SERMON Other People's Lives

Pentecost 5(B) (2009), Lectionary 15, Proper 10: Amos 7:7-15; Ephesians 1:3-14; Mark 6:14-29

At the end of August, we will be spending a week on Cape Cod. I always enjoy the weeks before we go because it is during these weeks that I decide what I am going to read. I don't know about you, but I have a real preference about what I read on vacations. And that preference is for Other People's Lives -- usually for real-life, barely fictionalized mysteries, for unauthorized biographies, and for tell-all autobiographies -- supplemented with People magazine, Vanity Fair, and, yes, I'll admit it, sometimes (but only on vacation) with the National Enquirer. Other People's Lives. Indeed, after twenty-nine years, our Cape house bookshelves brim with books by the likes of Dominick Dunne and Joe McGinnis just to name two. I am not sure where this fascination with the lives and dramas of Other People comes from (certain members of my family are quite sniffy about it), but I do know it makes for great recreational, summertime reading.

Which brings us to what we've just heard.

It may be because I have just chosen this summer's reading -- top on my list is The Bishop's Daughter (just out in paperback) by Honor Moore -- but I am struck how perfectly Mark's account of John the Baptist's death fits my summertime reading preference for Other People's Lives.

The fit is perfect in part because the "Other People" in Mark's gospel are genuinely intriguing. Let me sketch them for you.

There are four main characters.

First and foremost, we have Herod, a Jew. He is not actually a king but the administrator (or tetrarch) of two mainly Jewish territories. The territories -- Galilee and Perea -- were willed to him by his father Herod the Great (who was a king).

Next we have Herodias, Herod's wife who is also his former sister-in-law. "How did that happen?" you might ask. It was a steamy story -- one where Herod and Herodias met and fell in love in Rome when Herod was the house guest of Herodias and his brother -- Heriodias' then-husband Philip. A tense time.

As is often the case in these kinds of affairs, there was a child involved. Our third character. Herodias' now 18 year old daughter from her first marriage. The daughter's actual name is Salome (not, as Mark thinks, the same as her mother's).

The fourth main character needs no introduction. It is John, prophet and baptizer.

In addition to the four main characters, we have the courtiers, officers, and leaders of Galilee, all gathered to celebrate Herod's birthday.

We know a great deal about some or all of these individuals and the circumstances of John's death. But what we know depends on our source.

A politically motivated account -- it could be from the Washington Post -- comes from the Jewish historian Josephus who reports that Herod "slew" John, "a good man," because Herod feared that, because of John's great influence over the people, he might raise a rebellion.

In Luke, the account is a no-details Chicago Tribune blurb: Herod hears news that some who saw Jesus has reported that John the Baptist has been raised from the dead. This leads Herod to remark that he beheaded John the Baptist; now he must learn more about Jesus.

By contrast, Matthew borrows some of Herod's political concerns from Josephus and some, but by no means all, of the detail from Mark -- all the news that The New York Times might see fit to print.

And that brings us back to today's report. When I have read an intriguing newspaper story about some Other Person's life, I buy People or, even better, Vanity Fair to get the whole story. Today's gospel is the first century equivalent of a People or Vanity Fair account of John the Baptist's death. It spells out motive, means, and method. We have the whole story.

We have a prophet, like Amos, who has not been afraid to take on the establishment and to criticize Herod's marriage to his brother's wife -- a marriage forbidden under Mosaic law. This criticism, we learn, infuriates Herodias.

Her marriage to Herod is nothing if not a love match. She can and does demand that an obviously devoted Herod imprison John. She cannot, however, ask Herod to kill John because, as we hear this morning, "Herod fear[s] John." So Herodias bides her time. Eventually her moment comes. Salome dances for Herod and his Galilean political cronies at Herod’s birthday party. Moved, Herod gives a solemn oath to the 18-year-old Salome that she can have whatever she wants. What she wants is what her mother wants, and John's head is presented on a platter. Motive, means, and method.

The odd thing is that this really could be an article from People -- or The New York Times, for that matter. Or the script for "48 Hours Mystery." Almost routinely it seems, we read or hear about plots (often successful) to kill business competitors, former lovers, spouses, critics, and rivals who annoy or who are simply inconvenient. Herodias would fit right in.

So is Mark's account of John the Baptist's death only the first-century equivalent of palace gossip? Just too juicy to leave out? Is that why it's here, one-third of the way through Mark's gossip?

I don't think so. It is much more than palace gossip.

Who do we really hear about this morning? We first hear about Herod's hearing the disciples preach about Jesus -- an event that produces an instantaneous and frightening recognition -- "John whom I beheaded has been raised" -- and flashback. We hear about Herod's life. But we are also hearing about Herod's relationship with John the Baptist.

Herod's relationship with John begins before John's imprisonment "[f]or John had been telling Herod" -- not the world at large, but Herod personally --"'It is not lawful for you to marry your brother's wife.'" And Herod obviously relays what John tells him to Herodias -- the woman he loves and for whom he has risked a great deal to marry.

So while Herodias knows she can demand that John be imprisoned, she also knows she cannot ask for John's execution because of that relationship. She knows Herod "fear[s]" John -- and the word "fear" here means "stands in awe of," "respects" -- "knowing that [John is] a righteous and holy man." She knows that Herod is protecting John. And if she does not actually know, she probably senses that -- like a moth attracted to a flame -- "[w]hen Herod hear[s] John, he is greatly perplexed; and yet he like[s] to listen to him." This is not a casual relationship. It is, if not discipleship, almost discipleship. It is serious.

And it is found only in Mark's gospel.

So why does the author of Mark go into detail about this relationship when no other gospel writer even acknowledges it?

A clue is found in the placement of the Baptist narrative in Mark. What we hear this morning begins immediately after Jesus has called his disciples and sent them out two by two to preach, cast out demons, and anoint and cure the sick.

Immediately after the conclusion of what we hear, the disciples return to Jesus to tell him what they have done. In a seamless flow, the narrative about John and Herod in between is also about discipleship and the cost of discipleship. John the Baptist is the Precursor. And, as will be true of Jesus, John is executed. And, as will be true of Jesus's disciples, when John's disciples hear about his death, they come and take his body, and they lay it in a tomb.

So how does Herod and the life of the almost-disciple fit in to this scenario?

I think that in not only including the relationship between Herod and John in the narrative but focusing on it as well, Mark is illustrating for his community of post-resurrection Christians what the twelve, sent out by Jesus on their first successful mission, could never imagine: that their discipleship could and would be tested as it was for Herod. And that, without an openness to God's grace and will, that testing can lead, as it did for Herod, to betrayal and despair.

What were the tests that Herod failed? There are many obvious candidates.

One of the tests of discipleship is suggested by the opera Salome. In the opera, it is Herod's unrequited lust for Salome and Salome's unrequited lust for John the Baptist that is everyone's undoing. Herod cannot refuse Salome's request for John's head because of his desire for her. A spin on this scenario is that Herod allows John the Baptist to be killed because of his devotion to Herodias.

There is no question that lust and loyalty to family can be barriers to discipleship. There is little, however, to suggest that either lust for Salome or loyalty to Herodias was ultimately the barrier to discipleship for Herod.

Rather, the tests that are the ultimate barriers to Herod's claiming discipleship are found when we hear that Herod is "deeply grieved" when Salome makes her request; yet,"out of regard for his oaths and for the guests," he does not refuse her. "The oaths" and "the guests," those were the tests of betrayal and beheading.

To take the second of those two tests -- the guests. The guests here are not ordinary guests. These are Herod's political allies. We know from Josephus that Herod wants to be king -- an ambition that Herod eventually pursues into exile. But here he is: stuck in a job and with a title that are dependent on Rome's good graces and on the good will of the courtiers, officers, and leaders of Galilee.

And indications are this birthday party is a real bash, a bash being held not at Herod's regular palace in Galilee but at his winter palace on the Dead Sea where John is imprisoned. This party is a high level patronage pay off for past and future support. A real boondoggle. And suddenly, in front of these extremely important guests -- guests who are pivotal to his realizing his future ambitions -- Herod is confronted with having sworn an oath to give his stepdaughter whatever she wants. How can he break his oath and declare his allegiance to this Jewish prophet by sparing his life? He has no choice. So Herod grieves and does nothing out of regard for the guests.

But he also grieves and does nothing, out of regard for the oaths. And that may be the hardest test of all.

Under Mosaic law solemn oaths were not broken -- ever. The second commandment -- "You shall not take the name of the Lord your God in vain" -- is not about casual swearing as we think of it. Rather, it's about not breaking publicly made solemn oaths like the ones Herod makes. It may be one thing to fall in love with Herodias in Rome and commit adultery. But it is another thing to break a publicly made solemn oath in front of your closest political allies. What will it say about you as a leader? It is not done. Yet I suspect that everything in Herod's being tells him that he should sin boldly and spare John's life. Instead, believing he has no choice, Herod grieves and does nothing.

Is Herod right that he has no choice? The irony is that for one fleeting moment he has a choice -- the choice, by God's grace, to lose face, to risk all, and, sinning boldly, to know the freedom and righteousness of the repentance offered by the God of his fathers by becoming John's disciple.

Herod has the choice to spare John's life. The tragedy is that, by remaining bound to what he wants, what society expects, and what his religion demands, Herod never recognizes that he has that choice. And he grieves and does nothing.

And, finally, isn't that our tragedy as well? This isn't about Other People's Lives so much as it about our lives. Like Herod, we, too, are called to a discipleship that requires public witness -- public witness that can jeopardize our status and, sometimes, our very livelihood -- a public witness that, by God's grace, we can make to God's love and will in concrete action. But frequently, we, like Herod, choose what we want and what society expects instead. We choose inaction. And, like him, we grieve and do nothing.

As a community of faith, we have had, and will continue to have, opportunities to make a public witness. We have had, and will continue to have, the opportunities and the call to speak out about injustices -- injustices as real as the evil personified by Herodias and Salome -- injustices that both must and can be addressed. We will have calls to action. We can grieve and do nothing. Or we can rejoice and act.

Is there really a choice? Rejoice! Amen.

July 12, 2009

Ruth VanDemark, pastor

Wicker Park Lutheran Church

Chicago