Herod’s twisted morality of absolution
Proper 10B | Mark 6:14-29
Herod Antipas throws a party and tells his step daughter she can have whatever she wants. He asks her. And what she picks…is a little murder. Just, you know, an execution. A beheading to be precise. To offer her a severed head on a platter.
That story, friends! It probably needs a trigger warning, don’t you think? My guess is few of us woke up with “the head of John the Baptist on a platter” on our church bingo cards. I bet there are a lot of lectionary Baptists tugging at their collars this morning, saying Don’t get any ideas! I’m not that John the Baptist.
What a gross story, isn’t it? I remember being confused by it; wondering why we even read it in church. We skip other stories, so…we’re clearly not against doing that.
But now I think we need to confront the dark stuff in the gospel too. Particularly passages people use to condemn people—especially women and minorities—and protect the powerful.
So we need to do three things before leaving this story behind.
- Confront the sexism in it.
- Unpack the twisted morality of the people.
- And see if there is something for us here.
I know there is. Let’s dig in.
1. Sexism
Most depictions of this story focus on the vengeful cruelty of Salome and Herodias. After all, they are the ones asking for vengeance. So we believe their motivation is the source of the grotesque action.
This response ignores the action of the men in the story, however, and then serves to absolve them of their actions. Actions that include the sexualizing of the king’s stepdaughter and using her to entertain a room of men.
People throughout history have treated this as her fault. That the king’s invitation for his stepdaughter to dance is innocent, but that her dance was provocative. Priests and historians have read this through the stereotype of the cunning witch, casting a spell on the men. That it is male purity at risk of female temptation.
For centuries, scholars (mostly men) depicted the story this way—as the quintessential picture of seduction and temptation. Until the 18th Century, when artists explored the character as a symbol of sensuality. That it isn’t male purity that needs to be maintained, but female sensuality that should be explored.
This move, too, misses the very agency of men in the story. Their responsibility, control, power, and domination throughout.
We must never lose sight of the fact that Herod Antipas is king. That he has brought these people here and controls every one of them. This is his room, not hers. Salome is not a temptation to sin, but an instrument of the king’s power that he uses on his guests.
2. Twisted Morality
By turning our attention to the stepdaughter and her mother, we turn it away from the king. The one who set this in motion. The one who arrested John capriciously and sought to maintain control of the kingdom as a vassal king.
This is not the same issue as the original tyrant Herod. He was a genocidal madman who slaughtered children to hold onto the throne. This Herod was installed by Rome. He married his brother’s wife. He is the one using his stepdaughter as entertainment.
Herod is the one who opens up the possibility of murder. He offers anything to Salome. He’d give her half the kingdom if she asked—which means he is conscious of the dangerous game he’s playing. Roulette with life and death and honor and power. It is a junky’s rush—adrenaline as much as lust. It only works for him when mixed with fear.
When Salome responds, the king hardly hesitates. We’re supposed to feel his frustration and pain—he doesn’t want to do this, but he has to. His word! Like Pontius Pilate later will offer the same confounded and wounded heart over the ordering of a man’s death. They both say to the cosmos: I wish I didn’t have to…
These men in control of thousands of people—and armies to control them—they expect our sympathy. They expect us to feel the pain. I don’t want to kill the man, but now I have to. But they are the only ones in the story with the power to say no!
We use these moral ambiguities to justify our own sense of powerlessness—and even major atrocities. Ancient anti-semitism was born of the conflicted morality—taking Pilate at his word and blaming all of the Jewish people for Rome’s executing Jesus. As if he was following their orders. And they did the same with Salome—as if she were, in fact, the king.
But it is the same twisted morality that burns the fires of genocide—in concentration camps, jungles, and occupied territories. We offer, not just victimhood, but a veil of powerlessness to the one with all of the power. We have no choice, we hear them say. It is never true, though. There is always a choice. And they have made it. And are expecting us to absolve them.
3. Choosing to Choose
These are big, emotional themes this morning. They weigh heavy. But I suspect we are rarely as confused by them as we say we are. At least when we stop pretending there is no choice here. There are choices—we’re just afraid of them.
Herod Antipas has a choice. He doesn’t have to kill John the Baptizer. Keeping his word to give Salome what she asked for violated a different moral question. We certainly make that calculation easily—murder is worse than not keeping a promise. We get that. It is almost too simple.
But when it is framed as a moral quandary, we might hesitate; get a bit tangled up ourselves; feel for the king. Maybe even give him the absolution he desires. Even listen to his followers’ projection—that the woman is the problem.
Our own sense of moral entanglement often stops us from doing the work of Christ: love, joy, and hope. We might choose hate, anger, and fear instead.
We might reject our neighbors in need, saying we have no choice—it’s about our jobs or safety; our children or families; our home. Ours. We might pretend there is no choice here. That we aren’t starving the hungry, rejecting the immigrant, or preventing the care of the injured. As if the actions we make or accept aren’t even our own—they just…happen. Like the mythical, magical, invisible hand of the market just happens to enrich the wealthy. And maybe takes extra shifts running the State department, the department of Education, even the Supreme Court. If only they had a choice.
We pretend like all of these actions aren’t choices. And we do it so we aren’t judged for making them.
It is easy to judge mass murder. And it should be easy to judge the forced closing of an Episcopal/Anglican Hospital in Gaza, ensuring more people will suffer and die.
Just because we often struggle with this, we mustn’t see it as proof of our own need for absolution. It is proof of our need to repent. And hope for mercy.
4. Repentance
Did you notice this story is told as a flashback? As the thing on Herod’s mind when he heard about Jesus? His struggling conscience imagines John the Baptizer is back. Maybe he’ll talk to him like he did from the cell. He’ll invite Herod to see what God is doing in the world. And what his role in it all really is. He dreams of hope and mercy.
And these words Herod imagines will include the words John offered at the river that drew people out by the hundreds. Maybe these: Repent! Turn away from the sins of the past and toward God’s hope-filled future! Let go of anger, fear, greed, frustration, hopelessness. Choose to give up the millstone around your neck designed to grind you down—choose to live!
John offered the people freedom. By choosing to see the freedom in God’s dream. Freedom in love, joy, and hope.
That’s what John talked about. What he offered everyone. I’m certain he offered the same to Herod. And why Herod loved to listen. His soul ached for redemption and peace. Freedom from all of this.
But Herod chose to avoid that freedom. He felt forced—that this was the only way. But all along there were choices. All along, he held up the blinders that kept himself from seeing them.
We can’t pretend the responsibility goes away without repentance! Without confronting our own junk and our asking for that mercy. We don’t get to choose murder and demand to be called heroes. Not without asking God to choose to forgive us. This is what John offered. And what stings in Herod’s ears when he hears about Jesus who took up John’s mantle. The same one. Offering us all the chance to choose. To see with clarity that there is always a choice.
And in the midst of this, the strongest, most valuable choice is repentance. Choosing to choose. Choosing to turn. Become.
This is our life. Now. Here. Full of the dream God has for creation—love, joy, and hope. The true currency of the Kin-dom.
In all things, we are people unbound and connected. Called to love one another with great joy and hope. To be beacons of Christ in this community and everywhere we go. And to go out into the world in pairs, as friends, journeying this wild life alongside others emboldened by the same joyous grace.
Let us choose to love our neighbors as equals and with the same tenacity as we love our families. Let us enjoy our lives full of laughter, tears, togetherness, and generosity. And may we choose to be filled by the hope of Christ to stare into the darkness with faith in God’s unfailing, merciful love.