In Mark 6:14-29, we learn that Herod is haunted by thoughts of John the Baptist because he ordered John’s beheading despite himself. Are the forces that led to Herod making this choice that different from forces still at work in our world today?
Lectionary Thoughts for July 12, 2015
Seventh Sunday after Pentecost, Year B
Text: Mark 6:14-29 (Quotations here are from the NRSV)
“The king was deeply grieved” by his daughter’s request for the head of John the Baptist (v 26) because “he liked to listen to him” (v 20). Up until this point he had protected John the Baptist from his wife’s grudge against him (vs 19-20).
What changed in this incident that he would retract his favor from a man he feared, revered, protected, and liked listening to (v 20)?
“Out of regard for his oaths and for the guests, he did not want to refuse her” (vs 23, 26). He gave his daughter a wide open promise that she could have anything she asked for (v 23). And he had witnesses to this promise he had made—for he made the promise in front of his guests. Honor was at stake.
If this happened to one of us, we’d probably clarify that we meant “anything within reason,” or “anything *you* want, not what your mother tells you to ask for.” And everyone would understand the limits implied in such a promise.
We would not have to worry about disgrace for refusing the girl’s request. But that was exactly what Herod was facing. Refusing the request would have been to disgrace himself and to disgrace his guests. How could they ever trust his word thereafter?
I imagine he got considerably more careful about the promises he made after that. But this one, he had to keep.
He just had to.
Even though Herod liked to listen to John’s teaching…
He just had to go through with it.
He was bound by the system of which he was a part. In Herod’s case it was the system of honor and shame. He would not go back on his word; the honor and shame system required him to keep his word in order to keep his honor and to maintain the honor of his guests.
Who of us can do better when we remain bound to systems that conflict with our values?
It is easy for us as outsiders looking into the honor and shame system to say we wouldn’t do that. We can see a different path because we are not bound to that system in the same way. We critique it from a safe distance.
But are we so scrupulous, so savvy about the systems to which we are bound?
Do we even recognize them?
Dylan Roof sat for an hour in Bible study. He almost didn’t go through with his plan.
But he just had to.
Even though the group was so nice…
He just had to go through with it.
He too was bound by a system—some system in which he had only one choice that made any sense to him.
That system of thought rose up among us, on our soil, in our land.
It’s harder when it’s so close to home to see ourselves as bound to a system that would extinguish life in order to preserve the system.
Do we even recognize it?
Jennifer Clark Tinker 