Grace Presbyterian Church
July 12, 2015, Ordinary 15B
Mark 6:14-29
Requiem For a Prophet
This is a strange
story.
Or perhaps it’s
not so much a strange story as it is a strange story to be telling now, at this
point in Mark’s gospel.
We’ve been
following this gospel for some time now, catching some of it before the Easter
season and resuming the journey after Pentecost. We’ve seen the beginning of
Jesus’s ministry; a number of miraculous healings and exorcisms, causing the
crowds to throng around Jesus to the point that it became impossible to travel
in the cities and towns; we’ve observed the first stirrings of opposition from
religious leaders from Jerusalem, as well as the embarrassment of his family;
and, after a couple more healings, last week we saw Jesus face the rejection of
his hometown folk who “took offense at
him,” and send out his disciples on their first “independent” mission. Now
we get what looks at best like a sidebar, in which Jesus is quite absent except
as a point of discussion at the royal court, and a flashback revealing how
things finally turned out for John the baptizer. Remember him?
We had met him
back at the beginning of this gospel, out in the wilderness preaching and
challenging his hearers to repent. Jesus, you’ll remember, shows up to be
baptized by John, and then is driven into the wilderness for a period of
temptation. Meanwhile, the last we hear of John is in 1:14: “Now after John was arrested, Jesus came to
Galilee, proclaiming the good news of God, and saying, ‘The time is fulfilled,
and the kingdom of God has come near; repent, and believe in the good news.”
We’ve come back to
that last part many times since then. But that first phrase of verse 14: “Now after John was arrested…” Wait,
what? This seems like a big deal, something that deserves more than a throwaway
phrase.
Well, maybe Mark
agreed with that sentiment. For whatever reason, five chapters later, our
author suddenly returns to John and picks up his story after his arrest by
Herod. It turns out that story didn’t end well.
First, though, we
get an insight into just how much Jesus’s reputation is spreading. It turns out
that the authorities in the Temple aren’t the only bigwigs who have taken
notice of Jesus and his following. Unlike those Temple authorities, though, the
level of concern in the courts of King Herod runs more towards idle, bemused
speculation than serious interest and wariness.
One might imagine
the conversation, something like this:
“So, how ‘bout this Jesus fellow?”
“Who? What’s this?”
“You know, this rural rabbi making the rounds up in Galilee, doing all
these healings and miracles. The one who’s got the prayboys over at the Temple
all aflutter.”
“Oh, yeah, I heard about him. Big miracle worker. So what about him?”
“Who is he? I mean, obviously he can’t just be this
hick-from-the-sticks preacher, not with all these things going on around him.
So who is he, really?”
“Well, there are some talking about him as if he’s John the baptizer
come back from the dead. You know that would drive Herod crazy.”
“Yes, but there are others who say he’s Elijah returned, or a prophet
like the old prophets who used to roam around this benighted kingdom and make
kings’ lives miserable.”
When the chatter
made it to Herod’s desk, though, it stopped being idle. One can imagine Herod
turning pale as a sheet, eyes stricken with fear, mumbling to himself, “It’s John. I had him killed, and John has
come back to get me.” And then, as if suddenly remembering that he hadn’t
gotten around to telling that story, the author now does so.
It’s a pretty
sordid story, and one that has lived on in the arts and culture in a way that
few such New Testament stories have done. Aside from the obvious “biggies” like
the Crucifixion or the Nativity, this particular story has been one of the most
fertile subjects for painters, novelists, playwrights, and even composers of
any of the New Testament. Aside from a number of paintings, probably the most
famous such artistic products are the scandalous Oscar Wilde play Salome and the also-scandalous opera by
Richard Strauss based partly on that play. For arts lovers, those products may
actually be unhelpful in reading this story, so a moment to clear away the
clutter is appropriate here.
First of all, get
that “Dance of the Seven Veils” from the Strauss opera out of your head. The
girl in question was a younger girl, possibly no older than the little girl
raised by Jesus back in chapter five. For another, you’ll note than in this
account she isn’t even given the name “Salome”; rather, Mark sticks her with
her mother’s name Herodias (although there’s some uncertainty about whether
Mark is actually trying to refer to “the daughter of Herodias herself”). The
name “Salome” is given in extra-biblical accounts like that of the Jewish
historian Josephus. So bear in mind that what Oscar Wilde and Richard Strauss
give us is, as you might expect, quite an exaggeration of the original.
Not that the story
doesn’t have its own intrigue. Herodias is more than willing to use that young
daughter to get Herod to do what she (Herodias) wanted, and what Herod could
have done at any time. A whole roomful of courtiers and hangers-on are on hand
to see just how Herod (who in this telling is nobody’s idea of a great king)
handles this particular pickle.
But perhaps the
most intriguing, or maybe most curious part of the story is: why had Herod kept
John alive for so long?
He, as king, could
have had John executed at any time. He didn’t even have to bother with
imprisoning him, really, although it might have been expedient in order to keep
the possibility of a revolt by John’s followers under control. He could have
had any crowds dispersed or put down and then had John killed. Instead, for
some reason, he keeps John around, not only letting him live but even going to
hear John occasionally, even though he had to know they only thing John was
going to do was to condemn him for stealing his brother’s wife.
In the end,
though, political expediency won out. Herod, like any politician, lived in
mortal fear of appearing weak, and once he was put on the spot there was
nothing to it but to have John’s head served up on the requested platter.
So, what then to
make of this story? There are a few lessons, some obvious and some less so.
Maybe the easiest
lesson is that speaking truth to power is not always rewarded with success and
honor. Sometimes it just gets you killed. While history offers a multitude of
examples of this tendency, one of which I was reminded this week was William
Tyndale, the sixteenth-century English scholar who determinedly produced the
first complete translation of the Bible into English drawing directly from
Hebrew and Greek texts rather than Latin translations. For his trouble, Tyndale
was arrested and imprisoned for a year, then finally executed by strangulation,
after which his body was burned at the stake. Even as vernacular translations
were appearing across Europe in the wake of the Protestant Reformation,
Tyndale’s effort to bring scripture into the language of the people brought him
to a violent end. Tyndale is just one example; students of history can probably
come up with many others who confront the powers that be, and end up crushed by
them.
Not all such
persons ended up executed, of course, and we today are fortunate to live in a
place and time where we don’t face execution or other such punishments for
speaking truth to power. It still can cost us, though, particularly when one
looks at powers other than the state. The ability of large corporations, for
example, to crush those who speak out against their practices is something that
should frighten us all. So it still remains true that speaking truth to power
can not only be rejected, but cause harm to us as those trying as best as
possible to follow Christ.
There’s another
lesson, though, in that wishy-washy way Herod keeps going back to hear from
John, one that gives a preacher like myself great cause for concern. In a way,
there might just be a fate worse than facing punishment for speaking truth to
power; the fate of, in trying to proclaim the news of the kingdom of God at
hand, of being reduced to an entertainment, or a sideshow.
I think that’s a
fear for preachers in particular, yes, but not one irrelevant to anyone trying
to be a follower of Christ. They’ll come back to hear us, sure. They might even
commend our preaching, or our music or whatever aspect of the church’s worship
or practice strikes their fancy, but nothing really happens. The sermons or anthems go out and are heard, but … nothing. Nothing changes. Nothing
“takes,” and everything goes on the same as it always has been.
I fear in some
ways that this is how the Christian Church in general, particularly in the
United States, passed much of the twentieth century. We built our big fancy
buildings when we had the influence that came of being something people just had to be part of. We put out our
radio shows – like, say, “The Protestant Hour” or the old broadcasts by the
likes of Bishop Sheen – and, comfortable in our place, were content to be
simply influential, without much actually happening. To paraphrase C.S. Lewis, we thought we
had found our place in society, when in fact society had found its place in
us.
Then, all of a
sudden, we found ourselves on the outside looking in. Finally people had
noticed that the church wasn’t really doing
anything with all that influence, at least not anything that really made
anybody’s life better. Things like racism, or sexism, or poverty, or all manner
of injustice were rolling along unchecked, and instead of making a difference
or at least speaking up against these injustices it seemed like large chunks of
the church were getting all bent out of shape over what went on in people’s
bedrooms. Faced with this kind of disconnect, society decided the church wasn’t
really worth the trouble anymore, and they’ve been drifting away ever since.
So now, we try to
speak, even try to speak up against real injustice, and society looks at us and
says, “that’s cute.” And they go on about their business, and we remain on the
fringe, looking irrelevant, more like a curiosity than a serious messenger with
good news to proclaim.
Finally, we have
to acknowledge that Mark is engaging in some literary foreshadowing here. The
final result of John’s encounter with Roman power is not exactly like what
happens to Jesus later in the gospel, but the effect is pretty similar –
except, of course, for the small detail about Jesus not staying dead. And it’s
hard not to wonder if Jesus, fresh off rejection in his own hometown, doesn’t
have some inkling of this. You have to think Jesus knows what happens to those
who speak truth to power in the age of the Roman Empire.
And yet Jesus
didn’t go silent. Jesus didn’t retreat from his mission. Jesus didn’t stop
acting out of compassion for the crowds that continued to flock to see Jesus,
and Jesus didn’t stop lighting into the Pharisees and scribes when they
continued to nitpick at Jesus and the disciples. The ministry, the mission
continued, and Jesus continued to proclaim the kingdom of God come near, and
the good news.
And that’s our
mission as well. Whether we face opposition or bemusement, our call continues
to be to proclaim the kingdom of God come near, and the good news. And for that
call, enduring and unchanging, Thanks be
to God. Amen.
Hymns
(PH ’90):
#482 Praise
to the Lord, the Almighty
#418 God,
Bless Your Church With Strength
#409 Wild
and Lone the Prophet’s Voice
#420 God
of Grace and God of Glory
That's one kind of legacy...
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