The death of John the Baptist

Nothing special here, but I was asked to record a short talk for next Sunday, and decided to speak about the gospel reading. In case anyone is interested, here it is...

 

Have you ever known that you should do something that's right, but not done it anyway?

I thought we'd have a look at our gospel reading from Mark 6.14-29 It's a well known story, the death of John the Baptist, but it repays a bit of study. So here are some thoughts on the bible text, the history behind it, and what it says to me - and hopefully to us all - here and now.

Who is Jesus? It's a question that runs through Mark's gospel. Speculation is rife, and wild - though as it turns out, not nearly wild enough! Among the wonderers is Herod Antipas, who sees in Jesus a re-run of John the Baptist.

When big bad king Herod the Great died, his kingdom was split between three of his sons, who became not kings, but tetrachs - a lower rank in the Roman empire - sort of provincial governors.

The one we meet in the gospels is Herod Antipas, tetrach of Galilee, though he was no doubt locally called the king, as in Mark's gospel.

The trouble that led to John's death began when Herod married his half-niece, Herodias, the ex-wife of his half-brother, also called Herod. According to the first centry Jewish historian, Josephus, it was actually her daughter, Salome, who married another half-brother, Philip, but if Mark is a bit confused, or reflects popular understanding which was also confused, it's hardly surprising. The Herod family was a great sprawling affair of incestuous relationships, literal back-stabbings and deceit.

It would seem that Herodias, a Roman citizen, had divorced her husband using Roman law, but by Jewish law remained married, since among Jews, only men could initiate divorce. So in John's eyes, and those of the common people, she was still married to her first husband. To make matters worse, by Jewish law, a man could not marry his brother's wife, even if the brother was dead, so Herod and Herodias's marriage was wrong on two counts.

Since John was not someone to mince his words, and was a popular preacher, this would mean that Herod was held in pretty low esteem by the public - which would in itself raise the risk of rebellion in a population which was already notorious for its anti-Roman, and therefore anti-Roman puppet-ruler sentiments.

So when Josephus says that John was executed for fear that he might foment rebellion, it's not as far as it might seem from Mark's version of the story; his preaching can only undermine Herod's rule.

As for Herodias, she's none too chuffed to be labelled an adulterer and bigamist. She hates John with a vengeance.

And that, you might think, would spell the end of the prophet.

Except... Herod is fascinated by him. He knows, deep down, that John is right. He recognises that here is someone in tune with God, and speaking truth even in the face of huge power.

He can't not listen, but he can't bring himself to repent - he knows what is right, but he can't do it.

We can hear echoes of the conflict between Elijah and king Ahab and his queen Jezebel. There, Ahab had a grudging respect for the prophet, but Jezebel wanted Elijah dead. And surely Mark expects us to pick that up. Later in the gospel Jesus will describe John as the long-awaited return, at least in spirit, of Elijah, the forerunner of the Messiah.

And in John's death there is a foreshadowing of Jesus' own death - the political ruler who recognises his innocence, but who gives way to fear and expediency rather than stand firm for what is right.

And so it hangs in the balance until Herodias seizes her chance at Herod's birthday party. He was well known for extravagant parties, and here he is, surrounded by his political supporters, his clients and dependents who help to secure his power base, and he makes an extravagant offer to the young princess who dances for him.

(A quick aside - NRSV says it was "his daughter Herodias" becasue that is the reading of the best old manuscripts, but it doesn't really make sense, so the usual "daughter of Herodias" is the better choice, so we'll stick with that.)

Up to half my kingdom is a bit of traditional storytelling by either Mark or Herod - no authority to do that anyway, as Roman client - but it marks out the generosity which Herod wants to display - the kind of generosity which shows him to be a powerful patron, one to command respect. And it's that desire to be seen in a commendable light that backs him into a corner.

He can't say no, or his pretence to power and authority are blown away like straw in the wind. Half a kingdom is acceptable exaggeration. The head of a rabble rouser is not. 

 

So back to my opening question. Have you ever known something to be right, and chosen not to do it? Of course you have. We all have. It could be averting our eyes from a collecting tin because it's just too much trouble to dig out a coin from our pocket. It could be putting too high a figure in a box on an expenses form or two low a one on a tax return. It could be passing laws to enforce wearing masks and keeping your distance, and not doing it yourself. Or much worse things.

And have you ever worried about how people see you? I know I have. I certainly don't want to appear as I really am! What would I be prepared to do to maintain the public face? How much shame could bear? What sort of lies might I tell to keep up appearances? HopefullyI wouldn't kill someone but...

On reflection, I wonder whether John the Baptist is the true victim of this tragic story. It's a tale of an honest and upright person being sacrificed on the altar of a powerful person's pride and ambition; a story that has its parallels throughout history, and certainly in our own time.

But perhaps in the end, the one who suffers is Herod himself. He has been brought face to face with his failures and sins. He has been fascinated by the light it has cast on his own transgressions and weakness. But in the end he has done nothing, and has cast away the chance of repentence. Perhaps of salvation itself.

Jn 3.19 tells us that in Christ, "light has come into the world, and people loved darkness rather than light, because their deeds were evil."

Do we, like Herod, squander the chance of repentence when it is offered to us? When the light suddenly shines on the darker parts of our life, do we too scurry away? Or do we seize the moment and turn to the light, to find hope, healing and renewal, painful though that turning may be?

 

Doctrines Bearing Fruit

A former member of my (pre-retirement) church would sometimes write a lengthy critique of a sermon or parish magazine article and send it to me for comment. It was rather gratifying to realise that at least one person had actually listened to what I said, so I would do my best to respond, and over the years an irregular correspondence built up.

 

In the final couple of years before my retirement the topic was almost invariably around issues of sexuality and gender. I found this rather depressing, and still do. The Church of England has recently published (another) resource for discussion, Living in Love and Faith, the result of several years of wrestling with a topic which for most people is pretty much settled. From outside, the church seems obsessed with sex, and claiming the authority to regulate it for its members. We have to wait and see what will come of LLF but I hold out no great hope. Positions are entrenched. The Bishop of Blackburn, for instance, seems to think it’s a great idea as long as it results in affirmation of his conservative position. I doubt that many holders of a liberal stance feel more flexible.

 

My friend’s other, and related, issue was about what in evangelical circles is known as “male headship” - in short, the notion that leadership in church and marriage belongs essentially to the male partner (though partner is, obviously, not quite the right word).

 

These issues have become such a touchstone of orthodoxy in some circles that I find I’m writing as a former evangelical. I would prefer to say, “As an evangelical,” but that’s difficult to do. More than one evangelical friend has informed me that my notion of my brand of Christianity is outdated. I still cling to the idea that concepts like the primacy of grace, justification by faith and the authority of scripture are what matters. However, I find that evangelicalism is now about with whom it is OK to have sex, and whether I subscribe to the correct tradition of interpretation of a few short passages of the Bible - a tradition that I find has little to commend it.

 

Anyway, in the course of our correspondence, I suggested that Jesus’ statement that false prophets can be known by their fruit might well be a good way of judging the rightness of doctrines. I was immediately misunderstood, and it was pointed out that no doubt LGBTQI+ people (and women) could well be blessed in their ministry, but that did not mean their lifestyle, orientation or whatever was other than sinful. After all, God sends his rain on the just and the unjust. And indeed, if I had been arguing that, say, gay priests are fine because many do a good job (which is true, by the way) I would have been on a sticky wicket. Success, however one may measure it, is not necessarily an indicator either of doctrinal soundness or moral rectitude.

 

On the other hand, Jesus presumably meant something by his saying. Look at the passage, from Matthew 7.15-20.

 

15 ‘Beware of false prophets, who come to you in sheep’s clothing but inwardly are ravenous wolves. 16 You will know them by their fruits. Are grapes gathered from thorns, or figs from thistles? 17 In the same way, every good tree bears good fruit, but the bad tree bears bad fruit. 18 A good tree cannot bear bad fruit, nor can a bad tree bear good fruit. 19 Every tree that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire. 20 Thus you will know them by their fruits. (New Revised Standard Version. See also Luke 6.43-45)

 

Jesus seems to be saying here that what the false prophets produce is undesirable. He doesn’t say what it is, whether actions or teaching, but the result is apparently something harmful. The false prophets are apparently out for what they can get – like wolves looking for prey. The product of this behaviour is bad fruit, or “evil” fruit as the Greek would have it. What these people teach, what they offer to the church, has bad results.

 

The Didache, a handbook for Christian faith and living which probably comes from around the same time and place as Matthew’s gospel, says that prophets should be judged on whether they do indeed seek to profit from their ministry (Didache 11.7-12). In the New Testament, there’s a similar standard of judgement in the parallel passage from Luke 6.45.

 

Elsewhere, it is the doctrinal content which gives the game away: St. Paul tells the Corinthians that the acid test of true prophecy is whether it acknowledges that Jesus is Lord (1 Corinthians 12.1-3) while the writer of 1 John 4.2 sees acceptance of the incarnation as vital.

 

It seems to me, then, that it might be quite reasonable to put these two ideas together. Perhaps the test of a good (we evangelical types used to say “sound”) teaching is what it results in. For instance, in Genesis 9.25, Noah curses Canaan, the son of Ham, for Ham’s impropriety, and condemns him/his descendants to be the slaves of his uncle Shem (and/or his descendants). From this it has been argued that the curse on one child of Ham applies to all his children, who might be interpreted as including the ancestors of Africans. It follows that Africans are condemned by God himself to be fit for slavery, and it becomes OK to kidnap them and transport them in vast numbers to be slaves in New World colonies. This, I would argue, is a poor outcome from a doctrine, and casts a question over whether the doctrine has got it right. Most Christians today would agree with that, I think.

 

Or again, the Bible is quite (well, Matthew’s gospel is) clear that the crowd which brought Jesus to Pilate were happy to take responsibility for the saviour’s death, and to pass that guilt on to their descendants (Matthew 27.25). This led to the doctrine that Jews as a whole were guilty of the sin of "deicide" and were worthy of some sort of continual punishment – at least until its repudiation in the twentieth century.

 

I do not claim that the African slave trade depended on the doctrine of Noah’s curse – but the doctrine certainly provided a convenient pretext, and perhaps impetus, to a financially lucrative aspect of imperialism which brought misery to millions. Meanwhile, the collective guilt of the Jews provided an excuse and impetus for the persecution and exploitation of Jews which found its culmination in the horrors of Nazism.

 

So, in dialogue with my friend from church, I suggested, and still suggest, that it is worth looking at the outcome of our doctrines in other areas, such as issues of gender and identity.

 

In the wake of the dreadful murder of Sarah Everard, the societal gulf between men and women in the UK (and, of course, world-wide) has once again been highlighted. Men are still better paid, more likely to rise in their professions, and to see public spaces and other places of gathering as fundamentally male possessions. Women continue to experience a day to day low level harassment which is damaging to self-esteem and mental health. Against this background, many Christians still promote a theology of so-called “complementarity” which majors on a perceived difference of calling and function between men and women. At its core lies an issue of authority. Men have it. Women, not so much.

 

I do not purely blame Christian doctrines of wifely submission, male headship, or innate female weakness for millennia of patriarchy. Those doctrines grew out of the prevailing patriarchal culture, but at the same time, as Christianity gained influence, they helped to reinforce it. And centuries of oppression of women, domestic and societal abuse and disempowering of women are have surely been reinforced by it.

 

I submit that this doctrinal approach ultimately leads to suffering, injustice, inequality, oppression and death. Ergo, it is not good theology.

 

For LGBTQI+ people the case is even clearer. In our culture there is a long history of persecution, oppression and denigration of gay people. I am of a generation which learnt about homosexuality through school playground jokes and whispers about “queers” while the skinheads of my youth entertained themselves with gaybashing. Transgender and intersex people were essentially unheard of.

 

Our society has moved a long way since my schooldays, with the decriminalising of gay sex and the eventual acceptance of marriage for people of the same gender, though it seems that we are currently seeing a widespread attack on trans people. 

 

The church, however, has hardly moved at all. There are still many who, armed with half a dozen contested passages of scripture, oppose gay sex, deny the right of people to express their conviction of their own nature, and claim thereby that they are being faithful to scripture and the Christian tradition. So what has come of that tradition? Where does that doctrine lead us? It seems to me that it leads to persecution, murder, imprisonment and suicide. At its very best it leads to enforced celibacy for those who have no particular charisma for it.

 

There are gay Christians who are convinced of the rightness of this doctrinal stance and who accept celibacy or heterosexual marriage as a corollary of their desire for faithful discipleship. That’s fine with me, and they have my admiration. They are not, however, a proof of the truth of their doctrine. Their experience is far outweighed by the sense of rejection, frustration and suffering of many other LGBTQI+ people. And that, I think means it is bad theology.

 

Don’t misunderstand me. I am not suggesting that all doctine must result in happiness and good cheer. It doesn’t. But when it results in near universal misery, I cannot help but think that there is a problem.

 

So that’s my notion. You will know good doctrine by its fruits, just as you will know good people by theirs.

 

A sort of sermon on the rebuke of Peter

 Well. I got this blog up and running again, and had every intention of regularly updating it. We all know the path that good intentions build. So at least, I thought I'd better put something here so that my reader has an item to look at! This is my sermon for tomorrow. It's really only half a sermon, but it's long enough as it is. 

It's also rather late to be of any use to someone preaching tomorrow, but then, other people's sermons are rarely useful for preaching...

Mark 8.31-38

31Jesus began to teach his disciples that the Son of Man must undergo great suffering, and be rejected by the elders, the chief priests, and the scribes, and be killed, and after three days rise again. 32He said all this quite openly. And Peter took him aside and began to rebuke him. 33But turning and looking at his disciples, he rebuked Peter and said, 'Get behind me, Satan! For you are setting your mind not on divine things but on human things.'
34He called the crowd with his disciples, and said to them, 'If any want to become my followers, let them deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me. 35For those who want to save their life will lose it, and those who lose their life for my sake, and for the sake of the gospel, will save it. 36For what will it profit them to gain the whole world and forfeit their life? 37Indeed, what can they give in return for their life? 38Those who are ashamed of me and of my words in this adulterous and sinful generation, of them the Son of Man will also be ashamed when he comes in the glory of his Father with the holy angels.'

Former President Donald Trump is a man who is widely regarded as compulsively narcissistic, of very lax personal morals and whose relationship to the truth is only on a hearsay basis. None of this, you might think, would endear him to Christians, whose Lord has told them that truth is fundamental to salvation, that personal holiness is an unachievable but nonetheless vital aspiration, and that one should care at least as much for others as for oneself.
Yet, even after his rather narrow election defeat, Trump remains a darling of many, probably most, evangelical Christians in the United States. Prominent evangelical leaders proclaimed him as God's chosen one, declared that he had not sinned since taking office, and saw him as the saviour of their nation's Christian heritage.

If there is anyone here who shares that view, see me after the service.

Christians, of course, hold a huge diversity of opinions on all sorts of issues, moral, theological and political. There is very little on which there is a definitive Christian position. I remember a very devout and good Christian woman telling me (long ago, in the Thatcher era) that she could not understand how anyone could be a Christian and not vote Conservative. Since I tended (and still tend) towards the view that socialism of some sort or another meshes almost intrinsically with Christian values, we decided to agree to differ.

At present, the CofE is locked in debate over issues of sexuality and gender, and a new set of discussion resources has been launched, commended to every parish, as we continue to look at what it means to live in love and faith with one another. Whether this will ultimately make much difference to the various entrenched views is questionable - the Bishop of Blackburn, for instance, has declared that the discussion is a good thing, as long as it results in a consensus which agrees with his conservative position....

So, yes, there is room for a good degree of debate about what, if anything, is the Christian view of x, for a given value of x.

But we can't just leave it at that, can we, or you'd complain that you're not getting your money's worth out of the sermon (though, come to think, of it, the sermon is free...)
Pundits who have discussed Mr Trump's popularity with a certain brand of Christian suggest that ultimately, he is popular because he promised power to a group which sees itself as increasingly on the margins. The majority are white, and are threatened by the increasing numbers of not quite so white hispanic americans. They speak english and are threatened by the projection that Spanish will soon become the majority language in the USA. They have been a major force in politics and have seen that shift to the urban, and urbane, cities of the east and west coasts. They have strong views on abortion, sexuality and gender (none of which are mentioned by Jesus, or indeed the Bible in general) and have been promised that these will once again be made majority views through legislation and education. Which is sirely what God wants.

He is God's chosen because he promises God's people what they want. And that is surely something that God wants too. Pretty much by definition, no?
A similar case could be made for my other couple of examples. My Thatcherite friend ultimatly saw the Conservative government of the day as defending traditional "British values" and upholding the Protestant work ethic.  Work or starve seemed (with some softening) a good Biblical principle. And Biblical principles matter. And those in the church who seek to uphold traditional views of sexuality etc. see themselves as preserving a set of values which has worked well (as long as you're not gay or trans) for a Christian country, and long to see that Christian country return. As it may, they argue, if only we hold fast to what we've always held. As long as we are faithful to Biblical teaching.

OK, that's all rather sweeping, and it doesn't apply to lots of people who find themselves in any of these camps. But then, this is a sermon, not a PhD thesis. If you don't like the examples, that's fine, but bear with me anyway.

Because what I'm suggesting, even if you don't like the details, is that in many cases, Christians - real, devout Christians - espouse somewhat questionable positions because they offer what they want. Of course, they see that as being very much in line with God's will. It's there in the Bible, and in their tradition, and needs to be defended.

(Does that apply to me as well? Of course it does. It's an almost universal temptation, this desire to get what we want, and to colour it with God. I'm sure God is a liberal, all embracing good guy, because that's what I want. And I'm sure it's in the Bible....)

So let's look at our gospel reading. We have to go back to the bit before our selection, in order to understand what is going on.
Jesus takes his disciples away from Galilee into the Gentile area near Caesarea Philippi. And he asks what people are saying about him - "Some say you're Elijah come back, or a prophet, or John the Baptist brought back to life!"
"And what do you say," he asks. And Peter takes the plunge: "You'e the Messiah, God's chosen one!"
And he tells them to keep quiet about it.
Then he goes on to say, "The Messiah must suffer and die."
"No way," says Peter - and earns Jesus' strongest rebuke: Peter is Satan! 

Why is Peter so upset? It's not just because Jesus thinks he will come to a bad end, upsetting though that might be. It's because the Messiah - which he's admitted to being - doesn't do that. The chosen one of God is going to give power to the people of God. He is going to make them the top nation, he is going to affirm the values of the Law of Moses and show them to the whole world. He is going to chuck out the oppressors and bring freedom. Everyone will sit under their own fig tree and the Gentiles will flock to the people of God, and say, "Show me your God." It's all there in the Bible. Jesus has lost the plot for a moment and needs reminding.

And this is why Peter speaks for Satan - he is setting out the temptation Matthew and Luke describe in their accounts of the forty days in the wilderness- to be a Messiah of bread and circuses, of conquest and war. But Jesus is redefining Messiah. That's why he doesn't want the disciples to use the term in public. Everyone, including Peter, knows what Messiah means. But it doesn't. It doesn't mean the conquering King, the giver of a new Law, the purifier of the Temple's worship - all things that crowded around the term Messiah- and clouded the minds of those who knew so well what the Bible said. No, Jesus is not the Messiah in those terms. Rather, the Messiah is Jesus. Do you want to know what it is to be God's anointed, his chosen? Then look at Jesus and see the suffering servant.

Peter is trying to fit Jesus into the mental box he has prepared with the label, Messiah. And Jesus won't fit.

I think we tend to do the same. In some cases that can lead to odd results - like Donald Trump in the White House. 

The trick is to let Jesus speak. To let God, as the theologians say, be God. He is the one in charge. He is the one who sets the agenda. It's up to us to listen, in prayer and reflection, to hear the voice which teaches us what God is actually up to. That that can be pretty surprising.

Of course, you will say (I hope!) that if we can't trust what the Bible says (Peter, after all, knew what the Bible said) then how can we ever hear anything other than our own dreams and desires?
The answer, I think, is not that the scriptures are wrong, but that the way we read them needs to be questioned. Jesus was entirely in line with the Bible. He just read it rather differently. In Jesus, God was doing a new thing., and Peter needed to be able to recognise it. So do we.

Do you remember that refrain from the Old Testment : "Sing to the Lord a new song"? Why was a new song needed? Because God had done a new thing, and the old songs didn't do it justice.

We too need to be able to recognise God doing something unexpected, to to be prepared to sing a new song, even if it celebrates something that moves us from where we are comfortable, even - perhaps especially- if it opens up new and challenging possibilities.

It is not enough simply to say, "You are the Messiah." We need to be able to see what it is that the Messiah does - and demands.