Pentecost 8

Today’s Gospel is a terrible passage, run through with people who are compromised, and actions and morals that cause us to stop and gather ourselves again. It tells of the beheading of John the Baptist at the request of a young adult resulting in the presentation of his head on a platter. The event is shocking, and incomprehensible in the contrast of dance and death.
We begin in the court of King Herod, Herod Antipas. It’s helpful perhaps to be clear about who this Herod is. Antipas is the son of the infamous Herod the Great, who died in the year 4BCE, and who, in the gospel of Matthew following Jesus’ birth, ordered the massacre of all male children under 2 years of age in Bethlehem.
Antipas was ruler over lands including Galilee and held great power; providing he protected Roman interests and didn’t overly antagonise his subjects, he could treat a low-status prisoner like John the Baptist however he chose. John, the Provost, spoke in his sermon here last week, of power and authority that is founded on collaboration and respect; but this man held power in a way that is the very opposite of that. His power is tyrannical.
Other characters in this terrible passage include Herodias, wife of Antipas; and the daughter of Herodias, who Mark somewhat confusingly also names as Herodias, but in the other gospels is named Salome.
What else do we know of Herod Antipas in this passage? That he, verse 20, ‘feared John, knowing that he was a righteous and holy man', and that he ‘liked to listen to him.’
 
This short insight into God’s work within the man, Antipas, offers a glimpse of hope and the possibility of a different story, a moment of consolation, closeness to God, in an otherwise bleak passage.
But what happens to this small voice of God calling within Antipas?
Antipas, this man of terrible power, is entertaining his guests, and his stepdaughter dances for them. Salome and her dance have been interpreted in art and opera as paradigms of temptation, but might Salome just as easily be seen as a young woman, exploited by her stepfather to please a roomful of men, and then exploited further by her mother to bring about John’s execution.
No matter what is at work between the lines, it is an ugly scene in which we see Antipas lose any sense of integrity, self-discipline or dignity; and he turns away from the inner voice of God that led him to like listening to John the Baptist.
When Salome makes the dreadful request – the head of John the Baptist on a platter – Antipas acts out of his power-driven ambition, and this man of unbridled power silences the voice of hope, the voice of God within himself, ordering that John the Baptist is beheaded.
It is interesting to place this Gospel passage alongside our first reading today, from Amos.
 
Amos is called by God to prophesy to King Jeroboam in the northern kingdom of Israel at a time for this kingdom of unprecedented wealth, power and prestige. The powerful leaders have abandoned the foundations of their faith, and have fallen into leadership that oppresses the poor, perverts justice and resists the prophetic voices who, courageously, continue to speak God’s truth. Voices like Amos.
The priest, Amaziah, confronts Amos. He nowhere mentions God, describing the sanctuary where they meet, Bethel, as the king’s sanctuary and he banishes Amos. But this sanctuary is holy. You may recognise the name, Bethel, meaning ‘House of God’, for it is the very place where Jacob received his promise of blessing from God; the sanctuary that, in Genesis chapter 28, Jacob described as ‘none other than the house of God ... the gate of heaven’ (Gen 28:17).
How far the leaders of Israel have turned from God, says Amos; in their time of rich blessing they have become blind to the God who blesses them.
God, through Amos, uses an interesting image; God standing beside a wall built with a plumb line, and later God holding a plumb line in hand to be set in the midst of Israel.
A plumb line is a tool used by masons to build walls that are perfectly vertical. It is formed of a simple weight tied at the end of a string, which serves to give a perfect right angle to the earth according to which to build.
 
Israel, says Amos, has been built according to a plumb line; its foundations and built structure were true. But, Amos says, the religious and political establishment of Jeroboam’s kingdom has become warped.
And what is this plumb line that Amos says God puts in their midst?
Perhaps it is God’s law; or perhaps Amos himself, a human plumb line, speaking God’s truth to powerful leaders, but offering them the opportunity for reconstruction to return to truth.
So how does this relate to us, here, today?
I started wondering about what our founding principles, our plumb lines according to which we are built might be?
At baptism vows are made renouncing evil and turning to Christ. Faith in God the Father, Son and Holy Spirit is professed, and a commitment made to Christian life, and to live and work for the kingdom of God. And we, the body of Christ, renew these vows every year at Easter. Together, we reset ourselves, individually and collectively according to this plumbline of our faith.
Earlier in his prophetic writings, Amos guided Jeroboam and his kingdom to plumb lines that are of God;
justice that rolls down like water,
and righteousness like an ever-flowing stream.
As created, beloved children of God, we are people who at our core are made in God’s image. These plumb lines are part of our being; we are made for justice and formed for righteousness.
And what are the plumb lines placed in our midst? Who might be the Amos figures today that call us back to who we truly are Westminster Abbey, in 1998, unveiled 10 statues in niches above the Abbey’s Great West Door, of ‘Modern Martyrs’. Their stories are both terrible, and inspiring.
What struck me reading about them on the Westminster Abbey website (which I would strongly encourage you to do) was their ordinariness. Many of them are people who never sought dramatic or powerful lives but courageously sought to live lives true to God’s call.
We see that John the Baptist’s disciples also sought to live lives true to God’s call. In the final verse of today’s gospel passage they take John’s body and lay it in a tomb; in doing this they declare their allegiance to John and the movement he led – a dangerous position to take up at that time. Yet this act of respect and love is necessary to honour the life of the man they loved.
Their action put me in mind of supporters, thousands of them, who dared to gather outside the church and cemetery in Moscow where Alexei Navalny was mourned and laid to rest in February this year. Ordinary people acting with great courage.
And so the challenge from today’s reading that I’d like us to take away is God's call to us to be Christ to one another in the ordinariness of daily life. To keep checking in with God and with one another, by continuing to pray, to worship, to gather, and to have the courage to challenge and be challenged in order that we stay true to who we are all called to be, children of God, living lives founded on justice and righteousness. Amen