Seventh Sunday after Pentecost, rcl yr b, 2021
2 Samuel 6:1-5, 12B-19; Psalm 24; Ephesians 1:3-14; Mark 6:14-29
“King Herod”
I really wonder what exactly this story from Mark is doing in the New Testament. It’s not exactly one that makes you lean back and close your eyes in spiritual bliss and divine comfort.
It’s not the a bucolic, pastoral, or domestic moment that inspires so much Christian art. This is no pious depiction of the Virgin Mary, or of the angels praising God, this is not the barnyard illustration of the nativity of Jesus, this is not about mothers or sisters or children. This is no homely description of ordinary goodness. Or seemingly of any kind of goodness at all.
Even the crucifixion (which is hardly without its horrors in its depictions) is a moment of salvation, and ultimately about the one who dies to save; it’s very much a moment that draws us into maybe stunned worship, but nevertheless into the depths of a holy mystery.
Today though? How different a moment is this! And one wonders, is it a story that even belongs in the gospel? What in the world does this story have to do with the great acts of God in Christ for the sake of the salvation of his people? Where is the spiritual benefit, what here leads us to prayer, to love, to life in the Spirit?
It’s a story that begins with a man in jail—“Herod himself had sent men who arrested John, bound him, and put him in prison.” It continues with a party that was something of an orgiastic bacchanal, a lascivious fete celebrating a bloody-handed monarch, Herod himself, a party celebrated with the rich, the influential, and the powerful: “an opportunity came when Herod on his birthday gave a banquet,” says Mark, “for his courtiers and officers and for the leaders of Galilee.”
We are very much meant to think of a 1st century equivalent of a Hugh Hefner birthday party (if Hugh Hefner were also a minor dictator), a birthday party full of minor Hollywood celebs, Washington power-brokers, and Pentagon war-hawk-bureaucrats. Maybe not the A-list, maybe not the top-tier, but most certainly the B-list; and a B-list nevertheless with glitz and power and potential for violence that any sane person would be wise to respect.
A party of the rule-makers, not the rule-keepers; then, just as now, there was one set of rules for the people who make the rules, and one set of rules for the people who follow the rules. (This is why Herod was in trouble with John the Baptist; Herod was, when it suited him, a Judean ruler following Jewish Law; but in this case, by marrying with his brother’s wife to consolidate his power, he didn’t keep the law. His desire to consolidate his power was far more important to him than following the customs of the land.)
It’s a story in which Herod is so infatuated by his own daughter’s dancing that he drunkenly and foolishly promises her anything. (I’m not sure who is supposed to look more foolish here—Herod, due to his infatuation, offering up half his kingdom? Or was it more foolish for the object of Herod’s affection to ask for something far less?) What is demanded is not wealth, but an act of spite and cruelty. And in illustrating the propensity and potential for precocious and thoughtless violence by the political elite—John the Baptist’s head is removed from his body, placed upon a platter, and presented like just another bite to eat and be consumed.
This act of violence against John the Baptist is told in such a way to give us a glimpse into the terribly efficient the administration of humiliation and dehumanization can be, and ultimately, just how efficient the administration of a cruel death can be as well. “Immediately the king sent a soldier of the guard with orders to bring John’s head. He went and beheaded him in the prison, brought his head on a platter, and gave it to the girl.”
Herod might be drunk and foolish, but his power is raw and uncompromising. There is no ethical quandary, no moment of “should I or shouldn’t I,” no moment of reflection. Just a man who, “out of regard for his oaths and for the guests […] did not want to refuse her.”
Nevertheless, despite the fact that this is hardly a story about one of God’s great acts of salvation, or of bucolic, pastoral domesticity, despite the fact that there are no children grasping mothers, or angels announcing the greatness of God’s work, it’s a moment that has found its way into the world of Christian art. Renaissance painters like Titian and Caravaggio, and many more, love the scene for the confluence and contrast of youthful beauty and brutal displays of power. The story has also been set as sacred music, sung as an aria; Flaubert wrote his Three Tales about it. Oscar Wilde wrote it into a play (which probably shouldn’t be too much a surprise), in turn inspiring Strauss to turn it into a one-act opera. There have been ballets, and poetry performed by the likes of Nick Cave, it’s made its way into film—it forms something of a subplot in Sunset Boulevard—there have been popular songs, too, by people like Liz Phair and Patti Smith.
So it’s clearly a story that has inspired all sorts of artistic responses. I imagine it’s partly because it is so sensual, so carnal, so fascinatingly depraved. So what’s it doing “the good news of Jesus Christ, the Son of God”? How has this story inspired not only into popular art, but sacred art as well?
At its heart, this is a send-up, and a verdict against powerful people and the world they are making—ultimately unsuccessfully and as such worthy of mockery. So Mark makes fun of Herod, the man who supposedly rules his world. Mark calls Herod “King Herod,” though Herod was technically no king at all. He was a tetrarch. He had the desire to be more powerful than he was—hence his willingness to marry his brother’s wife, not letting any inconvenient sense of public morality get in his way of his desire to consolidate his power.
So you maybe need to hear the air-quotes here, with a whole lot of sarcastic derision. This wasn’t King Herod, this was “King” Herod, getting called out for being the kind of guy you make fun of for the absolute foolishness of their unfulfilled ambition. Like the bossy annoying teammate you call “coach,” because even though they’re not the coach at all they like to tell everyone what to do anyway, in complete unawareness of their own ignorance.
This is what we are meant to see—the stupidity that comes with the pursuit of worldly power, the recklessness of powerful people drunkenly making stupid decisions that in the end aren’t worth a laugh because they don’t end in comedy. They end in tragedy, and in the death of the innocent.
This is how this story of lechery, cowardice, and depravity finds a place in the gospel, in “the good news of Jesus Christ, the Son of God.” This may not be a story with cute barnyard animals, of sisters meeting over a meal to talk about their growing families, there may not be any angels singing or trumpets trumpeting in praise of the Lord, it may not even be a scene of the terrible victory of the Son of God, it may not make you lean back and close your eyes in spiritual bliss and divine comfort.
But it does tell the truth.
The mighty acts of God, the goodness of Jesus, and life in the Spirit comes into this world, to topple this world, to reveal this world and its corruption and futility. This is not real power, this is folly; this is not care of human community, this is its destruction. And this is part of “good news of Jesus Christ, the Son of God” because it is this world—the world of the Herods of our age, and the world of Herod’s hangers-on, the world of selfishness, self-deception, and destruction of others that ultimately has no future.
That world is conquered in Jesus.
The “good news of Jesus Christ, the Son of God” overturns the world as we know it, the world that clamours for wealth, the world that seeks corrupting and destructive powers, a world where power is invested in efficient machines of death and cruelty, a world where men drunk with power and stupidity besides can make cruel bargains and keep them—even if it means the useless death of others.
This is the world that Jesus has come not to bless, but to redeem; not to pronounce as already good, but a world that is made good by what he does, and by what he accomplishes, where the haughty are torn down from their high places, and the lowly are lifted up by the sheer force of the power of the goodness of God and his graceful act for us.
The Revd Dr Preston DS Parsons
Angus Sinclair was appointed Director of Music of St. John the Evangelist on February 1, 2023. Having graduated in 1981 (Honours B.Mus.) in organ performance from Wilfrid Laurier University, he went on to distinguish himself as a church musician, recitalist and accompanist touring in both Canada and the UK. For over 40 years Angus has served parishes and congregations throughout Southwestern Ontario as director of music. He experiences his present appointment to St. John’s as a welcome homecoming, both spiritually and musically.
As our parish musician, he provides both support and leadership so that a variety of parish programs can find musical expression and attract participation. When our handbell choir is in season, he is one of our ringers. At parish dinners, he provides popular piano music for the guests to dine by. For both worship services and concerts, he will rehearse and accompany vocal and instrumental soloists from our congregation on piano, organ, or even accordion.
Angus Sinclair was appointed Director of Music of St. John the Evangelist on February 1, 2023. Having graduated in 1981 (Honours B.Mus.) in organ performance from Wilfrid Laurier University, he went on to distinguish himself as a church musician, recitalist and accompanist touring in both Canada and the UK. For over 40 years Angus has served parishes and congregations throughout Southwestern Ontario as director of music. He experiences his present appointment to St. John’s as a welcome homecoming, both spiritually and musically.