My planned sermon was on Jesus and who he is. The question comes at the beginning of today’s reading:

¹⁴King Herod heard of it, for Jesus’ name had become known. Some were saying,
“John the baptizer has been raised from the dead; and for this reason these powers are at work in him.”

¹⁵But others said,
“It is Elijah.”

And others said,
“It is a prophet, like one of the prophets of old.”

¹⁶But when Herod heard of it, he said,
“John, whom I beheaded, has been raised.”

Mark 6:14-16, NRSV

I was going to explore the various ways people relate to Jesus: as God, as Savior, as Messiah, as prophet, as teacher, as example, as myth.

I was going to talk about Pascal’s Wager, a summary of which is: If you live as if God exists, it costs you little in this life, and if God does exist, the reward will be great.

You’re betting a small amount against a big payoff, and if God doesn’t exist, it didn’t cost you a lot.

And I was going to ask the question:
If we all cared for each other and for the world in the ways taught by Jesus and it turned out Jesus never existed, would we have made the world a better place for no reason at all?

But I’m not preaching that one this morning.

Let’s go to God in prayer.
God of wisdom, may the words that I speak, and the ways they are received by each of our hearts and minds, help us to continue to grow into the people, and the church, that you have dreamed us to be.
Amen.

In our reading today, Herod’s wife Herodias was angry that John had been speaking against the marriage of Herod and Herodias, because Herodias had been the wife of Herod’s brother.

And so Herod had John arrested. But he would not have John killed.

The reading today also calls Herod’s daughter Herodias, though other sources call her Salome. For clarity I will use Salome.

Salome dances for Herod, and Herod is so pleased he offers her anything she wants.

Salome asks her mother, and her mother says to ask for John to be killed.

Herodias chose violence as a solution to her problem.

Yesterday there was an attempt on the life of a former president and current presidential candidate.

While he sustained only a minor injury, one person is dead and two people are critically wounded.

In response there has been outcry over why the Secret Service didn’t prevent this, accusations that one person or another has incited this event, and renewed calls for gun control.

We know that gun control has been a controversial topic for many years.

Some want to ban certain kinds of weapons and have stringent checks on those who would purchase a firearm.

Some say that bearing arms is a God-given right that cannot be restricted in any way.

And there are many people whose opinions fall in between. But I think the root of the problem is deeper than gun laws.

Too much of the world sees violence as a solution to problems.

Too often the way to resolve a conflict is the death of one’s opponent.

Among people of any faith, too many will choose violence over their sacred teachings.

In Herod’s time there was a rabbi who I have quoted several times: Hillel the Elder.

In the Babylonian Talmud, Shabbat 31a, Hillel teaches

That which is hateful to you do not do to another; that is the entire Torah,
and the rest is its interpretation. Go study.

Hillel the Elder, Babylonian Talmud, Shabbat 31a

That teaching, which was contemporary to Herod, should have been sufficient for Herod, Herodias, ad Salome. But instead they chose murder over their faith.

Violence can be a kind of religion, and sometimes it overshadows other faith.

I see bumper stickers that say “God and Guns.”

Some years back, an ordained minister and governor who was running for president justified capital punishment by saying

Interestingly enough, if there was ever an occasion for someone to have argued against the death penalty, I think Jesus could have done so on the cross and said, ‘This is an unjust punishment and I deserve clemency’.

And if violence can be a religion, then a firearm can be an idol, an object of worship. I suspect some would give up their crosses before they would give up their guns.

In this nation in particular, this worship of violence, with firearms as idols and the second half of the second amendment as a holy text, has made it so no place is safe.

We have had senseless shootings in elementary schools, high schools, and universities.

We have had shootings in malls and in supermarkets.

Houses of worship, including mosques, synagogues, Sikh temples, and churches, have not been sanctuaries from gun violence.

Places where people go to feel safe among people like them, such as gay bars and clubs, have been targeted by heavily armed people.

And instead of using the ballot box, attempts have been made on the lives of politicians.

The cause of the violence is the same as the cause for difficulty in passing reasonable gun legislation: As a nation, we value the power to end another person’s life above the teachings of our faiths.

And there are many faiths that teach the same ethic of reciprocity:

The Bahá’í teach

“And if thine eyes be turned towards justice, choose thou for thy neighbour that which thou choosest for thyself.”

Epistle to the Son of the Wolf

Brahmanism, sometimes called Hinduism, teaches:

“This is the sum of Dharma [duty]: Do naught unto others which would cause you pain if done to you.”

Mahabharata, 5:1517

In Buddhism:

“Hurt not others in ways that you yourself would find hurtful.”

Udana-Varga 5:18

In Islam:

None of you [truly] believes until he wishes for his brother what he wishes for himself.

Number 13 of Imam “Al-Nawawi’s Forty Hadiths.”

In Judaism:

“thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself.”

Leviticus 19:18, KJV

In teachings of those who have lived on this land long before Europeans came:

“Respect for all life is the foundation.”

The Great Law of Peace.

All things are our relatives; what we do to everything, we do to ourselves. All is really One.

Black Elk

“Do not wrong or hate your neighbor. For it is not he who you wrong, but yourself.”

Pima proverb

Of course we know the Golden Rule in Christianity:

“Do unto others as you would have them do unto you.” –

Matthew 7:12, Luke 6:31, KJV

And it doesn’t need to be religion, as the British Humanist Society says

“Don’t do things you wouldn’t want to have done to you,”

I believe the only thing that is going to decrease the violence is a change of heart. As a nation, we have to love each other more than we love violence. We have to embrace life instead of embracing tools of death.

My challenge this week is to sow seeds of peace.

This is difficult work.
It means teaching and living a way of peaceful reconciliation in a world that values power over reason.

This is vulnerable work.
It means opening ourselves to scorn and ridicule from those who would call us weak.

This is risky work.
It’s work that got people like John the Baptist, Jesus, and Martin Luther King Jr. killed.

This is essential work.
The future of society depends on a de-escalation from violence.

May we seek peace on earth.

Amen.

Scripture references marked KJV are from the King James version of the Bible

Scripture references marked NRSVue are taken from the New Revised Standard Version Updated Edition. Copyright © 2021 National Council of Churches of Christ in the United States of America. Used by permission. All rights reserved worldwide.