything I want. What should I ask for? And her mom says, I'll tell you, go ask for the head of that prophet that I know he's keeping in that prison. And so she comes back, this little girl in front of the most powerful man in that part of the world and says to him, I want the head of John the Baptist, some prophet you've got in the prison. And now in this incredibly public, powerful party surrounded by all these men he's trying to flex in front of, he has this impossible decision of what will he do? And says he's grieved that he didn't want to do it, but he had no other way around it. And so he gives the order, and within minutes, one of his soldiers is in the prison, has removed John's head, and has brought it back on a platter and hands it to a little girl, holding this decapitated head she then takes and returns to her mother. Thus ends the reading of the gospel for today. Encouraged, edified? Feel like you need to be more diligent about getting your kids to read the Bible daily? Like, why would Mark include such a disturbing story? Wife swapping. This little girl who gets swept up in the BS of these men, the abuse of power, murderous rage, right? It's just disgusting story. Here's the thing that's interesting about this though, and a lot of people have wrestled with this. This story, Jesus is only mentioned in the first verse. It's like the only story that Mark tells in his entitled gospel that isn't about Jesus. The whole point, or at least it doesn't seem to be, right? It says people are trying to figure out who Jesus is, and he tells this long story. Mark's also known for telling things very briefly. He's the shortest gospel writer. He only gives you the details you really need. And now in this story, he just embellish it. He gives you more details than any other writer. It's like, why is he doing this? Why is he telling us this story? Why is it here? What good news is there for us in this? One of the things I learned this week is that this perverse, disturbing story has inspired more art in the world than any other account in the scriptures, but for the passion of Christ. That as much as we're disturbed by this, and curious why John would include it, turns out that historically, we can't get away from it. That there's something here that grabs our imagination and compels us to look, and to look again. I mean, honestly, that's the way I felt this week. I opened up the four options we had for the electionary. I read this and I thought, I have no idea what you could possibly say about that. I read a couple of commentaries, listened to a couple of preacher podcasts. They all sort of said, well, clearly, I wouldn't preach the Mark Gospel. That's who knows what you say there, right? And I was like, but I can't help it. Like, there's something about this story that's drawing me in. Here's kind of my second unpopular take this morning. I think at least one reason why we're so, why we can't ignore it, and possibly why Mark felt it important to include it, is that you and I are Herod, that we are Herod. Now, I get that the odds that you've thrown a party where someone ended up decapitated or probably slim, right? But here's where I kind of found myself growing in sympathy for Herod as I read this account. He is not kind of this simple, flat, classic, villain, evil guy that's, for whatever reason, Mark puts all these uncomfortable details in there, that he considered him a holy and a righteous man, that he feared him and he feared God, that as much as he was perplexed by the kinds of things he said, he enjoyed listening to him, that when the moment came for him to do this and he had done lots of terrible things in his life, he was grieved by this, right? That there was this like division within his own soul. He didn't want to do this, but he found himself on this night, in the middle of a birthday party, that he never would have imagined would have taken this turn or ended this way, in front of all of his friends faced with an impossible decision. Leadership is messy, right? Like there were a thousand compromises that led to him sitting in the seat of power. All along the way, at early days, somebody probably told him in order to get into this next phase or this next thing, you're going to have to shift your policy here, you're going to have to spend some time with this person, you're going to have to receive some money in this way, this may not be completely, but you're going to have to put this person on your court, you're going to have to have this, and he's just sort of like, this is how life goes. This is sort of a mid-life story of waking up and not recognizing your own life, and feeling like the impossibilities of the decisions in front of you, and trap, but no good way out. My hunch, and I could be wrong, but I bet that you know what it's like, to feel like your life has become increasingly complicated. To wake up in the midst of a situation that you've created, that you've engineered, and to feel trapped by it, like there's no good way out, and stop to wonder how you even got here, right? This is the person where I didn't know where we were going next, but I'll give you a couple examples. Might change them at 11, have to do the men in black thing after this. I love Raleigh man, like I love this place. I've lived a bunch of places. I've lived in New England, Texas. I've dreamt of California. I've spent more time there than seeing more of California than most people who live in California, but Raleigh's just like Goldilocks, right? We don't have kind of the sort of hurricanes or the fires or the earthquakes or the tornadoes that plague so many of my friends in other parts of the country. We're a city that's growing, dynamic, youthful. We've got four great seasons. We've got the beach and the mountains. We're surrounded by incredible institutions, education. There's such interesting people who've moved here from all over. I mean, I have intentionally chosen and loved this place, but I'll just tell you, as somebody who's been here for 15 or 20 years and who's trying to raise kids in this place, there's like a tax to trying to do this right. I've kind of going, I want my kids to go to the best schools and to have the right friends. And to make sure that on spring break, we go on the same sort of vacations that they don't feel like they're missing out on the vacations by kids are missing out on and being the very best school that they can on the best league that they can at the best level that they can with all the resources that there's just this, I don't know if you've been here yet, but it is a hard place to keep up. And the bar is always being leveled up. Another click, another click, another click. And as my children enter middle and high school and we start to feel the weight of this and what it looks like when your family doesn't have vacations that begin and end with private jets and won't be receiving the sort of cars that their friends are and can't play in the leagues or go on the travel that you thought and you don't have the right street of deaths and you can't and you start to, and then you listen to the people who do and it turns out they don't think they do either. We were driving back from the beach on vacation and just sort of like lamenting this and my wife was like, where did we go wrong? Like, when did we make the decision that landed us in this life that feels impossible to maintain? And I was like, well, you know, before we lived here, we lived in like the most extravagant suburb on the planet called the Woodlands outside of Houston, Texas. And before we lived there, we went to a private university on the main line of Philadelphia and before we went there, I was like, I don't even know. I couldn't even tell you when it began, that we turned over the keys to a certain kind of life that feels and looks and seems so good and cost us a million little compromise along the way, but now we can feel the real tax of it. To know what it's like to wake up in a life and feel trapped, it's complicated. That there's no good decision or easy way out. Are we supposed to just sell it all and move to the country? I think they got the issues, I'm sure of it. Cell phones, y'all. And I know I'm like, this is mid-life moment. I'll try and like connect to the rest of you in a second. The whole world, we know. It's not, we know these phones are destroying our kids. We know it. We can see that mental health and addiction and all this stuff is just like spiked since 2010, 2012. And they've controlled for every, they know that it's the phones. They know that it's social media. And yet both of my kids have phones because I want them connected with their friends and not left out. And I make it, but then you see the anxiety and the depression creep up and the boundaries and the rules and the negotiate and you go, how did we get here? Is there any way out? There's some of us who are dating people in our 20s or late 20s or early 30s. And you know, this isn't the person for you, but you're on a timeline and you feel the pressure of everybody to check the boxes at the certain time to get the certain thing done. And you feel like I can't look at that right now. I know this isn't right. This isn't the right person, but I gotta keep moving forward. You get offered the job that you know you don't wanna take, that you don't resonate with or don't love, but it's too good of an opportunity to turn down. Everybody around you says, my God, why would you not take that? Look at the pay, the comp. We need to be a part of this group of people. And so we're gonna stretch ourselves to get into that club or into that neighborhood only to fill our lives with so much stress and anxiety that we end up hating each other. There's a thousand ways that we make our lives unnecessarily complicated. Wake up feeling trapped with impossible options. That's why when I read this text, I think deep down, I just sort of empathized with Herod. I was like, we are Herod. I know what it's like to be a, I thought I was throwing a party for all, and here we are, and what am I supposed to do? I have no good options. One of my seminary professors said that we make big grand statements about the scripture, about its inspiration and the rest, but like experientially, why do we really trust the Bible? Why do we read it? Why does it have the force it has in our life? And one of the things he said is that because when we read the Bible, we discover that it knows the truth about us. And when we see that the Bible and these texts and these stories and these accounts knows the truth about us, it leads us to trust that it might tell us the truth about God and about who we ultimately are. And so most of the time when people come to this text in the gospel passage, they look at it and they go, what is the truth that's on display here for us? And the truth is often centered in the martyrdom of John, the first martyr of the church. He goes even before Jesus does. And the truth that's on display is that there's a cost to discipleship. There's a cost to living in the way of Jesus. It costs John his very life. It will cost Jesus his as well. We shouldn't be surprised, as the church has told us for 2000 years, if the world rejected John and Jesus, don't be surprised if you get rejected as well. You will be treated in the same ways. There is a cost to following Jesus. Imagine if John in this moment or Herod in this moment had tried to follow the inner whisper of the spirit of God that was working his life. What would it look like? It would have looked like him some very real cost losing face in front of all of these powerful people, not delivering on the request of a child, the scorn of his new wife, the very likely opportunity that this party dies and so does his rule. And then when the next ruler comes in, who knows what happens to his neck? There is a cost to living in the way of Jesus, but here's what I think is also right there for us to see, is that there's also a profound cost to living a self-directed life, right? There is a profound cost to just go and I will decide, I will lean on myself in my own intuition and wisdom and decision and every decision I make about my life. There's a cost to that sort of self-directed life. It looks like Herod, think about this, the most powerful guy in the room turns out to be the weakest. The one with the most wealth feels the most poor. The one who seems to have the deepest connections and know the most people, turns out to be the most isolated and alone. There's this sense of which there's a power that's actually weakness, there's a wealth that's poverty, there's a belonging that's loneliness. This is what it looks like when you lead a self-directed life. And so if we zoom out just a little bit, we see why maybe Mark is telling us this story and when he's telling it and how he's telling it and just a few verses before. This is the text that Sam so powerfully preached on last week, but in the few verses before, John gives us this like foil, this comparison. Before, and I'll just read the next word, this is also from Mark six, just a few verses earlier, we get the account of Jesus sending the 12 disciples out in power. The next story is about the most powerful man in the world who seems not to have any power at all on his own party. Jesus has two kinds of power in this life and he goes, I'm gonna send my disciples out with real authority and power. And these are the instructions he gave them. I don't think you need a lot of equipment for this. You are the equipment. No special appeals for funds, keep it simple. You don't need a mountain of money in this life, leave it behind. No luxury ends, get a modest place, be content there until you leave. Chasing luxury will leave you dissatisfied and angry your whole life. You wanna follow me, you wanna have real authority and power in this life. Find a simple life and be content. If you're not welcomed in a room, if you're not listened to, quietly withdraw. Don't make a scene, shrug your shoulders and be on your way. You don't need the approval of others, leave it behind. You don't have to be the most liked and beloved person in the room. This is where real authority and power comes from and it says, and then they were on the road and they preached with joyful urgency that life can be radically different. You got a foil, a contrast, a group of people who don't have any of the things that Herod has that all of us are chasing and are trapped by, who seem to have real authority in this life in a true sense of belonging and then you get a picture of the most powerful person in their world who seems devoid of it all. Jesus says the good news to us today is that the things that you are trapped by that have complicated your life that make your days feel impossible or unnecessary. You don't need them. You don't need that address that you think you need. Your kids don't need to be in that school. You don't need your vacations to look like their vacations. You don't need the approval of people who don't love mercy and forgiveness and compassion. Herod didn't need this stuff either. He didn't need the approval of those CEOs in general sitting with him at that table. He didn't need the approval of this wife that he legitimately had. He didn't even need to be the ruler that he was. He didn't need any of these things. His life had become a curse chasing it. There was freedom being offered here. This Danish philosopher who's written so powerful about so much, but probably at the center of his life and philosophy, this guy, Soren Kierkegaard, said that purity of heart is to will one thing. Purity of heart is to will one thing. And so he would spend his whole life asking people, do you know what your life is about? Do you will one thing and do you know what the one thing is? Jesus is making a similar invitation to us. Like you can chase a thousand things in this life and lose yourself along it, or you can make your life about this one thing, right? It raises the question, especially in a city like ours. Like, does anyone do that? Does anyone do that? Does anybody live that simple life of trust? I mean, it feels impossible. I heard Richard Roar talking about visiting this Buddhist monastery and he's meeting with the abbot who oversees the thing and he says, how many enlightened people do you think there are in the world? Like in the whole world right now, people who have been free from this game that we're playing and the abbot said, I don't know, maybe a dozen, maybe a thousand in all of human history. And Richard Roar said that the tragedy here is not that those of us who are trapped with all of this stuff, it's not that we're loved any less by God. It's not that Herod was loved any less by God than John, it's just that we don't enjoy it. It's just that we don't get to experience it. We're so distracted by this other stuff. And so this morning, the invitation, the warning, the good news is that it's not too late. It doesn't matter how old you are, how deep in you find yourself. It's not too late to sort of hand the keys back over, to rest in a life of trust that promises real authority in this life and contentment and true belonging where you don't have to make a life for yourself, but you simply rest in the goodness of God's direction. May we have the courage to receive that freedom again today. No matter how stuck we feel, as God is offering us a way out. The name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit. Amen. - Thank you for joining today. If this episode has been meaningful to you, would you take a moment to share it with a friend? To support this ministry or learn more about our community, visit us at churchonmorgan.org. (gentle music) (gentle music) (gentle music) (soft music) [BLANK_AUDIO]