Last week I mentioned that at least four churches still claim to have the head of John the Baptist. Well, this week we get to find out why John the Baptist is missing his head.
There’s a lot to unpack here but I want to start a bit with Herod. There is this long tradition in scripture of powerful men being portrayed as victims. Two of the most powerful people in the land where Jesus did his ministry were Herod, who was the political leader of Galilee, and Pontius Pilate, who was governor of Judaea. Pilate served under the Roman Emperor while Herod ruled Galilee as a client state of the Roman Empire. This Herod was actually Herod Antipas, the son of the King Herod who so famously sent those kings to find Jesus so he could have him killed.
The historical account of these two powerful men is deeply intertwined. For example, when Jesus first comes before Pilate in the trial scene after he is betrayed Pilate sends him back to Herod Antipas since Jesus was most active in his territory. At this point, the Bible tends to lean apologetically toward these two men. Pilate famously washes his hands of Jesus’ fate handing him over to “his own people.” Herod Antipas similarly is “deeply grieved” by the request to murder John the Baptist. It’s as if the Gospel writers are trying to excuse their actions to soften the blow of their characters, but you have to understand the history.
Both these rulers are attested to in other historical documents. Josephus, the most well-known and prolific historian of the period, mentions both. Pilate is attested in historical records as one of the cruelest rulers of the age. He is eventually removed from his governorship after slaughtering a group of Samaritans on an archaeological dig. Herod Antipas, on the other hand, is hardly a lover of this movement of Jesus-followers. He had John the Baptist arrested simply for telling him that his incestuous marriage was not kosher. So, when Herod excuses himself because he took an oath to Herodias, the young girl he loved (and was related to), the reader has to be awfully naïve to take this at face value. We should ask ourselves: Why is it that powerful men are excused for terrible actions because of an oath when those same men are constantly violating their oaths?
If you can’t uphold oaths consistently then any oath you take is worthless. To swear an oath is not to promise to do something unless it is inconvenient. Oaths either matter to you or they don’t. This was particularly true for Pilate in the scene surrounding the trial of Jesus. After all, Pilate had been particularly cruel to these people. So, in that famous scene when he presents Jesus or Barabbas and asks, “Which one shall I free?” the people know the correct answer. It might seem awfully egregious of the crowds to shout “Barabbas!” but perhaps less so when you understand that at an order Pilate could have his soldiers raid and kill everybody in the court. If you believe the crowd has the power, then the story means one thing, but if Pilate has all the power, then it means something altogether. History suggests that this was exactly the kind of governor he was, dangling what the people want but demanding what would best serve him. He was not a sympathetic character—he was a brutal authoritarian.
So, we have these witnesses several times in the Bible where powerful men are excused for the worst kinds of actions, but that doesn’t answer the question of “Why?” I believe this is a probably of time. Readers of scripture in the 1st century would have known exactly who these men were and the substance of their character. Pilate’s name would have been Mussolini to them or Stalin; they would have known exactly what it meant. So, too, we have Herod Antipas, who abuses his power to marry whoever he wants, flagrantly flaunting the Jewish law practiced by so many in his territories, and then he turns it around and blames the murder of John the Baptist on his mistress and niece. Stand up guy. And yet you wouldn’t be alone if you felt an ounce of remorse for him. Powerful people abuse their power to bend the narrative toward feeling sorry for themselves. Powerful people have blamed victims for as long as there have been victims to blame. Scripture portrays them this way, because that is how life works. Powerful people play victims over and over again.
In a way, this is why the first half of this reading about disciples evangelizing the countryside is such a tricky story for us in the 21st century. We like to put ourselves in exactly the shoes we want to stand in, thinking we are the aggrieved disciples and not the people shutting the door in their face. We like the idea of shaking off the dust of our feet at the doorsteps of all the people who don’t listen to us, who don’t agree with us, and who we don’t particularly like. On the other hand, it may be our own abuse of power that allows us to believe we have the right to be welcomed however and whenever we would like, that others must believe like me, and that they should also like me—after all, I’m doing this service on their behalf!
Questions about power touch at the very heart of how we live our lives. The powerful continue to act like Pilate and Herod, convincing the world that they are the tortured victims forced to uphold oaths that they conveniently don’t uphold in other circumstances. And we who are in some ways abused by systems of power may also be abusers of power as well. It’s a complicated world, but just saying that and letting it all slide is permission for the abusers to continue. We have to stand up for what is good and true; it’s just hard sometimes to know how to do that.
There is only one place that faithfully following that road will take you: It is the way of the cross. The plot of the Gospel of Mark is like a laser beam toward the cross, because the world of powerful people will drive you there. Speaking up against abuse of power will lead you to be abused. You will be ridiculed, chastised, and called crazy for speaking truth to power, because truth is Jesus—and Jesus only makes you comfortable if you know you have nothing to lose, which means Jesus will always stand against power unless that power is being given away for the sake of others.
This is why I think the one thing that Lutherans have to offer is maybe the one thing that 21st century Americans desperately need. Pretty much the only uniquely Lutheran idea is that we are fully saints and fully sinners. The rest of the world is spending all their time dividing peoples’ good actions and bad actions, deciding that so-and-so is good and such-and-such other person is really bad. Worse, they are telling you that you are bad because of “A” or you can’t be so bad because of “B.” Lutheran theology suggests that you can hardly waste your time more than to parse the parts of you that are good or bad.
You can’t get away from your sinfulness and you can’t make yourself more holy. Instead, you are called to walk the way of the cross, which is profoundly counter-cultural and will leave you bedraggled and pathetic and sad. It will take everything from you. And, worse still, even if you manage to walk it, it won’t save you. Only Jesus can do that and it happens apart from your choosing to walk after him.
So, why do it? Why be a Christian at all when we have powerful people in the world—people like Pilate and Herod—people who get their way, are rarely held accountable, and who will abuse anybody and everybody to stay in the positions they are in? Why willingly choose to give up everything when those who give up nothing face no recompense?
Because it’s true.
We follow truth—not what we want. So, we love our neighbors not because it makes us better people in God’s eyes and we love God not because it makes us better in God’s eyes. After all, God still knows how deeply flawed we are. We do these things because our actions speak to a world where God is true, and that still matters because there will always be another Herod—another Pilate. There will always be another leader du jour to serve themselves. It’s easy to point and say, “There is a sinner;” it’s much harder to recognize that we are the man. We are exactly what we despise.
But we are also saints. And we can speak to a world where powerful men aren’t really that powerful—not on Easter morning. They get their Good Friday; they revel in their Holy Saturday, when the dead stay dead and the world continues to spin, politics as usual. But when the dead don’t stay dead, then something else happens. When the dead don’t stay dead and when we wake up on Easter morning to the promise of something extraordinary, then the powerful are brought down from their thrones a la Mary’s Magnificat, sung before any of this came to pass.
On Easter morning the powerful are to be pitied. The first are last. I’ve tried to remember that on days when I feel like the powerful get whatever they want, and I believe it is true not just because of Easter but also because of what I have actually noticed about powerful people. They don’t ever seem fulfilled, only using their latest accomplishment to seek after more power. And that is worthy of pity. After all, if we are going to live as if the king that matters in our story today is not Herod, then we had better put things back in perspective. The king is to be pitied because we are Easter people.
So, OK, Herod, whatever. Bend the narrative so you come out looking squeaky clean. We know the truth, and it is this: You aren’t going to be fine. You won’t ever justify yourself enough. The game you are playing is not winnable. So, we pity you. We pity all who rule without love—without humility—because they won’t find what they are looking for. And then we remember that those rulers are us. We won’t find what we are looking for, either. So, instead, let’s give it away. Give power to the powerless, hope to the hopeless; give everything we have because that’s what Jesus demands of us. And we won’t. But we can speak to a world where it is so.
Easter is coming, after all.
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