Sermon for 7th Pentecost
By Sam LaDue -
This week we take a different approach to the Gospel and Sermon format. The story found in the gospel reading is told as part of the Sermon, and the entire piece was not built to be read as much as treated as a conversation. The following is a transcript.july 12
Good morning everybody in Santa Monica California at Mount Olive. I'm in Upstate New York at the moment, pretending I can see your faces here as I record this video.
I've been driving across the country for the past five or six days. This sermon is coming to you literally from the road-- in fact it's happening on the very road that I grew up on. So, let's get down to our business here today, shall we?
This week’s story is coming from a man who we think is named Mark. It's from chapter 6 verses 14 through 29. You are welcome to go and look that up for an official translation of your choosing. I did not memorize anyone’s translation, rather I'm going to go with an oral retelling today.
So here we have King Herod Jr. This is the son of King Herod Sr. who had all of the male babies killed because he (Herod Sr.) heard about Jesus from Three Wise Men- and the news about Jesus kinda freaked him out. Well, today Herod Jr is now in power, and he’s listening to his members of his court speaking about… you guessed it, Jesus!
As a side note: In this passage, no one mentions Jesus by name, it is inferred that Jesus is who is being discussed. After the first two lines, Jesus is not mentioned again for the entire story. There are very few gospel stories where there is no mention of Jesus. There are even fewer where Jesus is not at all playing a starring role in the story. But, this Gospel lesson is one of those few. I do think this is important for us to note this distinction.
Back to the story, now: The people in Herod Jr’s court are talking about how they think he (Jesus) is “just” a prophet like other Jewish prophets. They think he might be like Elijah, but Herod thinks that he is perhaps John the Baptist, resurrected. As he shares his thought, Herod has a bit of a flashback that gives us some backstory.
You see, Herod married his brother Philip’s wife (potentially as a political move), and they had a child. Herod had a big birthday celebration coming up and, since Herod holds a lot of social status and political power he can't just have the people he likes best at his party. He must be very mindful of who he does or does not invite. Everything you do when you’re in a position like Herod’s has meaning, and everyone is watching and talking about it. His entire life is some kind of performance. What people think, what they see, what they hear-- it all matters. So, Herod plans this huge party AND - he asks his daughter to entertain his guests by performing a dance.
Historians and varying scholars think his daughter may have been about 12 years old when she did this dance. It’s funny that a lot of people seem to presume that her dancing was sexual in nature but there's literally nothing in the text indicating that this is the case. Personally, I like to imagine that his daughter had been taking some version of first century ballet and was working very hard on mastering a delicate, challenging solo piece (who knows what that would have looked like? I would love to know!).
So we get to this party, and Dad brings his beautiful, charming daughter out to dance and she does a stunning job. People love her performance and respond warmly to it! King Herod is so proud and moved by her performance that he says “Okay, this was awesome!” (maybe he's been drinking a little bit) and then he says to her, in front of all the guests, “What do you want? What can I give you for this amazing performance? I am so pleased by what you just did here! I’d even give you half my kingdom if you asked for it.”
His daughter doesn't know what to ask for. She’s 12 years old, maybe having the time of her life in that palace setting, probably pretty covered in terms of life's necessities for 12 year olds. Since she didn’t know what to ask for, she obediently went to her mom for advice. “Mom, Dad says he will give me anything-- even half the kingdom! What should I ask for?”
Well, Mom has some stuff going on. It turns out she is not a big fan of John the Baptist. The story doesn't tell us specifically why, it just says she’s got a grudge. The presumption is that she's really angry with John the Baptist because John the Baptist told Herod that marrying her was wrong, that it was unlawful in his view. The thing is, Mom doesn’t doesn't follow the law of Moses, and neither does King Herod. However, all of these people are living in a culture where telling someone that something they’ve done is wrong is engaging in an act of shaming them. It’s not cool to shame the king. It’s not cool to shame the king's wife, either. It’s extra uncool to shame a powerful person in any kind of public way. And, with all this shaming going on...Herod made moves to be seen as strong while also preserving John’s life because truth be told he kinda liked this Baptizer guy, even though he didnt understand him. Herod had John placed in prison.
So at any rate, Mom has a grudge with John the Baptist and potentially doesn’t think he should even be alive because of the whole shaming behavior thing, though there is maybe other stuff we don't know about in the mix. It’s also important to note here that the Bible is missing a lot of women’s stories, many have been edited out or were never included in the first place. It is really incumbent upon us today as readers to be mindful that we are most likely missing information about Herod’s wife, and she may have other very good reasons for being afraid of John. Who knows what her life was like when she was married to Herod’s brother, Philip? There’s a lot of possibilities there.
Well, whatever the complexities relating to this grudge, Mom responds, “Daughter, I think you should ask for John the Baptist’s head.” Daughter does not wait, right away she returns to Dad at the party, in front of the guests, and makes a public announcement-- “Dad, I’d like John the Baptist’s head-- on a platter! Right away!”
Notice how she adds to what her mother asked for (on a platter? Right away?), and notice the speedy reply to her father, complete with doing so in a public way. Was she perhaps a people pleaser and trying to do the right thing, also concerned about how people viewed her and her behavior? Herod is distressed by his Daughter’s request. Herod is also faced with an entire assembly of guests watching how he conducts himself, and is concerned about what his guests might think about how he responds. To back out of his own words would be shameful, and even potentially seen as weak. So, he takes a deep breath and immediately sends some of his people off to the prison where he was holding John the Baptist. They killed John. They bring his head back, it is on a platter which they present to this 12 year old child.
Can you imagine? Can you imagine receiving this platter? What do you think her body might have felt like as people approached her with it? I imagine that she was repulsed, afraid, maybe her stomach was churning. But people are watching. So, she takes that platter, and brings it to her mother straight away. And this is the end.
When discussing this passage, a lot of scholars and pastors like to talk about how difficult and dangerous speaking truth to power can be. That is fair- this is a classic story about the potential ramifications of speaking truth to power. Any one of us who has ever decided to go down the hard road of telling people difficult things that are also true knows how very painful, and dangerous, that choice can be. Especially if you're speaking these truths to people who have considerable power and could harm you. So, I think this is pretty well covered, and want us to talk about something else in relation to this story. I would like us to consider how easily somebody who's totally innocent loses their life as a result of a series of social structures-- the majority of which seem fairly innocuous or at least average from the shoes of any particular character in this story (except John the Baptist, of course).
Think about it from Herod’s perspective, for a moment. We don’t know a lot, but he seems to feel pretty guilty from what we can tell. He's saying that Jesus is like John the Baptist Resurrected-- maybe because he fears a ghost from the past is coming back to haunt him, or maybe because he is concerned that this rising power with Jesus may come back to get in his way. The text tells us that Herod did not understand John, but liked to listen to what John had to say. Perhaps Herod was just on the edge of entering a personal transformation. Maybe he knew he needed to go a different way. Maybe Herod was not his father's favorite son, maybe Herod didn't like ruling this way, maybe Herod had to or believes he had to follow these rules because he feared the loss of his life as he was able to understand it.
What about the daughter? Twelve years old seems pretty innocent, until she's asking for a man's head-- and she was quite literally asking for a man's head. Do you think that child really understood what she was asking for? How many 12 year old girls do you know really understand the full value of a human's life at that age? I know what I was like at 12. I cared about human life, but I had not lived long enough to even begin to wrap my head around a request like that or take it seriously. Did she potentially think this was a joke? Or did she not realize that this was a joke? Did she fully understand the social structures she was engaging in? Or was she just trying to model behavior she had seen, without understanding the complexities behind it?
What about Mom? Mom held a grudge. Ok. How many of us, when we are frustrated or tired or are just trying to balance the realities of the world that we live in, say something that we don't really mean, that is intended to be a joke-- but has a little kernel of truth in it? “You should ask for John the Baptist’s head!” with a wry smile and maybe a wink. Maybe she didn't think her daughter would take her seriously. Maybe she was very surprised when it turns out her daughter took her quite literally and then showed up shortly thereafter with this severed head. Maybe, she really did see an opportunity and really did want John the Baptist dead. Maybe she had really good reason for that, in her view.
How about a few more potential social structures and power issues to consider:
Daughter is in a position of limited power in the sense that she most likely must listen to Mom, must listen to Dad. King Herod, though seemingly all powerful, is also not entirely free to do whatever he wants. He’s doing what he can do to be the ruler he is supposed to be, perhaps try to make Dad (Herod Sr.) proud, maybe struggling with living in the shadow of siblings or even his father, possibly attempting to follow the social norms and keep up with the Joneses.
And Mom- who knows what her entire story is, whether she is just trying to protect herself and her daughter in a volatile climate where she also has limited power?
Each individual’s life and concerns, though unpalatable to many of us, ultimately seem like they’re fairly run or the mill for their life stations. Yet, in the midst of all of this, an innocent man who was “being protected” by having been placed in prison by Herod, dies.
How many of us are inclined to start trying to draw lines about goodness and badness in these people and in this series and interactions? I sure was at first. But, especially when we look at the first and second readings for today, I started to realize this really isn’t so much about goodness and badness as it is about recognizing the Truth about the world we’re living in. We hear our readings today that we are responsible. We must listen carefully for God's wisdom and to be as good to creation and our fellow humans as we possibly can. We also learn that we’re given enormous grace and forgiveness through Christ when we fall short.
I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but it sticks out to me that we live in a pretty messy, highly complex world. We don't always have the gift of vision and wisdom to understand what we are asking for entirely, or to thoroughly comprehend what we are doing. Sometimes, we are so focused on ourselves and on what other people are going to think of us and our actions that we don't even realize the deadly domino effects of our choices. This is how innocent humans die. Yikes.
So, what can we take away from this wild story (which I honestly think is, in terms of drama, right up there with Game of Thrones)?
There’s a LOT we could take from this story. The following is what felt like the message I needed to bring to you, this week, as I traveled these past 3000 miles:
We are terribly imperfect human beings. Every one of us knows that even when we are really proud of ourselves, even when we are feeling very confident that we’re in the right and doing good, we still manage to make messes that are downright harmful to fellow humans. I don't know a single one of us that doesn't frequently struggle with internal conflict and concern and frustration and worry about whether or not we're doing “it” right, whatever the “it” might be.
The painful truth is that we instinctively know that even though we're doing the best we can, this world and our control over it often get in the way of doing “it” right. This is where Christ comes in, and this is why that second reading today is important, and why those first two lines about this story-- the ones where they’re talking about Jesus being a Prophet but not mentioning his name, are important.
Christ is maybe a little different than the Prophets. Pastor Sharon (she was Vicar Sharon, at the time) told us a few years ago that a Prophet’s stock-and-trade is drama. Prophets are loud, they make people uncomfortable, they tell truths we don't want to hear, there are big displays, and they are adamant about all of it, deeply connected to spreading God’s messages to humanity. BUT- Prophets are not necessarily directly concerned with rebuilding life, letting us know we are forgiven, nor teaching us about eternal life in the already but not yet sense. Christ, however? Christ shows us the already but not yet life we all long for. At the beginning of this Gospel passage, the people can’t quite define Jesus right, because he’s new. They recognize aspects of him (John the Baptist, resurrected?) -- yet they don’t have language for him entirely, and simultaneously they’re trying really hard to fit him into their existing social structures and boxes. There isn’t room in their world view for what Christ is bringing. What Christ brings is not even an option from their perspective.
We also struggle here. We don’t have language for Christ entirely, and we work hard to fit him into our boxes and social structures. We too, are made in the image of God, yet (unlike Christ) are imperfect in that image. We are also loved by Christ and, through Christ and the cross, brought to eternal life. When we make an awful choice, when innocent blood (proverbial or otherwise) is shed as a result of what we've done? Well, even King Herod gets forgiveness. And that’s a pretty tough pill to swallow, sometimes.
Even here is where Christ comes in, though. Chris is important for lots of reasons, forgiveness being one of them, but another is that Christ, through the Cross, acknowledged that being human is painful and really hard. This week’s Gospel story is a reflection of the intense complication and painful human social systems we live in.
We aren't off the hook. Forgiveness doesn't mean that we just shrug and walk away because we’re so loved that we’re forgiven. It does mean, however, that the difficulty of being human is recognized. We don't need to waste time beating ourselves up about the place where we went wrong. What we need to do is recognize those wrongs, and then make a new and different choice next time.
So, today I invite you to hear the word of God my friends, accept that wisdom, and amazingly awesome grace bestowed upon every single one of us-- even Herod, Herod’s wife, Herod’s daughter. Keep working toward living that good life. And, when it turns out that even though you were certain you were acting according to what seemed good but was actually pretty horrible, even when you find that you are in a terrible position as a result of our various social structures and it seems like nothing you can do is going to be the right thing to do, even when your gut is telling you what’s happening is not quite right but you also can’t seem to see another pathway? You’re right- it’s not ok. You know what else is right, though? You are forgiven and free to make a better choice next time.
I'm curious, and want to hear from you. What did you get out of the story for this week? What do you think this story can tell us about today, and how we can live in more life-sustaining, life-giving ways today?
Sam LaDue
Candidate for rostered ministry with
the Evangelical Lutheran Church of America.
Sermon for:
July 11, 2021
