Mark 6:14-29
OK…so…Herod is the ruler of the region…and while vacationing in Rome he craves and covets his brother’s wife…who he then marries.
- John the Baptist…then suggests that maybe that is not OK.
- Now…Herod likes John…as much as anybody can like a wild bug-eating prophet.
- Who lives outdoors and speaks inconvenient truths.
- Truths like…it is not OK to marry your brother’s wife.
- Which…being the truth…when he spoke it…got him arrested…in the first place.
It also got John on the bad side of Herod’s new illegal wife Herodias.
- She did not like John.
- So…when Herod threw himself a big birthday party…
- His daughter-in-law…Salome…danced for him and all the other half-intoxicated generals and CEOs and celebrities who were there.
We don’t know the exact nature of her dance.
- But we do know that it pleased Herod enough that he offered to give her anything she wanted…
- Up to half of his kingdom.
- So…I do not think it was the Chicken dance.
The Lord be with you.
And also with you.
So…then Salome runs to her mom and asks: “What should I ask for?”
- And her mom says: “The head of John the Baptist.”
- Herod found this disturbing.
- He clearly did not want to do it…but it says that he went through with it.
- Why? Because of his oath and because he did not want to disappoint his dinner guests.
- So…by the final course of Herod’s birthday dinner John the Baptist’s head was on a platter.
- It is a gruesome tale.
- And what in the world is a preacher to preach about such a story?
I mean…What is the moral of the story?
- Looked at in a certain way…this story is not so far from us.
- It is still being played out today.
- In my life and maybe in yours…certainly on the American political stage.
- And elsewhere throughout the history of humanity before and after Herod.
It is easy to demonize Herod and dismiss this story as something awful that happened before things like the enlightenment and post-World War two war crimes tribunals.
- But if we do so too quickly…we might miss seeing how nothing really has changed much in 2,000 years.
- We live in an age as faithless and corrupt as Herod’s.
- People still quickly divorce someone simply because they fall in love with someone else’s wife or husband.
- And young girls are still made to be sexual objects for powerful men.
- After all…human trafficking is the biggest black-market operation in the world today.
- And I have done or said things that have hurt others just so I did not lose face with people I am trying to impress.
Do not get me wrong…what Herod did was despicable.
- There is no diminishing it.
- But besides being a villain…he is also a tragic figure.
- Because he knew better.
- Herod was not some soulless…bloodthirsty…godless devil.
- He knew it was wrong.
- He knew it was wrong and after it was done…he had a guilty conscience.
- Because later…when he hears about Jesus…
- Why else would Herod assume…of all things…
- That the most logical explanation for why there was a man in his region who healed people and cast out demons…
- Was that it must be the guy he beheaded who had come back from the grave.
That is a guilty person’s assumption…straight away.
- He had a guilty conscience…which means he knew better and he did it anyway.
- What is tragic is that Herod went to his grave with all of his violence and stupidity and sin on his conscience…
- Never once knowing that he and his illegal wife and her child Salome and John the Baptist all are beloved children of God.
What is tragic about Herod is how different he is from the prostitutes and demoniacs and tax collectors and Pharisees and centurians we meet in the Gospels.
- They encounter Jesus Christ and are freed from the bondage of their past.
- In the presence of Christ…they are given a glimpse of God’s larger story of love and mercy…
- And are shown who they really…truly are in the eyes of a loving God…and they are made new.
Their story is given a new ending and a new meaning.
- But Herod was trapped in his own story.
- A story that tortured him.
- A story from which he felt there was no escape.
And when our own stories begin to feel self-contained and inescapable…that is when things are tragic.
- At one time or another…we have all felt the same way.
- Unable to change the story of who we are.
- Unable to change our behavior or attitude or outlook.
- So caught up in the events around us.
- So caught up in the identity we have had for so long that it clings to us like a wet suit.
And if that is true and we were hoping to hear some good news today.
- I need to be the first to tell you:
- There is no good news in this story.
- I looked for it.
- But that is just the point.
- We are supposed to notice that this is the only story in Mark’s Gospel where Jesus is not mentioned.
- There is no Jesus.
So…if this story stood alone…
- There would be only sedition and sin and violence and bondage and political maneuvering and incest.
- The only thing that makes this story good is that it is not the end of the story.
So…while there is no good news in this story…
- And while there is no Jesus in this story.
- What is amazing is that the story of Herod’s birthday is immediately followed by the feeding of the 5,000.
The Godless black tunnel of Herod’s party is immediately followed by another party.
- A sacramental one in which there is no exploitation of children.
- Or killing of prophets.
- There is only Jesus…and thousands of people sitting on the green grass.
- And a few loaves…and a couple fish.
- And all are fed by what seemed like not enough.
- And there were still baskets of loaves and fishes left over to share.
They were living a new story.
- A story written by a God who desires that all are fed and all are loved.
- And none are exploited.
- And God offers us a reminder of this every week right here at this table.
- This table is the antidote to whatever version of Herod’s birthday party is playing out in our own lives and in the world around us.
We are not trapped.
- God is still writing the story and it is so much better than the one we would come up with.
- Thanks be to God.