“The Struggle”
July 14, 2024
Rev. Rebecca Migliore
Since the beginning of June we have been marching through the early chapters of the gospel of Mark—watching Jesus tangle with the Pharisees over the Sabbath laws, hear him telling parables that stretch our own understanding of what the kin(g)dom of God is all about, calming the wind and the waves, healing and even raising someone from the dead. We, the readers, the hearers, have drawn closer to Jesus—and last week we discovered that we can now claim new titles, as Jesus’s mothers and brothers and sisters in this new community! It seems that nothing, and no one, can stop us now.
And then the narrative all comes to a screeching halt. This morning’s lesson is horrible from start to finish. It lifts up the brutality inherent in absolute rule. Jesus doesn’t even make a physical appearance in this story. Instead we hear of the death of John. John, the one who prepares the way; John, the one who Jesus comes to, to be baptized; John, whose arrest may be the catalyst for Jesus to proclaim “The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God has come near; repent, and believe in the good news.” It is a stark reminder that prophets, whatever time they live in, often have to pay a high price for speaking truth to power. And hearing how callously John is dispensed with, underlines the stakes for Jesus and his followers.
This following God, this trying to live in and bring about God’s kin(g)dom, is not for sissies. Mark isn’t trying to bring us into this community under false pretenses. He wants us to understand. It will be a struggle. For the forces that dominate this world: the unclean spirits, the ills of the body, the power of natural elements, and those humans who like their own positions of power—they are not going to give in without a fight.
It is the age-old battle of good versus evil—that we all love in Tolkien’s “The Lord of the Rings,” or Lucas’s “Star Wars,” or Rowling’s “Harry Potter” series. But we can’t rest on other’s laurels. Each of us has to run our own race, fight our own fights, participate in the epic tussling match that is life in this world.
Take the prophet Amos—he of the famous words: “let justice roll down like waters, and righteousness like an ever-flowing stream” (5:24). Amos tells us that he was minding his own business as a shepherd out in the hills. He was happy following the flock and taking care of his sycamore trees—he wasn’t looking for fame or fortune, or even to be known. But God called him. God asked him to speak to God’s people. And he did. And it got him in plenty of trouble.
Because Israel didn’t listen to him saying that God did not like festivals, or solemn assemblies, or burnt offerings, or even songs or the melody of harps. All of that was like the noisy gong or clanging cymbal Paul talks about, signifying nothing. If there is not justice and righteousness, says Amos, God will not be pleased. They did not hear. They did not change their ways. So, Amos uses another image—that of the plumb line. You know, the ancestor of our level. A way of figuring out if you are “on the level,” going straight. It gives a whole new meaning to Mark’s first few verses of this gospel, quoting the prophet Isaiah, that a messenger would appear to prepare the way, to make his paths straight.”
Amos looked at the plumb line and said to Israel, you are not on the straight and narrow path—you are not following God’s law and commandments and there will be consequences! John the Baptist came and said pretty much the same thing. First, he addressed each one individually, “You, personally are not on the right path—repent and be baptized.” He also said it to the powers and principalities (in this case Herod and Herodias), “You are not on the right path—you need to stop your immoral ways.” And people in power don’t like that.
So Herod had John arrested, and bound, and put in prison. Herodias, Herod’s wife (and it seems the former wife of his brother as well) wanted John dead. But Herod wasn’t so sure, “for Herod feared John, knowing that he was a righteous and holy man, and he protected him. When [Herod] heard him, he was greatly perplexed, and yet he liked to listen to him.” This is actually a much more nuanced version of Herod than we usually get from the gospels. Here is a man who sees John as righteous and holy, who seems to like to have conversations with John (can you imagine him going down into the dungeon? Or maybe he had John brought up to him!) Yet when Herod hears John’s message, he is greatly perplexed. John is calling him to be a better person. John might have called him to be a better ruler. John could have outright said that Herod had basically sold out to the Romans.
What is fascinating to me is to think, what did Herod like about John’s message? (for Mark says, “he liked to listen to him”) Did Herod realize that he was just a cog in a much bigger wheel? Did he have regrets about how he treated “his people?” Did he dream of a time when Rome wasn’t breathing down his neck? Did he imagine that he could have been the new David, the new Solomon, the anointed One of God in some other scenario?
But no matter how much Herod liked talking to John, he didn’t hang onto John’s plumb line. Herod didn’t stand firm in who God might have called him to be. Herod was vain and liked to show off. So he threw the birthday party of the century for himself. And there was food, and there was wine, and there was entertainment—which often means girls dancing for men. I will let you create your own image in your mind. And Herod asked his daughter (or his wife’s daughter—who may have been named Herodias Jr. or Salome—there is much confusion on this point)—Herod asked her to dance.
Now in this horror story let us not miss the sexism and exploitation inherent in this man’s world. ( Janice Capel Anderson, “Feminist Criticism: The Dancing Daughter” (Minneapolis: Fortress, 2008), 111–43.) Even though Herodias, the wife of the king, wants John dead, Herod is the one who makes those decisions. And no one bats an eye when the princess--a young girl--(a daughter no less) is asked to “please” a room full of courtiers and officers and leaders. And then, when Herod, in a moment of mental stupidity offers her “anything you want, even up to half my kingdom,” our dancer/daughter is used by her mother to ask for the head of John. Now we can’t let her off the hook as a total innocent, because she, using her own privilege, adds to her mother’s request and says, in the teenage desire for “show” that she wants John’s head “on a platter.”
Here is the moment of decision. Here is the moment of struggle. Here is where Herod either takes a deep breath, follows the plumb line, and admits that he didn’t really mean that he would/could give something like that! Or he gives in “out of regard for his oaths and his guests” (in other words he didn’t want to look weak!). You know what he chose.
Herod, it seems, had some regret in his weakness and inability to be a better person. For when he hears about Jesus and his ministry, and hears that some think Jesus is Elijah, and some think he is like a prophet from of old, and some think he might be John the baptizer raised from the dead, --Herod shows his guilt, declaring “John, whom I beheaded, has been raised.”
What an appalling, gruesome story! And you might well ask, what was the writer of Mark thinking! Why include this tale? Where is the good news? Prof. Matt Skinner of Luther Seminary says of this passage, “Opposition to the reign of God takes a toll and has lasting consequences, but it never has the last word” (working preacher.com, commentary for July 14, 2024). The glimmer of the reign of God comes only in the last sentence: “When his disciples heard about it, they came and took his body and laid it in a tomb.”
Can you imagine the courage it must have taken for John’s disciples to ask for his body? To identify themselves as those who believed in this prophet who has so angered Herod? They clearly saw the plumb line—they knew what was the right thing to do--they would have John buried. And we, would have another death, and burial in our minds.
What was the writer of Mark thinking? I venture to guess that he intended to shake us out of our notion that following Jesus, like following John, is an easy thing to do. The message is clear. If you decide to walk the plumb line; to love God with all your heart and soul and mind and strength and to love your neighbor as yourself; to do justice and love mercy and walk humbly with your God; to believe that justice should roll down like waters and righteousness like an ever-flowing stream, then you have been thrown into the rapids. You have become part of the fray. You are bound to find yourself in the struggle.
Two worlds are crashing into each other—the world as we know it, and the world as God would have it be. And that will require us to keep awake, to hold on fast to God’s vision, and to not be afraid to stand up when we have to, like those disciples of John, asking for his body. We don’t know what choices we will have to make. We can only ask God for wisdom, for courage, for strength, for God’s presence to never leave us. We may not win every battle, but we have been promised that God’s kin(g)dom will come, that God’s will will be done, on earth as it already is in heaven.
Thank God that we have each other. Thank God that we have the stories of God’s people who have faced adversity in the past and found a way through the valley of shadows. Thank God we have the Holy Spirit, God with us still. May it be so, Alleluia, Amen.
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