Head on a Platter – Sermon for July 15, 2018

In the midst of the craziness of multiple service projects and a pool party (check out the pictures here) yesterday and Vacation Bible School starting tonight, we also had worship services this weekend at church!

Here’s this week’s sermon on the beheading of John the Baptist in Mark 6:14-29. Also brief references to Amos 7:7-15 and Ephesians 1:3-14, the other lectionary readings for this eighth Sunday after Pentecost. Thanks to Pastor Erin Coleman Branchaud for inspiration in the ELCA World Hunger Sermon Starter this week for helping me find a direction to go with this text!

Fun fact about today’s Gospel: This is the only story Mark tells in his Gospel in which Jesus is not a character. Did you notice? Don’t worry, Paul mentions Christ seven times in the eleven verses we read from Ephesians, so I think that makes up for it today.

Mark sets the context in the first verse by mentioning that King Herod has heard of Jesus, but the rest of the story is a flashback scene. Not only is this the only story in Mark without Jesus as a character, it’s also the only scene told as a flashback.

Mark is making a point here. He’s contrasting two different approaches to power. He’s illustrating the differences between the kingdom of God that Jesus has been proclaiming, and the kingdom of Herod.

(I apologize here for engaging in my pet peeve of preaching about sermon preparation!)
Since I got back from vacation a few days ago, I’ve been wondering how exactly one preaches on the story of John the Baptist’s beheading. My favorite suggestion I saw in my research was someone asking if anyone knew where to find John the Baptist bobbleheads for a children’s message. I’m not doing that. But seriously, where is the good news in this story? Where’s the hope? Where’s Jesus?

Maybe that’s Mark’s point. This story is an example of what life looks like without Jesus.

Herod’s world is based on power. The rule is “might makes right.” Herod is the ruler, so whatever he says goes. If he wants to arbitrarily execute anyone who dares question him, he can. There’s no appeals process or checks and balances or anything like that. He has the power, and he surrounds himself with a court of ambitious people focused on getting that same kind of power. (For more on this, check out David Lose’s reflection.)

At the same time, though, Herod is not secure in his power. He’s the ruler of a captive country, subject to Rome. In fact, historically he had to petition the Roman emperor Augustus to even become king. The king Herod in this story is the same King Herod who will go back and forth with Pontius Pilate in condemning Jesus to death.

His full name is Herod Antipas. His father was Herod the Great, who was the one thirty years earlier who heard from the wise men that the Messiah was born and out of fear that he’d turn out to be threat, had all the two-year-old and under baby boys in the region murdered. Herod Antipas is carrying on the family business of paranoia and brutality. This is not a nice family.

Again, it’s an example of what the world can look like without God, without morality, without Jesus. It’s the opposite of God’s reign.

In the story Mark has been telling about Jesus, people are being healed. Good news is being proclaimed. In the next chapter, we’ll hear about Jesus multiplying loaves and fishes to provide a feast for thousands of people. We’ll learn that he himself is the bread of life.

In Herod’s world, the feast ends in death. Instead of healing, there is manipulation, backstabbing, and killing. The goal of Herod’s world is to get power and wealth, and then do whatever it takes to hold on to it. It’s the farthest thing from God’s kingdom.

In God’s kingdom all people are valued – not for their power, but for their identity as children of God. It’s a realm where suffering and death are no more, where greatness is found not in the size of an army but in serving neighbors.




As Paul says in the reading we heard from Ephesians, when Jesus is Lord, he lavishes the riches of God’s grace on us. Redemption and forgiveness come through Jesus’ loving sacrifice, not through political manipulation or earthly power.

And of course, the power Herod does have turns out to be hollow. He foolishly gets so caught up in his step-daughter’s dance that he promises to give her whatever she wants, even half of his kingdom. Then, when she consults with her mother and comes back to ask for something he doesn’t want to give, he doesn’t have the power to stand up to her.

He’s so worried about his reputation that he feels he has to go ahead and have John killed. If he doesn’t keep up the appearance of strength, he’ll lose his power. Eventually, he does lose his power. Herod’s story ends with his removal by Caligula, another Roman emperor, and he dies in exile.

In this world’s system of valuing power, any threat to power must be eliminated. John the Baptizer is killed because he is a prophet. Sometimes we forget what that word “prophet” means. A prophet in the Bible is not just someone who sees the future, like a fortune teller.

The role of a prophet is to speak messages from God. Prophets don’t foretell the future, they forthtell God’s word. Often, that requires standing up to those in power. Generally in the Bible, the life expectancy of a prophet is pretty short, because people in power don’t like being corrected. Our reading in Amos this morning shows some of the hazards of prophecy.

Some prophets call out kings for enabling idol worship. Sometimes it’s about not treating the poor with sufficient compassion, about using their power to enrich themselves rather than to work for justice for the oppressed, for not watching out for widows and orphans.

Some prophets had blunt, personal messages, like the prophet Nathan who had to tell King David that God was angry about him having Bathsheba’s husband killed so he could take her as his wife. (Check out 2 Samuel 12!)

John the Baptizer gets in trouble with Herod for preaching against his divorce so he could marry his brother’s wife, who by the way was also his niece. Remember, this is a messed-up family. This was an historical scandal as well, involving an army marching to attack Herod Antipas on behalf of the father of the woman he divorced. It’s a pretty good picture of what the kingdom of God is not.

It’s easy to look at this story and be grateful we don’t live in that world. I think that’s fair. I know I’m certainly grateful we don’t have rulers with this kind of arbitrary power!

But we can still understand this system of power, because it’s not so completely different from our world today. We’re still longing and praying for God’s kingdom to fully come. We’re not there yet. We still live in a broken world.

We still need prophets to speak God’s word to us, to point out the problems in our world. We don’t do much worshiping of wood or stone idols, but there are still plenty of idols in our lives pulling us away from God.

There’s certainly plenty of room for improvement in how we treat the poor and vulnerable among us, the widows and orphans and immigrants and those with mental illness and those who don’t fit in and even those we just dislike. There’s plenty of marital unfaithfulness and sexual sin, plenty of power-hungry rulers looking out only for themselves.

Perhaps the purpose of this story is to help us see the contrast between our world and the kingdom of God.

Perhaps the point is to help us see where we are called to work for change, called to build God’s kingdom.




For John, speaking out gets him killed. This story ends with his disciples taking him and burying him. Not that long after, Jesus himself will come to a similar end, executed by those with religious and political power who feel threatened by his message.

But the good news in this story is that it’s not the final story. Despite Herod’s fear that Jesus is some sort of reincarnated John, John stays dead when he’s killed.

But Jesus doesn’t stay dead. The power-mad way of the world does not win. The good news is that the story doesn’t end with a head on a platter, but with an empty tomb.
Jesus is alive and God’s kingdom is coming. Thanks be to God. Amen