Sermon notes

JB

Herod: what is right vs what is popular

What is just vs what is easy

Fancy dance - good, brags - easy words

cost: ridiculous, exhorbitant, appalling

Herod chooses the popular road - not to lose face in front of guests (potential opponents if they see weakness)

 - socially acceptable to promise her half the kingdom; even to Herod was a lot to ask for head

Yet given.

Easy. Popular. 

Christianity - the opposite - 

to follow God is difficult; it can mean being unliked, being rejected, being looked down upon.

It can mean losing friends, losing status, losing earthly possessions.

It can mean discerning what is right, identifying what God wants (not human), acting out of justice

All called to it:

use words carefully - be careful what we promise, what we offer, what we say (Oh My God shirt!)

use actions carefully - how we are perceived is how we are known; 

above all use our ministry carefully! Because the good news of this passage is not of Herod being uncomfortable, or of John being dead, but the subtle truth in what happened next... 

JB's disciples came and took his body to a tomb.

His disciples - his followers - 

even in death, God's work is not done with JB.

With God, twhat the world calls 'the end' is NEVER the end: so long as we are willing to be God's disciples - followers - people  -- the work continues.

God's work cannot be stopped - not by Herod's cruelty, not by the chaos of the world, not by anything in this realm - when we decide to seriously listen to our call and follow God.

Will it be easy? Not always. Will it be popular? Not always.

Will it be just, and faithful? For the love of God - literally! - I pray it is.