Edgewood United Church

United Church of Christ

July 16, 2006  Edgewood United Church UCC  Rev. Karen E. Gale

Losing One’s Head
Mark 6:14-29

Caius Marcius was one of ancient Rome's greatest soldiers. At the age of seventeen years he was awarded a wreath for saving the life of a fellow soldier in the battle of Lake Regillus. At another time his bravery in battle allowed the Romans to take the city of Corioli and, so great was it, that his general added “Coriolanus” to Caius' name.

But with Coriolanus’ courage and achievement also came great pride, a condescending attitude so great that the people grew to hate him. This pride soon became his undoing. He was permanently banished from Rome upon being convicted on charges of misappropriation of public funds.

He fled to the land of the Volscians, Rome's great enemy that he had once helped conquer, and sought an alliance. And so, leading a Volscian army greater than the forces of Rome, Coriolanus marched against his native city. City after city was conquered, until finally Coriolanus and his Volscian army camped outside Rome.

The Senate sent five leading Patricians to see Coriolanus, who offered them such severe terms that they were unable to accept them. They returned and reported the matter, and then were sent again, with instructions to ask for gentler terms. But now Coriolanus refused even to let them enter his camp. Rome was thrown into panicked terror.

All else having failed, the noble women of Rome went to the Volscian camp to pray for mercy. They wore clothing of mourning and their faces were bowed with sorrow. At their head was a woman named Veturia, the mother of Coriolanus.

On reaching the middle of the camp, they saw Caius on the general's seat, with the Volscian chiefs gathered around him. When he saw his mother, a woman he deeply loved, he ran to meet and kiss her.

His mother motioned for him to stop. "Ere you kiss me,'' she said, "let me know whether I speak to an enemy or to my son; whether I stand here as your prisoner or your mother.'' "Must it, then, be that if I had never borne a son, Rome would have never seen the camp of an enemy? But I am too old to endure much longer your shame and my misery. Think not of me, but of your wife and children, whom you would doom to death or to life in bondage.''

Coriolanus stood silent, with bent head, and unable to answer.

What will he choose to do?

Herod on his birthday gave a banquet for his courtiers and officers and for the leaders of Galilee. When the daughter of Herodias came in and danced, she pleased Herod and his guests; and the king said to the girl, “Ask me for whatever you wish, and I will give it.” And he solemnly swore to her, “Whatever you ask me, I will give you, even half of my kingdom.” She went out and said to her mother Herodias, “What should I ask for?” Herodias replied, “The head of John the baptizer.” Immediately the girl rushed back to the king and requested, “I want you to give me at once the head of John the Baptist on a platter.” The king was deeply grieved; yet out of regard for his oaths and for the guests, he did not want to refuse her.

What will he choose to do?

Three weeks ago Palestinians kidnapped two Israeli soldiers.
In response Israelis bombed Palestinian homes killing civilians.
In response Palestinians fired Qassam rockets killing civilians.
In response Israelis invaded Gaza and cut off water supply and power and elderly having been dying as a result.
In response Hezbollah kidnapped Israeli soldiers near Lebanon.
In response Israel shelled positions in Lebanon killing scores of people.
And on and on and on…

What will Ehud Olmert the Israeli Prime Minister choose to do
What will Mahmoud Abbas and Khalid Meshaal the Palestinian leaders choose to do?

In all three situations what started out relatively small grew in size. It is out of control. Pain, anger, retribution, revenge, rage, shame are all pushing to continue what is already in motion. How difficult it will be to stop.

What will they choose to do?

In all three situations the ancient custom and social understanding of honor and shame is present. A man or a leader is known by his deeds and the honor he brings to his house. Backing down is shaming the family. It is far better to look good in front of one’s peers and one’s enemies than any other consideration.

What will they choose to do?

Looking at Herod’s situation for a moment, he has some real problems that we need to understand. First, this is not the same Herod as in the nativity story of Jesus’ birth. That Herod, Herod the Great, is this Herod’s father. Herod the Great had many sons by different mothers which resulted in half brothers many of whom became rulers of parts of ancient Israel region. Many of them were also named Herod which makes things even more confusing. The Herod of today’s scripture, “our” Herod, was named Herod Antipas. He had a half brother Herod Philip and another half brother Aristobulus who will show up again later.

Our Herod, in fact, is not even a king at all. He is a tetrarch, part of a triad of leaders that were puppet rulers under the Roman empire. Our Herod has a lot riding on whether or not he can prove he is as kingly as he would like to be. Any ruler that did not rule in strength was quickly disposed of by the Romans.

Herod also has some family problems of the magnitude of a great Jerry Springer or Dr. Phil episode. The family tree is so complicated that even our gospel writer Mark gets a few details wrong in today’s passage.

Our Herod’s first wife was the daughter of Aretas, a neighboring king. However, when our Herod went on a trip to Rome he stayed with one of his half brothers, Herod Philip, and had an affair with Herodias, wife of Herod Philip. Herod Philip and Herodias already had a daughter, called Salome. Our Herod later married Herodias and divorced his first wife, the daughter of Aretas. To make matters even more confusing, Herodias, our Herod’s new wife, was actually his niece as well since she was the daughter of another half brother Aristobulus.

In time, Aretas, the former father-in-law, went to war against our Herod’s over the divorce and Aretas defeated our Herod in battle; popular opinion saw it as divine vengeance for the divorce. What a mess.

Then, to make matters worse for our Herod, John the Baptist shows up proclaiming the sinfulness of the marriage as he saw it. The problem is not the divorce or even the marriage between uncle and niece but that Leviticus 18:16 forbids a man from marrying his brother’s wife.

Our Herod was Jewish, at least nominally, which is also why he was so hated since he sided with the Romans, and he knew the law of the Torah. Herod knew that what he had done was wrong by the tenets of his faith. Herodias, of course, was furious with John for shaming her name across the countryside and she wanted revenge.

But John was also a source of concern for our Herod as he was raising a huge following. His message might lead to rebellion and unrest and subversion. He is dangerous to Herod and to the continuance of his rule.  However, Herod is also fascinated by John.

What will he choose to do?

Herod is at his birthday party, a feast, a celebration.
Everyone is watching.
He has made a promise, a foolish promise, but one the same.
And after all, it is only the death of one man, a skinny, locust-eating, loud-mouthed, dangerous one at that.

What will he choose to do?

Herodias is furious with John and has wanted him dead for ages.
Herodias has risked so much to be with Herod and now this so called prophet goes ranting around the countryside
Herodias needs someone to lay her shame on, a scapegoat.

Murder is the ultimate extreme of trying to erase harm we fell has been done to us. If we kill the one who believe shamed us, we silence them, we erase them, we erase what has been done to us, at least we think we will.

Then there is Salome, the one who dances so beautifully she is promised half a kingdom.
In hundreds of paintings and movies Salome is pictured as being a sexy, half naked seductress, playing her step-father with her body in a shameful, deceitful manner to elicit the one thing she really wants, John’s beheading.

In truth, Salome was probably a young girl sent from the room where the women were gathered--women and men always ate separately--to dance for Herod. It was most likely not a sexy seductive dance, just the innocent dance of a young girl trying to please him. When she finishes and he asks he what she would like, she doesn’t know and has to run back to her mother to ask.

What will Salome ask for?
Will Herodias give in to her rage and hatred?
What will Herod do?

Events are quickly spinning out of control. Will Herod lose his head amidst all the pressures and order the death of the prophet he has until now protected?

Have you ever been caught, events spinning out of your control where one lie or mistake suddenly has led to another and another until you are caught in a web of deception or lies or mistakes?

All it would take is admitting it, saying stop, refusing to keep going and accepting the consequences. But the pressures are so intense. We don’t like to admit we are wrong. We don’t like to hold our mistakes up to the light. We don’t to show our shame to the world. And so will we just let the mess run its course no matter who gets hurt along the way?

What will Herod do? What will we do?

Back to Coriolanus who opened today’s sermon, the Roman general who in his anger and shame betrayed his countrymen and stood at the gates of Rome ready to destroy everything.

At the sight of his mother Veturia, and his wife Volumnia and children, throwing themselves at his feet in supplication, “Coriolanus stood silent fort what seemed an eternity. Finally he cried out "O mother! What have you done to me?'', clasped his mother's hand and said "Mother, the victory is yours! A happy victory for you and Rome but shame and ruin for your son.''”

And he gave up the field. Ultimately Coriolanus was exiled and then brought to trial but assassinated before he could be tried. The consequences were high. Ultimately high.

But his choice was to face the shame and the ruination of his life and stop the massacre of his wife, mother, and the Rome he had once loved.

We know what Herod chooses as well.
“Immediately the king sent a soldier of the guard with orders to bring John’s head. He went and beheaded him in the prison, brought John’s head on a platter, and gave it to the girl. Then the girl gave it to her mother. When his disciples heard about it, they came and took his body, and laid it in a tomb.” The opposite choice. Herod could not stop the wave that was crashing through his life.

But that’s not the end of the story.

Jesus is preaching and teaching around the countryside. He is ministering to the crowds and making disciples. The numbers keep growing. And, “King Herod heard of it, for Jesus’ name had become known. Some were saying, “John the baptizer has been raised from the dead; and for this reason these powers are at work in him.” But others said, “It is Elijah.” And others said, “It is a prophet, like one of the prophets of old.” But when Herod heard of it, he said, “John, whom I beheaded, has been raised.””

We could think that Herod is just paranoid or superstitious. He believes in ghosts and just knows the John isn’t really dead despite seeing his head on a platter. Or he may, as many Jews did at the time, believe that John was the reincarnation of Elijah and thus Jesus was the reincarnation of John and thereby Elijah as well.

But in a deeper sense, a metaphorical sense, it is true. John has been raised. The ministry, the work, the mission, the message of repentance has spread and taken hold in the mountains and valleys and villages. There is a renewal of the spirit and just because John is gone does not mean the end.

Others, his disciples, the disciples of Jesus, step into his place the message goes on. It cannot be extinguished. We know this because we sit here this morning thousands of years later proclaiming the same message of challenge, redemption, love and peace.

There is a song by Peter Gabriel called Biko which he wrote to honor the freedom fighter Steven Biko who was killed in South Africa fighting for an end to apartheid. One of the verse goes like this:

“You can blow out a candle, but you can't blow out a fire, once the wind begins to blow, the flames just leap up higher…”

It is true, so very true.

And so we are challenged today, what shall we choose when faced with decision like those that faced Coriolanus, Herod or that face Israelis and Palestinians?

What shall our own government choose? Even as we fight this war on terror in anger and vengeance for all who died on 9/11 we find ourselves drawn in deeper and deeper. Where does it end? When we behead Al Zarkawi? When we behead bin Laden? Or will we find like Herod that the movement just goes on.

How can we stop the cycle of violence and retribution in our own families, in our own hearts, in our communities, in our world?

What will we choose?

Jeff Greenfield, CNN news analyst wrote this week about the escalating violence in the Middle East asks how can one have hope. He writes,

“Look, we know old conflicts can end when leaders have the will and the authority to preside over historic change.

We saw it when South Africa's F.W. de Klerk said "enough" to apartheid and racial supremacy and sat down with Nelson Mandela to negotiate a peaceful revolution.

We saw it when Mikhail Gorbachev saw the Berlin Wall fall and did not send troops in to preserve a crippled empire.

We thought we had seen it so many times in the Middle East -- remember when Egypt's Anwar Sadat went to Jerusalem in 1977, and he and Israel's Menachem Begin met with President Jimmy Carter and renounced war? There's been no full-scale conflict in the region since.

True -- and in 1981 Sadat paid for that exercise in courage with his life, killed by extremists in his own country. And didn't Israel's Yitzhak Rabin reach out to Yasser Arafat and Bill Clinton and exchange mutual recognition with the PLO?

Yes -- and in 1995 he paid for that courage with his life, killed by an extremist in his own country.

There may be a logical, rational way to resolve a conflict when both sides believe God gave them the same piece of land.  But right now it's a little hard to glimpse through the smoke and fire and blood.”

What will they choose? What will we?

In a world where so many seem to be losing their heads, metaphorically and brutually, literally, can the call of Christ to stop and choose what is life giving reach our leaders? Can it reach us?

What will we choose?    Amen.

* help from William Loader’s site for Lectionary Preparation, Textweek.com, Girardian reflections on the lectionary