Finding Faith ... in setting aside fears to preach the gospel

EDITOR'S NOTE: In October 2017 I began a new venture as a synodically authorized minister at Faith Lutheran Church in Wolverton, Minn. The ride over the past 2.5 years has been an amazing journey of learning, growing and a deepening of my theological mind. This sermon took place on July 15, 2018.

I don’t find it coincidental this week that I was nudged to think more critically about just what it means for me to stand up here week after week and preach the Gospel to you. More so than I have in the previous nine months we’ve spent together.

I don’t know whether Bob, who is our council president as you know, just coincidentally pushed us into a philosophical discussion about preaching the Gospel on Wednesday night during our most recent council meeting. … I mean, maybe he had read forward to see what today’s Gospel was and decided it was a great opportunity for an academic discussion for all of our council members and I. … It’s entirely possible; we’ll have to ask him later.

… Or maybe … just maybe … it was the Spirit pushing Bob to help me dig deep to find some answers about my calling and what it means to stand before you on Sundays.

For those who weren’t there, our council had a terrific discussion about just where it is that the Gospel ends and politics begins. Or vice versa.

I think I know what Bob was trying to do. … He earnestly wanted us all to discuss what it means as a church to preach the Gospel … and maybe even what it means for us as Christians to live the Gospel. …

And we can see just how dangerous the Gospel is in today’s Gospel reading. ... Preaching the Gospel left John the Baptist imprisoned and eventually without a head. … And what exactly was it that John did to earn his punishments?

Well, first, he was imprisoned for his preaching about the arrival of the new Messiah. Despite the threats from the Roman government to silence him, he insisted on preaching that the new King of Kings, someone even greater than the Roman emperor, was born and walking the earth. He preached Jesus’s message and that angered enough people to earn him a reputation of being a rabble rouser.

But then, as if that wasn’t enough to tempt the powers that be … ol’ John just couldn’t leave the Gospel alone. ... It wasn’t enough for him to proclaim that Christ was king of all.

Oh no. … Next, he decided to pick a fight with someone in power. Maybe the person in the region with the most power. ... He decided to call out the immoral actions of Herod, who was the tetrarch of Galilee, or essentially a sub-king serving for the Roman Empire, who had divorced his wife Phasaelis and unlawfully took as a wife Herodias, who had been married to his brother.

You know the story from the Gospel. … In general Herod didn’t think John was such a bad guy, and in fact he even enjoyed hearing John preach about the Gospel. It intrigued the king. ... But then, John upset Herodias, and well, there’s the whole thing about saving face, and eventually even Herod succumbed to pressure and ordered John’s head be taken.

So, just ask John the Baptist about how dangerous it is to preach the Gospel.

As a matter of fact, ask any number of our biblical heroes about preaching the Gospel. John … or Jesus … or Paul … or the disciples … and I could go on. … They are all testaments to the fact that preaching the gospel helped them meet very undesirable ends.

During our discussion on Wednesday, the pinnacle for me was when Bob poignantly … but fairly … asked if I didn’t find it dangerous to preach the Gospel. ... If at times I didn’t find it uncomfortable to preach what I think the Gospel is calling me to preach. … If I didn’t find myself at times, pulling up short of the words I truly wanted to preach.

I answered truthfully, that, yes, certainly it is at time challenging to stand up here and preach what can be some uncomfortable topics. … After all, John in this week’s Gospel proved how dangerous it is. … Hey, even Jesus said in last week’s Gospel text that no rabbi … or preacher, if you will … ever receives a receptive audience in their own synagogue … or church in our context. … But I answered Bob in the only true fashion that I knew how: I told the council that I pray that I always find the courage to preach the Gospel as I am inspired by the Spirit to do so, and that I hope that the council wouldn’t want me in the pulpit if I didn’t.

And then I got in my car, and on the ride home, I started to replay the conversation in my head, and I thought: What did you just do?

Truthfully though, I am grateful for that very challenging conversation on Wednesday night because it was a critical teaching moment for this week’s Gospel. …. It made me think about my role and whether I walk the walk as a preacher on Sundays, but it also made me think about each of us in our daily lives, and whether we have the courage to boldly live a life based in the Gospel. … John did. … Paul did. … The disciples did. … And, of course, Jesus did. … And we can see how that ended for each of them.

So that you don’t think I’m making this lesson all about me, this discussion, in fact, applies to each of you as well. … Sure, I’m charged with taking our scriptures for the week and trying to make some contemporary sense of them. … I’m charged with taking a look at our actions as a church, as a community, as a nation, and seeing if they are aligning with what it is Christ asks us to do.

… But I think Bob’s question on Wednesday had more application than just helping me to question whether I am being the preacher that God has called me to be. … I think that question is applicable to each and everyone of us in our daily lives as well.

Because just as it’s not easy for me to stand up here and preach the Gospel at times, I also know that it’s not easy for you to live a life as a follower of Christ. … I know that behind every interaction with the people in your daily lives, there lurks the possibility that someone in power will ask for your head. … And that is a great challenge for each of us to live up to … but it’s what we are called to do anyway.

As theologian Walter Brueggemann has written: “The Gospel is a very dangerous idea. We have to see how much of that dangerous idea we can perform in our own lives. … There is nothing innocuous or safe about the Gospel.”

But take heart my friends, because the writers of our scripture know this task we are faced with. As you know, we are working through the Gospel of Mark, and today’s particular scripture tells the story of John’s beheading. … But study each of our Gospels and you will discover that Mark is the shortest of all of the Gospels. Some joke that it could be called the Cliff’s Notes version of the Gospels. Just the facts, ma'am. Just the facts. …. This happened. Then this happened. Then this happened. …. No flowery language that is found in the other Gospels. No filler stories. … Just, here’s Jesus’s life. Boom.

So what can we make of the fact that Mark, the court stenographer of the Gospel writers, would spend as much time on this story as he does? … As theologian Karoline Lewis points out: He must be trying to make a significant point dedicating 15 verses to the story of John’s beheading, when he doesn’t even use 15 verses to describe many of the parables!

So, I think what we can make of it is ... that our scriptural writers are telling us that they acknowledge that preaching the Gospel -- and living a life based on the Gospel -- is not easy, but ultimately the reward for living and preaching so courageously is worth it. …. After all, those in power here on this earth can take our head, but ultimately it’s not our life here on this earth that we are living for.

Now, I know what some of you may be thinking. … As you sit there, and I stand here, you’re looking at me thinking, “Well, that’s easy for you to say! You get paid to stand up there and preach the Gospel. It’s your job!”

And, I think you are absolutely correct: Maybe I can stand here and say more provocative things about the Gospel. ... Maybe I do get a license to test you and to challenge you. ... Maybe I do get a more lenient pass than you do.

But I will share with you that there is no small struggle each week when I stand up here and preach what I am hearing the Spirit tell me to preach. … In my own way, a bit of a gut check is always required, making me wonder whether I will upset someone enough that they will ask Bob for my head.

Even so, all of that aside, I think this week’s Gospel asks even more of you. … Yes, you heard me correctly: This week’s Gospel asks even more of YOU! ... Because, after all, it is you who goes forth from this church each Sunday, out into the greater world, where as a Christian you are expected to live a life according to the Gospel … a life that follows in Christ’s footsteps. … And while I may get somewhat of a pass standing up here as your preacher, you don’t.

You have to go forth from here every Sunday into a world that is skeptical, if not disdainful of the values espoused in the Gospels. You live nearly all of the time in a secular world that asks you to forgo your Christian values and adopt those of this earthly world.

And when you do have the audacity to live in a way that measures up to Christ versus choosing the ways of consumerism or superficiality, you are punished. … There are no shortage of people out there ready to ask for your head for espousing values supported in the Gospel. … And so each of you is put to the test each and every day. … And I don’t envy that challenge.

Comparatively, contrary to Bob’s worries on Wednesday night, I think I may have it easy. After all, if I say something up here that pushes the envelope, it kind of comes with the territory, right? I likely only have to worry about a possible uncomfortable conversation or two after the service.

But you, each of you, trying to live a Gospel-inspired life day to day in a world that is more in line with the Roman Empire than it is Christ’s Empire … now, there is the real challenge.

And so, if I could, I would offer to each of you to please take heart. Our God, and His Son, know the difficult path each of you walks. … We aren’t the first. … Not in the least. … Remember, there were Gospel writers who were addressing this very topic thousands of years ago.

And so, in those moments, when you feel the pressure of this world coming up against the expectation of God’s Kingdom … when the king is acting immorally and you feel compelled to call him out ... I urge you to take heart in the fact that our God knows the difficulties of this world, but offers you a reward worth the courage required to live a Gospel-filled life.

And thankfully for us, we are not required to walk this path alone. We have Jesus’s example and we have the Spirit alongside of us. ... So, take heart fellow Christians: In those moments when you face your trials, when God calls on you to live in the footsteps of Christ, we have a deeper courage to call on than this world has ever known.

And so my promise to you this week is that even in those moments when the Spirit is calling on me to tackle the most of difficult of topics up here, I will set aside my fears and preach what the Gospel is calling me to preach. …

And I encourage you to remember that when you are faced with those difficult situations here in your daily lives, the ones that pit you between the Gospel and earthy values, call on Christ’s courage … because he’s got more than enough for all of us, just as he did for John … and for Paul … and for the disciples.

And that is the Good News for this Sunday. … Amen.