Sermon Tone Analysis

Scripture Readings

Those who dare to call the powerful out on their immorality and selfishness tend to find their heads on a platter.

The Word of God is not generally a word that sits well with the powerful.

Just ask any of the old testament prophets or ask John the Baptist.

Our passage from Mark today is a flashback.

We’ve been talking recently about Jesus’ miracles and as the story unfolds, Jesus’ reputation is getting out.

People are hearing about him.

When Herod hears about him - this would have been the son of the Herod who tried to get ahold of Jesus as a baby - he starts to sweat a little.

Just before Jesus came this prophet John who called Herod out for his shady morality and Herod had him killed for it.

Herod - neither a faithful nor theologically bright man - began to suspect that Jesus was John the Baptist reincarnated or resurrected and coming to get revenge.

Herod was a self-proclaimed king and messiah, even though he was really only a local leader.

He was a power-hungry and lustful man who had taken his brother’s wife and was currently eyeing up his step-daughter.

Who. . .

if you do the family tree math here. . .

daughter of his brother’s wife. . .

was his niece.

He was not faithful or theologically bright, nor was he a very moral or upright person.

Lest you think these two women were innocents in all this, they were clearly schemers.

Herod’s shifty morality left him wide open for them to play him.

They didn’t want to lose the power that came with living in the palace, so they weren’t too fond of John’s accusations either.

This story is almost Shakespearean in its family drama and lust for power and people.

It’s a classic tale of what happens when the lusty, rich, and power-hungry are put in charge of things.

Those who dare to call the powerful out on their immorality and selfishness tend to find their heads on a platter.

Herod is not only wrapped up in bad theology, he’s allowed his earthly lusts for power and sex get the best of him.

The dancing girl is his step-daughter.

This objectification of and desire for the girl are highly inappropriate and John is happy to call Herod out on his disgusting and immoral leanings.

This is one seriously unstable guy in charge here.

The real theme of this pericope, however, is not the drama of life and death, love and hate, that so easily captivates our imaginations; it is the confrontation of political power and prophetic faith.

What makes the encounter of the prophet and the king so poignant is that they understand each other well enough.

The puppet king knows enough about truth to recognize his own falseness; and the prophet is sufficiently acquainted with temptation to desire his monarch’s liberation from it.

Their meeting could have been redemptive, but one great flaw prevented it: Herod’s insatiable quest for preeminence—having it, keeping it, flaunting it.

Not sexual lust but lust for power is the problem this text illuminates.

It is John who pays the ultimate price when Herod chooses to make the king’s public image more important than regard for another man’s life.

The consequences of bad-faith actions are generally devastating for those most vulnerable to the vagaries of political decision making.

Consider the personal and social dilemmas in which Herod finds himself in this passage.

He is trying to negotiate myriad complicated relationships within his household and society and discovering that it is quite difficult to please everyone around him and still uphold his own personal standards.

In calling him out for marrying his brother’s wife, John has just told Herod he is not the real king.

He is not the Messiah.

It is John who pays the ultimate price when Herod chooses to make the king’s public image more important than regard for another man’s life.

He Chose. . .

Poorly.

Herod had a choice - right up to the very end.

He’d done some pretty terrible things, but when confronted with one last opportunity to repent, he refused.

Even with the prophet right there, face to face, telling him to repent of his awful ways, Herod chose his own, puny little earthly kingdom over being a part of the Kingdom of God on Earth.

And yet. . . in spite of Herod choosing his own earthly kingdom over God’s Kingdom, the Kingdom still comes to earth.

Herod, in spite of his own protestations and tantrums, is neither rightful king nor messiah.

In his refusal to live into grace, he made himself unimportant.

We aren’t told what John said as the executioner came for him.

This isn’t a story, like many other Jewish stories of righteous men brutally killed, of a martyr who took the opportunity for a speech affirming his message and warning of God’s vengeance.

But Mark leaves his readers in no doubt.

John was a righteous and holy man, and the kingdom of which he had spoken, and the forgiveness he had offered, were the reality that would win the day.

Even in so solemn and ugly a story there can be found real encouragement to faithful witness and constant hope.

We are given the choice to participate in the Kingdom of God of the kingdom of the world, but if we chose the world, that won’t stop God’s Kingdom.

In fact, that seems to be what Mark’s point is in dropping this flashback into the middle of the narrative about Jesus.

Mark is saying, “Remember what Herod did to John?

That didn’t stop God’s work, and neither will anything that the powers of the world do to Jesus.”

We are given the promise that no matter how many small-minded, selfish tyrants are given any sort of power and rule in the world, God is still the one in charge.

Those mere humans are not messiahs.

They are not real kings.

And even if they chose not to live in grace, God’s Kingdom is the only one that will reign forever- not any mortal earthly kingdom we see around us today.

Every human empire will fall.

Power resists truth

Every human empire will fall because earthly power resists truth.

One of the class sessions I teach at the county jail is on power dynamics and how those in power use that power to take more power from others who have less to begin with.

In any situation of abuse, there is some sort of power the abuser is using inappropriately toward the abused.

This is often physical power, but can be social power, economic power, psychological power, and more.

When a person craves or seeks earthly power for whatever reason - but often because they themselves feel or have felt powerless - they get it the only way it’s possible to get earthly power - they take it from someone else.

And the people it’s easiest to take power from are those with less power to begin with.

This creates a nasty cycle in which the powerful continue to hoard power and the powerless continue to lose power.

Once that dynamic gets oppressively unbalanced, it gets harder and harder to re-balance it and find equity of power again.

The longer power is left to hoard more power, the longer it takes to break that cycle and even out the power.

That’s why a century and a half after the civil war, our country is still feeling the after-effects of slavery and racism.

That’s why almost 100 years after women won the right to vote in the US, we’re still fighting for equal pay for equal work.

One of the hardest things about balancing power out so that everyone has a fair shot is that power resists truth.

Power likes lies and it makes people say things like “If you were a better wife, I wouldn’t be so angry all the time.”

or “They must be poor because they’re lazy.” or “We don’t have room for them.”

or “They should stop whining and be grateful for what they do have.”

Power resists truth.

Power resists truth.

Power resists truth, resulting in Herod killing a man for calling him out on his lust and corruption.

Power resists truth when a young girl is shot in the face for speaking out about the need to educate girls.

Power resists truth when people make outlandish claims like “The Holocaust never really happened.”

Power resists truth when claims are made that racism and sexism are no longer problems in our culture.

Power resists truth in small ways like when we chose our own comfort over the best interests of another.

Power resists truth when those who grew up in quiet suburban neighborhoods talk down on those from inner city projects by saying things like, “If they only worked harder. .

.” or “They’re just lazy.

They could easily get out if they wanted to.”

Power resists truth when

Power resists truth when we continue to elect leaders who are sexually promiscuous and lusty like Herod, or who have forgotten Mr. Roger’s basic gospel teaching that all people are valuable and precious no matter what race or gender they are and in spite of any disabilities or differences they might have.

Power resists truth when we continue to buy into cheap and immoral celebrity culture even after the recent look we’ve been granted into the way powerful Hollywood men are taking advantage of young actresses and actors.

Power resists truth.

Evil is found not only in the demonic but also in the centers of power, both political and religious.

The strong, driven by the forces of sex, money, and power, “Lord over” those who are weak.

In this passage we are forced to face a world that is in opposition to the innocent, a world where injustice and brutal power prevail.

The text opens with speculation regarding the source of the power of Jesus and his disciples and ends with John’s disciples’ claiming his beheaded body and burying it.

The story begins with power and ends with powerlessness.

Daily life also presents a series of Herod-like personal and spiritual dilemmas for persons to negotiate.

For a harried mother of a toddler, there is the question of how best to love and parent a child in the face of a defiant “No!” and a full-fledged temper tantrum in aisle 6 of the grocery store at the end of a long day.

For a father of three, it is the struggle to explain the importance of rearranging travel plans for a work trip so he can attend a Little League playoff game.

A corporate executive wonders how her announcement of a long-awaited pregnancy will affect her employees’ perceptions of her as an effective boss.