Sermon Archive

“Power tends to corrupt and absolute power corrupts absolutely.” Thus wrote Lord Acton, a late 19th-century British historian, in a dour assessment of human history (Letter to Bishop Mandell Creighton [April 5, 1887]). Certainly the prophets who are central to this morning’s scripture lessons—Zechariah and John the Baptist—would wholeheartedly have concurred with Lord Acton’s assessment, since both wound up being put to death for speaking God’s truth to power.

And eighty years after Lord Acton coined his famous epigram, in the year 1967, J. William Fulbright, the late senator from the state of Arkansas, published a book entitled The Arrogance of Power. In it he spoke critically of militarism and of equating power with virtue, and he also spoke reprovingly about the “‘fatal impact’ of the rich and strong on the poor and weak.” Well, the two rulers in today’s lessons—Joash and Herod Antipas—could certainly have served as centerfolds for Fulbright’s book, as models for the arrogance of power and for the “fatal impact” of the rich and strong on the poor and weak.

Yes, as we can see all too clearly in today’s scripture lessons, being a truth-telling prophet in a world dominated by power-corrupted rulers like Joash and Herod, was, and still is, a perilous venture. Speaking God’s truth to power was, and still is, a dangerous business. Zechariah died doing it. John the Baptist died doing it. And Jesus died doing it—speaking God’s truth to power.

Few people today know anything at all about the prophetic witness and death of Zechariah, narrated for us in Second Chronicles. Zechariah’s story has long been forgotten, even though Jesus himself, in one of his lesser-known sayings, singled Zechariah out for remembrance (Luke 11:51). So let’s undertake to remedy this situation of forgottenness. Let’s go to work today on remembering Zechariah.

In your imagination, travel with me back to the last half of the 9th century BCE, some 2,850 years ago, when God’s people of Israel were divided into two kingdoms, the southern nation of Judah and the northern nation of Israel.

When King Ahaziah of Judah is slain by followers of the new and insurgent dynasty up north, in Israel, Ahaziah’s mother, named Athaliah, seeks to succeed her deceased son and to assume the throne of Judah herself. Her move is absolutely unprecedented in at least two ways—first she is a woman, and in all of Judah’s history there has never been a female monarch; and second she is not a descendant of David, and there has never sat on Judah’s throne anyone other than a descendant of David, that venerable ancestor-king, to whom God had promised a perpetual dynasty.

In order to cement her claim to the throne, Athaliah and her allies go about finding and slaying every last one of the living male descendants of David. But the wife of the high priest in Jerusalem, a woman who is herself a descendant of David, succeeds in hiding her infant nephew Joash, saving him from Athaliah’s massacre. Time passes, and then when Joash reaches the age of seven, the high priest Jehoiada leads a revolt against Athaliah that is successful, and she is put to death. So the rescued boy Joash, who is the last living male descendant of David, becomes king. And so long as the high priest Jehoiada is alive, King Joash does that which is right in the sight of God.

But today’s First Lesson begins with the notice that Jehoaida has died, and it goes on to say that after Jehoiada is buried Joash abandons the ways of God and lapses into the corruption and arrogance of power.

In response, God sends some prophets to admonish the king and his courtiers, but the king and his retinue do not listen. So God chooses a special prophet, one named Zechariah, who is a son of that high priest Jehoiada, a son of the very man whose wife had protected Joash from death as an infant, a son of the very man who had led the revolt against Athaliah and had made Joash king.

But over time, as I said, power has corrupted Joash and has made him arrogant, so when the prophet Zechariah seeks to speak God’s truth to him, Joash does not listen. Instead, he turns Zechariah over to his courtiers so that the prophet can be stoned to death right then and there, in the very courtyard of God’s own temple. So this prophet, this spokesperson for God’s truth, is put to death for daring to challenge the king’s misuse of power. And that is the story of Zechariah!

Much more widely remembered than the prophetic witness and death of Zechariah is that of John the Baptist. John’s story has been re-presented often down the centuries through many different forms of artistry. It has been the subject of numerous icons, like the one from the 19th-century found on our bulletin cover, and the subject of hundreds of paintings by masters like the early 17th-century Italian Michaelangelo Caravaggio, whose image of Salome and the head of John almost made it onto our cover this morning.

And John’s story also inspired Oscar Wilde’s play Salomé, written in French, in the year 1893. Just this past spring Wilde’s play was produced and presented as a reading in English translation right here on Broadway. It starred Al Pacino as Herod Antipas, Marisa Tomei as Salome, Diane Wiest (of “Law and Order”) as Herodias, and David Strathairn as John the Baptist. And then based on this play by Wilde there’s the rather infamous opera Salomé by Richard Strauss, a work that is returning to the repertoire of the Metropolitan Opera this next season. Apparently, the image of a teen-age dancer holding onto a gory, severed head somehow plays into our Western fascination with sex and violence.

But of course the central character in the historical confrontation between Herod Antipas and John the Baptist is not Salome, despite the fact that Western art often suggests otherwise. No, the central character is the prophet John the Baptist, who dares to speak God’s truth to power—as we learn not only from the Gospel of Mark but also from the writings of the 1st-century Jewish historian Josephus (Antiquities, XVIII, v, 2).

John has accused Antipas of ruling unjustly and immorally and has called upon him to repent. Antipas fears that John’s rhetoric against him will trigger an insurrection. So first he arrests John, and then, in league with both his new wife and his new stepdaughter, Antipas orders John’s execution.

Now, this episode receives great and extended attention in the otherwise quite spare Gospel of Mark—first, because the arrest and execution of John foreshadows the arrest and execution of Jesus, who also dares to speak God’s truth to power; and second, because this episode alerts would-be disciples of Jesus as to just how difficult a road it is that lies ahead of us if we follow our Savior faithfully.

Last Tuesday morning, both Elder Renee Lord and I were sitting with a group of Christian leaders from New York City, and we were discussing which of the many time periods or situations portrayed in the Bible might best symbolize the crisis of corruption and arrogance in power that now confronts us here in America—the crisis of corruption and arrogance in political, and corporate, and religious power.

I for one feel the need to bare my soul today and to share my fear that we now find ourselves in a time much like that of the lonely prophets of ancient Israel—like that of Amos and Hosea, like that of Isaiah and Jeremiah, like that of Zechariah and John the Baptist—a time when the ruler of the land and most political, corporate, and religious leaders are standing in servitude, in thrall, to the arrogance of power and its corrupting influences, a time when only a small minority in the land are still willing to speak God’s truth to power, still willing to summon the nation back to God’s path of justice and righteousness. Rarely in my six decades of life have I felt such despair as I do now at the paths down which those in power are leading us—down errant paths rampant with sexual misconduct; down misguided paths that would have us exclude many from Christ’s church and its leadership; down fiscally irresponsible paths that offer America no hope of ever providing for all of our citizens such basics as a sound education, adequate health care, equal opportunity, and meaningful employment; down villainous paths that violate the principles of just war and are clueless about how to build peace; down miscreant paths that desecrate the beauty and integrity of God’s creation, and squander earth’s irreplaceable resources; down folly-filled paths that disregard such simple maxims learned by every kindergartner as: we should tell the truth and share what we have. Rarely in my six decades of life have I felt such despair at the paths down which those in power are leading us.

This summer, as I depart for vacation and a portion of my sabbatical leave, I am praying that God will grant to me and to each and every one of us in this community of faith the gift of being renewed in energy and in devotion and the gift of being shown the right words to say as together we seek to serve God by speaking God’s truth to the corruption and arrogance of power that now threatens us.

But in response to these ever-so dour words of mine, you may be silently asking me, “Isn’t there any good news today, Pastor?” Well, my answer to you is, …“Yes! There is some good news!”

First, let me share with you, and with myself, some words spoken long ago by a second prophet named Zechariah. He lived some 300 years after the first one. And I find constant comfort in these words of his: “Not by might, nor by power, but by my spirit, says the LORD of hosts.” (Zechariah 4:6b) Yes, it is not by might, nor by power, but by God’s Spirit that we can prevail—by God’s Spirit, which stands ever ready to fill and empower us.

And second, let me share with you, and with myself, the assurance that an incomparable and perpetual source of strength for us is the ongoing presence of Christ right here at this Table where we will soon gather to celebrate the Sacrament of the Lord’s Supper.

For you see, this meal is the exact opposite of the banquet offered by Herod and described in our Second Lesson. This meal offered to us by Christ is the end of false authority and the beginning of true authority. It is the vanquishment of death and the renewal of life. It is the conquest of temptation and the victory of grace. It is the annulment of human dominion and the foretaste of God’s reign.

So, yes! Thanks be to God, that amidst all the human-begotten travails in this world, we have been given an incomparable gift. We have been given the gift of the ever-sustaining goodness, first, of God’s Spirit-bearing word and, second, of Christ’s gracious, transforming presence here at this Table. Thanks be to God!

Let us pray. And let us use the words of Archbishop Thomas Cranmer (1489–1556), who wrote much of the first Anglican Book of Common Prayer. Cranmer himself died a martyr at the hands of a monarch, Queen Mary I of England. Let us pray.