Now when Jesus heard this, he withdrew from there in a boat to a deserted place by himself.[1]
We don’t know what it was Jesus heard and where he was when he withdrew from there in a boat. The reading drops us into the flow of the story, and we may feel a little disoriented, like people who walk into a movie ten minutes late. “What did I miss?” we want to ask—and somebody fills us in, whispering a condensed plot description: “John, you know, the Baptist, was beheaded by Herod, you know, the king. At that party, you know, with the dancer.”
The disciples of John the Baptist had just buried the body of their master. He had been beheaded by Herod. That’s what Jesus heard.
It was Herod’s birthday, and the ruler had invited dignitaries, government officials, members of the chamber of commerce, and other important guests to a banquet at the palace. There was plenty of food and drink, only the best.
The guests sang Happy Birthday, dear Herod, and they took turns giving toasts, praising the greatness and power and wisdom and honor of their host—the usual flattery. Food and drink, song and … — the only thing missing, Herod thought, was a little dance.
So he asked the daughter of Herodias to dance before his company. Herodias was his wife, and she used to be his brother’s wife, and John, the man who had been preaching and baptizing out by the river, John had been telling him, “It is against the law for you to marry her.” Herod wanted him silenced, but he feared the crowd: recent polls showed that large segments of the population revered John as a prophet. So execution was not an option; better not to stir things up. So Herod had John locked up in prison.
Back to the birthday party. The young woman danced for Herod and his guests, and she pleased him so much that he promised on oath to grant her whatever she might ask. He may have had a few drinks too many, or perhaps he wanted to impress his guests with his largesse. What could the girl possibly ask for — a new dress, jewelry, perhaps a trip to Rome?
But prompted by her mother, she said, “Give me the head of John the Baptist here on a plate.” She said it out loud, in front of everybody. It was too late for Herod to take back the foolish promise — he couldn’t afford to go back on his word and lose face in front of his guests; half of them were just waiting for him to show signs of weakness.
So he sent and had the prophet beheaded. He had to do what he had to do, or at least so he tried to tell himself, I imagine. Who knows if the music ended when they brought in the prophet’s head on a platter, or if the party went on all night. . .
John’s disciples came and took the body and buried it; then they went and told Jesus. Now when Jesus heard this, he withdrew from there in a boat to a deserted place by himself.[2]
You can think of a couple of reasons, at least, why he wanted to withdraw. He may have wanted to be alone to mourn the death of the wilderness prophet. Perhaps he crossed the lake to get away from Herod, at least for a while, to pray and reconsider his own ministry: like John, Jesus proclaimed a kingdom that wasn’t Herod’s or Caesar’s, and he had just heard what can happen to those who serve God rather than the ruler of this world.
So he got in a boat and sailed away, all by himself. But as he made his way across the lake, the crowd followed him on foot along the shore. They were the people who lived under Herod’s rule, the people whom he taxed and polled and feared, himself always ready to do what needed to be done in order to please the Emperor and maintain what Rome called ‘peace’ and — first and foremost — to secure his own position and privilege.
Jesus saw the crowd, and he didn’t stay in the boat, out on the water, in solitude and silence, no, he came ashore; he had compassion for them. They had Herod, and yet, they were harassed and helpless, like sheep without a shepherd.[3]
At Herod’s party, worldly power was unmasked; the deadly game of competition and control, of flattering and fear was in plain view. Eating, drinking, singing and dancing made it all look like a joyous feast, but the bloody truth of that banquet was the prophet’s head on a tray.
On the shore of the lake, Jesus hosted a very different kind of banquet, and Matthew makes sure we don’t miss the contrast between the kingdoms of the world and their power and God’s covenant of compassion.
Herod[4], like his father, Herod the Great who, at the time of Jesus’ birth, killed the little boys in Bethlehem in order to secure his throne, Herod looks a lot like Pharaoh. And like Pharao’s violent resistance against the walk-out of his Hebrew slaves, the murder of John was not an unfortunate, isolated incident of poor judgment on the part of a weak or evil individual. The murder revealed with brutal clarity the demands of power and the lengths to which those who serve power are willing to go in order to maintain it: kill the boys, behead the prophet, kidnap the girls who dare to go to school, bomb the hospital, gas the protesters, disappear the opposition leaders. Power at any cost.
But there is a better banquet for us who hunger and thirst for life in fullness. There is a banquet in the wilderness where bread is shared like manna from heaven, where the poor receive good news and the oppressed go free, where in the company of Jesus, love and justice become tangible. Jesus is God’s urgent and gracious invitation to us to walk away from Herod’s party and go where Jesus is headed and find fulfillment there — with him, through him.
Ho, everyone who thirsts, come to the waters;
and you that have no money, come, buy and eat!
Come, buy wine and milk without money and without price.
Why do you spend your money for that which is not bread
and your labor for that which does not satisfy?
Listen carefully to me, and eat what is good,
and delight yourselves in rich food.
Incline your ear, and come to me;
listen, so that you may live.[5]
I hear the voice of Jesus in these lines from Isaiah. I hear his invitation to all who hunger and thirst for life to come to him. He calls the poor to buy wine and milk without money, and those who have money he asks, “Why do you spend [it] for that which is not bread, and your labor for that which does not satisfy?” Why indeed? Why do we spend money for things that promise to fill us, but leave us empty? Why do we labor for things that only leave us wanting more? Why do we listen to voices that tell us we must earn and consume our way to fulfillment?
Meanwhile, Jesus is at the shore, God’s compassion in the flesh, calling the poor and the rich to come, and healing them. It’s getting late, and some of the disciples are beginning to worry about this enormous gathering of thousands of women, men and children and their hunger. “Send them away so that they may go and buy food for themselves,” they say. There are markets and stores in the villages. Send them away, we say, so that they may go and buy food for themselves. And Jesus says, “They need not go away; you give them something to eat.”
And we look at what we have to offer, and it doesn’t look like much, and we tell him, “We have nothing here but five loaves and two fish.” It really isn’t much to look at against the backdrop of human hunger and need, but Jesus says, “Bring them here to me.” And then he does what we remember and proclaim every time we gather at his table, he takes the bread we bring and gives thanks for it, breaks it, gives it back to us, and we pass it around. And all eat and all are filled and there are twelve baskets of food left, enough to feed the whole people of God.
It doesn’t matter how much or how little we have, but what we do with what we have been given. In Herod’s palace, gifts are a part of the game. They are bribes, quid-pro-quos, hush money, a little padding to make a deal more palatable, one hand washes the other. But in Jesus we encounter a power that is utterly different from what we admire or fear when we look through the windows of Herod’s palace for a glimpse of the party. Jesus reveals to us a life where trust in the faithfulness of God and compassion reign, where the gifts of God are freely given and received, and shared for the life of all.
Later this week, some 70 gallons of bottled water will be delivered to Open Table Nashville, so their outreach workers can distribute them to our neighbors who live in tents, under bridges and overpasses. I am confident that we will soon be able to place another order for 100 gallons or more, and that by the end of the month we will have raised enough money to help build a water kiosk for hundreds of women, men and children in a community in Kenya.
What’s a $1,000 water project in a city where thousands experience homelessness, and in a world where millions lack access to healthy water? A drop in the bucket, we like to call it. But we place our small gifts in the hands of Jesus, in whom the kingdom of God has come to us. And with him, all that we are and all that we have becomes the banquet of life.
[1] Matthew 14:13
[2] Matthew 14:12-13
[3] Matthew 9:36
[4] Herod Antipas, son of Herod the Great (Matthew 2:1-23)
[5] Isaiah 55:1-3