Sermon, by Pastor Joel
Eighth Sunday After Pentecost
July 14, 2024
Amos 7:7-15
Psalm 85:8-13
Ephesians 1:3-14
Mark 6:14-29
(The context of this sermon is 100%
written by a human)
What is the line between duty and honour? It’s clearly a question that concerns us, since it’s been long-debated among humans. Indeed, it was the core question of last’s year Best Picture winner, Oppenheimer. The American scientist J. Robert Oppenheimer surely did his duty, building the atomic bomb – and quite likely saving the world from a much longer war. But was his decision honourable? That was a question Mr. Oppenheimer wrestled with all his life.
Throughout history, humans have tricked themselves to ignore honour for the sake of duty. But the space between duty and honour is similar to the distance between law and grace. We rarely live simply in one or the other.
Now John the Baptist, who is certainly, to my mind, one of the most honourable men of the Bible, was always getting himself into trouble. He told it like it was. And that made people not like him so much.
He wasn’t shy about laying down the line between duty and honour, and busting up a lot of rules people were all too happy to follow back then. Duty was fine – important even – to John. It is what laid out your obligation to one another.
But the gospel, and Jesus who was coming, were adding the better part of it -- the honour of doing the right thing -- not out of duty, but because it is the right thing. John made a lot of people uncomfortable – mostly the people enjoying the benefits of everyone else below them doing their duty.
This morning’s gospel has several examples of the conflict between duty and honour. First, we hear that there is tension between Herod and John because Herod’s wife, Herodias, doesn’t like John. She is perhaps understandably threatened by John because he is telling Herod that his marriage to Herodias is invalid. Herod has married his brother’s wife, while his brother was still alive. John, understandably, objected.
Herodias wants to make sure that John the Baptist stays out of her way. She waits for the appropriate time at a party where her daughter wins a good will gesture from Herod in front of all the guests. The daughter asks for the head of John the Baptist.
And suddenly Herod is caught in his promise – he is trapped by his oath. We are told, clearly, that he wasn’t happy about it: he was deeply grieved. But out of a sense of obligation – to his family and guests -- he acquiesces. This is where the line between duty and honour sometimes blurs – for while keeping a promise is honorable, surely keeping a bad promise is not.
But Herod made his choice, and John was beheaded in prison, and his head served on that now famous platter – giving us our saying. In an instant, John the Baptist becomes the scapegoat for disorder in Herod’s life.
How can we know the difference, and make the choice for ourselves? As we saw in the story, Herod, on his own, would have had trouble getting rid of John the Baptist even if he’d wanted to. But the voices around him helped push him along, gave him an out, an excuse. How often do we suffer those same voices – ones that confuse or distract us, tear down our self-esteem, make us hesitant to act? It may be our families, as in Herod’s case. But it is often the messages of society that work the same inside all of us.
How many of us have kept our heads down from the truth that lies in front of us? We would do well to listen to the Psalmist who invites us to “lift up our heads, so that the King of glory may come in.”
Duty without honour often becomes the mistake we most regret. It was that for Oppenheimer. And for Herod as well, who thought he had handled the problem with a simple command until he hears about the growing authority of Jesus among the masses. He says: “John, whom I beheaded, has been raised.” His dishonourable act had solved nothing but, in fact, created more problems, beyond the weight on his own soul.
Herod had people to blame – his wife, his daughter, the pressure of his position. But be careful with scapegoating; in the end, it rarely assuages our own queasiness about the choices we have made.
And the problem with Herod’s story is that it is clear to us: of course, Herod should have broken his oath and refused to a do a dishonorable thing. (Let’s remember, he probably wasn’t all that sad to dispatch John, who was bound to cause trouble with the existing order.) Our choices may be less clear: we might say, just this one time won’t hurt; it’s not that big a deal. But like small lies, small dishonorable acts get easier the more they happen.
And so we have the choice, from Jesus, to walk in the space between duty and honour, law and grace – not bound to either, but with the free will to adapt our lives to the right choice in every minute. In this way we are able to live guided by duty defined by honour and shaped by law and balanced by grace. We can say, yes, I made a promise, which is law, but in this case, that promise has proven to be hurtful, which defies grace. I will follow the rules until the rules that favour law at the expense of grace. We can say my duty is to my family, to my community and to my church – but that duty itself must always meet the standard of honour.
May we choose this life of complexity that John revealed to us, and Jesus showed to us. That is the dutiful, honorable life, guided by law, but shaped by grace. Amen
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