Pentecost VII - these powers are at work in him

"...these powers are at work in him."

So much one could comment on in this week's Gospel! Salome and the dance of the seven veils! Well, that's Matthew, not Mark, and not really Matthew but Oscar Wilde or Richard Strauss. But. Where were we?

It is continuous reading (following after last week) in Mark, but it's another of what scholars call a 'Markan sandwich'. We think we're on our way to being told a certain narrative when we stop, have an aside, and then return to what we were following and where we had been going, only changed by the encounter.

Where were we?

It happened earlier with those two stories of healing -- Jesus was on his way to heal the young daughter of the prominent person when that narrative came to a halt when someone reached out and touched him. The one story became a commentary on the other, and a greater opening into the mystery was revealed.

So, today: Jesus has sent out the disciples. They're healing people and proclaiming that the divine mystery and reality is Now, not later or elsewhere, and that we should all repent and turn to what gives and reveals that abundant life. Pretty innocuous, yes? Apolitical?

People are talking about this. They're wondering what it all means, and where this power to heal comes from. Not everyone likes the disruption. The nervous puppet-king, Herod, is particularly compelled to understand what this power is, what his relationship is to it, and what it more widely implies. Friend or foe?

So we get the fascinating backstory of the martyrdom of John the Baptist. By Luke's tradition, John was Jesus' cousin/relative, and has been called 'the forerunner' by tradition. John's actions are seen to prefigure and set the stage for Jesus. In Mark, John is simply a powerful prophetic voice (crying in the wilderness!), and shortly before Jesus begins his own public work of healing and teaching, we are told that John has been arrested. We aren't told why in the narrative at that point.

But, fast-forward to today's section, and we stop 'the story of the disciples of Jesus healing people' to tell that John was arrested by Herod because John was telling Herod he was unrighteous, and should repent.

Apparently, proclaiming the kingdom of God has political implications, and the puppet-kings of this world are easily threatened when someone who has little to lose tells them to mend their ways. Inherently political. Oh, sure: it starts with healing the sick -- who could object!? -- but where does it end? With a prophet making plain the immorality of unfettered power that has made its own deal with the Empire to stay in luxurious, exploitative, willful self-indulgence? That's the brief Markan picture here. (Do a deeper wikipedia dive on the Herodians if you want more...)

Still, Herod is said to like listening to John. Feminists would rightly point out that the narrative looks to deflect blame for John's execution away from Herod and onto The Woman. It's a nasty, infighting, accustomed to the luxurious fruits of ill-gotten exploitative wealth sort-of-family. Sound familiar?

We also read from the book of Amos today, matched with this Gospel reading. Amos was a prophet, bringing the word of the Lord to the powerful (centuries earlier). He was not well received. He sets himself up as a bit of a political performance artist, holding a carpenter/builder's plumb line next to walls, to indicate that the house of the Body Politic is not being built or repaired well, and that it will crumble and everything the people know about their world will come to an end.

Prophets do not foretell the future. They 'read the signs of the age,' as Jesus tells his followers to learn to do. They tell the truth. They are not always easy people to have around. And, their work will get them killed when it intersects with the ways of the self-indulgent and shamelessly powerful.

This truth-telling and truth-incarnating is a source of incredible, miraculous power -- it disregards whimsical rulers and is not cowed by death. It has known the truth, and has thus been set free. It is this power that is at work when we follow where it leads and join in its proclamations, in word and deed.

We hear all this in 'an aside to you, dear Reader' sort of way. But, it's a commentary on what the disciples are doing: proclaiming that divine reality is now, and is for us, and seeing this reality and coming to know it better causes both reckoning and healing.

Proclaiming the kingdom of God among us has very real 'political' implications, particularly when we learn to read the signs of our times. As the psalmist writes: mercy and truth have met together; righteousness and peace have kissed each other. And, that's a scary, powerful, transforming thing to proclaim, for those disciples then, and for us, now. Yet, they are given power to do so, and so are we.

For this reason these powers are at work in Him.