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At that time Herod the tetrarch heard the report about Jesus and said to his servants, "This is John the Baptist; he is risen from the dead, and therefore these powers are at work in him." For Herod had laid hold of John and bound him, and put him in prison for the sake of Herodias, his brother Philip's wife. Because John had said to him, "It is not lawful for you to have her." And although he wanted to put him to death, he feared the multitude, because they counted him as a prophet. But when Herod's birthday was celebrated, the daughter of Herodias danced before them and pleased Herod. Therefore he promised with an oath to give her whatever she might ask. So she, having been prompted by her mother, said, "Give me John the Baptist's head here on a platter." And the king was sorry; nevertheless, because of the oaths and because of those who sat with him, he commanded it to be given to her. So he sent and had John beheaded in prison. And his head was brought on a platter and given to the girl, and she brought it to her mother. Then his disciples came and took away the body and buried it, and went and told Jesus.
- Matthew 14:1-12
Yesterday, we read that it when Jesus had finished speaking to the crowd in parables, that He departed from Capernaum. (For Jesus' introduction of the use of parables, see all the earlier readings of Matthew 13, beginning here.) When He had come to His own country, Nazareth, He taught them in their synagogue, so that they were astonished and said, "Where did this Man get this wisdom and these mighty works? Is this not the carpenter's son? Is not His mother called Mary? And His brothers James, Joses, Simon, and Judas? And His sisters, are they not all with us? Where then did this Man get all these things?" So they were offended at Him. But Jesus said to them, "A prophet is not without honor except in his own country and in his own house." Now He did not do many mighty works there because of their unbelief.
At that time Herod the tetrarch heard the report about Jesus and said to his servants, "This is John the Baptist; he is risen from the dead, and therefore these powers are at work in him." For Herod had laid hold of John and bound him, and put him in prison for the sake of Herodias, his brother Philip's wife. Because John had said to him, "It is not lawful for you to have her." And although he wanted to put him to death, he feared the multitude, because they counted him as a prophet. But when Herod's birthday was celebrated, the daughter of Herodias danced before them and pleased Herod. Therefore he promised with an oath to give her whatever she might ask. So she, having been prompted by her mother, said, "Give me John the Baptist's head here on a platter." And the king was sorry; nevertheless, because of the oaths and because of those who sat with him, he commanded it to be given to her. So he sent and had John beheaded in prison. And his head was brought on a platter and given to the girl, and she brought it to her mother. Then his disciples came and took away the body and buried it, and went and told Jesus. As in Mark's Gospel, this story about John the Baptist is sort of a parenthetic inclusion, so that we understand why Herod is disturbed by the reports he hears about Jesus. Herod's ambition and that of Herodias, the wife he's taken unlawfully by John the Baptist's accusation, give us a picture of a kind of nightmare world, resembling to us that which is illustrated so extraordinarily by Shakespeare in Macbeth, another story of unleashed ambition perhaps inspired by this one. Herod is in some sense haunted by his own act of murder, of a holy man. We know from various reports in the Gospels that Herod is fascinated by both Jesus and John, but in a sort of way that a child would be fascinated by a marvelous toy. Here, the story of John's beheading is told rather briefly. The king's extravagant oath (promising the girl whatever she might ask) is one that might be made by a royal personage, meant to show great grace and also so that the necessarily lesser request would seem modest. But Herod is bound by it, like a slave, as it's made in front of all the "great" people of his kingdom. We wind up with the gruesome picture of love and devotion of daughter to mother: John the Baptist's head on a platter, "served" at this birthday banquet. We have to understand that John was an extremely revered figure in his own time, seen as adhering to the law in such a way as to lead Israel in a time of difficulty, foreign rule, darkness, oppression. And now, Herod Antipas worries that John has returned in the form of Jesus of Nazareth.
John the Baptist's story comes at a time when the 'powers that be' come to take notice of Jesus. It's also coincidental with Jesus' rejection in His hometown of Nazareth. It tells us something about this Kingdom of which Jesus brings us news. It's not going to sit well with the established powers of the world. There is going to be conflict with those who see things one way, and do not wish to accommodate the force of the Kingdom, which is to be "always making all things new." This Kingdom is something that is revealed precisely because it's not really "of this world." That is, it doesn't come from a worldly outlook. It doesn't come from a fixed way of seeing things. It always comes to lead us into something new, bigger than what we know, to give us a greater and grander picture than what we have already understood about our lives. Christ is the ultimate Teacher, and the work of Christ and the Kingdom in us is to do just that: to teach us something, to lead us beyond the things we think we know and into something new. These stories of holy power conflicting with established power should not be surprising to us. They are the stories of the prophets that have come before John the Baptist in the Old Testament (of which he is considered the greatest and the final, in the Christian tradition). When we try to limit God to our own apprehension and convenience, to our own understanding, we're always going to be mistaken. Perhaps we'll be treated to a sort of "rude awakening," if we're lucky, a kind of "wake up call" designed to get us shaken out of our own certainties about our lives. I find that so often all kinds of people seem desirous of shaping God into their own image of what God has to be. But the real truth is that Christ is the Master. He leads. I find that this happens in a personal prayer life as it does in the revelation of Scripture. It's we who are led to accommodate the Spirit, Christ's image for us of who we are. The other way around simply isn't the way it works, but it's so often tried! The rule of a king, the "rule" of a society (such as in Jesus' hometown of Nazareth), seem both to be very like the rule of the "ego" -- which says that things are this way, and demands that God take notice, or to create God (or gods) in its own image. The story of extreme ambition shows this to us very clearly. When we truly call ourselves Christian, we are on a journey, and we're not the authors of the end or goal. We have one Master, one Teacher, and all the spiritual powers to truly help us to see -- but we need spiritual eyes and ears for it, as Jesus keeps telling us, hearkening to the words of Isaiah ("He who has ears to hear, let him hear!").
