Don’t Lose Your Head

This passage about the beheading of John is always one of those where you wonder, why is this here? Why did Mark feel compelled to add in this story about John the Baptist’s death? This passage comes right after we are told that Jesus sent out the twelve disciples in groups of two, to spread the gospel and to cure the sick, which they apparently did with miraculous results. And immediately after this passage comes the story about Jesus feeding the five thousand with five loaves of bread and two fish. It seems like an odd place to put a story about a man losing his head.

The main context of this particular story is that John the Baptist had vehemently opposed Herod Atnipas’ marriage to Herodias, his brother Philip’s wife. However, this marriage happened after a divorce between Philip and Herodias, so it seems a bit odd why John would condemn this marriage. We find out from the ancient historian Josephus, however, that Herodias “took upon her[self] to confound the laws of our country, and divorced herself from her husband while he was alive, and was married to Herod Antipas.” In the Mosaic Law, women had no path to divorce, and yet Herodias made it happen, by manipulating the laws so that she could get out of the marriage to her first husband. That means that she had broken the law for her own benefit, and caused Herod Antipas, of this gospel passage, to become an adulterer. 

Herod was a puppet king of the Roman Empire, and yet still a Jew, and so John the Baptist was holding him to account for breaking the Jewish law of being married to another man’s wife. You can see why telling rich and powerful people that they are sinners might not be in your best interest if you’re a person who dresses in camel hair and eats locust and honey for dinner. They will likely despise you, and seek revenge for your insolence.

This was, of course, the reason that John the Baptist was in jail. Herod didn’t like John spouting off that he was a sinner and an adulterer – especially not when he was the leader of the people, their king. Herodias held a grudge against John and wanted to kill him. But Herod, her new husband, wouldn’t kill John because he feared him, and knew that John was a righteous and holy man. And so, John sat in jail as drama played out between Herod and Herodias.

Which leads us to this particular evening, when Herod was entertaining guests and dignitaries, both from the leadership of Galilee, and from the Roman Empire. His step-daughter, which we know from Josephus to be named Salome, dances for him and the guests. And this is where the story goes off the rails a bit. We are told that Herod was so pleased with Salome’s dancing that he offered her half his kingdom as a reward. 

And the result of this was the death of John the Baptist.

Drama! Intrigue! It’s a story that leaves us full of questions.

But again, it begs the question, why is this passage here? What can we possibly learn from it? Just before this, the disciples have gone around casting out demons and healing people, and just after this passage, Jesus is seen feeding five thousand people with five loaves of bread and two fish. Why is this family drama in the middle of these stories of God’s sovereignty and power?

One possibility is that we are to look at what motivated these people.

A quick recounting of the family might help. Herod the Great was the father of  Herod in this story, Herod Antipas. Herod the Great had many sons, from many different women. Some of them were Herod the second (sometimes called Herod Philip), Herod Antipater, and Herod Antipas. Herod the second and Herod Antipater were brothers from the same mother, Mariamne. Herodias was married to Herod the second.

It seems that Herodias’ brother in law, Antipater, had plotted to kill Herod the Great with poison, but failed, and Herod the Great had Antipater killed. But then, Herod the Great found out that his wife Mariamne, the mother of both Antipater and Herodias’ first husband had known about the plot to kill him and had done nothing to stop it. Because of this, Herod the Great divorced his wife and dropped Herodias’ husband from the line of succession. That is, her husband would no longer be king. But guess who was? Herod Antipas, the one in this story. And Herodias manipulated the laws of the land to divorce her now disgraced husband – while he was still living – so that she could marry the one successor of Herod the Great that would, in fact, become the king. 

It’s a story of a woman who sought nothing but her own interests above all else, who manipulated situations so that she would always come out on top, and could live in a position of comfort, of wealth, and of power. That is to say, she wanted to please only herself, and she used lies, deception, and divisions to bring about her own desires. I’d say becoming a queen and living in comfort rather than in disgrace is a decent motivation for doing what she did. And also a reason why a straight-talker like John the Baptist would call out her marriage to Herod Antipas as illegitimate.

The next person in this story is Salome, the daughter of Herodias, and the step-daughter of Herod Antipas. She dances for her stepfather and all the gathered people, and when Herod offers her a reward for her terrific dancing – up to half his kingdom – what does she do? She runs off to her mother to find out what she should ask for. What her mother tells her to ask for is of no benefit to Salome. Instead, it benefits her mother Herodias’ desire for revenge. But what’s interesting here is that his girl does as her mother asks. She wants so badly to please her mother, that rather than taking advantage of something to benefit her own desires, she does what her mother wants her to do – even though it means a man in jail will die. She wanted approval from her mother so badly that she was willing to get it even through the death of another human being. 

And then there is Herod himself. He got so caught up in his stepdaughter’s dancing that he made an impulsive and foolhardy promise to give her up to half of his kingdom. He wanted to show his approval for her, in order to gain her approval. And then, he finds out what she wants. And the Gospel tells us that “out of regard for his oaths and for the guests, he did not want to refuse her. Which is just a nice way of saying that he didn’t want to lose the respect of those that were gathered there. He wanted to look like someone who keeps his promises; he wanted to look like a strong leader of the people. And so he sent his guards to kill John, even though he was conflicted at the thought of killing John. Herod killed John because he didn’t want to look bad in the eyes of other people; that is, he cared more about his reputation than his ethics and his own character.

On one side of this story, we see the disciples, through the power of Jesus, healing people, curing the sick and casting out demons. They were sent out by Jesus, and did the work he asked them to do, and many people were healed. There was joy and rejoicing, not only by the people cured, but by the disciples themselves. On the other side of this passage, we see Jesus feeding five thousand people, showing his majesty through miraculous works, made possible by a young boy sacrificing his food: five loaves and two fishes. And people were amazed at the power of God, power that came from sacrifice and compassion.

… And in the middle of these stories of power and sacrifice are the stories of three lives fueled by self-absorption, by narcissism, by a lust for power and revenge…

It’s almost as if Mark wants to point out that when we place anything ahead of God that there will be death. It may not be physical death, like with John the Baptist, but it will be death of some sort. The more we place our own priorities over those of God, the more likely we are to experience the death of our conscience, the death of our ethics, and the destruction of our moral compass. It won’t happen immediately, but slowly, over time, we will erode the desire to please God.

As we slowly try to please those around us for the sake of our reputation, or please parents, friends, or significant others for the sake of approval, or seek our own pleasure for the sake of comfort and power, what happens is that our morality becomes distorted, and God becomes an afterthought, a fancy we ascribe to when it suits us, rather than the light that guides us.

What I find interesting about this family drama is that for each of them, we can find a similar transgression among those who followed Jesus.

Think of Paul, who sought power through the destruction of the early followers of Jesus. He was among the leaders of the people, and he wanted to please those in power. And in doing so, he persecuted those who followed Christ, killing them. And then God got ahold of him on the road to Damascus, and he became an apostle of Jesus, and wrote the majority of the New Testament by way of letters to congregations he either founded, or taught.

Think of Peter, who, in the courtyard of the High Priest, just before the crucifixion, was recognized as belonging to Jesus’ disciples, and three times he stated that he did not know this Jesus and that he was not one of them. He denied Jesus because he feared what others might think of him, he feared for his reputation, and he feared their anger and violence. And yet, in the end, Jesus restores him and says to Peter, that “on this rock, I will build my church.”

Think of James and John, who in Mark’s gospel asked if they could sit, one on Jesus’ right hand, and the other on Jesus’ left hand. In Matthew’s Gospel, it is their mother who asks Jesus that question. Either way, it seems that James and John were simultaneously seeking power, and seeking approval from their mother, rather than seeking to be humble followers. Jesus forgives them both, and James became an early leader of the Church in Jerusalem before he was martyred, and John wrote the Apocalypse. 

We might see ourselves in the lives of these apostles. And sometimes we might see ourselves in the faces and stories of Herod, Herodias, and Salome. It’s human nature that we will seek our own desires above our desire for God. And when we do, and when we fail to allow correction in our lives, then things begin to slowly die and crumble. It may take time, but the end result of placing anything in a position higher than God in our lives will eventually bring about death. 

But as we see with the disciples, that is never the end of the story. As our second reading says today, “In him we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of our trespasses, according to the riches of his grace that he lavished on us.”

Later in his life, Herod was accused of plotting to kill the emperor, and he and Herodias and Salome were all exiled. History loses them there, and we have no idea when, or how, they died. This great king, his wife, and their daughter, all of whom prioritized their own lives over everyone and everything, died in complete anonymity. 

The disciples, however, despite their deep failures, turned to Christ for restoration and reconciliation, and once again lived in the power and the miraculous joy that came with doing what Christ commanded. And more than 2000 years later, we still look to them as examples. 

All because they prioritized God’s will over their own.

Let us do the same.

[This sermon was delivered at St. Alban’s Episcopal Church in Wickenburg, AZ on July 14, 2024.]