Sermon, Sunday 12 July: 'Power, pride, passion, revenge'

1st READING: Psalm 24
2nd READING: Mark 6:14 - 29

SERMON 'Power, pride, passion, revenge'

It’s a story of power, of pride,
of passion, and of revenge.
Now before any of you go thinking of programmes like
‘House of Cards’ or ‘Game of Thrones’
or perhaps even ‘Emmerdale’ or ‘Eastenders’...
No.
I’m referring to our gospel passage this morning;
a passage that I confess, caused me to look heavenwards,
sigh rather loudly, and made me wonder why on earth
I’d chosen to preach on it.
Oh....my.
Because this particularly gruesome story -
of John the Baptist’s execution in the Gospel of Mark -
could hardly be described as one of your lighter, fluffier cheerful bible texts.
In fact, it fits into a special category of bible readings
commonly referred to as the ‘terrible texts’ of the Bible.
And, it’s unremittingly grim...
so now that I’ve cheered you all up -
well, given you a little advance warning at least,
let’s explore this story!

Two questions sprang to mind as I pondered this particular ‘terrible text’.
The first:
Where is the good news in this passage?
The second:
Why does the writer choose to place this story where he does?
Why is it here?

To help answer these questions,
and, thinking of our themes of power, pride, passion, and revenge,
we need a little background context for this story.
Who are the main characters in this drama?
There’s John, cousin of Jesus, and very popular prophet.
Perhaps worryingly popular if you're a ruler:
in his life-time, he’s certainly more popular than Jesus.
And he certainly makes a statement -
not just by his words, but by the way he acts.
He’s quite a striking figure:
stern, austere,
a wild man who’s lived in the desert hills and valleys;
who wears a camel’s hair garment tied with a leather belt -
the clothing of a prophet.
He eats locusts and wild honey.
And he emerges from the desert preaching repentance
and baptising those who listen to his words.
He takes no prisoners with his message:
he is a truth-speaker
who tells things as they are to people regardless of their station in society.
And it’s this truth-speaking, without fear or favour,
that’s landed him in Herod’s prison.
John has openly criticised Herod for breaking with
religious regulations and marrying his brother’s wife.

And what of Herod?
Herod could have had John killed immediately -
after all, he’s got the power to do it,
and yet, he doesn’t:
John holds a fascination for him -
Herod knows him to be a righteous and holy man,
likes to listen to him,
even though John’s message is a hard one for him to listen to.
This Herod -Antipas - is the son of King Herod:
Herod the Great.
That same Herod the Great who spoke to Wise Men from the east
and ordered the slaughter of the innocents.
While Herod Junior is not a particularly nice bloke
his dad, Herod Senior is in a whole different league of nasty, and of power.
Herod Senior is recognised as a king by the Romans;
Herod the younger is not.
He’s not really ‘king’ Herod, he’s Herod the Tetrarch,
’tetrarch’ signifying a quarter:
Herod Junior holds only a quarter of his father’s kingdom,
has nowhere near his status and power.
And because of this, it appears that Herod the younger
is all about trying to make himself look like a big man,
a man in charge,
a man of power and substance.
Perhaps this is partly why he’s now married to Herodias -
having abducted her from his brother Philip.
It’s a way of demonstrating Philip’s impotence, weakness:
the marriage is a way of humiliating his brother;
young Herod’s way of showing everyone that he’s powerful
and he can take what he wants, whenever he wants.
Or rather, he’d like to think he’s powerful,
and, to some extent, of course, he does have some power...
but effectively, he’s merely a puppet hanging on Roman strings,
given power only because it suits his Roman masters for the time being.
He’s rash, impulsive,
and lives under the shadow of his dead father’s greater reputation.

And then there’s Herodias - Philip’s ex-wife.
She is not at all best pleased by the wild prophet John
who has the temerity to criticise her relationship with Herod Junior.
She knows she’s on rocky religious ground -
and she’s probably a figure of scandal and gossip
and perhaps even mockery down in the market-place.
Her situation is tenuous:
dependent upon a weak and fickle not-quite-king
to keep her not just in luxury and comfort,
but to keep her safe.
John’s words,
John’s presence,
and her husband’s fascination with him and what he says,
are a threat to her position.
If John’s was a message about repentance,
might Herod repent,
and might she be cast aside?
Out of fear, if for no other reason,
she nurses revenge in her heart and looks for the right opportunity
to rid herself of a potential threat.
And fear can cause people to act quite viciously,
and to justify any means to get the desired ends,
even if those means involve using your young daughter.

Herodias’ daughter, probably also named Herodias,
is also referred to as 'Salome'.
You may have heard of the ‘dance of the seven veils’
and of Oscar Wilde’s story ‘Salome’, or Richard Strauss’s opera.
And she’s portrayed in these as sensual, seductive.
But here we have a problem:
for in the biblical text, unlike the opera,
Herodias’ daughter is a wee girl -
according to the Greek word for ‘girl’ in the text.
So we have an ambiguity:
is this scene in fact as sexually charged as has been implied by writers and musicians?
If she's very young, this moves into quite dubious territory...
Or does the wee lassie just do an innocent dance at a party
that delights the assembled guests, and makes her step-dad proud?
I’ll leave that for you to decide,
but I think it’s the latter.
Nevertheless, what we do know, is that the mother
uses the daughter to exact her revenge on John the Baptist.

Herod, in front of his guests,
wanting to score points,
wanting to look good,
wanting to demonstrate the kind of ruler he is,
the kind of power he has,
grandiosely promises the girl anything -
well, up to half of his kingdom...
which, incidentally, isn’t really in his power to give away.
What would she like?

Well, if I'd have been the poor mite,
I might have possibly been thinking of a nice pony, or a wee dolly.
Salome heads back to mum to ask her advice.
And Herodias jumps at the chance:
‘John’s head on a platter, thanks very much’
It’s possibly not what Salome was expecting or hoping for
and it’s certainly not what Herod expects - he's 'distressed'.
Nevertheless...he demonstrates his power.
Or does he?

If this is a story about power,
Herod is actually demonstrating just how weak a ruler he is,
and just how rotten to the core his not-quite kingdom is.
He has the power to choose,
and he chooses the path of least resistance.
He doesn’t want to lose face.
He goes with the crowd-pleasing thing to do.
Had he really been strong, powerful,
a man of conviction -
of integrity...
a man like the one he’s just about to have killed,
he may have chosen to laugh at the wee lassie
then given her the pony, and told her to go off to bed -
and very possibly had strong words with her mother
for being so blatantly manipulative in public.
Herod.
Ironically, his name means ‘heroic’
but this story shows him as anything but.

Earlier, I noted that there were two questions arising from this text.
The latter question first:
What is this story of power, pride,
passion, and revenge doing here, in the midst of another story in Mark’s gospel?
The other story, which gets spliced in two,
is also about power,
is also about a kingdom
is also about a kind of passion.

The story of John’s execution sits within the story
of Jesus sending out the disciples to preach.
And as they do,
signs of a kingdom not of this world, are shown:
good things happen in the darkest of places.
There’s repentance, and restoration of body, mind, and spirit.
there are healings,
there’s joy and excitement
and the hope that God’s will can be done on earth, as it is in heaven.
It’s a kingdom that comes with sacrifice for, and on behalf of, others.
Here, there are two kingdoms being contrasted:
two kinds of power,
two kinds of kingship.
And my sense is, that the writer of the gospel also places
the story of John’s death here as way-marker:
John’s passion and death at the hands of Herod,
pointing to Jesus’ passion and death at the hands of Pilate -
both, earthly rulers who are merely cogs
in the greater machine of Imperial Rome.

And the other question?
Where is the good news, in this particular text -
a text of violence, revenge, and lust for power?
It’s that, this text shows us where real power sits:
Herod is a pale shadow of his father,
a pale shadow of a king -
weak, ineffectual, self-centred.
Herod’s kingdom-that-is-not-quite-a-kingdom,
is mired in corruption, greed, jealously, revenge;
it is self-serving:
a tin-pot kingdom in which the choice is made
that the innocent are killed
alongside truth, justice, and integrity.
It is a shabby not-quite kingdom that is
found to be seriously wanting by the writer of the Gospel.
In contrast, Mark points to another way, another kingdom:
a real kingdom in which the choice is made to
care for the vulnerable -
to look after the frail, the poor,
to protect the innocent;
where truth is spoken,
where justice and integrity,
and loving-kindness prevail.

At the beginning of the story of John’s death,
Herod thinks that Jesus is a resurrected John.
But friends, we know that Jesus is the resurrection -
the one who has defeated death and the one who promises abundant life;
the one whose kingdom is eternal and who calls us
to use our position, our power - who we are and where we are -
to be about the work of that kingdom.

We are none of us independent of each other:
the choices we make impact upon the lives of others.
And while we may not have the kind of power that Herod had,
a power that could destroy lives,
we do have the power within us
to choose the way of the kingdom of God:
to choose the way of love.
To choose to find ways to love God
and to love our neighbour as we love ourselves...
To dream dreams of peace
and to work for that peace
in a world of bitter strife;*
to embrace God’s vision of hope, of healing,
and love for the world, and for humanity.

Every day, in the news, in our neighbourhoods,
we hear stories of power, pride, passion, and sometimes, even revenge.
That is the way of the kingdoms of the world -
the way of places where shadowy power resides:
whether nations or households...
Let us choose to use the power we have
to demonstrate the power and promise
of the kingdom of heaven -
so that our lives point to the good news:
the good news that God has not finished with us.
....The good news that can turn a terrible text into one that points to hope,
and to a love that lasts for not only a lifetime, but for all eternity.
And so may God’s name be praised.
Amen.

*As we think of the choices we can make to point to God’s kingdom, let’s sing:
HYMN 710 ‘I have a dream,’ a man once said