July 14: The Eighth Sunday after Pentecost

Doing the right thing

(Sermon by Susy Hessel. Susy Hessel is a lay preacher at St. Hilda St. Patrick and is a mental health counselor. The sermon for July 14, 2024 was preached in response to Mark 6:14-29)

Our Gospel today is a heck of a story. It is an ADULT story that includes a wide range of characters, including the morally allegiant John the Baptist speaking truth, a king who can’t seem to do the right thing and espouses himself to have more political power than really has, a wild birthday party involving underage entertainment, adultery, greed, guilt, shame, fear, a vengeful wife, and murder.

The story begins with the speculation of who Jesus really was; Some wondered if he was Elijah, others thought he was a teaching prophet like Moses/Isaiah or Jeremiah. But Herod thought Jesus was John the Baptist come back to life and it was this speculation that led to the flashback recollection of the death of John The Baptist.

A little Herod family history is helpful in understanding this story.

Herod was not really a king. He was a Tetrarch, which at one time meant “one of four joint rulers’ ‘, but was eventually defined as a Governor with limited power and authority.

There was Herod Antipas who governed over Galilee and Perea, his brother Archelaus who governed over Judea and Samaria and his half-brother Philip who was responsible for Gentile areas on the far side of the Jordan river and northeast of Galilee.

Herod’s ancestry was messy and just plain icky. Herod the Great was married several times and those unions produced seven sons. And of the seven sons he murdered three because he was afraid they would try to take his throne. Supporting the theory that Herod was a pretty paranoid guy. Herodias was the daughter of one of those sons and three of the remaining four sons either married Herodias or her daughter.

Threatening murder or committing murder seemed to run in this family. Herod the Great tried to kill the baby Jesus. Herod Archelaus threatened harm to Joseph and his family and in today’s Gospel Herod Antipas murder’s John the Baptist.
Herod Antipas was a politician with ruthless ambition and was consumed with amassing power. He was one of the son’s who married Herodias. He divorced his wife to marry Herodias who was at that time married to his half brother Philip. Plainly said this family is a Family Therapist’s nightmare.

Marrying his brother’s wife was illegal and a sin and John took every opportunity to publicly point out Herod’s wrongdoing. Herod liked John, he knew he was a holy man. He liked to listen to him speak but was disturbed by him also because he spoke the truth. He couldn’t let his personal transgressions become public knowledge for fear it would erode his power.
So in order to protect himself and satisfy his vengeful wife, who if she had it her way would have had John killed, put John in jail.
Herodias yearned for John to be put to death but without Herod’s approval she was powerless. It was during Herod’s birthday party that she found her opportunity to manipulate her husband into putting John to death. The party guests were people he wanted to look powerful in front of; they were politically powerful people, army officers, leading citizens of Galilee and his palace aids. It is safe to say this party was wild.

The family was known for licentious and debauched behavior. It was his depravity that became his downfall. The dance performed by his twelve year old daughter Herodias was most likely a dance characterized by wantonness. His degenerate nature allowed the dance to proceed and he even praised and offered a reward for the performance. He was caught up in the moment and offered half his kingdom, except he only governs. But he wanted to look good in front of his guests. The reward she requested was from her mother, the head of John the Baptist on a platter. Now being a man with no integrity Herod agreed to the beheading of John. His head was delivered and the young girl gave it to her mother as requested.

And the Gospel concludes with John’s disciples coming for his body to bury it in a tomb.

John was a risk taker. He spoke out loudly and was committed and steadfast in speaking the word given to him. But he had to have known that publicly criticizing a paranoid political authority figure wasn’t a good idea… but he did anyway.
We face the same challenges in our everyday life. Do we choose righteousness and right-mindedness or do we make decisions based on how we will be seen by others? Having allegiance to the truth of the Gospel is not optional.

John made the choice to say and do the right thing, which was to call out the wrongdoings of the king but he ultimately lost his life.

In our world today everyone seems to have their own definition of what is right and just. There are political and religious leaders who seem to believe just like Herod that power and ambition were to be sought after at all cost….right thing be damned. Our modern day politicians are adept at gaslighting. We have a major political candidate who has been convicted of a sexual crime against a woman and that candidate still has a cult-like following who believe they are doing the right thing for our society by supporting this convict. Some even go as far as calling him a savior. This same candidate has been convicted of felonies for fraud and for trying to manipulate the outcome of an election by paying out hush money. This candidate is in the same league as Herod. Unable to do the right thing and always trying to look good for the public. In our world it is common for politically ambitious people to cross the line and blur ethics and morals and do what others want instead of being honorable and taking responsibility for our actions.

I think John would be very vocal about the sins of our modern day leaders and would probably be persecuted for being outspoken. It is interesting that this story follows Jesus sending out the twelve disciples with instructions to cast out evil wherever they went. The disciples were asked to take risks as they ventured out, no food, no extra clothing and to speak the truth. But they were not willing to go the extra mile and take the risk of retrieving Jesus’ body like John’s disciples did when he was executed.

John’s death reminds us that doing the right thing is hard and is not always rewarded. Being faithful and telling the truth can get us fired from a job, lose a relationship or lose our physical or metaphorical life. Alternate facts seem to be so prevalent in our media that it is difficult to discern the truth at first glance.

Just yesterday there was what has been reported as an attempted assassination of a former President of the United States who is currently running for President. This was wrong and the perpetrator is now dead. His adversary, the current President made a statement following the attempt stating “There is no place for this kind of violence in America. We must Unite as a nation to condemn it.” The current administration is willing to denounce wrongdoing even when it was perpetrated on his adversary.

Are we willing to take the risk of speaking out, telling the truth and losing our personal or professional success? As disciples of Christ who embody his Grace we are charged with seeing through deceit and wrongdoing and calling it what is, sin. Corporate whistleblowers often risk their livelihood for the sake of others because there isn’t much wiggle room when doing the right thing, either we do it or we don’t. If we support so-called leaders who gas light, commit fraud, abuse women and sacrifice others for their own well being we are no better than the perpetrator themselves. But if we rebuke and refuse to enable liars who are full of greed and fear we are then making choices recognizing that we are the Beloved and collectively can have a loud forceful voice. We have the choice to live with tolerance and love or to be vengeful like Herodias. We have the choice to make thoughtful decisions without manipulation. We have the choice to live in strength rather than fear. We have the choice to refuse power to those in our world who resemble Herod or Herodias. When we as a society have the fortitude and stamina to disallow our leaders from benefiting from their wrongdoings we disempower them and live the life John and his disciples modeled for us. I firmly believe that taking personal responsibility as part of a collective will alleviate us from the daily worry and burden we carry for our future and the future of our children. Grounding ourselves morally and ethically and letting go of the worry of what others think of us on a daily basis is a challenge that was set out for all of us by Christ. Let’s go out and live with God’s Grace and embody the Beloved in all that we do and say.

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