Grotesque

Scripture: The Twelfth Sunday after Pentecost (Lectionary 22), A.D. 2014 A

Sermon:

Grace, mercy and peace to you from God our Father and from our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.  AMEN.

This past Friday, the Church commemorated the Decollation of St. John the Baptist—decollation being a polite term for beheading. You may remember the story from a few weeks back.

John the Baptist was Jesus’ kinsman and forerunner. He was the prophesied voice crying out in the wilderness, “Make straight the paths of the Lord!” He spent his entire life, even before birth, heralding the arrival of Jesus Christ. As soon as the Virgin Mary learned from the angel Gabriel that she was with child, she traveled to the house of her kinswoman Elizabeth, who was six months pregnant at the time. The moment Mary entered her home, the child within Elizabeth’s womb—the babe who would be John—leapt for joy at the arrival of the Christ.

This has traditionally been upheld as the moment that Jesus called His cousin John, with the Holy Spirit reaching out from womb to womb. Ever since then, everything that John did was understood to be a precursor of Jesus’ own ministry. John was born first, began his ministry first, baptized Jesus in the River Jordan, suffered imprisonment first, and died first. The beheading of John seems to shake Jesus deeply, for He immediately withdraws to pray, and His ministry here reaches a turning point. Surely much of our Lord’s sorrow had to do with the loss of His kinsman. But Jesus also realizes that John’s death is a prophecy of His own Crucifixion. The Decollation of St. John presages the Cross drawing nigh.

Now, being something of a social media addict, I posted a picture online in honor of the Decollation: a Renaissance era painting of John’s beheading. Unfortunately I also like to be something of a wiseacre, so I added the caption: “The Decollation? Today? I haven’t a head for dates.” Yes, a little gallows humor on my part. Anyway, this kicked up something of a fuss amongst my fellow clergy. They considered it to be in poor taste, given the vicious and ongoing extermination, including beheadings, of Christians in Iraq at the hands of ISIS and other terrorist groups. I confess that I had not made this connection. The Decollation of St. John, after all, has held the same spot on the Church calendar for centuries, bad taste or no. And so, in the interests of not kicking up too great a fuss, I took the painting down.

But then I began to ruminate on the whole affair. What exactly had people objected to? Were they upset that the Church dedicates a day to remembering someone’s beheading? Or did they take offense to the Church refusing to sanitize said beheading, pretending that it was something clean and gentle? The portrayal had been fairly gruesome for a 400-year-old painting, but by modern standards there didn’t seem much need to clutch at pearls. Was I not to acknowledge the martyrdom of John because Christians are once again dying for our faith? I wonder, then, what else should we allow ISIS to censor for us? They do crucify people, after all. Shall we then get rid of our crosses and crucifixes for fear of offending someone, somewhere?

In truth, the Church has never shied from gory imagery. We have always meditated upon Jesus’ Passion and death. The very symbol of our faith is an instrument of execution. Cathedrals the world over are festooned with gargoyles and grinning skulls. Is this for the sake of voyeurism, plain and simple? Are Christians the historical equivalent of modern horror movie fans? I think not. No, it has less to do with sensationalism and more to do with what Jesus teaches us about honor and shame in our Gospel reading this morning.

You’ll remember from last week that Jesus had taken His disciples to the far north of the Holy Land, to the pagan shrine-city of Caesarea Philippi. Here he had revealed to them that He is, in fact, the prophesied Son of Man, the divine Christ come to set the world aright, and that even Rome itself shall come to believe in Him in time. But now He has to explain to the disciples exactly what it means that Jesus is the Christ. Like their forefathers stretching back hundreds of years, Jesus’ Apostles expect the Christ to be a great warrior—a conquering hero come to smash the seemingly unbeatable armies of Rome and to liberate God’s people Israel as in ancient days. Just as Moses broke Egypt, as Cyrus crushed Babylon, as the Maccabees drove out the Greeks, so now, they believed, would the Christ drive the legions of Rome before Him. It would be glory, God, and gold, boys, all the way to the sea.

But no, Jesus says; that’s not how it will work at all. And He tells them the greatest of mysteries: that He, Jesus Christ, Son of Man and Son of God, must go to Jerusalem where He will undergo great suffering and humiliation at the hands high society. He will be ridiculed, shamed, and publically murdered in the sight of all. But then, on the Third Day—He will rise again. And Peter says what the rest are doubtless thinking: “God forbid it, Lord! This must never happen to You!” We haven’t been waiting around all these centuries just to have the Messiah go quietly into that dark night. Humiliation? Torture? Murder? What kind of a Christ is this? Indeed, what sort of a God is this?

Keep in mind that in the verses immediately preceding, Jesus had praised Peter as being inspired by the Holy Spirit, as the great Rock upon which He will build His Church. Now, roughly two minutes later, He says: “Get behind me, Satan! You are a stumbling block to Me; for you are setting your mind not on divine things but on human things!” (It’s even worse in Latin: Vade retro Satana! You can’t even say it without spitting.) Jesus then explains that in order to be His disciples, we must be willing to deny ourselves, take up our crosses, and lose our lives in order to save them. What does that mean, do you suppose? “I deny myself” is a self-contradictory statement.

Things make more sense in the context of Jesus and Peter’s exchange. In the ancient world, reputation was everything. Pagan societies clearly understood public perception to be the real you; it didn’t matter what happened in private, let alone in your heart. What mattered was what people said you did, what they remembered. The Middle East, then as now, was an honor-shame society. And what could be more shameful than crucifixion? Even God’s people Israel, who understood that inner morality trumped reputation, still identified themselves primarily by external markers: by family, clan, and tribe.

Jesus is saying that we must stop defining ourselves by such things. Deny those trappings that make you “you” to the outside world, things largely societal and ethnic. They enslave you. In exchange, Jesus promises a new family, a new community of cross-bearers, who stand fearless in the face of humiliation and scorn. This community in Christ—this ecclesia, this Church—knows the Truth, and the Truth shall set them free.

Truly ours is a God Who cares not for ridicule or shame. He is the Creator of all, Who so loved the world that He came down in the flesh, in the mud and the blood, as a helpless Baby, as a powerless Child, as a wandering Rabbi. And He came not to judge us or rule over us but to laugh and work and heal and teach and suffer and weep and bleed and die alongside us—as one of us. And He loved us so much that even as we murdered Him in the most awful way we could think of, He still proclaimed to us His love and forgiveness from the Cross. That’s how much God loves you. All the way to the Cross. All the way to Hell and back.

We may not think that Jesus’ lesson for Peter and the disciples has much to say for us today: we who do not define ourselves by clan; we who do not even know our extended families. But we are still tempted to believe that our public self is the real self, that our reputation is our reality. You can see this on Facebook, yes, with the constant push to whitewash one’s life and put one’s best foot forward. But we also experience it in everyday life, when our greatest fear—indeed, our only remaining sin—is offending some odd stranger. We seem to think that our emotions are Constitutionally protected, and that the worst violation is to upset someone. It’s offensive; it’s shameful; God forbid it, Lord! Better just to go with the flow.

Alas, the Cross is offensive. Indeed, the entire Incarnation, from cradle to grave, is deeply disturbing for the wilting lily of any sensitive soul. All of us, I suspect, know what it is to stifle our convictions for fear of offending people. This is not to say that offense in and of itself is some heroic act. Sometimes it just means that you’re a jerk. But let us be wary as to what defines us. Is the real me the one whom others see, who edits posts on Facebook, who takes down uncomfortable pictures? Or am I defined instead by the Cross of the Christ Who died for me—by a fearlessness and immunity to scorn born only of encountering Truth?

We’re all of us sinners, dear Christians. We’re all of us broken. And we all at times do things that are foolish, or shameful, or offensive. Such is life. Just remember, that’s not who you are. Just remember, that’s not Whose you are.

Thanks be to Christ Crucified, a foolishness to gentiles. In Jesus’ Name. AMEN.