Sermon
I have a small immediate family. Me, my mom, my brother and his wife and son. I was looking at a picture of the five of us one day, and realized that although there are only five people, there are 20 relationships represented in that photo! Even though three of the five are single, that's still a lot of relationships. There are 2 moms, 2 spouses, 2 sisters, 2 sisters-in-law, 2 brothers, 1 grandmother, 1 nephew, 3 daughters, 2 sons, 1 mother-in-law, and two aunts = 20 relationships. And if we count each person's relationship with themselves, that's 25.
I am basically an introvert so I don't know how I went from 5, to 20, so quickly! I thought the room felt crowded!
I'm getting to know all of you pretty well now, and I know there are some sizeable families. I can't even imagine how many relationships exist in one room at a reunion, or birthday party, or other event. Maybe even just nightly dinner has a lot of relationships.
When you run into me on the street, you see one person, but what you're really looking at is all of the other relationships I carry around with me – I'm single, only have one sibling, and I've never been a parent. And still, just counting family, I still represent 4 relationships. That's not counting the random people we pick up in our lives, at work, at church, at a club, as neighbors, and friends we accumulate.
Think about that. Can you do that mental exercise now, counting yourself as one, and add one for each relationship that you represent – a mother, sister, aunt, cousin, daughter, father, son, brother, uncle, a something in-law, a grandparent maybe. Again, this isn't counting relationships like friend, co-worker, boss, baseball buddy, gym group, etc. If we were here in person, I'd ask you to take a minute to do that, and then look around the room. Don't you think the room would suddenly feel more crowded? Maybe that would make you feel better, or maybe it makes you anxious, depending on what a crowd means to you, and how specific relationships make you feel.
The reason I bring this up is because depending on which person you think about in today's text, there are many different relationships in the room at the birthday party of Herod Antipas. This was not the same King Herod who the wise men avoided after seeing Jesus in the manger. This King Herod, nicknamed Antipas, was not actually a king, rather he was a tetrarch, ruler of four sections of Roman Judea. For reference, this is the same Antipas who Pilate tried to send Jesus to after he was arrested because Pilate did not want to execute Jesus. Depending on the purpose of the particular gospel, this story is told differently. For example, the gospel of Luke doesn't include this story. The gospel of Matthew includes a very abbreviated version. But here in Mark's version, the story is full of detail about the people, their relationships to one another, and their own setting.
If I asked you what this story was about, you might say that it is about the death of John the Baptist. You would be right. Or, since the party story is in answer to the question, “Who is Jesus?” maybe you'd say the story is about Jesus. And you'd be right again. But neither Jesus or John actually ever appear in this text. That doesn't mean we'd be wrong, just that there are more options. The other characters in the story are minor characters in that they don't appear anywhere else in any gospel stories. And yet, they are major characters because it's the relationships they represent that make this tragic story so personal.
There's Herodias and his daughter too, not to mention all of the courtiers, officers, and all the leaders of Galilee. With all of those people around him Herod is one person, but represents several relationships. He is a father, a husband, and a few things for John the Baptist – protector/jailer/spiritual directee, as well as a ruler. These relationships hold sway over him, just as our relationships matter to us.
The personal and social dilemmas for Herod that are created by these relationships are from his household as well as society. He wants to be perceived as generous and trustworthy to all of his guests. He gave his oath that anything his daughter wanted, he would grant. To go back on one's oath was a severe misstep. Herod was at odds with his wife, because as his sister-in-law, it had been unlawful for Herod to marry her. John the Baptist is the one who called him out on that, so Herodias holds a grudge against John. But Herod has come to enjoy his conversations with John the Baptist down there in his jail cell, and, he has said that he will protect John. Herod has to do what his daughter has asked, even though it is Herodias who has manipulated her daughter into asking for the head of John the Baptist.
Herod is trying to make everyone around him happy and still uphold his own personal standards.3
Does that sound familiar?
We do this all the time, albeit without so much at stake and without such a tragic outcome. What we do is consider all of those relationships that are attached to us, and try to please them all. When there is a conflict, we have to consider our own issues, ethics, desires, and personal standards.
A simple example is when my brother got me two amazing seats to a SF Giants game for the first time several years ago. I love spending quality time with my brother, so the first person I asked to go with me was him. It was such a great gift, he gave me the same gift the next year, and I asked him to be my plus one. But this time, our relationship and his relationship with his family, and his personal standards were in mild conflict. He wanted to go so he wouldn't disappoint me; he wanted to decline because family time is precious; and his own personal standard of never intending to get a great gift for me so that he could benefit also. No one was beheaded in this example! You can see how he, one person, held three relationships in mind when he made his decision.
As family members, employees, employers, students, teachers, church members, parents, children, we are affected by all of the relationships that we live into. How do we make a decision then? We consider what's at stake.
Evidently for Herod Antipas, his personal standards weren't strong enough to overcome his fear of looking bad or weak or undependable, even when John the Baptist's life was at stake.
Maybe there are times or was a time, when we had to make a decision that had a lot at stake. A marriage, growing a family, protecting a loved one, being accountable after making an error or a mistake, speaking truth to power, being yourself despite society's rejection; You had a car accident and you need to come forward; you're LGBTQ+ and you're tired of struggling to be accepted; you need to come clean with your spouse about something.
Not only do we consider what's at stake, we need to consider who has the power in any situation. Lot's of Americans want a voice right now. Some want to speak up and speak out because they have never had the chance. Some feel threatened by the changes speaking up and speaking out can bring, so they want an even louder voice. Some are politicians and have constituents and PACs to please so they want a voice. Pretty soon there are just a lot of loud voices and nothing is actually heard.
I want to ask us as individuals and within the groups that create important relationships to us, to consider what we listen to. Don't listen to the loudest voice. Listen to the one that brings you the most personal internal peace. Listen to the one that brings you closer to your own integrity. When we do, we are praying. We are listening to God's voice telling us what is important, what matters, and what is at stake. Part of what is meant when we talk about Imago Dei, everyone being made in the image of God is this. That voice deep inside us is the Image of God. Getting as close as we can to that part of us is what the spiritual journey is. It's a difficult journey at times. Texts like this one we read today, with the gruesome and awful death of a prophet at the hands of a weak man who answers to the wrong small g god, is part of our worship and our scripture because it is part of a spiritual journey.
We don't worship while in denial and only focus on great things. We worship when tragedy and misstep happen too because through it all, God is doing something. We worship when governments are behaving badly, immigrants are suffering unbearably, our black siblings are trying yet again to crawl out from under the white supremacy that built so many of our systems; we worship in the middle of a pandemic, when over 4 million people worldwide have died, and people are still dying.
For Herod Antipas, the guilt over executing John the Baptist was probably in his mind when, later, Pontius Pilate send Jesus back to Antipas for trial. Remembering what it was like to be in power and have to answer to so many conflicting pulls, he said no thanks, and send Jesus back. And we know, as it turns out Pilate was in the same position trying to make too many people happy and trying to get out of it, and yet in the end, he did the same thing Antipas did. Herod realized after the fact, that he killed John the Baptist and put his own spiritual life at risk. Emerson Powery, a commentator I read says, “Herod too is at risk in this story. His spiritual quest is threatened by a decision that destroys further opportunity for conversation with John. His guilt over putting John to death leads him to imagine that Jesus, another emergent Jewish teacher, is John resurrected. Perhaps he fantasizes that he will have a second chance to listen to John's message of repentance and will finally understand and embrace the spiritual life John was proclaiming.” Powery continues, “Perhaps this is how human beings deal with our inclination to prefer social stability and equilibrium over the messy, chaotic process of personal and social transformation that participating in a spiritual quest requires. We look for second chances and hope that we are ready to risk more of ourselves this time around.”3
We don't need to make a mistake in order to have a second chance. We can move deeper into our spiritual lives simply because we desire to be closer to God, not just in response to a crisis. A deeper spiritual life will bring a great foundation to the seeking that happens when there is a crisis. We can do new things in response to new discoveries about what brings us joy, what is refreshing, not just in response to what we are no longer able to do. We can return to former things in an even better way, not just because we always did it that way, but because we still find ourselves in God's midst when we do that thing.
Including this story of the death of John the Baptist isn't just for Lent. This story brings us appropriate challenges for any time. Commentator Karen Yust puts it best. I will close with this quote from her. She writes, “The challenge of the twenty-first century is for the body of Christ to read our own decisions in light of that same story and ask ourselves whether the choices we are making are self-protective, or part of God's transformation of the world.”1
Amen.
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1Karen Marie Yust, Feasting on the Word series, Year B, Vol. 3, p.236-241
2Peter S. Hawkins, Feasting on the Word series, Year B, Vol. 3, p.206-211
3Emerson Powery, Feasting on the Word series, Year B, Vol. 3, p.206-211