Often when I am teaching a Bible study, I explain the different kinds of writing that we find in the Bible and I describe the gospels as the stories that tell us about Jesus’ life and ministry. But today’s gospel isn’t a healing or feeding story and it isn’t a parable when Jesus is teaching his disciples. In fact, this isn’t a Jesus story at all, so we are left wondering, “Why is it here?”
Instead of Jesus, this story’s main characters are Herod and John the Baptist. This Herod isn’t the same man who sent the magi out to find Jesus when he heard about the Messiah’s birth and then ordered the deaths of all the infant boys in Israel. That was his father, Herod the Great; this is Herod Antipas, and while Mark calls him “king” he is actually a Roman official, a political appointee, given authority to rule in the territory.
And John, the cousin of Jesus, is the son of a priest named Zechariah and his wife Elizabeth. Before Jesus began his ministry, John went before him into Jerusalem and Judea “proclaiming a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins.” (Mark 1:4) By the time we hear this story, John who was jailed by Herod Antipas, is already dead.
So what we have here is a flashback — a flashback to an episode of rejection sandwiched between the sending of the disciples and their return.
The text begins, “When Herod heard” but it never tells us what Herod heard. Because Mark puts the story between the sending of Jesus’ disciples and the account of them returning, we can reasonably guess that what Herod heard was reports about the mission of the disciples.
After all, the Romans and the religious leaders had noticed Jesus drawing large crowds, and people were talking; they didn’t know what to think about this teacher or his followers. Some people thought one of the ancient prophets of Israel had returned, but Herod believed that John the baptizer, whom he had executed, had been raised from the dead.
The gospel account tells the story of a banquet where Herod made a careless promise, and, instead of admitting his mistake or speaking up to correct the injustice of arresting and binding a righteous and holy man, Herod ordered John’s execution. And the baptizer was beheaded.
John the baptizer had come from the priestly tradition. As Father Richard Rohr, a Franciscan priest, writes,
The priestly class invariably makes God less accessible instead of more so, …[with the message]: “You can only come to God through us, by doing the right rituals,obeying the rules, and believing the right doctrines.” [i]But John defied tradition and preached a very different path to God.
The Very Reverend Michael Battle who teaches at General Theological Seminary in New York says that John’s message was to stay awake to what God is doing. We hear this theme in Advent when we are in a time of anticipation and waiting for the birth of Jesus, but then we celebrate Christmas and thinking we know the rest of the story, we become complacent and comfortable. Encountering the details of John’s death here forces us to recall his purpose and recognize the significance of his witness even after Jesus is on the scene.
John called on people to wake up and pay attention to God’s activity all around them. He demanded accountability for their actions and called them to repent and turn to God. It was neither a popular nor a sentimental message.
The gospel says that Herod was perplexed by John, but, evidently, instead of trying to understand him or awaken to God’s presence and activity, Herod indulged himself, sated his appetites, and ultimately, made impulsive decisions that ended John’s life.
Herod’s story teaches us that “life and death are involved in all that we do.” Like Herod, when we are captive to our own impulses or to our fears, we resist or even reject those things that are life-giving and choose death in order to preserve what is comfortable and familiar.
Perhaps we have this story so that we will ask, “What are those impulses and fears that keep us from staying awake to what God is doing?”
Instead of falling captive to the siren’s call of power, control and approval, John’s call to us is to awaken to God’s presence all around us, opening our eyes to see that God is doing something new and freeing us to rejoice in God’s abiding love for us and enjoy new life in Christ.
Let us pray…[ii]
Life-giving God,
Though tyrants have opposed your truth,
cutting down your prophets,
and crucifying your Son, Jesus Christ,
you have not left us to death's powers.
Strengthened by your Holy Spirit,
may we stand up for the truth and rejoice in the Lord always.
Amen.
[i] https://cac.org/liberation-2017-09-13/, accessed 7/14/2018.
[ii] Adapted from Laughing Bird Liturgy, http://laughingbird.net/ComingWeeks.html
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