The Seventh Sunday After Pentecost
Mark 16:14-29
Through the written word and the spoken word, God help us to hear your living Word, our Savior Jesus Christ. Amen.
We just witnessed quite the dinner party! Dinner, dancing, and a beheading!
Today we hear a flashback in the Markan narrative. Previously in Mark, back in chapter 1, we learn that Jesus’ ministry began after John had been arrested for his own preaching, teaching, and ministry. Only now as we hear Herod’s speculations about Jesus, the next man teaching, healing, and sparking controversy, do we actually learn about John’s death.
John critiqued Herod and Herodias’s marriage. Herodias felt angry and was ready to silence John, so at her request Herod had John arrested. Mark tells us that Herodias held a grudge against John and wanted him dead.
Still, Herod is perplexed by John’s teachings but interested. He felt compelled to listen to John. And Herod chose to protect John knowing that he was a holy man.
Enter the dinner party—Herodias, Herod’s daughter (yes- both mother and daughter are called Herodias). Herodias the daughter was dancing at the party and pleasing Herod and his party guest. Now this was not pleasing in the sense of a parental pride at a dance recital. There is something lewd and seductive in Herodias’s dancing and in Herod’s response. He is so pleased by her dancing that he offers her anything she could ask for.
Young Herodias doesn’t know what to ask for. This makes me wonder about her age, her agency, her ability to understand the world around her. She is likely naïve and easily persuaded. In her likely confusion, she asks her mother, also named Herodias, who suggests she ask for John the Baptists head. And indeed, she does.
While we must be aware of the patriarchal lens this story is filtered through, mother Herodias becomes a sort of villain using her daughter Herodias as a means to accomplish her hopes to have John killed.
And Herod, an unlikable man in his own right, is so seduced by his daughter and concerned for his party guests that he orders John to be killed.
Herod, prior to this party, worked to protect John. Herodias wanted John killed before this night, but Herod kept John alive. Herod seemed to know John’s righteousness and was listening to John’s message. Herod might have even felt a conviction to change because of John’s teachings. But it didn’t matter. In the pressure of a fancy banquet with his guests, daughter, and wife watching for him to follow through… he still had John killed. Further, he had John’s head brought in on a platter for all to see.
This story is disturbing to me on a number of levels. Familial strife, inappropriate exploitation of children, and a gory beheading.
Today, I feel most stuck though by the tension within Herod. I feel his struggle. The struggle between something stirring in him and the pressure from around him.
As much as I want to condemn this whole elite family for having a holy man killed, I see some of myself in Herod.
I see the struggle that is real for so many of us, all of us perhaps. This is what I will call “Herod’s dilemma.” Maybe I am being generous, but I think and hope Herod feels a longing to hear John’s teachings. That he is learning and being pushed to new understanding. Perhaps he feels convicted and interested in growing. Maybe he feels a pull to a holier life. Internally, Herod wants to protect John and John’s holy message.
Then pressured by his family, friends, and subjects, Herod has John killed.
To put it quite plainly, Herod decides it is easier to say yes to his daughter than to say no to murder.
It is easier to say yes to his wife than no to injustice.
And easier to say yes to his party guests than it is to say yes to God.
Mark helps us to see a soft spot in Herod, to see something almost commendable as he protects John. And then, it all gets lost in the social pressure.
I think it is much the same for us. I hope there are no heads on platters, but we too feel stirrings inside to live a better life. We become convicted in our complacency and wrongdoing. We want to speak for what is right. We want to protect the innocent, or protect the prophetic among us, or defend a controversial opinion for the betterment of our society and world. We feel a longing deep within us. We feel God stirring in us.
As Christians and people of faith, we know that stirring—it’s much of the reason we are here, here at church, in worship, in our Sunday school classes, tuned in online and the many other ways we engage our faith. God speaks into our lives, and we feel compelled to be here, to learn, to become better followers. Much of the Christian story centers on people who feel in their gut and their heart that they are being pulled and called to something new, to a space of growth, to a prophetic journey.
We hear these stories and watch the model of our faithful ancestors and yet…
Often, we, like Herod, encounter external pressure… Our families, our friends, our groups, our circumstances encourage us to act or speak differently. And we do. We lose sight of the internal stirring and growing. And we act in a way that is contradictory to what we hoped or wanted for ourselves and the world.
The pressures of society keep us in complacency or even in active harm. We experience tension and we cave.
This seems to be our dilemma and Herod’s dilemma. God is stirring in us. I think God was stirring in Herod. We are listening; we are learning; we are growing and then when it comes time to take our commitments into the public square, we resign ourselves to the path of least resistance.
We realize it is easier to say yes to preserving the status quo than to say no to injustice.
It is easier to say yes to silence than to say no oppression.
And it is easier to say yes to the crowd than it is to say yes to God.
Not all hope is lost though, my friends!
We have many examples in our biblical narrative and in our world of folks who do not fall prey to the seductive ways of the world.
Of course, Jesus is our example par excellence! Jesus’ teachings are how this whole conversation and flashback even begins. Jesus teaches contrary to the ways of the empire and thus angers many people. He shocks and infuriates just as much as he delights and inspires.
Last week you heard about Jesus being rejected in his hometown and he still continues to preach, teach, and heal. Jesus could have been subject to Herod’s dilemma and fallen silent or hidden his holy intent, but he stayed strong and continued in his mission.
Of course, Jesus is fully human and also fully God, so he might be a lofty example. The disciples, though, are often more on our level. Also in Mark chapter 6, we hear Jesus send out his disciples with the reminder that if they are rejected from a place, they should shake the dust from their sandals and continue on their way. In other words, I hear Jesus saying, do not be persuaded by those who are not ready for your message. Be true to the mission you are on and true to the God who is sending you.
And here we are. We are a people equally capable of falling prey to Herod’s dilemma or of rising to the occasion as followers of God.
As I join in your ministry here at St. Paul’s, I see folks who are motivated to listen to their internal stirrings. I see people who are interested in listening to God, even when there are easier ways out. I see people perplexed but pulled by the injustices of this world. I think that’s part of why God called me to St. Paul’s and brought us together. I hope that in our ministry together we can dig deep into the stirrings of our hearts and actively take those longings into the world. Together, may we resist easy yes’s in favor of hard no’s.
May we say no to injustice and yes to God. Together. With the Spirit as our guide. May we pay attention to God in us and follow.
This is my prayer for us today:
I pray that when we face Herod’s dilemma and the hard choice between winning the affections of people and of following God stirring in us, that we will choose God, again and again. Amen.
© 2021 The Rev. Adelyn Tyler
St. Paul’s Episcopal Church – Fayetteville, Arkansas