For Sunday
Seventh Sunday after Pentecost

Collect

O Lord, mercifully receive the prayers of your people who call upon you, and grant that they may know and understand what things they ought to do, and also may have grace and power faithfully to accomplish them; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and for ever.
Amen.

Reading

From Mark 6:14-29

“The king was deeply grieved; yet out of regard for his oaths and for the guests, he did not want to refuse her.”

Reflection

We get in a Sunday rhythm in which the gospel story highlights a teaching moment with Jesus. Each week, we come and learn something at the feet of our rabbi. Not this Sunday.

This week comes like an interlude. Almost like watching a movie which focuses exclusively on the protagonist—except this one scene. Here, we see the antagonist’s schemes and are forced to see what the hero is up against.

How do we respond to that moment, then? When we come prepared to learn and are instead offered an interlude?

Perhaps we can lean a little more into the interlude by asking what it reveals. Particularly, what it reveals in light of what Jesus has been teaching us about over the last few chapters: power.

In one sense, it is interesting to notice how the king has so little power in his own home. In another, the only power the king really has is imprisonment and execution—violence and the threat of it.

The real learning, however, comes in the contrast. We should be able to easily identify how this king’s kingdom looks so unlike God’s.

In other words, this interlude offers us a banquet of what not to do.