July 15, 2012
Ordinary
Time
First
United Church – Sermon by Rev. Caela Simmons Wood
We’re about a third of the way through the
Gospel of Mark and it’s starting to get real.
If you have a chance sometime, get out Mark’s
Gospel and just sit down and start reading it. It’s almost impossible to find a
decent resting place once you get going. The action is just nonstop – miracle
after miracle, long day after long day, and everyone is always and everywhere
scared, scared, scared. Thus far, Jesus has been on a whirlwind tour of power –
healing the sick, curing lepers, casting out demons, raising the dead, and this
train feels like it’s moving full-speed ahead.
And then, suddenly, in the midst of all this
action – the engine falters and we lurch to a stop.
Today’s lection from Mark just doesn’t fit.
It’s detailed, drawn-out. It’s about something that already happened in the
past. And it’s the only story in Mark where Jesus is not present for the
action.
If you were here last week you’ll remember that
we worked with the story of Jesus going to his hometown of Nazareth, in
Galilee. The folks back home weren’t too impressed with him – reminding him,
not so kindly, that he was just the lowly son of Mary and should stop acting
too big for his carpenter’s britches. Jesus responded by sending his disciples
out, two-by-two in the countryside to heal the sick and perform deeds of power
and authority.
So we’re rolling, rolling, rolling along and
suddenly we learn that the nameless folks in Jesus’s hometown aren’t the only
ones keeping a watchful eye on his antics. There are others watching, too.
Namely, Herod. And Herod isn’t pleased with the reports he’s receiving from the
countryside.
Mark calls this man “King Herod” but that’s not
entirely accurate. This man, Herod Antipas, was technically a tetrach, which is
a fancy way of saying that he ruled over only part of the kingdom.
Specifically, Herod Antipas ruled over Galilee, where Jesus was from and where
his disciples were roving about healing the sick and generally making a scene.
Herod Antipas, like his father before him, was
a real person. That much we know for sure. There is a giant 20-volume work of
history called Antiquities written by
a first-century Jewish historian named Josephus. If bells are going off in your
head right now, your Western Civ teacher is probably smiling somewhere because
you vaguely remember Josephus’s name. He’s kind of a big deal.
So, what we know about Herod Antipas we can
piece together from the writings of Josephus and the bits and pieces of
information we have about him in the Second Testament.
Herod and his family were a part of a dynasty
of rulers chosen and maintained by the Roman Empire to watch over Judea. You
might remember Herod father, Herod the Great, from his appearance in the birth
narrative of Jesus in Matthew. You remember him, right? He’s the guy that
killed off all the male children under the age of two in Bethlehem because he
heard that the Messiah of the Jewish people had been born there.
When Herod the Great died, his kingdom was
divided among his sons, and the Herod from today’s story ended up ruling over
Galilee. His distinguishing name – Antipas – isn’t so distinctive after all. It
just means, “like his father” and we can see that he did, indeed, have some
things in common with his father.
Jesus – the one who so frightened Herod the
Great – escaped his attack, as we all
know. And here he is, all grown up, making waves, and Herod-the-son-who-is-like-his-father
is left to deal with the one who got away all those years ago.
Mark says that “Jesus’s name had become known.”
Now you might think this would be a good thing,
right? I mean, if someone told me that President Obama had been paying
attention to my activities I’d probably feel pretty good about that. But in
this case, of course, being known is not such a good deal for Jesus.
People were trying to figure out who this Jesus
really was and they were making all kinds of guesses. Some said he was John the
Baptist, back from the dead. Others said, “No, he’s Elijah,” and, still others
believed he was a prophet like from the good old days. Herod, pondering all
these things about this strange man, Jesus, declared, “It’s John. John is back
from the dead.”
John – such a common name for such an uncommon
man. In Mark he appears out of nowhere in the wilderness, bursting onto the
page with great force in the first chapter of Mark. He is the beginning of the
good news about Jesus Christ, the son of God. He proclaims a baptism of
repentance for the forgiveness of sins.
John is a common name. It means “God is a
gracious giver” or “one who is graced by God.”
In Mark we don’t have the beautiful birth
narrative of John the Baptist that we find in Luke. But by the time Luke wrote
folks seemed to have been in agreement that this John was important enough to
need a birth story – a good one – and Luke doesn’t disappoint. You remember this
one – John’s father, Zechariah, is silenced after failing to believe the good
news from the angel. His mother, Elizabeth, feels her son jump in her womb upon
seeing her relative, Mary, who is also pregnant. And at his birth he is given
the name John – graced by God; God is a gracious giver. No one in his family has
this name and so everyone is shocked that he’s been named John – but his
father, once unsure, steadily writes his name on a tablet to confirm it: “His
name is John.”
John – graced by God; God is a gracious giver.
And this gift of John was to be for one thing:
to prepare the way.
There were so many Johns around that this John
needed a name to set him apart from the others and so people started calling
him John the Baptist or John the Baptizer because that’s mostly what he did.
But one thinker I encountered this week referred to him as John the Waymaker and
I love that name most of all.
And so here we have, in the midst of the
fast-paced action of the Gospel of Mark, the image of a ruler, surrounded by
advisors who are chatter-chattering about this strange man Jesus. The freight
train that has been chug-chugging along grinds to a halt and we’re all stuck
inside Herod’s head as he remembers this train-wreck of a story. And, like all
good train-wreck stories, this one is impossible to ignore. Try as we might, we
can’t avert our eyes from this gruesome tale of political intrigue, family
dynamics, drunken revelry, sexual impropriety, and – in the midst of it all – a
prophet from God sent to prepare the way of our Lord Jesus.
It seems likely that one part of this story is accurate
– Herod does seem to have killed John
the Baptist. The Gospels and Josephus disagree on most of the other details.
Trying to figure out exactly what happened
won’t aid us much on our quest for the gospel, though, so I think it’s best to
just stick with Mark’s version of the story. Because regardless of how this
political murder went down, Mark tells it this way for a reason, right? And
understanding a bit more about how and why Mark tells us will help us find the good
news in the mist of a terribly gruesome and disturbing story.
One thing that stands out right away about
Mark’s version is that he seems to get some of the names of the characters
wrong.
Herod gets promoted to King and his new wife’s
daughter who comes in to do the dancing is named Herodias, even though all the
other sources call her Salome. I don’t know why this is – some people think
maybe Mark just got the details wrong. But Mark is usually so careful with his
words, so terse and precise, that I feel like there must be some other reason.
My theory is that he wants to play up the power
of Herod (whose name, by the way, means “hero’s song”) and he does it by
calling him King, giving his step-daughter his same name, and binding the whole
family together with the name of the Herodian Dynasty. “The specific players in
this little drama don’t matter too much, you see, so let’s not get caught up
with details about the daughter’s actual name,” Mark seems to be saying.
This is a story about the powers-that-be,
namely the “heroes” of the world, versus John and Jesus.
The other thing that is immediately apparent is
that you get all these echoes from various other stories about an outsider in a
king’s court. There are echoes of Esther, Ahaz and Jezebel, Judith and
Holofernes and more. Women who dance; women who are rewarded with their heart’s
desires; women who cut off heads or ask for them on platters.
These are stories about the power of those who
should have power – the Herods of the world – versus those who shouldn’t – the
Johns and Jesuses of the world.
And, of course, you have that last sentence,
“When John’s disciples heard about it, they came and took his body and laid it
in a tomb.” Which makes us think, of course, of the other body that we know
will be laid in a tomb by the time Mark’s story is over.
It’s a bizarre little story. So very unlike
Mark to include all of these details and to spend time and energy on a story
that’s not about Jesus anyway. Why is it here? Right smack in the middle of the
twelve going out to heal the sick and them returning to discover 5,000 hungry
people who need to be fed with just five loaves of bread and two fish.
Just as the disciples are really getting their
acts together, Mark interjects this major downer of a story. Why?
Well, most commentators seem to be in agreement
on that one – Mark puts this story here to remind us that following Jesus was
dangerous business. Just as the disciples are really starting to show off, Mark
wants us to remember that there’s only one thing you’ll be rewarded with for
showing off – and that’s a gruesome death – just like the one waiting for Jesus
at the end of Mark’s story.
But here’s the thing I think they’re missing:
why does Herod pause to recall this story about the death of John?
He is reminded of it for one simple reason: he
believes John has come back to haunt him.
He believes Jesus is John all over again: brought
back from the dead – back to pester him – back to call his family into question
– back to undermine his authority – back to haunt him.
Although he saw John’s head on a platter and
knows he is dead, there is something about this guy that just won’t go away.
There is something about the very spirit of John that refuses to die. Just when
Herod thought he was rid of him, here he comes back around again, this time
under the name of Jesus and – once again – he’s got a following.
Herod tried to kill him, but it didn’t work.
It didn’t work.
And so, to all of those fine scholars who say
this story is a story of warning – a story reminding us that those who follow
Christ will end up laid in a tomb just like him, I have to respectfully
disagree.
Because the thing is, this isn’t just a story about John’s death. It’s also
a story about John’s resurrection.
It’s a story about how a grace-filled prophet
couldn’t be held down.
He did what he was called to do. He spoke truth
to power. He troubled the rulers of his day. He called it like he saw it. And
in doing all of these things, he prepared the way for the Lord.
And, like Jesus after him, he paid for it with
his life. But that wasn’t the end of the story, because death couldn’t hold
him.
Even Herod – his murderer – recognized that
there was something in John that death could not contain.
And I would simply say that the good news in
the midst of this horrific story is this: John
is not unique.
John is not the only prophet that that
powers-that-be couldn’t find a way to silence.
There were many before him, there have been
many since him, and there will always be more like him because the light shines
in the darkness but the darkness has never put it out.
Thanks be to God for prophets who lead the way.
Thanks be to God who shines with a light that
cannot be extinguished.
Thanks be to God for stories of death that
always end with resurrection. Always.
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