When my daughter Sarah was little, she often asked if someone was “the boss” of her. It is a great question, and one of those one you have to figure out as you grow up. Some people can tell you to clean up your room, and other people do not have that authority. The airport security people can tell me to strip to my underwear, but another person telling me that is likely to get a puzzled look and a “I don’t think so. Now go away or I am calling the police.” The bishop has the authority to tell me things about how I do my job here at St. Thomas. I took public vows to obey him “and other ministers who have authority over me.” The bishop does not exercise that authority often, but he could. A judge can be the “boss of you” in certain circumstances. We are fairly independent people in our culture and don’t like to be told what to do. There are folks however who have that authority (and potentially power) over you in certain circumstances.
Lord Acton wrote in a letter to a bishop in 1887 that “Power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely.” Today’s Gospel reading has to do with power of different kinds, and it seemed an appropriate theme for the day. First we have Herod. He was king, and had been king for years. Technically, he was not a king but a tetrarch, but a tetrarch was pretty much the same as a king. He was a powerful man.
Herod was a great example of how that power can corrupt. His father was Herod the Great. By “great” we do not mean that he was a wonderful person or did a lot of good. Herod the Great had seven sons by five wives. He had one of his wives murdered. He had three of his sons murdered. He had all the babies in Bethlehem murdered when he heard that a baby born there was to become king of the Jews.
His son, Herod Antipas, was a little better, but a little better than really bad is still pretty bad. Antipas found his brother’s wife attractive, so he lured her away from his brother and married her. Enough about Herod Antipas for now.
In the cast of characters here, we also have Salome and Herodias. Herodias is the brother’s ex who is married to Herod. Salome is her daughter. That makes Salome the step-daughter of Herod.
One evening when Herod was having a party, Salome came before the assembled men and began to dance. We don’t know all the details, but it was a dance to entertain drunk men. I am claiming it was not ballet.
As it turned out, Salome had some power too. She was pretty and could get what she wanted. Salome got Herod to promise to grant her a wish.
Next in the power study, we have Herodias, the mother of Salome and the wife of Herod. This is the one who used to be married to the brother. Herodias was not a nice person, and she wanted John the Baptist punished for denouncing her marriage to Herod. Herod was a little cautious with John and may have been scared of him. John was in prison, but all in all was being treated decently enough. Herod was willing to shut him up by locking him away. This is not enough for Herodias. Herodias was willing to use her daughter to get revenge.
So in this analysis of power, where does John the Baptist fall? Most people wouldn’t say that John the Baptist was powerful. He was, after all, in prison. He could no longer draw a crowd. He could no longer preach the powerful sermons that had captivated the multitudes.
But somehow, John still had power. People remembered John, and that made him powerful. They remembered being stirred by his words. They remembered being saved by his preaching. They remembered repenting and beginning a new life. You can’t just cram all that into a box and shove it into a corner and hope that nobody would remember. Herod could lock up John, but he couldn’t lock up all those memories. John was the prophetic voice that spoke truth and called God’s people to accountability.
Our Gospel lesson tells us that Herod liked to listen to John. Herod had people around him who would tell him what he wanted to hear, but he liked to listen to John, who had rebuked him for stealing his brother’s wife.
There was a reason that Herod liked to listen to John. He knew that John would tell him the truth. Everyone else was trying to figure out what Herod wanted to hear and to be the first to say it. You know how things work. We call these people yes-men today, but they were around in the first century too. And that gave John power. He had the ear of the king.
Now I want you to think of the various kinds of power I have identified in today’s Gospel. Herod was powerful as long as he had the Roman political machine backing him. Salome had a window of opportunity to exercise her power, but the truth is that her being flirty is not going to have the same impact forever. Herodias was powerful only so long as she was married to Herod. It seems as if power is a little fleeting.
At the end of the day, it was JOHN who had The real power. John told the truth and I am reminded of the Battle Hymn of the Republic. His truth keeps marching on…
Truth is a powerful thing, and just the memory of John was so powerful that, when Herod heard that Jesus was doing great things, he thought that Jesus was John raised from the dead. You see, Herod had known only one truly powerful man in his life, and that was John. Now he became aware of another powerful man, Jesus, and he assumed that Jesus must be John raised from the dead. John had more power in his grave than Herod had on the throne in some ways. John had told the truth, and the nature of truth is that it really does keep marching on.
There’s a lesson here for us. Would you like to have power? I suspect that most of us would like to think we have the power and influence to make a difference. We want to help people. We want to make the world a better place. I know I want this for me and I want it for you.
John the Baptist showed us how to live so that our lives will count for something. All we have to do is to put ourselves completely in God’s hands. We need to go where God directs us to go and to do what God directs us to do.
Obedience to God’s will was the source of John’s power. God was in control of John’s life. God gave John the truth, and John lived the truth. John told the truth, and nobody could stop him. Salome couldn’t stop him. Herodias couldn’t stop him. Herod couldn’t stop him. Prison couldn’t stop him. Death couldn’t stop him.
Now the question for us all today is, “Who is the boss of me?” Who runs our loves and tells us what to so? The correct answer is God and the people He has placed in our lives with authority and power. So how do you know which are real and which are not? Time will tell. Truth marches on.
Sometimes we are impatient though and we don’t want to wait for time to tell. Here is the same question in different words. Are you living in such a way that you are making a difference? Are you doing work that will endure?
It is a matter of doing God’s will. 1 Corinthians 13:13 tells us that “faith, hope, and love endure, these three; and the greatest of these is love.”
We need to be faithful, believe, and love our neighbors. This is the truth I am going to leave you with today.
I have said these words in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.
Sermon preached by Fr. Tom at St. Thomas, Plymouth
July 12, 2015; Seventh Sunday of Pentecost
Amos 7:7-15
Psalm 85:8-13
Ephesians 1:3-14
Mark 6:14-29