Undignified

The New Revised Standard Version The Death of John the Baptist

14 King Herod heard of it, for Jesus’ name had become known. Some were saying, “John the baptizer has been raised from the dead; and for this reason these powers are at work in him.” 15 But others said, “It is Elijah.” And others said, “It is a prophet, like one of the prophets of old.” 16 But when Herod heard of it, he said, “John, whom I beheaded, has been raised.”

17 For Herod himself had sent men who arrested John, bound him, and put him in prison on account of Herodias, his brother Philip’s wife, because Herod had married her. 18 For John had been telling Herod, “It is not lawful for you to have your brother’s wife.” 19 And Herodias had a grudge against him, and wanted to kill him. But she could not, 20 for Herod feared John, knowing that he was a righteous and holy man, and he protected him. When he heard him, he was greatly perplexed; and yet he liked to listen to him. 21 But an opportunity came when Herod on his birthday gave a banquet for his courtiers and officers and for the leaders of Galilee. 22 When his daughter Herodias 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.” 23 And he solemnly swore to her, “Whatever you ask me, I will give you, even half of my kingdom.” 24 She went out and said to her mother, “What should I ask for?” She replied, “The head of John the baptizer.” 25 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.” 26 The king was deeply grieved; yet out of regard for his oaths and for the guests, he did not want to refuse her. 27 Immediately the king sent a soldier of the guard with orders to bring John’s head. He went and beheaded him in the prison, 28 brought his head on a platter, and gave it to the girl. Then the girl gave it to her mother. 29 When his disciples heard about it, they came and took his body, and laid it in a tomb.

Intro- Undignified

I think one of the best attributes of a good youth pastor is to have a very high threshold for public embarrassment.

I was once pushed in to the Ohio River down at the point dressed up as a nerd.

(It didn’t require much of a costume…)

I once ordered a milkshake during the lunch rush at Chick-Fil-A dressed as a banana, while my partner in crime waited behind me dressed in a gorilla costume.

We once got our entire youth group banished from the swimming area at a Christian Music Festival for playing too rough on the floating playground.

I’ve had more pies thrown in my face than I can count.

I’ve raced people through convention centers on tricycles for free prizes.

And just about every time, we get the same results:

Teenagers that are totally red-faced with embarassment that yes in fact we are their leaders...

And a well-cultivated reputation that no matter where we go, we are always “that” group.

A reputation that I’m excited to say is starting to take hold here at JLTM too!

And believe it or not, my rather undignified behavior is not a bug of the Christian faith.

It’s a feature!

So today, we’re going to talk about the right way to be undignified.

Bible Breakdown: Dueling Texts

Undignified Daughter- The Story of Herod

Yes, this story is as creepy as it sounds.

It’s got this weird kind of Game of Thrones vibe to it.

Herod is the “King”.

By that, he’s really a regional governor that had been put their by Ceasar.

It’s really a honorary kind of title, there’s nothing that Herod can do without calling Rome up and checking in with them first.

So when Mark opens this particular story by calling him “King Herod,” he’s absolutely and totally taking a dig at the king.

He’s almost got the “air quotes” going on around the word.

The Bible is a great many things, and one of them is subversive.

But thinking that he is a king with limitless power, Herod goes ahead and steals his brother’s wife from him.

We get no indication that Philip had actually died.

Herod just saw something he liked, so he took her!

John the Baptist, being a prophet who is very much not ashamed to speak truth to power, tells Herod that stealing his brother’s wife is not such a great idea.

It’s undignified.

So Herod throws John in jail.

Perplexed, but listening

What’s interesting is how Herod keeps John in jail.

Usually when a king or a governor like Herod has a problem with one of his subjects, they’re killed on the spot.

Herod instead throws John in prison, because the text tells us something that we might want to pause on for a second:

Herod was greatly perplexed, yet he liked to listen to him.

For whatever reason, Herod can’t get rid of what John’s saying.

I imagine that each and every day that John’s in prison, he’s speaking against this marriage between Herod and the confusingly named Herodias.

Despite that, Herod keeps showing up to hear it.

Let this be a warning to us:

Even when a message is challenging to us,

Even when it pushes against our assumptions about the way the world works,

If it’s true, it’s worth listening to.

Too often we want to dismiss or discredit something that stands outside our view of the world.

But even Herod, drunk on power as he is, just can’t let the truth go, even if he disagrees with it.

Real power: Jesus vs. Herod.

So Herodias’ daughter comes in and dances, and yep it’s as creepy as you want your imagination to let you run with.

But because Herod is a puppet king, we constantly see him in scripture making these big pronouncements of whatever power he thinks he has.

So he offers this girl up to half his kingdom (which he may or may not be able to give away) for her striptease.

She asks mom what she should ask for, and again with the Game of Thrones stuff, mom asks for John’s head on a platter.

A few things to notice about this story:

1) It serves as a precursor to Jesus’ execution.

Herod is kind of like Pilate, he doesn’t want to kill John.

Herod, kind of like Pilate, is afraid of what the crowds will do if he refuses them.

And then in the end it’s the disciples that come and look after their leader’s body.

2) Mark is trying to compare what Herod thinks power is, and what Jesus knows power is.

Remember that this story starts with Herod hearing about the healing and curing tour that Jesus and the disciples were on from our story last week.

Jesus has given power and authority and freedom to his disciples.

And those disciples use that power and authority and freedom to heal and cure folks.

Herod thinks he has power, but really doesn’t.

What he has is an undignified lifestyle that’s pretending to be power.

Jesus knows he has power, and loves nothing more than to share it.

Real power is setting people free.

Real power is when we are healed of our worst instincts.

Real power is quiet, and yet effective.

Sidenote: Stuffy Presbyterians

I don’t know if you know this, but we Presbyterians have a bit of a reputation.

We’re frequently called the Frozen Chosen.

And whew boy does that nickname ever fit!

Undignified is not often a word that gets associated with us.

And I think the reason is that we (rightly) don’t want to be associated with the kind of undignified that Herod and his team are dealing in.

We don’t want to be associated with sin.

We don’t want to be associated with depravity.

We don’t want to be out of order.

So we have this reputation for a kind of stayed and stoic bend to us.

I wonder though, if there’s another way.

Undignified Dancer- David’s Dancing Shoes

The Ark of the Covenant- God’s Presence

This story starts off with the Ark of the Covenant.

You know, that thing that melts Nazi Faces in Indiana Jones.

The ark has been a kind of mystery object through our popular culture, but let’s see if we can break it down a little bit.

From Moses on through Joshua, the Israelites are a nomadic people.

They’re always on the move.

So they need their God to always move with them.

The Ark is this big chest

Inside are the tablets that Moses wrote the commandments on when he came down from the mountain.

There are two poles running through it on either side, so that four people could carry the ark.

In fact, there are very specific prescriptions in scripture for how the ark is to be carried.

They were super careful with is because it was seen as God’s throne.

If the Ark was with you, you were with God.

So the Ark often stayed in the capital city, but

Every time there was a war or a battle, the Israelites would bring the Ark with them, so that God went with them in battle.

Stolen, and then Forgotten

Israel is at war with the Phylistines, and the Ark is stolen.

You have to imagine what a big blow that is to these people.

The Ark isn’t just where the law is.

It’s not just a mascot.

This is the very presence of God.

So it raises some big questions.

If the ark is where God’s presence rests, and those guys just stole it from us, doesn’t that mean that God is no longer with us?

And if God is supposed to be with us when we have the ark, but those guys just whopped our butts in battle, does that mean God has rejected us?

What do we do now?

So when David is King, he makes it priority one to get the Ark back for his people.

And this is the story of it’s homecoming.

Kol Oz- With all his strength.

David, we learn in the Old Testament stories, is a very hands-on kind of King.

He doesn’t send people to get the ark. He goes with them to get it himself.

And he doesn’t just go to get it.

He worships.

Twice in the story we read that David was dancing with Kol Oz

It’s translated as “with all their might.”

But it has a meaning even deeper than our words can describe.

He’s giving every ounce of his being right now to this dance.

This is no half-hearted chicken dance at the end of a wedding reception.

This is passionate dancing!

And because it’s worship, he’s wearing a linen ephod.

This was the traditional garb of the priests from back in the day of Moses.

It was meant for ministering before the Lord and the Ark.

It is, however, not meant for dancing.

So, as has happened to me more than a few times I’m sure, his wife gets a little embarrassed.

Unlike Herod’s weirdness, David actually had a Romeo and Juliet style love for Michal, who was his political rival’s daughter.

But when she catches him dancing with all of his soul essentially in a Speedo, she has some words with him.

Essentially, she says, David you were quite undignified today.

When it comes to worshipping God, I will become even more undignified than this.

David’s response is beautiful.

He says I will make myself even more undigified than this.

You thought that was weird sweetie? Wait till you see what’s coming next!

Dancing in the streets in a Speedo has nothing on what I’m up to next.

But, and this is where it’s critical, David has a reason for being undignified.

He loves God.

He says “I wasn’t dancing for the ladies. I was dancing for God.”

Essentially he says I am so deeply passionate for both my God and my God’s people that it wakes something up in me.

And I’m just getting started.

And while both of these stories speak of something undignified, I think they’re two wildly different examples right?

So what do we do with those?

Application

Name the Awkward- Where are we the bad kind of undignified?

We’ve been doing this a lot lately

Looking back over the last bunch of sermons that we’ve done together, this is something that finds its way to most of them.

And maybe that’s a good bit depressing?

But I also know that from reading our Gospel lesson today that Herod didn’t wake up and make a bunch of super terrible choices.

The story we found ourselves in was a result of lots of tiny undignified decisions along the way.

And if we’re afraid of being the bad kind of undignified, it would help us to identify where we are not quite where we’d want to be.

Internal Inventory- Actually Write it Down

I have fallen more and more in love with the 12 step process that our friends in NA are working through, and one of my favorite phrases in their steps is that they will do a searching and fearless moral inventory.

Oh man I love that!

Searching and fearless!

I think they word it that way because we all know, whether we struggle with addiction or not, that if we start turning over the rocks in our soul, some pretty creepy stuff my crawl out.

But we need to do that so that we can name our own stuff.

The big thing that our friends in the 12 step program do is write all of it down.

They write down the bad stuff, the worst instincts, the character defects.

They also make sure to write down the virtues, the blessings, the good qualities that make them who they are.

I wonder what it would look like for each of us to do the same?

Through prayer to our God whose perfect love casts out fear and shame, I wonder if we could do a searching and fearless inventory of our lives?

Take some time in the next few weeks and sit with a piece of paper in a moment of confession.

And remember that God isn’t interested in such an activity so that we feel bad about ourselves.

God is interested in such an activity so that God can set us free.

Are we afraid of undignified worship?

Presbyterians are in fact allowed to show emotion.

A few years ago, one of the members of our praise team at my last church was diagnosed with Breast Cancer.

Anyone who has been through that can tell you that it’s exhausting on every conceivable level, emotional, spiritual, physical.

As we were singing in worship, I think it all just hit her at the same time, and she broke down crying in the middle of worship.

We got through the set, and while we were sitting in the back of the sanctuary she came up and said “I’m so sorry, that was such a mess.”

And I responded to her with something I have said to so many people since: It turns out that Presbyterians are allowed to have emotions.

We don’t have to be handling snakes or anything.

Maybe you’ve had a bad experience with anything even remotely looking like emotion in a worship service.

There are people that put on a show of emotions, as if they were acting a part.

There are people who insist that those of us who aren’t putting on that kind of show are somehow less in love with Jesus, and that’s patently ridiculous.

There are some people who even handle live snakes during worship, and I’m not down with that at all.

There are lots of bad examples of this kind of undignified worship that are out there, but there’s one thing I hope those bad examples don’t hold us back from:

Desiring connection.

I think the worship experiences that I have loved the most in my life are the ones where I’m having an actual, vital, and direct connection with Jesus.

Those are the moments that I’m not so much worried what everyone around me is seeing or experiencing with God.

I’m having my own experience, and I don’t much care how undignified it might be.

Because, I think like David there’s a vital piece of the puzzle:

We get undignified because we’re in love.

I’m not interested in a lot of different kinds of Jesus:

Jesus the idea

Jesus the moral code

Jesus the weapon

But I am interested, in fact I’m in love, with Jesus the person.

I am in love with Jesus the Person who meets with me regularly through my times of prayer and worship.

I am in love with Jesus the Person who seems to think I’m worth it enough to give himself up for.

I am in love with Jesus the Person who keeps reminding me of the best way to live, no matter how stubbornly I try to forge my own path.

I can’t imagine how boring it would be to worship an idea, or a moral code, or some kind of weapon.

But loving Jesus Christ, God made flesh, who has the power to heal? That’s where the good stuff is.

Can we all say that?

There’s a story in the Gospels where the resurrected Jesus shows up to Peter, who has freshly denied even knowing Jesus three times.

Jesus just does what Jesus does, quietly asking a question of Peter.

“Peter, do you love me?” (x3)

Peter gets a little annoyed that Jesus keeps asking, but Jesus keeps asking.

I wonder if today Jesus is asking us the same question:

Jason, do you love me?

Charlene, do you love me?

Bob, do you love me?

And if we’re really in love, if we’re really in deep, let’s let it all go.

Let’s live a life of deep worship.

Let’s live a life of deep mission and justice.

Let’s live a life of deep healing.

Who cares how undignified it might be.