Decisions Matter

Let us pray. Open our eyes to your presence. Open our ears to your call. Open our hearts to your love. Amen. Please be seated.

Various sources estimate that the average adult makes about 3500 remotely conscious decisions each day, including what we will wear, what route we will take to work, what we will say and how we will say it. Researchers at Cornell University estimate we make approximately 227 of those decisions just on food alone. Some decisions we make of course, or weightier than others, those related to our families, our medical treatments, where we will live, how we will do our jobs, invest our money, or spend our time. Every decision we make sets in motion a chain of events. The bigger the decision, the more life changing the chain of events can be. The impact can be positive or negative, but there is always a consequence.

In today’s gospel, we are able to see how decisions can lead to serious life and death consequences. Now to start, there is no question that this story is very important to Mark by his decision to include it at this point in the gospel. The violent interlude fills a time between the sending of the disciples in Mark 6: 7 to 13, that we heard last week and their return beginning at Mark 6: verse 30, that I will leave for next week’s preacher. Mark is relaying how the world receives God’s messengers. It’s with rejection and persecution. Since you and I are followers of Jesus Christ, and we are messengers by definition, we should be paying attention.

In the opening sentence of our gospel, Mark decides to give the title of ‘King’ to Herod, perhaps as a way of a slight, because Herod Antipas is no king. Son of Herod the Great, he had hoped, as did some of his brothers, that he would be the sole heir of his father’s kingdom at his death by courting Emperor Augustus in Rome. While Herod was assigned only one fourth of the territory, including Galilee and Perea, and given the inferior title of ‘Tetrarch’, he is still ambitious and he wants to be the king, or at least perceived as such.

Like many gospel stories, this is one of power, the struggle between the forces of good and evil. And to be honest, there seems to be no good people in this story, except John and the disciples taking great risk to bury his body. Now, Herod has heard about Jesus, for his fame had become widespread, and the people were saying, ‘John the Baptist has been raised from the dead’. Others were saying ‘he’s Elijah’, still others ‘he is a prophet like the prophets of old’. But when Herod learned of Jesus, he said, ‘It is John whom I beheaded. He has been raised’. Herod, because of his guilt, was sure that Jesus was John back to haunt him. And at this point, Mark takes us back in time and fills in the backstory about Herod’s relationship with John the Baptist and the events that lead to John’s execution. The Jewish historian, Josephus, relays that while Herod was on his way to Rome, staying as a guest of his half-brother Philip, he began an affair with Herodias, Philip’s wife. Herod divorced his wife, and convincing Herodias to divorce Philip, they marry. Herod and Herodias have broken all the laws of decency and morality.

Now, John the Baptist enters the scene. And we all know John. The wilderness, honey and locust eating intense John, who can’t help but to speak the truth. As a prophet of God, John not only spoke truth and called for repentance from the masses, but he was willing to confront even powerful leaders face to face. And he tells Herod, “It is not lawful for you to have your brother’s wife”. John did not fear Herod, the religious leaders or the consequences of speaking the truth. But we do know that Herodias had a grudge against him and wanted him dead. Our text notes that Herod, in fact, feared John knowing him to be a righteous and holy man, and kept him in custody. When Herod heard John speak, he was very much perplexed. Yet he liked to listen to him. I find this so interesting. Herod likes listening to the man who basically calls him an adulterer. When this courageous truth teller condemns the incestuous marriage, John finds himself in protective custody in a prison cell.

Now, as the story goes, sometime later it was Herod’s birthday and since he was a ruler of a big chunk of Israel, he decides to throw a big party and invite all the rich and powerful people of Galilee: the governors, the generals, the people who have friends in high places, people with money and influence. And they’re eating and drinking and having a good time, when Herod’s young daughter enters and starts to dance. Her performance pleases Herod so much that he promises her anything she desires and the girl, spurred on by her mother, demands the imprisoned prophet’s death. I wonder how Herod felt at that moment, grieved. Did the room fall silent as the guest recognized in horror what had just been asked of by this young girl? But unwilling to lose face in front of his guests, Herod keeps his oath and decides to order John’s execution. Because of this decision, before the party is over the girl receives the head of John the Baptist on a platter.

Truly, the decisions we make have consequences. Our gospel reveals to us how a birthday party, a dance, and a frivolous oath led to the gruesome death of a man of God. What’s most shocking to me is the way Herod and the people around him did not value the life of another. They’re willing to extinguish human life just to save face. Just to hold on to a little power. And something which is just as unsettling, in this encounter is the apparent silence of the guests. No one came to Herod’s aid to act as a moral filter to prevent him from doing something so horrid. No one said to him, ‘Hey, Herod, have you really thought this through?’ Not one person decided to speak up. They all remain silent in the face of something that they knew was morally wrong and cruel.

Admittedly, there are situations when we find it easier to decide to be silent than to speak up because there is danger that we may be pulled into something that we really don’t wanna be involved in. There are also times when we decide to respond to injustice with silence, giving into the pressures of other people or the world. And our silence causes us to become complicit with the injustice. But deciding to stand up to justice means doing the right thing, even when the right thing is the hard thing. Living in our stressful and often unstable world, we must be careful and diligent in deciding to do God’s will. Often that means telling the truth in the face of lies and alternative facts, even when it may not be the most popular thing to do. Each of us has to make this choice daily knowing that the decision to follow Jesus Christ comes at a cost.

I find that there is a great irony behind this violent and tragic story of the abuse of power. Herod executed John the Baptist in order to shut him up, to stop his message of repentance because the kingdom of heaven was at hand. But here we are today still talking about John the Baptist, still remembering his prophetic words, still admiring his courage. And the courage must continue. It must continue with us. Like John, we are called to be witnesses to the truth of the gospel. Called to denounce what is rotten in our political, social, and institutional systems. Called to speak out against, and to condemn, the political violence we saw last night at former President Trump’s rally, that only serves to divide us even more from one another. Every time we decide to speak up for the love and face of hate; every time we decide to tell the truth; every time we decide to point out injustice and stand up to protect the rights of the most vulnerable; we are showing power, true power, that power of God in Jesus Christ. John decided to live by truth. Herod decided on death. What will we decide for our lives today? Beloved, the decision matters. Amen.