“Herodias: She Couldn’t Handle the Truth”

Mark 6:14-29

Herod the Great’s extended family was beyond dysfunctional. They were as corrupt, evil, and insane as any group that ever lived: murderous, incestuous, unheeding of any and all moral or ethical boundaries. Herod Antipas, Herod the Great’s son, a main character in today’s text, had an adulterous affair with is sister-in-law, who was also his niece, divorcing his wife to marry her. Although the text isn’t explicit, we can be pretty sure that he also had lustful designs on his step-daughter.

The text opens after the death of John the Baptist. Herod Antipas, still haunted by the murder of the Baptist, believed that Jesus was John the Baptist resurrected. He was more than haunted; he was also guilty and afraid. As corrupt as he was he knew that his murder of John the Baptist was wrong, sinfully wrong. Antipas knew that John the Baptist was a righteous man, and that the words of judgment that the Baptist had pronounced against him and his wife Herodias were true. They had committed adultery, breaking not only the Mosaic Law but also the rules of common decency. He might not have like John but he respected him to some degree, and was even willing to listen to him preach.

Herodias, on the other hand, hated the Baptist. As the text says she held a grudge against him because he dared to criticize her behavior. She wanted him dead, as William Barclay puts it “so that she could sin in peace.” To borrow a line from an old movie, she couldn’t handle the truth. She couldn’t deny it. She and Antipas had done what John said they’d done. If, however, she couldn’t obliterate the truth, she could silence the one who spoke it. And she did, first by having him arrested and then by having him beheaded.

She was not a nice person. She was as mean and vindictive as they came. She was also a conniver, willing to do whatever it took to get what she wanted, even if it meant using her daughter Salome in some disgusting ways. Herod was having a party. The wine was flowing freely. Herodias talked Salome into performing a lewd and lascivious dance; one usually performed only prostitutes of the day. She was in essence willing to prostitute her young daughter to get what she wanted.

The girl did her dance. Antipas and his guests were, as the NRSV so politely translates it, pleased. In a moment of drunken lust and bravado, Antipas promised her anything she wanted, even half his kingdom. Prompted by her mama she asked for John the Baptist’s head on a platter. Antipas had backed himself into a corner, knowing that granting her wish would be not only be an act of unrighteousness, it would also be an act of gross injustice. Unwilling to look weak in the company of his friends, he had the Baptist beheaded and his head delivered to the girl on a platter.

Other than being dead what do we know about the Baptist? We know that he spoke God’s truth to human power, letting the chips fall where they may. He wasn’t afraid of Antipas or Herodias. God had called him to preach God’s truth, and that’s what he did. He could be imprisoned; God’s truth could not be confined to a cell. He could be killed; God’s truth was eternal. As John made it clear, there are things worth dying for, and God’s truth was at the top of the list.

This past week I read a meditation by Max Lucado in which he carried on an imaginary conversation with the Apostle Paul, who was in a prison cell awaiting his execution. It’s about Paul. It could just as easily be about John the Baptist.

“I sit a few feet from a man on death row… His days are marked. I’m curious about what bolsters this man as he nears his execution. So I ask some questions. Do you have family… ‘I have none’. What about your health? ‘My body is beaten and tired…’ Any awards? ‘Not on earth’. Then what do you have… No belongings. No family… What do you have that matters? ‘I have my faith. It’s all I have. But it’s all I need. I have kept the faith’. [He] leans back against the wall of his cell and smiles.”

Let’s pit those words in the mouth of John the Baptist. I have my faith. It’s all I have. But it’s all I need. I have kept the faith. I’ve stepped on some toes and enraged more than a few folks. Some people hate me. Many want me silenced. More than a few want me dead. But to quote Tom Petty, “You can back me up to the gates of hell, but I won’t back down.” I’m not being proud, stubborn, or macho. Nor am I being rebellious just for the sake of being rebellious. I have no martyrdom complex. If I had my ‘druthers I’d ‘druther not be in jail. I’d rather be out speaking God’s Word. I don’t want to die, but I refuse to sell my soul for a few more years of life. If Herodias wants me dead, so be it. I’m not in charge, but then neither is she. It’s in God’s hands.

That was almost 2,000 years ago. Much has change. People are mostly the same. This world is full of those who are kindred spirits of Antipas and Herodias, people who want the space and freedom to sin in peace. There will always be those who will not repent, who are willing to spit in God’s face and dare him to do anything about it. There will always be those who insist on living without moral or ethical boundaries. There will always be those who think that their wealth, power, family ties, and social networks exempt them from God’s demands for justice and righteousness. Some, like the Herodians, are blatantly and insanely evil. Many are simply cold, calculating, and self-promoting. Some, maybe most, are content with things as they are, willing to turn a blind eye or deaf ear to injustice and unrighteousness, especially when they are second-hand recipients of its rewards.

Do we really think that John the Baptist could get away with speaking God’s truth to this culture? Do we really believe that those Old Testament prophets like Amos, Micah, and Isaiah would be any safer now than they were then? How about the Apostle Paul? How about the Apostle Peter? How about Jesus himself? Do we believe that their God-breathed words could be peacefully received in today’s world? How about in this so-called Christian nation we call the United States of America? How about in most of our Twentieth Century American Churches?

Why was John the Baptist beheaded? Because he spoke God’s truth to people who did not want to hear it, who could not handle it. I’m going to share some words of biblical commentary with you. They were published in 1951 in the first edition of The Interpreters Bible. They were written by someone who was neither liberal, radical, nor outside the mainstream of biblical interpretation. Listen to what Halford E. Luccock wrote in 1951.

“How unwelcome Christian teaching has often been, as it has been reborn into new generations! How impertinent it has seemed to the wise and mighty, how preposterous… So it was when Christianity confronted slavery; when it confronted the exploitation of men, women, and children in the cruel years of the industrial revolution; so it is when the teaching of Jesus confronts war. So much of that teaching was and is against all reason of a highly practical world.”

Unwelcome, impertinent, preposterous, unreasonable: such is one description of how the teachings of Jesus are considered by the world, including all too often the Christian world. Unwelcome, impertinent, preposterous, unreasonable. This fall I will be teaching a series of lessons dealing with the Sermon on the Mount, with an emphasis on the day-in, day-out implications of the words of Jesus contained therein. My hunch is that all of us, teacher and students alike, will hear what those words really mean for those who follow Jesus and, to a greater or lesser degree, consider them unwelcome, impertinent, preposterous, and unreasonable. And definitely impractical. My further hunch is that each us involved in this enterprise will be offended by the reality that we cannot sin in peace.

Before all is said and done I imagine that one or more of you will tell me that I’m not living in the real world. Good, for this is not the real world; it is a fallen world in which God’s will has been turned upside down and inside out. It is the world that crucified Jesus because he dared to preach, teach, and live out the will of God. It is the world that stoned the prophets, beheaded John the Baptist, and executed the Apostle Paul. It is the world that forty or so years ago burned crosses in the yards of and dismissed from its pulpits those who dared speak out against segregation. It is the world that assassinated Martin Luther King, Jr. It is the world that protected pedophiles for the good of the Roman Catholic Church. If that’s the real world, then may God have mercy on our souls because in such a world hell has already triumphed over heaven.

John the Baptist looked at that world and prophesied its demise when the Kingdom of God arrived in the person of Jesus. It’s the world that fears God’s truth, and sometimes hates it. It’s the world that wants the freedom to sin in peace. It’s not the world God created. It is the world he came in Jesus to redeem in spite of itself. Amen.