Homily 15-7-12    printed with permission of Rev. Mark Bailey
Mark 6:14-29
The Two Feasts
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Mark’s story of the execution of John the Baptist presents the first of two feasts. The events surrounding John’s death are presented in the Gospel tradition as having taken place connected to a birthday feast that Herod has thrown for himself. It is at this feast, with the who’s who of Jewish political and social life, that the prophetic voice of John is snuffed out – here the seductive nature of this banquet table of evil becomes paramount and the word of GOD crying out in the wilderness is brutally murdered by the powers of death and destruction.

Indeed a prophet of God is not without honor except among his own kind – this is the warning that is presented to us just prior to this event. A warning that was to put the mission of the 12 into a particular framework, a warning to ground them in understanding that in the breaking in of the coming Kingdom a cosmic struggle is set into motion, as Paul says,

Eph 6:12
For our struggle is not against enemies of blood and flesh, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the cosmic powers of this present darkness, against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly places.

Prior to tonight’s passage the 12 are sent out immediately after Jesus is rejected by his own kin. This Mission of the 12 in Mark’s Gospel clearly places the embryonic faith community within the continuing prophetic ministry of Christ – a ministry of preaching, exorcism and healing – a ministry that speaks the word of GOD, a word of forgiveness and restoration. This Word expressed through Christ, becomes the incarnation of the full and complete hospitality of GOD. A hospitality shown in the one who welcomes all back to the banquet table, not to inflict unimaginable evil and retribution, but to nourish and to restore to complete fullness – the renewal of full wholeness.

It is this banquet that the Prophet Isaiah looks to when he says,

Isaiah 25.6-8:
On this mountain the Lord of hosts will make for all peoples a feast of rich food, a feast of well-matured wines, of rich food filled with marrow, of well-matured wines strained clear. And he will destroy on this mountain the shroud that is cast over all peoples, the sheet that is spread over all nations; he will swallow up death for ever.

A prophetic image where ‘all peoples’ will be fed – the great messianic banquet. A banquet of mercy and compassion – the supreme example of the hospitality of GOD, a hospitality where all humanity will find itself no longer victim to the power of death and destruction. In our own Eucharist Liturgy we hear the following words.

“Offered the loving feast of faith, we sat down at the banquet table of evil” –

Here we are reminded that it was always the intention of GOD to have all humanity gather at the great and loving feast of faith, but that through the seductiveness of the power of evil, humanity instead, that is we, chose a way of evil and self-destruction. However, GOD’s response was not to plot our annihilation and obliteration, but GOD’s response was and always has been to pursue and welcome us back to the banquet table of love and faith, to remind us of promises made and to set before us a new way of hope and salvation, the prophetic way.

The Banquet Table of Herod – the table of the rulers and powers of this world, the powers of violence and force, plots death and destruction and attempts to extinguish the Word of GOD, a prophetic Word that speaks of hope and salvation – but the truth of the gospel is that this table, with all its seductiveness, with all its prestige and privilege, can be and never will be life giving. It is only at the table of GOD, that humanity can find healing, renewal and life – a table where all gather as equals, a table of invitation and graciousness – where life and not death is in plain sight.

In the Gospel narrative, Mark moves on from the violence and abuse of Herod’s Table and the brutal death of John, to the gracious Feeding of the 5,000. Here we have the contrasting image of the GOD who feeds humanity, all those eager to hear and to respond, those who of there own free will have sought the life giving Words of the coming Kingdom of GOD. In the deserted place of Mark’s story of the Feeding of the 5,000, GOD himself will feed and nourish – not in the place of opulence and power, but in the barren and lonely place, will we be feed by GOD, in the unexpected places will we experience the one who comes to us as life. The stark contrast between the Banquet Table of Power and the Loving Feast of Faith, is mind blowing, and is represented to us in the simplicity of the Communion Meal – here at the place of stillness, the lonely, deserted place is GOD’s compassion made real and all are feed and nourished.

Mark compares and contrasts these two feasts, one which speaks of unimaginable brutality and violence and one which speaks of equally unimaginable love and hope. You can imagine Herod’s banquet filled with the cacophony of noise, the revelry of those seeking only their own pleasure, multiple voices all vying for attention, to the point that it becomes both captivating and illusory. Yet the deserted place of the Feeding of the Multitude is heightened by the place of stillness where the gathering finds it focus in and through the central element of the Word of GOD, Jesus the Christ – and it is in this encounter that all are nourished and all are feed for indeed the truth is that,

The Lord of hosts will make for all humanity a feast of rich food, a feast of well-matured wines, of rich food filled with marrow, of well-matured wines strained clear. And he will destroy the shroud that is cast over all creation, the sheet that is spread over all nations; he will swallow up death for ever.

AMEN.