Mark’s detailed story about King Herod and John the Baptist reads like an episode straight out of The Handmaid’s Tale. There’s enough tragedy here to make my ears perk up, that’s for sure. Herod Antipas, the Roman puppet ruler of Galilee and Perea, would fit right in there with those proud and posturing commanders of Gilead. Herod has dumped his first wife to marry his half-brother’s ex, either out of lust or as a power-play to ruin his brother … or both. He throws himself a decadent party to entertain an unsavory mix of rich cronies, political elites, and military commanders. He gets drunk and convinces Herodias’ young daughter to show off for his guests. Whether or not the dance is inappropriate, Herod is clearly filled with an overblown sense of his own power, promising to reward the girl with up to half of his kingdom. Confronted with Herodias’ gory request, Herod cares more for saving face with his powerful friends than he does for saving the life of an innocent man. The whole scene is disgusting, even before it ends up with John’s severed head on a platter.
What catches me off guard in the story isn’t how an innocent prophet suffers for speaking the truth. That happens all the time. Jeremiah gets thrown into a muddy pit for his words of warning; Micaiah ben Imlah gets thrown into prison for speaking truth to the king; Jesus of Nazareth is hung on a cross; the Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr. is shot. It’s dangerous to speak truth to power, even today. Instead, what catches me up short in this story is that Herod truly likes listening to John the Baptist! Herod doesn’t like what John says to him, but he doesn’t shun the prophet. Far from it-- he seeks him out in prison to hear his words. Herod knows that a good Jewish leader shouldn’t be enriching himself by colluding with Rome, or sleeping with his brother’s ex, or feasting with corrupt men while his people go hungry. He hears the truth in John’s reproaches—and he can’t tear himself away. At the same time, though, he doesn’t want to change. So he stays to listen in horrid fascination.
I think that Herod listens to John like I listen to The Grapes of Wrath. I sit behind my wall of privilege, cozy in my comfortable life, and I can’t turn my eyes away from the suffering of the Joad family. I enjoy the sting of truth that seeps through the pages of sad stories like these. Writes Debie Thomas: “In a world overrun with doctored images, fake headlines, exaggerated claims … truth is precious. It draws our gaze and pricks our ears… Something in us hungers for the truth. We fear it and need it, all at once.”[1]
When I first started participating in “Ashes to Go” on Ash Wednesday, bringing ashes to people in parking lots and shopping centers, I was amazed at the large response. People who no longer chose to attend church would come out in a snowstorm to hear a strange priest say that they are going to die! Dozens of them! They would get tears of joy in their eyes and tell me what a blessing these ashes were to them. “What’s going on?” I wondered. But people wanted to hear that they are dust, because it is the truth. It’s a truth that is rarely uttered in our secular world. These spiritually-starved people were Herod, and I was John the Baptist, doling out bits of truth, small bits of God, as they made their way home from work. A quick prayer, a meaningful prayer, with no change of life required.
The trouble is that King Herod’s fascination with John’s truth doesn’t end up helping him to make good choices in his life. When push comes to shove, Herod isn’t strong enough to defend John’s righteousness to Herodias and his important friends. It can be the same for us, too, can’t it? I might regularly pierce my heart with sad stories about poverty, but I don’t give away nearly enough to those in need. I might read moving books about the courage of those who suffer, without thinking to step forward in solidarity with them. Don’t get me wrong--It’s a good thing to learn and to grow in understanding about the world’s troubles. It’s good to recognize the truth when we hear it. But today’s Gospel invites us to look into our hearts and pose some hard questions:
“Do I value status, reputation, and popularity more than I do the truth?”
“Do I prefer stability and safety more than transformation?”
“Is my inner life and my outer life misaligned, one always covering for the other?”
“When I decide that justice is too messy or costly, who suffers in the long term?”[2]
These are questions that confront us all as individual Christians, and as a Church. To be honest, I often feel like the disciples in John’s Gospel, when Jesus asks them if they plan on abandoning him when the going gets tough, as many have done. Peter turns to Jesus and, with exasperation in his voice, replies: “Lord, to whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life, and we have believed, and have come to know that you are the Holy One of God.” For Peter, the pull of truth is stronger than the aversion for fear or the love of comfort. Unlike Herod, Peter can no longer turn away.
The Church, with a capital “C,” has been able to spend a lot of time sitting comfortably by the prison door, listening avidly to John and Jesus speak beautiful truth. The time for uncommitted listening may be growing short, however. I’m afraid that our secular, suffering, Covid-filled world just might be about to put us before difficult choices. Will we be able to move from uncommitted listening to the full-blown discipleship that brings new life? I was pleased to get some wonderful feedback from a few of you about the “Why, How, and What” statement that the Vestry drafted recently. In our document, we talk in rather vague terms about our decision to “do Jesus’ work of love” in the world. What many of you asked me was, “what exactly is the work of love that we do in the world?” You said that it’s time for this parish to take action. You challenged us to name the things and to do them, to refuse to bow to fear and scarcity and fatigue.
I am excited to do this difficult work with you, to put down the sad stories and to move from seeking the truth to living the truth. As Jesus says to us, again in John’s Gospel, “If you hold to my teaching, you are really my disciples. Then you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free.”
As usual, dear Anne, you go to the heart of the matter. You too are a witness to the Truth.
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