Distorting our children’s wishes to get what we want!

By Rev Dr Fei Taule’ale’ausumai

Robert Louis Stevenson the famous author of Treasure Island and many other stories made his home in Vailima on the island of Upolu in Western Samoa in the late 19th century around 1887. This was the best climate for his failing health. He played quite an integral part in the life of Samoa before his death. His wife Fannie Stevenson wrote a book on their life in Vailima called Vailima letters. This was also my mother’s village. Within her book it described the frustrations as well as the joys of living in Samoa. Another missionary to Samoa was Miss Downs known to the people of Samoa as Misitaugese. Both these women recorded their journals on the life and times of living in Samoa and the most interesting articles that I read in both of their books was their description of Samoan warfare and how after various battles that took place between the villagers the victorious chiefs would traipse through the village with the heads of those whom they had slaughtered. I had a conversation with the late Reverend Leuatea Sio about this. I asked him “how was it that this sort of barbarism continued in Samoa well after the missionaries had arrived?” Sio’s comments to me were “well Fei, you see the Samoan’s didn’t see it as completely wrong, after all they understood that King Herod Antipas also beheaded John the Baptist and presented his head on a silver platter for his step daughter Salome.

In the early days when the Bible was first introduced to Samoa alost every context within it was taken literally and people struggled with some of the events that talked of vengeance and an eye for an eye.

Here in the Gospel of Mark we are confronted with an interesting scenario. King Herod like Pontius Pilate in the crucifixion trial of Jesus could find nothing wrong with John the Baptist. Both men actually admired and do not want to kill these holy men, but do so after being cornered by others.

In a flashback we learn that Herod had divorced his wife in order to marry Herodias, the wife of his brother. Jewish law did not permit a man to marry his brother’s wife while the brother was still alive. This was a fact that John the Baptist had pointed out to Herod. His new wife Herodius did not fancy losing her new position as queen nor did she relish the dispersions that John was casting on her character and that of her husband. She found the way to rid herself of John after Herod promised up to half his kingdom to her daughter for her dance that pleased him. She distorted her daughters wish to fulfil her evil plan. In order to spare his honour at the banquet, Herod had to live up to his word and have John the Baptist beheaded. Herod would rather execute a holy man, rather than lose face with his dinner guests.

Not only is Herod’s marriage at least morally questionable, but the suggestion is strong that he is carried away by desire on seeing his own daughter (who actually his step-daughter) dance for him.

The story presents Herod as a weak ruler, easily manipulated by his wife, and shows Herodias giving free rein to a hatred of John that leads to his murder. Superstition and guilt then combine to make Herod think that Jesus is John, his victim, come back from the dead (Mk 6:16). The whole picture is one that would definitely be the breaking news of our own 6’oclock news or N.Z. newspaper.

Herod and Pilate both realise that the men who stand before them bear the truth about them and God’s claim upon their lives. When devout servants speak truths that come from God oppressive structures of power are destabilised. I wonder how many people we can think of and name as having stood up to oppressive powers and structures? What benefits do we now enjoy because of their witness?

In the wake of John’s arrest and execution, Herod starts hearing reports of Jesus’ effective ministry. An alarmed King Herod concludes: “John, whom I beheaded, has been raised” (6:16). My question is why is this story wedged in between the Mission of the Twelve and the Feeding of the Five Thousand?

Mark carefully links the ministries and fates of John the Baptist and Jesus of Nazareth to interpret one in light of the other. Just as John’s ministry anticipated Jesus’ arrival on the scene, the death of John the Baptist foreshadows the violent death of Jesus.

It is the only story in the Gospel of any length that is not about Jesus; and it is no accident that Mark places it where he does. Jesus has just finished giving instructions to his disciples about how they are to embody God’s love in the world. Expect opposition and trouble, he tells them, but the only thing you need to take with you is the good news and a confident faith. And then, Mark reminds us of the story of John the Baptist; and he does it in a very deliberate way.

In the first place he does it by reminding him of the fear of King Herod. Now, you may remember that this is not Herod the Great, who ruled Israel around the time of Jesus’ birth. This is Herod the Great’s son by his Samaritan wife Malthace. He was called Herod Antipas to keep them straight and he was a chip off the old block.

Mark calls him “King Herod”, but the truth is he had only pretensions to be a king. He was the ruler of Galilee from about 4 B.C. to 39 C.E., making him the chief political authority, aside from the Romans, during the time of Jesus. His official position was really tetrarch of Galilee and Perea, a position made available to him as a result of his father’s accommodation with the Romans. He never did get to be king of anything, although it was precisely this request to be called “King” by Rome and everyone else, the request for this title, that eventually got him sent into exile in 39 C.E. by a paranoid emperor Caligula. He was an ambitious, half-Jew, who, although he enjoyed great power and wealth, was despised both by his Roman masters and his Jewish subjects. He was

the kind of ruler who thumbed his nose at Israel’s religious laws, both by marrying his brother’s wife Herodias and by building his capital city, Tiberias, on top of a pagan cemetery.

The story that the gospels, as well as the Roman historian Josephus, tell is that he is the Herod who got into deep political controversy with John the Baptist. John was mad at Herod for several reasons; but the one that really stuck in John’s mind was Herod’s marriage to Herodias.

Well, apparently Herod feared John almost as much as he feared his wife. He knew how popular John was with the people and how dangerous it could be politically if there was ever an uprising over whatever he decided to do to John. At least in prison he could keep an eye on him, thought Herod, as well as keep peace in his own household. But it wasn’t

just fear that motivated Herod. He was fascinated by John and listened to his teachings in the prison cell. The portrait Mark paints is of a man who is transfixed with the very thing he fears and despises. “When he heard him,” Mark says, …he was greatly perplexed, and yet he liked to listen to him.

By the time Mark tells us this story, John has been dead for some time and Jesus has been actively preaching his own message throughout Galilee. Although Herod apparently didn’t know Jesus, he knew that something equally as powerful as John was stirring out there among the people. …when Herod heard of it, he said, “John, whom I beheaded, has been raised.”

This is not just a story to remind us of the dangers of preaching the truth, although that is certainly true. It is a story to remind us of the delusions of the powerful. Herod’s own actions have engendered in him a deep-seated fear about the results of his deed. He interprets what he hears about Jesus “and his disciples” by imagining John having come back to get him. Of course, a similar fate is going to befall Jesus, as it befalls anybody with the courage to speak truth to the powerful. But that is not something Mark’s church would ever have questioned. What they would have had doubts about was the effectiveness of such truth-telling. Would following Jesus and speaking the truth to loveless power ever make any difference in the end?

Mark says that even defenseless, unarmed, de-capitated, dead folk, like John the Baptist, come back to haunt the powerful of this world.

Like John whose ministry and death foreshadows that of Jesus, the ministry of the Twelve may also lead to persecution, arrest, and death. It will also lead to resurrection and that is the hope amidst the more difficult realities of ministry.

The lesson for us this morning is, once the strong Word of God’s truth, justice and love have been spoken, and have been given life by the voice of a disciple, it will not die. If we feel strong enough about our own convictions of truth, justice, love and integrity are we also prepared to stand our ground amidst critics and an apathetic world.

Mark does not want us to go out into the world unprepared. He does not want us to be surprised wherever we undertake our work of speaking God’s word of justice, truth and love. We will be heard gladly in many places. We will be admired and applauded. But we should not be unprepared for the sceptics and oppressive powers around us and in our world. Wherever that Word of God’s justice, truth and love is spoken, that Word continues to live, bring hope, give life and bring comfort to those in need. Amen.

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