Thomas Kleinert
What a gloomy story that is. You were hoping for something to feed your soul, weren’t you? Good news of great joy. Glad cries of deliverance. Especially now, when the cultural mood can only be described as ‘gloomy’, no matter how blue the skies are.
Instead we get this tale of a ghastly birthday banquet like something straight out of Game of Thrones: Ambition. Scheming. Seduction. Fear. Brutal violence.
It was Herod’s birthday. This was Herod Antipas, the son of Herod the Great. He loved it when people called him king, because that’s what he dreamed of being someday: the one with the power to make the truth whatever he wanted it to be. The title the Emperor in Rome had given Herod Antipas after the death of his father, was Tetrarch, “ruler of a quarter” in English: rather than trusting one man with the whole realm, Rome divided it between him and his brothers. Antipas got Galilee.
So this was his birthday, and he had invited officials and dignitaries to a banquet at the palace. Course after course of delicious food, prepared and presented to impress, and plenty to drink—before, during, and after dinner. You’ve heard the end of the story, so you already know it wasn’t the kind of party King Charles and Queen Camilla would host on the occasion of the royal birthday. Speaking of the queen, it was common for the women—had they been at the banquet at all—to leave the room after the meal, and then there would be more drinking and after-dinner entertainment.
Herod was in a splendid mood—the wine, the food, the lavish praise of ingratiating toasts—and on a whim he asked the daughter of Herodias to dance for his guests. Herodias was his wife, his second wife, to be precise, but she used to be his brother Philip’s wife, and she wasn’t a widow. No big deal in Roman law, particularly among the leading families, but in Jewish law this kind of marriage was forbidden. John the Baptist, the wilderness prophet, was very clear about it: “It is not lawful for you to have her.”[1] The fact that Herodias was also Herod’s niece apparently was no cause for concern.
Anyway, Herod, not known as a proud supporter of free speech, had John arrested, bound, and put in prison. Mark presents this as some kind of compromise, protective custody, as it were, because Herodias wanted the Baptizer dead. ‘Let him tell his truth to the dungeon walls,’ Herod may have suggested to calm his vengeful wife.
So, after dinner Herod asked the daughter of Herodias to dance for him and his guests. You may imagine a young princess in ballet shoes and a tutu, delighting the guests with a sequence from Swan Lake, but this was not that kind of dance. Let’s just say this was something typically done by professionals, and not the kind of dance your typical dad would want his daughter to perform in front of a bunch of drunk men. But Herod wasn’t your average dad and so he did ask and he watched and he was pleased and he promised on oath to grant her a wish. “Whatever you ask me, I will give you, even half of my kingdom.”
“Kingdom” was a big word, of course, too big, really, but he was dreaming of becoming king, and he wanted to impress not just the girl, but his guests, with his royal generosity, and he may have had a few drinks too many. “Whatever you ask me, I will give you.”
She didn’t ask for a pony. She asked her mother. And she rushed back to Herod, “I want you to give me, right now, on a platter—the head of John the Baptist.” The platter was the girl’s idea.
Herod may have been reluctant to grant the request, but he couldn’t afford to lose face in front of his VIP guests, who had heard him make the foolish promise. Not if he wanted to continue to be the empire’s man in Galilee; not if he wanted to hold on to his kingdom dreams. So he sent a soldier of the guard with orders to bring John’s head.
The death of the prophet was the final course at the palace, and the closing line of this story shows us John’s disciples who came and took his body, and laid it in a tomb.
What do you do with a terrible story like that? Do you find anything resembling life and hope in it? It’s so bloody realistic: the party is over, the prophet is dead. What do you do with a story that ends in a tomb?
Mark, of course, tells us this gloomy tale as part of a larger story, one that encourages us to see beyond the tomb. Mark inserts this tale right after telling his readers about the rejection Jesus experienced in his hometown and how he responded by sending out the twelve two by two. The message I hear, is, Be prepared for rejection when you proclaim the nearness of God’s reign! And the disciples went out and proclaimed that all should repent. And they cast out all kinds of evils that bind and oppress people and they brought hope and healing to many communities. Proclaiming repentance, they did exactly what John had done before he was arrested, and driving out demons, they did what Jesus did, with awesome power—healing, liberating work.
When Herod heard of it, he was afraid: “John, whom I beheaded, has been raised.” Herod worried the fearless kingdom messenger had risen from the dead. He had sent men who arrested and bound John and put him in prison, and he himself had sent a soldier of the guard to bring him John’s head… Mark tells us how Jesus sent the twelve to liberate and heal, and in the next scene he tells us about Herod who sent men under his authority to bind and lock up and kill. Mark wants us to see, in this and every story of his Gospel, the clash between two visions of power: the empire of death and the kingdom of life. He has inserted the gruesome banquet scene as a commentary between the sending of the Twelve and their return: it’s a flashback to what Herod did to John, and a flashforward to what Pilate will do to Jesus. Don’t be surprised, the commentary goes, when the world doesn’t gladly receive the good news of God’s reign as a gift of liberation and new life—don’t be surprised when the world can only see your message and ministry as a threat to its own dreams of greatness and domination. Mark tells you and me and any who wish to follow Jesus as servants of God’s kingdom, “Be prepared, not only for rejection and ridicule, but also for violent push-back from the servants of empire.”
And to the degree that we ourselves have been shaped by aspirations of domination, we do not gladly receive the good news of God’s reign, but can only see it as a threat to our own dreams of ruling. We would be foolish to assume that the line between the servants of God’s reign and the servants of empire can be drawn as clearly between us and others as it was between Herod’s banquet hall and the dungeon down below—the line runs through us.
The real struggle for us who wish to follow Jesus is to faithfully live as servants of God’s reign, to hear the call to repentance, to hear the call to discipleship, to hear the call to mission and service, and to humbly follow that call, again and again, trusting in the faithfulness of God—especially when fear and gloom are swamping the land.
Mark tells us the story of Jesus to help us see beyond the tomb, beyond all that threatens to bury our hope: The murder of the prophet does not stop the truth of God. The crucifixion of the witness does not put an end to God’s determination to redeem all of creation. And the ridiculing and silencing of the servants of God’s reign cannot prevail. Why? Because justice is not merely a prophet’s demand; and compassion is not merely the wishful dream of the unnoticed, the unheard and unseen; and love is not merely a fuzzy consolation for those who lack power. The ridiculing and silencing of the servants of God’s reign cannot prevail, because justice, compassion, and love are at the heart of who God is.
Verse 30 is not part of today’s reading from the Gospel of Mark, but it’s very much part of the story. Mark tells us the apostles gathered around Jesus, and they told him all that they had done and taught. They told him about their struggle to live as servants of God’s reign in the world, and they did so surrounded by a multitude of people, men and women, children and adults who were longing for life, longing for healing and forgiveness, for new beginnings—so many, they had no leisure even to eat.
And that’s when we hear about the other banquet. That’s when we hear about the birthday banquet of the world to come where all who are hungry eat their fill, and the leftovers fill twelve baskets. That’s next Sunday’s Gospel reading, stretching the contrast between the banquets across the entire work week: The banquet of Herod the wannabe king, and the kingdom banquet of Jesus.[2]
This is the week when we collect bottles of water for our homeless neighbors. ‘What’s a bottle of water when people need housing and healthcare and jobs?’ you may ask. That’s a very good question, don’t ignore it—just don’t let it keep you from making your contribution to the banquet Jesus is hosting. At Herod’s party of bending tables and bottomless pitchers you’re unlikely to have a single sip or morsel that doesn’t leave a bitter taste in your mouth. There you must be willing to swallow the lies, the shameless flattery, the fear, and the violence. But outside the palace, Jesus is hosting the feast of life.
I don’t want to be at Herod’s party and I want no piece of his cake. I want to be where Jesus makes a banquet from five loaves of bread, two fishes, and a few bottles of water. Where will you go?
[1] See Leviticus 18:13-16; 20:21
[2] My assertion about “next Sunday’s Gospel reading” is not accurate. The Lectionary (Mk 6:30-34, 53-56) actually skips those verses, and moves to John 6 the following Sunday.