Eighth Sunday After Pentecost
Proper 10, Year B
TEXT: Mark 6:14-29
The word was getting around about Jesus, and soon even King Herod had heard what was being said … “It’s John for sure,” he said. “I had his head cut off, but he’s come back anyway, and more trouble than ever.”
—Mark 6:14a, 16 (Laughingbird paraphrase)
I write this week’s blog from Calgary, Alberta, where the “Greatest Outdoor Show on Earth” is in full swing. Thankfully, so far, the Calgary Stampede has only killed three of its rodeo animals (fingers crossed there won’t be more).
I desperately need to escape from the cowboy atmosphere which pervades everything here. So, today, I’d like to focus our attention upon a man who was anything but a gun-slinging hero from a Hollywood Western. As far as I know, he never packed a six-gun or wore a tin star upon his chest. He didn’t have to. He was in touch with something far more powerful.
You all know his name (or at least, you should). I’m talking about Mohandas Karamchand Ghandi (1869-1948), the father of modern India, who most of us probably know by the title “Mahatma” (which means “great soul”).
In the early 1920s, Gandhi and India’s National Congress Party began moving more and more towards civil disobedience as a chief political strategy in order to achieve independence from British colonial rule. In spite of numerous setbacks to his cause and violent confrontations with the authorities, Ghandi never gave up his vision that independence could be achieved without spilling one drop of British blood. He continued to walk his way back and forth across the country preaching his message of non-violent resistance.
As he did so, his reputation began to spread throughout the Indian subcontinent. Both Hindus and Muslims would come from long distances—on foot, with their bedding on their heads and shoulders, on bullock carts, and on horseback—just to catch a glimpse of him. Never before, it seemed, had any political or religious leader so profoundly inspired and mobilized the masses of ordinary people.
Even the civil authorities had to sit up and take notice. Although they resented deeply what Gandhi was attempting to do, they could also not help but admire what he had come to represent. Gandhi’s hold on the public imagination was tremendous—and that is the kind of threat that the rulers of this world fear most.
In today’s gospel reading, Mark plunks us down squarely in the real world of politics. This is the only significant story in Mark’s Gospel that is not about Jesus; and it is no accident that Mark places it where he does.
Jesus has just finished giving instructions to his disciples about how they are to embody God’s love in the world (Mark 6:7-13). Expect opposition and trouble, he tells them, but the only thing you need to take with you is the gospel and a confident faith. And then, Mark—as if to “slam dunk” his point—reminds us of the story of John the Baptist; and he does it in a very deliberate way.
He does it by reminding us that Herod was tormented by fear. Now, I should point out that this is not Herod the Great, who ruled Israel around the time of Jesus’ birth. No. This is Herod the Great’s son by his Samaritan wife Malthace. He was called Herod Antipas to keep them straight, but he was a chip off the old block.
Mark calls him “King Herod”—but in reality, he had only pretensions to be a king. True, he was the ruler of Galilee for about 43 years, and—aside from the Romans—he was the chief political authority during Jesus’ lifetime. Still, his official title was “tetrarch of Galilee and Perea,” a position made available to him as a result of his father’s accommodation with the Romans.
Herod Antipas never did get to be king of anything, but he was an ambitious man who enjoyed great power and wealth. He was also thoroughly despised by his Roman masters and by his Jewish subjects. Herod was the kind of ruler who thumbed his nose at Israel’s religious laws, both by marrying his brother’s wife Herodias and by building his capital city—Tiberias—on top of a pagan cemetery.
The story told by the gospels (and also by the Roman historian Josephus) is that he got into deep political controversy with John the Baptist. John condemned Herod for several reasons—but the one that really stuck in John’s craw was Herod’s marriage to Herodias.
John publicly accused this famous couple of “living in sin.” That was enough to turn Herodias purple with rage, and she convinced her husband to throw the troublesome prophet in jail.
Apparently, Herod feared the Baptist almost as much as he feared his wife. He knew how popular John was with the people—and he knew that he might provoke an uprising if he mishandled the situation with John. Herod may have thought that if John was in prison, then at least he could keep an eye on him—as well as keep peace in his own bedroom.
But it wasn’t just fear that motivated Herod. He was fascinated by John and frequently visited the prison just so that he could hear him ranting in his cold, dark cell. The portrait Mark paints is of a man who is obsessed by the very thing he fears and despises.
“Herod took a perverse pleasure in listening to John speak,” Mark tells us. “Everything John said aggravated him, and yet he kept coming back for more.” (Mark 6:20b)
Unfortunately, this fascination was not enough to convince him to change his behaviour. And the day Herod decided to throw a birthday party for himself, he unwittingly set himself up for a profound embarrassment. It was a grand and decadent celebration which was bound to impress all of Herod’s political cronies.
However, the evening included an unexpected turning point (unexpected by Herod, at least). Herodias’ daughter Salome (who was actually Herod’s niece) performed a provocative dance that was intended to arouse Herod—and make him vulnerable to suggestion. Now, whether Salome herself meant anything by it, her mother saw this as the chance she had been waiting for.
Caught up in the moment, Herod gave in to both his lust and his pride by following through on an oath to Salome to give her anything she wanted. Herodias made sure that what her daughter asked for was John’s head on a platter! And that, as they say, was the end of John the Baptist. Or so everyone thought.
By the time Mark tells us this story, John has been dead for some time and Jesus has been actively preaching his own message throughout Galilee. Although Herod apparently hadn’t met Jesus, he knew that something equally as powerful as John was stirring out there among the people.
“It’s John for sure,” he said. “I had his head cut off, but he’s come back anyway.”
This is what Mark wants to tell us. This is not just a story to remind us of the dangers of preaching the truth. It is a story to remind us of the delusions of the powerful. Herod’s own actions have engendered in him a deep-seated fear about the results of his deed. He interprets what he hears about Jesus “and his gang” by imagining that John has come back to get him.
Neither is this merely a story to tip us off about what lies ahead for Jesus as the plot develops. Of course, a similar fate is going to befall Jesus, as it befalls anybody with the courage to speak truth to the powerful. But that is not something Mark’s church would ever have questioned. What they would have had doubts about was the effectiveness of such truth-telling. Would following Jesus and speaking truth to the powerful ever make any difference, in the end?
Mark says that defenceless, unarmed, decapitated, dead prophets like John the Baptist do come back to haunt the powerful of this world. And you know, that is the truth. It is a truth that has been embodied in heroes like Martin Luther King, Jr., Oscar Romero, Cesar Chavez, Anne Frank—and of course, Mohandas Ghandi, who said that what kept him going in the face of apparently unbeatable opposition was the deep conviction, not just that love would eventually conquer, but that evil would inevitably defeat itself.
“When I despair,” he said, “I remember that throughout history tyrants and dictators have always failed in the end. Think of it. Always.”
Those words can offer us hope even in these frightening times when tyrants and dictators—and terrorists—still exert their malevolent power over the hearts and minds of many. Hatred is a powerful force; but it is also a heavy burden, and those who embrace it will, eventually, themselves be crushed by its enormous weight.
The power of love is different; it does not oppress, but rather lifts up—even in the worst of circumstances, the power of love is a buoyant force. I think that just may be what Jesus meant when he said:
“Come to me, all you that are weary and are carrying heavy burdens, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you, and learn from me; for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light.” —Matt. 11:28-30 (NRSV)
Amen.
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MARK’S GOSPEL quotations from Laughingbird paraphrase ©2000 Nathan Nettleton (access at www.laughingbird.net)
MATTHEW 11:28-30. The New Revised Standard Version (Anglicized Edition), ©1989, 1995 by the Division of Christian Education of the National Council of the Churches of Christ in the United States of America. Used by permission. All rights reserved.