First Presbyterian Church of Watertown

Mark 6

“A Cautionary Tale”

The Rev. Dr. Fred G. Garry

July 16, 2006

            John Laputz was always a man on a mission.  Somewhere something was broken and like a guided missile of sheer tenacity he would fly, or walk really fast.  John Laputz was my wife’s grandfather and he was always working on something.  From the crack of dawn until the sunset he was up and down a ladder, putting in a sink, arguing with a tenant, or whatever was next.  Just watching John move from place to place made me believe America was a land of opportunity for those willing to work hard. 

            John had done just about everything in his life.  He was a machinist by day, but at night he worked in a saloon, owned a restaurant and a grocery store.  When I met him in the twilight of his life he was content to oversee the numerous properties he and his wife, Ann, had accumulated through the years.  It’s just a guess, but having known him, I would have to say the value of his properties- although there were many- was of little significance to him; what he loved was that there was always something that needed to be fixed.

No one met John Laputz without noticing that he lacked his thumb on his right hand. Kathy explained to me her grandfather had lost it in a accident while working at Electric Boat in Groton, Connecticut during the “war.”  John though had another take on this.  Rather than let an industrial accident that didn’t slow him down, and which had no sustaining value, be the last word, John invented many causes.  It would be hard for me enumerate all the causes I heard.  John made these up as he went.  If he saw a young person trying to master a power tool, he would caution them, “be careful there, that is how I lost my thumb.”  John pretty near lost his thumb to every form of power tool known to humankind. 

If someone was engaged in an act that had an element of danger, John would caution, “ehh, watch it.  Lost my thumb that way.”  Yet the most cunning and perhaps effectual of all his warnings were to thumb suckers.  Small children who may or may not be currently involved in the bad habit of sucking their thumb would be warned, “ahhhh, sucking your thumb . . . don’t do that.  Look what happened to me.”  At this point John would show the nub where his thumb once completed his hand and wiggle it back and forth.  It was all that need be said.

When I think of a cautionary tale I think of John Laputz and his missing thumb.  Most of us have cautionary tales, things we have seen and learned mostly the hard way, tales we are ready to share when the opportunity presents itself.  But John, John, had visual aid.  Like a fishermen showing the teeth marks from a shark bite or someone in an office pointing out pitfall as unfolds to a new hire, John’s cautionary tales were meant to guide and protect, to keep the novice on the safer side of danger.

In just about every genre of literature and form of art we can find the cautionary tale.  The Greeks based their entire sacred literature on the cautionary tale: what is the Odyssey, the Iliad, if not a warning, long tales of caution.  Think of the “Twilight Zone”.  Every episode started with a warning: there is a sign post up ahead, “you are now entering the twilight zone.”  If that isn’t a word of caution followed by a tale, then I don’t know what is. 

The cautionary tale is infused in our day.  So pervasive is the cautionary tale we don’t even notice it’s there.  The other night Kathy put on one of our Motown favorites, Percy Sledge.  Although I had listened to him croon more times than I can count, I never noticed how each song was a warning.  “When a Man Loves a Woman” . . . cautionary tale.  The word of caution: if you love you will hurt, I mean real heartache.  The cautionary tale is so pervasive, so much a part of our common parlance we don’t even see it.

            This was my first problem with our reading from Mark, the beheading of John.  I tried to understand the meaning, the message, the word of direction.  Yet, each time I tried to get to the heart of the matter it didn’t ring true.  At first I considered this is an aside to explain the death of the Baptist, and then I wondered, what if this is foreshadowing Jesus’ death?  Probable but not satisfying and then I read around it.  Just before this story is an account of the being disciples sent out in pairs to preach and teach, to heal and proclaim.  When I looked at this story and the triumph of the disciples, how excited they were when they returned, then the story of John’s death made sense.

            It was as if Mark were saying to the church, see the disciples all happy, all excited.  They are thinking this is the beginning; just let them loose and the world will be shaken to the foundations.  And this is true.  The disciples who went out were emboldened and empowered; they had felt the transforming glory of being God’s hands, being the mercy of God in the midst of brokenness.  The early church had most likely romanticized this mission, making it a kind of “if only.”  If only we set out and go in pairs to proclaim the good news in Jesus’ name there is no stopping us.

            And to this reckless ambition Mark says, “eeeh.  What are you doing there?  Before you try to parlay this victory into a campaign of unbridled success, let me tell you a story.  A word of warning, a cautionary tale of the one no one thought could be stopped, Elijah reborn, John the Baptist.  Let me tell you how he left the desert and the baptizing in the Jordan in its muddy waters, washing you clean; let me tell you how he left his calling and walked north to Galilee.  John, the voice crying in the wilderness, thought he could clean up the powers that be, so he started at the top, Herod the Tetrarch of Galilee.  But things didn’t quite work out.

            John left the wilderness, we don’t know why, and traveled north to a city built on a graveyard to incite the Jews.  There he spoke out against Herod.  He took on the big dog and he lost.  The irony of it is that Herod liked John and wanted to hear what he had to say.  Well, what he had to say other than the part about him being an abomination.  And then the irony of ironies: even though John’s executioner was all powerful and yet reluctant and remorseful, he was ultimately put to death by the conniving of a woman who will only be known as the one who put the baptizer to death.

            What is unclear in our passage, though, is, what is the warning?  Mark tells of John’s death as a warning, but what is he warning us to avoid or use care as we progress?  I have labored over this for many weeks.  I considered the very basic warning to the disciples, don’t take your success and think this is now done.  The kingdom of God is not just one more trip, one more click, a matter of fine tuning.  This is a good message and yet not quite what the gospel writer offered I believe. 

            Another way of reading the warning is to avoid politics, avoid the powers that be.  In the wilderness where John ate bugs and honey wore leather and camel’s hair he was pure; he ventures into the murky world of politics and power and what happens?  He loses his head.  True.  Again, this is not a bad warning.  If you want to venture into this world, beware!

            Yet, sometimes the most profound is the most simple.  What if the warning of Mark, why he told this awful story is this: following Christ where he leads and commands is glorious and joyous and life changing, but it is also dangerous and no guarantee of safety and it is not part of a three step plan of fixing the world while you wait? 

            I heard Mark’s voice this week, his cautionary voice.  I walked down the street to see 156 Academy.  It is for sale.  I’ve told the session that if a property comes for sale on our square block I will look into it.  As we have only bought one property in three years this is not the cautionary part of the story.

156 Academy is a mess.  It is a veritable field day of projects and sagging roofs and broken windows.  The owner has bent and broke every rule and code imaginable for greed.  It is everything that says, fix this, get in there and do something.  How can you travel halfway across the globe to help others and yet let this disaster be two doors down? 

As we walked through the property though, something upped the ante.  One of the tenants saw my collar and said, “oh no, the church is here.  They will tear the house down.  They won’t help us.”  When I heard of this comment I was like a moth to the flame.  This is just the sort of thing that goads me unto all kinds of recklessness.  I will show what the church can do!

And then I walked through the house with Gary Beasley and his second, Reggie.  Watching their faces and hearing their appraisal, I heard Mark’s voice and his caution.  Be careful!  This is not a question of will or determination or zeal.  This is messy.  This is the boundary of life where people are broken, where life and death are not that far off. 

A caution really has two options if you listen.  A caution can be turn back, don’t go this way, avoid this at all costs.  Yet, a caution can also be warning, proceed, but don’t be naïve.  If you move ahead know where you are going.  I don’t believe Mark’s cautionary tale of the Baptist was meant to derail the disciples.  He just wanted to make clear to the church, follow Christ but be ready, it’s messy and violent out there.

Although the warnings John Laputz gave with his missing digit to thumb suckers was meant to stop them from the habit, his other warnings were not.  He wiggled the nub to the novice not for them to lay the tool aside, but to simply continue mindful of the danger.

The tenant of 156 Academy who saw my collar and groaned, “the church . . . they won’t help us” doesn’t know First Pres. very well.  She doesn’t know we fight malaria in Africa, build homes in Mexico, and bring compassion to the despondency of Mississippi and that’s just in the last four months.  Yet, something tells me that, for her, only seeing will be believing. 

I don’t know what will happen with 156 Academy; I am not sure where Jesus is leading there.  But I do know, if we follow him there it will be messy and not a string of successes.  I am not sure what God is up to there, but it is fair to say we are ready and forewarned.  I think that’s what Mark had in mind. Amen.