No Heroes

2 Samuel 6:1-5, 12-19; Mark 6:14-29

There are no heroes in these stories.

Not in the David story today, not in the Herod story we just read.

There are bright moments, there are strong characters, there are tragedies and travesties and triumphs. But no actual heroes.

 

Herod’s story is just blatantly a Bad Example story. I don’t think Mark would want us to look for heroes in this story of the gratuitous, unnecessary murder of a prisoner, and its lingering sludge of guilt, resentment, and fear.

I think Mark tells it to us so that we can understand the politically and emotionally fraught environment in which Jesus and his disciples are working, as Jesus sends them out in pairs to heal and share good news.

 

But for all of our immediate clarity that beheading God’s prophets for personal gain is Obviously Wrong, this story is full of opportunities to get it right, and of people who want to be the hero of their own story, if not of God’s story.

 

Mark tells us plainly that Herod’s wife is holding a grudge and ready to destroy John.  But what we don’t know is if she’s convinced herself it’s the right thing to do to protect her husband and the country from a scandal that’s pulling focus away from actual governing, to make the messy situation she was dragged into somehow “better”. Or if she knows it’s wrong and doesn’t care.

Mark doesn’t give us any motivations for Herod’s daughter. So she, too, might be out for revenge – or she might be just trying to please her parents, keep peace in her family and maybe get some obvious recognition of her talents and her value – motivations familiar to many of us from our own adolescence or young adulthood.

 

And Herod – well, he’s obviously a man who does the politically expedient thing at every decision moment. But once he did the politically expedient thing of silencing his critic John by arresting him, Herod gives himself space for wonder, or curiosity, or hope. He makes time to listen to John’s preaching, in prison, intrigued by what John has to say about God, about being aligned with God. Herod’s made this little space, in his politically expedient life, for an exploration of holiness and faith and awe.

And then, confronted with the dilemma of either keeping his personal gateway to awe and hope, or looking strong and decisive in front of his politically sensitive guests – and proving himself to be a man who keeps his word, who can be trusted to do what he promises – Herod makes the clearly wrong choice to kill John, for reasons that look right, or right-ish to him in the moment.

 

And, well, I recognize that impulse. I recognize that kind of decision.

Not that I’ve ever had to decide whether someone lives or dies, but I know that I – and maybe you – have often had to make decisions where I choose something I know isn’t exactly right, or wise, because I want to keep a promise. Because I want to be a good friend, or because I have responsibilities and it seems like doing a kind of wrong thing now will make more important good things possible later.

I know that more than once in my life, I’ve sacrificed some of my own chances to get closer to God for some “good of the group”, or to some real or imagined responsibility.

I know how natural it is to fail to do the heroic thing, when choosing the wrong thing for some right (or right-ish) reasons – or the right thing for the wrong reasons – seems to make things easier, or simpler, or some kind of better, in the moment of decision.

And still, I’m glad I see in this story that glimpse of Herod’s wonder, and hope, and seeking out of faith, even if it’s shut down by the end of the story.

 

David’s story, as we heard it today, showcases the welcoming of God’s presence and power in the life of God’s people as the ark of the covenant – the physical manifestation of God’s presence – is brought into Jerusalem. It’s a story that should be a hero’s celebration, and one that shows us David’s genuine ecstatic joy in the presence of God.

But the ecstatic joy of holiness is deliberately smudged in the story, becoming a cause of marital strife: Michal’s bitter embarrassment and wounded pride dimming and weighing down David’s uninhibited (and possibly a bit thoughtlessly extravagant) celebration.

 

And, hidden in the bit of the story that’s left out to keep it short enough for reading in worship today, are the tragic flaws of fear and self-interest and cowardice, and maybe a little greed, that are the undertones of this bright celebration.

Because David goes – as we hear – to fetch the ark of God to mark God’s victory in establishing a stable kingship in Jerusalem – and to keep David’s own promises, as well as God’s.
And then – as we don’t hear – David promptly drops the ark of the covenant like a hot potato when it turns out that all that concentrated power of God can actually kill someone who isn’t paying attention to the live-wire danger – even if he was just trying to help.
Instead of taking steps for safety and care, David parks that powerful ark on the nearest person who can’t say no and zips back home to stay safe from God’s raw power.

All this ecstatic dancing and sacrificing and generous citywide celebration only happens after David is told that the person he dumped God’s ark on seems to be prospering from the presence of God, and David thinks he’d better get that prosperity for himself and his people.

 

I recognize all this, too.

I recognize my anxious caution around the side effects of too much God zapping my comfortable safety; I recognize the impulse to get someone else to check it out first before committing myself and people I’m responsible for.

I recognize – and maybe some of you do, too – a little embarrassment, sometimes, about having gone too far, been too enthusiastic, too Jesus-y for the context. And I’m definitely familiar with the impulse to care about what other people will think, instead of just setting myself free to enjoy the presence and holiness of God’s power and love.

And still, I’m glad we see that moment of unfettered, unembarrassed, probably excessive celebration and joy in the presence of God – get to let that resonate in my heart for a moment, too – as I recognize all the messiness around it.

 

I know – deep in my heart I recognize – these stories with no heroes in them. With flawed anti-heroes doing some right things for the wrong reasons, and lots of wrong things for what look temptingly like right reasons. I know them as my story – much more familiar and recognizable in my daily life than stories about the healing of the uncurable, the feeding of hungry thousands, the resurrection of the dead, or visiting angels, or enthusiastic crowds seeking holiness and renewal.

 

I admit I’d find the story of God more attractive without these detours into unnecessary murder, or the footnotes of embarrassment and cowardice. I prefer to read stories with heroes and happy endings; like to imagine myself into those stories when the story I’m actually in is as messy as human life usually is.

But when I read these stories today, and I stop and think for a minute, I realize how much it matters (to me, to us) that these stories – these stories without heroes – are a part of God’s story.

 

Because God’s story is never just about God.

God makes God’s story always – always – about us.

About people of God who make the wrong decisions when trying to make the right ones; people of God who make the right decisions by accident or for wrong-ish reasons.

 

People like me, like us, make the arc of God’s story messy and unclear, and often confusing or difficult to read and re-tell. But when we read it, when we re-tell it, when we make God’s story about us part of our story about God, we get a chance to recognize how these stories without heroes are stories full of the presence of God, full of grace and generosity, wonder and hope, holding holy space right along with the tragedies, and dancing joy right along with the embarrassments.

 

Because God doesn’t always need heroes.

But we – hero, anti-hero, bystander, sinner and saint – we always need God.

And God goes on keeping us in the story.