A Sermon Preached at St. Stephen’s on July 16, 2006, by the Rev. Cork Tarplee

            A former governor of Massachusetts tells this story on himself.  He was running for reelection and spending a lot of extra time chasing votes.  One day he missed breakfast and lunch because he was caught up in campaigning, so he was famished when he got to his afternoon appearance—at a church barbecue.  He grabbed a paper plate and went through the line.  When he got to the chicken, he held out his plate and the lady dropped a single piece of chicken on it.  “Could I please have two pieces of chicken?” he asked.  “Sorry sir,” the lady replied, “just one per person.”  “But I’m really hungry,” he pleaded. “Only one to a customer, so there will be enough to go around.” So he pulled out the big guns: “Ma’am, maybe you don’t know who I am. I’m the governor of this state.” “Sir,” she replied without missing a beat. “Maybe you don’t know who I am. I’m the church lady who gives out the chicken. Please move along.”

            In the annals of “speaking truth to power” this story is a pretty modest example, but all the basic elements are there.  Power is pretty seductive and when you combine it with our natural hungers, power often steps over the lines of fairness—even the lines of human decency.  Likewise, it takes a lot of moxie to stand up to speak the truth in the face of power. We can laugh when the governor doesn’t get his chicken, but there’s really not much at stake—who’s going to fire a church volunteer, after all?

            It is not so in the real world.  Our Gospel this morning places the activities of Jesus’ followers squarely in a deadly context. The gruesome story of John the Baptist’s death is the backdrop for Jesus’ ministry: Jesus and his disciples have taken over the spotlight from John, and John was beheaded for speaking truth to power.  John had the gall to criticize the king, and John died an ugly death because of it.

            The story is a reminder of the cost of discipleship, a reminder we may not need. On the national political stage, even religious critics of power are branded as unpatriotic.  In our own religious arena, the Anglican Church in Nigeria recently called Episcopalians in the U.S. a “cancerous lump” that needs to be cut out of the Anglican Communion because we believe in the full inclusion of gay and lesbian Christians and we ordain women.  And the costs of discipleship go far beyond name-calling and the loss of esteem. Standing up for what we believe in can cost us jobs and promotions, and can demand that we give our hard-earned money to the work of unpopular causes—yes, including your local church.

            Fortunately, the Gospel this morning is also a reminder of the persistence and the value of discipleship. St. Mark’s purpose in telling about the death of John the Baptist is to tell us about the fear and trembling of King Herod.  When he hears about what Jesus and his disciples are accomplishing he is afraid that John the Baptist has come back to life—and in a sense he has, because kingdom of love triumphs in the end.  John the Baptist, Jesus and every last one of the disciples lost their lives to religious persecution. But that’s not the end of the story.  The end of the story—as we know it today—the end of the story is the continuation of Jesus’ ministry.  For every follower of Christ who has suffered for her belief, hundreds have been called to faithful service by her example. The example of Dietrich Bonhoeffer who died defying the power of Hitler, has called thousands to stand against anti-Semitism.  The example of Martin Luther King who died defying the power of hatred has called thousands to stand against racism.  Love just keeps on renewing itself.  In the end, no matter what it costs, love wins.

            The trick for you and for me is to remember that love wins—especially when we are faced with the threat or the seduction of power.  The trick is to find the courage to speak truth to power by our choice of friends, our choice of political action, and our economic choices.  Leslie Flynn tells the story of a Christian baroness living in Nairobi who hired a boy from the neighborhood as her houseboy.  After he’d worked for her for three months, he came to announce that he was leaving to go to work for a Muslim sheik.  The kid was a good worker, so the baroness offered him more money to stay and work for her.  No, he said, it wasn’t a question of money.  He was torn between becoming a Christian or becoming a Muslim, so he’d resolved to work for each for three months to see which religion was the best.  What he discovered in working in each household, he reasoned, would tell him which way of life to follow.  The baroness was stunned to remember the unkindness, pettiness and shady dealings she’d been a part of with the boy under her roof.  She could only exclaim, “Why didn’t you tell me that when you started working here?”

            When the Gospel proclaims that love always wins, it is not championing an abstract or philosophical position. It is reminding us that the real, concrete acts of courage that it takes to befriend another human being or to speak up to prejudice or hatred, these real concrete acts may cost us plenty, but in the end they are always worth it.   AMEN