Pentecost 6

2 Samuel 6.1-5, 12b-19
Psalm 24
Ephesians 1.3-14
Mark 6.14-29

We have an odd collection of lessons today. The OT and gospel lessons are both about resentful women. Saul’s daughter despises David who arguably outshone her father as king. Herod’s wife resents John the Baptist for criticizing her marriage. In between them is this gentle and urgent message from Ephesians about how much God loves us. If I as preacher, were a contestant on iron chef, these lessons would be analogous to me being presented with a trout, a dozen lemons and a bag of ice as the ingredients for a meal.
May I suggest that the OT and gospel lessons could be about the inevitable consequences of claiming divine inspiration or divine mandate? No matter how many people support or agree with your claims, you are guaranteed to scare some people with them and arouse the disagreement of others, if not in your own time, at some point in the future. All of these folks will try to prove you wrong and sometimes they will be right. David in today’s Old Testament lesson gets off fairly easy. He becomes a legendary leader with some notable moral imperfections. John the Baptist does not fare so well. John is a prophet – an astute moral critic of his place and time who claims a divine mandate to take his critique out into the world and try to change it. Herod is certainly one of the targets of his criticism. Strangely enough, he likes to listen to John. Who knows what emotional or intellectual kinship could exist between the two of them – maybe the mutual understanding of two guys with unpleasant jobs they can’t get out of doing?
Herod is duped into ordering John’s execution when John’s moral critique touches on Herod’s marriage and his wife takes offense. Messengers get killed all the time. The ones whose honesty and courage suggest divine inspiration drives their work seem to get killed particularly often.
The information we have about Saul and David from the Bible makes claims on their behalf for divine inspiration or mandate. Did their actions do justice to that claim? There are probably some who would argue that David’s legacy is comparable to that of Jesus or Mohammed. And there are Christians who would be very angry that I would even say that out loud.
The General Convention of the Episcopal Church meeting in Anaheim right now is arguing over what it means to do God’s will. The big fight right now is how we’re going to treat gay and lesbian members of the church – will they will be accorded the same access to all of the sacraments as other baptized persons or does their manner of life present sufficient challenge to some members of the church as to warrant their exclusion from marriage and ordination? Persons on both sides of that argument have made claims that their position is supported by the teachings of the gospel. And persons on both sides believe their opinions and actions are inspired by God. What are the consequences of making such a claim?
Some of you know that one of the initiatives funded by the grant we received a few months ago from the Kemper Foundation was to create a tour guidebook for St. Mary’s. That book is close to being handed over to the printer and it came to mind when I was considering this question. The book contains color photos of all of our windows along with descriptions of their content and some information about the people who gave them and in whose honor they were given. One of our most eye-catching windows is the last rectangular one in the north balcony – which most people seem to call the “sled dog” window. Everyone wants to know who that guy is – and why a midwestern church has a window with a dog musher on it. The man in the picture is an English Archdeacon named Hudson Stuck. He was a missionary in Alaska and the Yukon between about 1895 and 1920. He had no connection with St. Mary’s except that the parishioner in whose honor the window was given was a supporter of the church’s overseas missionary work and was particularly interested in his. Archdeacon Stuck traveled around what is now the state of Alaska and the Yukon territory of Canada. You can imagine him providing food and clothing and health care along with spiritual care for the small, far flung and diverse population across a large area of land. No doubt in his day and time he would have been considered divinely inspired and doing the Lord’s work. I don’t know a lot of the details of his day to day activity or the inner workings of his mind. But given where and when he undertook his mission, you would have to allow for the possibility that he was also engaged in what we now call the sin of racism against the aboriginal peoples he was called to convert to Christianity. I don’t imagine we will ever know for certain whether that is true, but even if we discovered that it was, we’re not going to smash that window. It’s part of the story of who we are as a parish and as a larger church.
Two windows to the right of the sled dog window you see a scene in which people are gathered around a sick person’s bed. The subject of the window is a group of people known as the Martyrs of Memphis. When an epidemic of yellow fever struck the city in 1878, more than half of the city’s population fled, including many medical personnel and clergy. Those who remained behind were too old, too poor or already too sick to travel. A group of nuns and priests, who had the option to leave, remained in the city to care for the sick. When the epidemic ended, only 800 of the 21,000 persons who had remained during the epidemic were still alive. The dead included all but one of the group who are memorialized in our window. In their place and time they claimed a divine mandate and made a very clear moral statement about the availability of health care to all who need it. Our General Convention is dealing with a resolution that we hope will make health insurance more affordable to parishes that provide it to their clergy. This discussion takes place against the backdrop of our national debate over health care - if and how we will assure its availability to all who need it.
The last rectangular window before the tower in the north balcony and the last one on the right in the south balcony tell us about the unintended consequences of political and governmental claims of divine mandate. The window on the north side shows Archbishop William Laud emerging from his cell in the Tower of London on the way to his execution. He was a high churchman who supported an unpopular king who was also a high churchman. When England’s pendulum swung in an evangelical direction, the adherents of that position not only gained control of the church, but of the government as well. When those whose past claims of divine mandate fall out of favor or out of power, those who come after them have to gain control of the present and they have to figure out how to change God’s mind in the past tense. Frequently, like Herod’s wife, they simply mow down whatever reminders exist of God’s supposed prior opinion. William Laud and his king were casualties of such action.
On the south side, is a window representing Samuel Seabury, first bishop of the Episcopal Church of the United States. Many of you know his story. At the end of the revolutionary war, Anglicans in the United States were in trouble. There was no model for our church except that which existed in England and its colonies. There were no bishops in our new nation. Bishops in England were unwilling to ordain them and, in any case, American bishop could not swear the required oath to the British crown. Among the founding principles of the new country was one which outlawed such ties between religion and government. The church had to set aside its past beliefs and claims that religion and government ought to go hand in hand if it hoped to survive. The priest Samuel Seabury, was put on a boat to Scotland where three bishops agreed to ordain him. He made it there and back safely and the new church once again had the leadership it needed to maintain its identity. And only a few years later, Seabury was arguing with his brother bishops – whose ordinations he had brought about – over the location for the General Convention and which of them would be the presider at its meetings. Some things never change.
I don’t pretend to have any answers about the truth or wisdom of claims for divine mandate. It seems we only know whether those claims are true in hindsight – long after the claimants are dead and gone and it is left to others to deal with the consequences of their actions. Given that knowledge, it seems wise at least to be cautious about making such claims and instead focus on the blessings offered to us and the sacrifices made on our behalf that the Epistle lesson reminds us of – in particular, that Christ’s plan for us is brought about and known in the fullness of time. If that is true, then what we or anyone else does in our time and place ought to be considered with thoughtfulness and generosity of spirit and but also with the understanding that it is our best judgment based on the information we have at hand. As the text from Ephesians reminds us, we are to be a people of forgiveness, grace and generosity; we are a people of promise, rather than perfection. With those gifts in mind, we gather as community to find out way in our own place and time.