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Sermons:
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Being a Prophet,
Mark 6:14-29; Amos 7:7-15
(see below)
by Rev. Karen A. Goltz
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When Power
Meets Power,
Mark 6:14-29,
by Rev. Rick Thompson
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Prophetic Imagination,
Amos 7:7-15 and Mark 6:14-29,
by Richard Gehring
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And David Danced With All His Might
2 Samuel 6:12-19,
by Rev. Thomas Hall
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The Dance of Joy,
Ephesians 1:3-14,
by Rev. Randy L Quinn
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A
Great . . .Affirmation About Our World, Eph. 1:3-14, by Thomas Hall
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Joyful
Service, Eph. 1:3-14, Mark 6:14-28, by Brad Hall
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What is our Mission? Eph 1, 3-14, by Dou Ting Didymus
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Time to Dance, 2
Samuel 6:1-5, 12b-19, Kerra from PA
Independence Day:
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Being a Prophet
based on Mark 6:14-29; Amos 7:7-15
by Rev. Karen A. Goltz
What does it mean
to be a prophet? What does it mean to prophesy? What does it mean for a
prophecy to be fulfilled?
John the Baptist is generally understood to be
a prophet. I know he didn’t call himself a prophet, but most people agree that
that’s pretty much what he was.
And what did he do, that makes his identity as
a prophet so clear? Well, he was the forerunner of Christ. His first quoted
words in Mark’s gospel are, “The one who is more powerful than I is coming after
me.” (Mark 1:7) He proclaimed a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of
sins. (Mark 1:4) In Matthew’s gospel he’s telling off the religious leaders who
came to be baptized, basically telling them to change their ways or else they’ll
seriously regret it. (Matthew 3:7-10) He’s doing all this even as Jesus himself
arrives for his own baptism. And not only did John condemn the religious
leaders for their actions, today’s gospel lesson tells us he also condemned a
king for his actions.
So John was a guy who got right in people’s
faces, getting into their private business and publicly rejecting the things
that were common practices in his day, because they were against the will of
God. And how did John know what was and was not the will of God? What gave him
the right? He knew the scriptures. The religious leaders, the Pharisees and
the Sadducees, were trusting in their lineage for their salvation. They were
descendents of Abraham, and that’s all they thought they needed. Never mind
God, or the ten commandments, or the Shema. The Shema is the section in
Deuteronomy (6:4-5) that begins: “Hear, O Israel: The Lord is our God, the Lord
alone. You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your
soul, and with all your might.” The Pharisees and the Sadducees had no love for
God, no respect for the spirit of the commandments. They had the right
bloodlines, and John called them on their hypocrisy.
And what about King Herod? What gave John the
right to condemn his actions? Again, John’s knowledge of the scriptures
gave him the right. And John applied the scriptures to Herod’s life. The full
story is that Herod had been married before, and he cast off his first wife for
Herodias. Herodias had also been married before, to Herod’s brother Philip, and
had cast him off so she could marry Herod. This violated several of the
commandments, and caused a lot of hurt feelings and animosity on the part of the
discarded spouses, not to mention the tension it must have created between the
two brothers. And the commandments’ whole purpose is to help people to be in
better relationship with each other and with God. Herod and Herodias destroyed
many relationships for the sake of their own.
Maybe you’re feeling a little uncomfortable
right about now. I know I am. This scenario I just described is a very common
one today. Two people find each other and fall in love, whether they meant to
or not, and realize they’d rather be married to each other than to the people
they’re already married to. That’s exactly what happened with my paternal
grandparents. Grampa Grimes met a woman he worked with who was also married,
and they fell in love. My grandfather divorced my grandmother, Helen divorced
her husband, and the two were married. And by all accounts theirs was a much
healthier union than my grandparents’ had been. But my grandmother never
recovered. When she died forty years later she was still suffering from the
shock, and the betrayal. [continue]
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