A Ruler Run Amuck
Rev. Monte Marshall
Mark 6:14-29
A ruler run amuck—now that pretty well describes Herod in this morning’s reading from Mark’s gospel, don’t you think? Now the Herod being referenced here is Herod Antipas, the son of Herod the Great. It was the Roman Emperor, Caesar Augustus, who made Antipas the tetrarch of Galilee and Perea following the death of Herod the Great in 4 BCE. Like his father, Antipas was a puppet ruler under the authority of Rome, but he was not a king as his father had been. Nevertheless, Antipas still wielded considerable power.
The territories over which Antipas ruled were predominately Jewish territories, but he was himself of tenuous Jewish heritage. In fact, he was known for using his power in ways that trampled upon the Torah traditions of justice and righteousness.
This brought Herod Antipas into conflict with that wilderness prophet called John the baptizer. Mark identifies John as God’s messenger. John used his status as a prophet to call Antipas to account for violating the Torah in stealing his brother’s wife, Herodias, and marrying her himself. In response, Antipas had John the baptizer arrested, bound up, and thrown in jail.
But the relationship between Antipas and John was a complicated matter. Even though Antipas had thrown John into jail, Antipas protected him. According to Mark, Antipas liked to listen to John preach even though he was disturbed by what he heard. Antipas feared John because Antipas considered this wilderness prophet a “good and holy” man. Antipas was therefore “deeply distressed” at his own birthday party when his wife used her daughter to deliver John’s head on a platter.
But in that moment of decision when John’s life hung in the balance, Torah didn’t matter to Antipas. And John’s goodness and holiness didn’t matter either. In that moment of decision, all that mattered to Antipas was extricating himself from a sticky situation brought about by his own ill-advised, ego-driven promises to Herodias’ dancing daughter. All that mattered to Antipas in that critical moment was saving face with his party guests—who were his powerful and well-connected political cronies. In the end, all that mattered to Antipas was avoiding the appearance of weakness, and preserving his power. So what did Antipas do to save face? He ordered John’s execution—a ruler run amuck.
But Antipas was still afraid the baptizer. He was so afraid that when the news of Jesus reached his ears, he assumed that John had been raised from the dead and was even more powerful than before. For Antipas, Jesus wasn’t Elijah or some other prophet, Jesus was his old nemesis, John the baptizer, resurrected to keep calling Antipas to account for his self-serving and brutal exercise of power.
But here’s the irony: Even though Antipas may have sensed goodness and holiness in John’s life, he missed the larger point: John was God’s messenger. The same was true of Jesus. This means that ultimately, Antipas’ problem was not with the messengers, but with God. Even though God is not mentioned in Mark’s text, God is the hidden presence working through John and Jesus to call Antipas to account.
But not it’s not just Antipas who is called to account. Mark’s message reaches beyond Antipas to call to account every ruler who runs amuck by the self-serving, face-saving exercise of power that produces injustice and violence, and that attempts to make a mockery of God’s reign in human history.
But God will not be mocked—and God will not be thwarted! Rulers run amuck can threaten God’s messengers—throw them in jail—behead them—and even crucify them—but God will not be thwarted! In fact, in spite of the opposition, God continues to this very day, to raise up messengers who call those in power to account!
Now it may seem to some of us here this morning that Mark’s story of a ruler run amuck has no relevance to our modern day American experience. And I think this is true, but only to a point. Even though I can’t identify an American leader that fits the Herod-Antipas-ruler-run-amuck mold to a “t,” there are some hints, and traces of ruler-run-amuck tendencies that are worth noting.
For example, it seems to me that the ruler-run-amuck tendency “to save face” has been at work in America’s recent history, and with results far bloodier than the beheading of one wilderness prophet. Consider an incident from 1993 during the Clinton administration when two United States Blackhawk helicopters were shot down in Mogadishu, Somalia. Eighteen American soldiers and hundreds of Somalis were killed in the ensuing battle. Several days after this event, a conservative columnist named Cal Thomas wrote with the title: “Come Home, America Saving Face is No Reason to Compound a Mistake.” Thomas noted that U. S. officials were quoted as saying that “the United States must remain in Somalia in order to ‘save face.’” He then wrote that this “is the poorest reason for maintaining a policy.”
Thomas supported his conclusion by pointing to the Vietnam War. “Lyndon Johnson,” Thomas wrote, “tried to ‘save face’ in Vietnam, saying he didn’t want to be the first American president to lose a war.” As a result, Thomas noted: “Fifty thousand Americans lost their lives.” And of course, in a fact not referenced by Thomas, countless Asian lives were lost as well.
Ironically, a more liberal critic of the Vietnam War named Daniel Ellsberg, a former military analyst for the RAND Corporation and the man who released the so-called Pentagon Papers in the early 1970s, concluded on the basis of his study, that “each of four presidents, Truman through Johnson, escalated the war mainly to save face, so as not to become known as the president who lost Vietnam to the Communists.”
Now I would never suggest that the United States presidents mentioned by Cal Thomas and Daniel Ellsberg were Herod Antipas clones. It wouldn’t be accurate and it wouldn’t be fair. But I do think we can see the ruler-run-amuck tendencies present in the examples cited.
What all of this suggests to me is that God still needs voices to speak truth to power. And dear friends, we are to be among those voices in our day and time. We are the heirs of John the Baptizer. We are the followers of Jesus Christ. It is an integral part of our identity and mission to speak up and speak out.
Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. put it this way in his sermon from 1963, The Strength to Love: “The church must be reminded that it is not the master or the servant of the state, but rather the conscience of the state. It must be the guide and the critic of the state, and never its tool. If the church does not recapture its prophetic zeal, it will become an irrelevant social club without moral or spiritual authority.”
In a later sermon entitled, Why I Am Opposed to the War in Vietnam, Dr. King also reminded us of the costs that our prophetic task might exact from us—costs that both John the Baptizer and Jesus paid in full with their lives. Dr. King said in the language of his day:
“Now it isn't easy to stand up for truth and for justice. Sometimes it means being frustrated. When you tell the truth and take a stand, sometimes it means that you will walk the streets with a burdened heart. Sometimes it means losing a job...means being abused and scorned. It may mean having a seven, eight year old child asking a daddy, "Why do you have to go to jail so much?" And I've long since learned that to be a follower…[of] Jesus Christ means taking up the cross. And my bible tells me that Good Friday comes before Easter. Before the crown we wear, there is the cross that we must bear. Let us bear it--bear it for truth, bear it for justice, and bear it for peace. Let us go out this morning with that determination.”
And then Dr. King said: “And I have not lost faith. I'm not in despair, because I know that there is a moral order. I haven't lost faith, because the arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends toward justice. I can still sing "We Shall Overcome" because Carlyle was right: "No lie can live forever." We shall overcome because William Cullen Bryant was right: "Truth pressed to earth will rise again." We shall overcome because James Russell Lowell was right: "Truth forever on the scaffold, wrong forever on the throne." Yet, that scaffold sways the future. We shall overcome because the bible is right: "You shall reap what you sow." With this faith we will be able to hew out of the mountain of despair a stone of hope. With this faith we will be able to transform the jangling discords of our world into a beautiful symphony of brotherhood. With this faith we will be able to speed up the day when justice will roll down like waters, and righteousness like a mighty stream. With this faith we will be able to speed up the day when the lion and the lamb will lie down together, and every man will sit under his own vine and fig tree, and none shall be afraid because the words of the Lord have spoken it. With this faith we will be able to speed up the day when all over the world we will be able to join hands and sing in the words of the old Negro spiritual, "Free at last! Free at last! Thank God Almighty, we're free at last!’"
Dear friends, this is the good news we speak to power. This is the good news we proclaim to every ruler who tends to lean a little too much toward the likes of Herod Antipas! This is the good news we declare to every ruler whose tendency it is to run amuck! So let’s be who we are! Thanks be to God. Amen!