Sunday, July 12, 2015
2 Samuel 6:1–5, 12b–19
Mark 6:14–29
On the surface, the story of John the Baptist’s beheading can be seen as a tragic consequence of good versus evil. We might even be naive enough to believe that this cannot happen today. The pressures and decisions surrounding the event, cannot be the same today as it was then, to allow for such an outcome, or can it?
Yes, the story does contain characters that can represent good and evil. John, is the symbol of good. He preaches repentance, he baptizes, he cries in the wilderness for others to come. John is the one that has been announcing the coming of another, the coming of something new, something never seen before. Something that even John himself does not fully understand.
John first made the announcement, in the womb. When Mary approached, John leaps in the womb of Elizabeth. This is the foreshadowing of John’s crying out in the wilderness to to “Prepare the way of the Lord, make his paths straight….”
Who are the characters of evil? You might be saying to yourself right now. It is obviously King Herod. Maybe that is the case but I suggest the real evil is presented in Herodias and her daughter. I am not dumping on women here, so please hang in there with me for a little bit. King Herod will not be left off the hook.
John was imprisoned because of Herodias. John did not approve of the marriage between Herod and Herodias. Herodias harbors a grudge towards John. Herodias and her daughter confer with each other over the gift that the daughter should ask for from Herod. They conspire to have John beheaded. They themselves did not have the power to kill John, but they knew how to get it accomplished.
Through manipulation, knowing that Herod would make the choice to honor his word to the daughter, they asked for what they alone could not obtain. Manipulation is the evil act that is committed. I am sure none of us here has ever been manipulated or taken part in manipulation. Yes, manipulation happens still today.
What about King Herod you might be asking? He cannot escape with out some guilt here. He has John executed and his head was presented on a platter, simply by his orders. Yes, King Herod is guilty as well. He is put in a real predicament in making his promise. Yet he knows what is right and wrong.
First, King Herod is not really a king. It was at Herodias’ urging that the son of Herod the Great, King Herod, request the title of king from Augustus but is denied and exiled. Herod not only is not a king, he is exiled and some of his monies given away. [2]
Even with all that, Herod still has some stature and honor for himself. His power is one that can still imprison or take a life. He chooses to keep his promise to the daughter of Herodias. After all, others were in attendance and heard what he had said. How could he go back on his word, despite having to take a life, in order to keep his word.
Herod is in exile, son of a king, but not a king himself. People all around him know who he is. Will he keep his promises, keeping what little honor he has left, or will he break the promise? He is caught between the proverbial “Rock and Hard” place. He knows what is at stake here. He knows what is right in the eyes of God and what is wrong in the eyes of God.
What times have you faced decisions, where you knew what was right and wrong and were tempted to do the wrong? What times did you choose poorly in your decisions, and others paid for your decision?
Daily life also presents a series of Herod-like personal and spiritual dilemmas for persons to negotiate. For a harried mother of a toddler, there is the question of how best to love and parent a child in the face of a defiant “No!” and a full-fledged temper tantrum in aisle 6 of the grocery store at the end of a long day. For a father of three, it is the struggle to explain the importance of rearranging travel plans for a work trip so he can attend a Little League playoff game. A corporate executive wonders how her announcement of a long-awaited pregnancy will affect her employees’ perceptions of her as an effective boss. A stay-at-home dad wrestles with the whispers of former colleagues that he just couldn’t handle the pressures of work. Teenagers experience the angst of competing for acceptance in desirable social cliques, of serial broken hearts in the complex world of adolescent dating, of familial tensions over privileges and responsibilities. Younger children long for popular toys advertised on television, worry about parental fights and the potential (or actual) breakup of their families, and wonder if the trouble they have learning multiplication tables or basic grammar means they are stupid. Across the lifespan, persons question who they are and how they should act as life pushes and pulls them in conflicting directions. And as in the story of Herod’s struggle, there are lives at stake as they decide which actions they will take.[3]
We all face decision in our lives. Hopefully we do not have to face one as serious as what Herod did, but you never know. We will make bad decisions and we will make good ones. Trusting in the Holy Spirit as our guide, faithfully we may be guided to good decisions.
It might even be said that Herod struggles as Paul does, in Romans 7:21-24. Paul wrights. “I find … that when I want to do what is good, evil lies close at hand. For I delight in the law of God in my inmost self, but I see in my members another law at war with the law of my mind, making me captive to the law of sin that dwells in my members. Wretched man that I am!”[4]
Will our decisions always be based upon the transformative way God has in mind for us and all of creation? I bet not always. When we miss the target, when we make decisions that are not grounded in God’s own transformation of the world, we can count on God still using our decision, for the furtherance of God’s will for creation.
God cannot be stopped and will work with whatever comes God’s way. We can also still count on the transformative power of the cross, where Jesus made the right decision on our behalf, so that we may have eternal life in the grace of God.
[1] Revised Common Lectionary (Bellingham, WA: Logos Bible Software, 2009).
[2] Flavius Josephus and William Whiston, The Works of Josephus: Complete and Unabridged, 18.7 (Peabody: Hendrickson, 1987).
[3] Karen Marie Yust, “Pastoral Perspective on Mark 6:14‒29,” in Feasting on the Word: Preaching the Revised Common Lectionary: Year B, ed. David L. Bartlett and Barbara Brown Taylor, vol. 3 (Louisville, KY: Westminster John Knox Press, 2009), 238.
[4] Douglas John Hall, “Theological Perspective on Mark 6:14‒29,” in Feasting on the Word: Preaching the Revised Common Lectionary: Year B, ed. David L. Bartlett and Barbara Brown Taylor, vol. 3 (Louisville, KY: Westminster John Knox Press, 2009), 238.