 |
| "Beheading of John the Baptist" Carel Fabritius, Dutch 17th Century |
A lot of folks are mad at President Trump
these days. I’ve even heard some say they think the President is evil. But, if you ask me (and thanks
for asking me!), I think these riled-up folks are being way too hard on the
Commander-in-Chief. Donald Trump is not Satan. He’s not even Hitler or Stalin.
In fact, on the egregiously bloodthirsty and totally evil scale, he still has a
long way to go to catch up with his buddy, Vladimir Putin.
You see, to be really evil, you have to work at it. You have to enjoy mass murder
and the suffering of others just for its own sake. You have to be dedicated to
bringing that kind of suffering about. I dare say that most of us couldn’t be
really evil if we tried. We just don’t have that kind of obsessive viciousness
in us.
Most of us, I think, have too much conscience
to spit in the face of God’s holy law outright. So instead, we just sin through
weakness, vanity, and foolishness. We’re dumbasses, wounding God and the world
just a little, tiny bit at a time by doing and saying stupid things and not
considering the consequences. Either that, or we’re wimps who shy away from our
prophetic responsibility, finding the acclaim of other dumbasses more
satisfying than the will of God.
Case in point is our Gospel lesson for
Pentecost 8, Year B (Mark 6:14-29), the story of the beheading of John the
Baptist. King Herod Antipas isn’t really an evil king. He’s nothing like his
dad, Herod the Great, who murdered his children and his girlfriend and,
according to Matthew 2:16, ordered the killing of all baby boys under two years
of age just so he could remain in power. Herod Junior doesn’t have the kind of
energetic, satanic wickedness his old man had. He’s just a foolish, vain, and
weak king.
(Short digression here because I love
Victorian literature so much: Oscar Wilde’s 1893 play Salome is probably the culprit responsible for making us think that
Herod Antipas was wild with lust for his dancing stepdaughter whose name, as we
know from the Jewish-Roman historian Flavius Josephus, was Salome. Mark’s
Gospel, however, never says or suggests that. We don’t know how old Salome was
when she danced for Herod or what his feelings for her were. What Mark does have to say about Herod is much
more important I think.)
Herod commits three acts of real folly in
this story which are unbecoming of a leader—or anyone else for that matter.
First, he breaks a Jewish religious tradition by marrying his brother Philip’s
cast-off wife. Granted, this doesn’t seem to us like such a big deal, but it
was against the law in the world of our text. If the king is an obvious
law-breaker, what example does that set for the people? It’s like your dad
saying, “Do as I say, not as I do.” It cuts the gonads off of your moral
authority.
Second, Herod knows that John is a righteous and holy man (v. 20). Nevertheless,
he bows to the pressure of his wife and locks this guy up—for speaking the truth! As a husband, I know how important it is to
keep peace in the home and let the Missus have her way. But for cryin’ out
loud..! Sometimes a spouse just has to put his or her foot down and say moral
integrity is worth causing a little upsetment in the home. I mean, if your
husband opens a meth lab in your basement, I’d say it’s okay to walk out on the
guy. You know what I mean?
Third, the big show-off opens his pie hole
and makes a very rash promise at his birthday party, swearing to give Salome
anything she asks. Not only was that a phenomenally dumb thing to say, but
Herod lacks the vertebrae to admit that he’s made a mistake when he gets backed
into a corner and asked to do a thing which he knows is unjust. He becomes a
total mollusk, and is more concerned with appealing to his base and appeasing
Herodias than he is with upholding righteousness.
Self-preservation at the cost of honesty
is deadly. Just look at our Roman brothers and the faith-annihilating
disappointment they caused by their response to the scandal of priests sexually
abusing young parishioners. This was pure cowardice on the part of many in
authority. It was not only the horrible acts of child abuse—which were shocking
enough—which caused the outrage, but the insistence of church leaders on hiding
the truth, not punishing the guilty, and fearing the opinions of people more than
they desired to do the will of God.
There’s a lesson in this for little
Protestant congregations like mine, too. We can pray for institutional survival
for its own sake, but at what cost? There are those who say that the community
garden which feeds the hungry uses too much water, sheltering the homeless in
our basement runs the air conditioning bill up too high, and a properly trained
and credentialed nursery attendant for our children is just too expensive. We
could circle the wagons, tighten our belts, and defend the institution, but if we try to
hold onto our position at the cost of doing justice and mercy, then our
position isn’t worth holding onto.
I’ll bet none of us ever think of
ourselves as being genuinely evil. Nevertheless, it’s fear and ego and
weakness, and apathy and ignorance which allow evil to ooze into our lives and
our society and cause hurt to others and to ourselves. We need to keep looking
constantly to the strength of Christ on the cross lest we give in to the
pressures of this neurotic world.
When I read any Bible story, I often ask
myself, “Who am I in this text?” I think all of us—Donald Trump included—could profit
by recognizing bit of Herod in ourselves and rethinking our purpose and values
in this, God’s world.
Thanks for stopping by. Please come again!
No comments:
Post a Comment