Burying the Truth

Sermon on Mark 6:14-29, Amos 7:7-15, Psalms 85:8-13, Ephesians 1:3-14

A prophet is not a fortune teller. They don’t gaze into crystal balls or read palms. They are also not market analysts or political forecasters. Nor are they influencers or kingmakers. In fact, a prophet is anything but. Because a prophet doesn’t tell you what you want to hear.

A prophet tells the truth. Sometimes really hard truths. Truths we don’t like to look at. Truths that are inconvenient to our five-year plans. Truths that could undermine our hard-earned place in this world. Truths that tear down our trusted institutions. Truths that disrupt.

Because prophets see the fractures in our community. They see the inequity upon which our society thrives. They see misuse of power and wealth. And they see systems that perpetuate the pain and misery of a lower class while elevating the influence and privilege of an upper class, broadening the chasm between the two.

Prophets call it out – with a warning: Repent. Stop what you are doing. Change direction. Come back to what you know is true. The path you are on leads to destruction.

Well, that put a damper on things, now didn’t it. I’m sure you didn’t expect to start this beautiful Sunday with the word, “Repent.” I mean, this is an Episcopal church, after all. How very Baptist of me.

Well, no one said prophets were popular. As Gloria Steinem said (and pardon my language): “The truth will set you free, but first it will piss you off.”

You see, for most of us, prophets are a problem. The are sore thumbs sticking up among the folks who go with the flow. They are loud and in your face. And if they’re loud enough to get noticed, prophets are dangerous. Because truth has historically been and continues to be the most threatening force against unchecked power in this world.

Power that corrupts. Absolute power that corrupts absolutely. Truth checks that power. Prophets speak truth to subvert that power. And, as it turns out, power doesn’t like to be subverted.

John the Baptist was this kind of prophet. But what truth did John tell that cost him his life? Was it really something as simple as Herod’s marriage?

Well, yes – and no. Herod and Herodias’ marriage was the symptom of a much larger problem eating away at the soul of God’s people.

John came on the scene preaching in the wilderness about repentance and forgiveness, baptizing people in the waters of the river Jordan. And there’s the first problem. For Jews in ancient Palestine, forgiveness only came through the temple in Jerusalem and only from the high priest and only through a sacrifice – not through some guy in the desert who wore camel hair, ate locusts, dunked you in some muddy water. By preaching forgiveness of sin without the temple involved, John challenged the authority of the religious leaders and, consequently, their livelihood. Sacrifices meant money.

John got the word out, too. People listened. They came for miles. The historian Josephus wrote more about John the Baptist than he wrote about Jesus. He depicts John as a true prophet and one that had a lot more influence than Jesus did at the time.

In the gospel of Luke, when the people came to John asking what they can do to make things right, to be forgiven, John didn’t tell them to make a sacrifice at the temple, or even just to pray about it and all would be forgiven. No. John told them to make reparations: share their resources, stop extorting money, treat people honestly. Those seem like pretty safe things to say.

Except they weren’t. Because the temple was hoarding resources, extorting money, and legitimizing Herod Antipas’ corruption, oppression and that marriage to Herodias. In Matthew, when the religious leaders came to John for a cup of forgiveness and a quick dunk in the Jordan, he turned them away, calling them a brood of vipers and telling them to show by their actions that they were worthy of repentance.

John wasn’t shouting truth this loud so the peasants could hear. John was yelling into the ears and hearts of the elite, the wealthy, the powerful – both in the temple and in the palace. John called out religious leaders collaborating with Rome, pretending to keep the peace by means of oppression. The temple was knee deep in Roman politics. They oversaw the annual tribute to Rome. They gathered the empire’s taxes for them.

Priests who by the law of Moses were not allowed to own land, twisted the law so that they could confiscate property from poor farmers who couldn’t pay their debts. They became absentee landlords over estates that grew luxury crops like olives and figs, while their tenants could no longer grow sustenance on land that was meant to stay in their family for perpetuity.

John wasn’t going to let them off the hook.

And then there was Herod Antipas, who married Herodias, his brother Philip’s wife. Herodias had been an advantageous political match for Philip. But while on a visit to his brother’s palace, Antipas has an affair with Herodias. They agreed to marry. So, Antipas divorced his first wife, Phaisael, princess of Nabatea, and Herodias divorced Philip, giving Herod Antipas the political advantage. As a sidenote, Herodias was also both Philip and Herod’s niece. Marrying her was not only unethical, it was also incestual.

Herod’s divorce from Phaisael also put the kingdom at risk. When she returned to her father, King Aretas of Nabatea, he declared war on Herod for disgracing his daughter. That war ended up being a disaster for Herod later in his rule. He and Herodias lost their throne, and they were both banished to Gaul.

John didn’t keep quiet about Herod, his poor choices, or the rot at the center of the Jerusalem temple. John was a prophet. He spoke truth to power.

Oddly enough, even though it terrified him, our text tells us Herod liked listening to John. I think the truth – real, honest-to-God truth – fascinates to those who rarely hear it. Herod had lackeys and sycophants aplenty. He had God’s own priest legitimizing his marriage. He had Rome on his side – for now. But what he didn’t have was an honest conversation with an honest man about who and what he really was.

Unfortunately, rather than heed John’s warning, rather than make right what he did to Phaisael and Philip, rather than stand up to Rome, Herod imprisoned John for Herodias’ sake. He placed the truth in chains, and like a precious stone that he wanted all for his own to fascinate and entertain him, Herod buried the truth where no one else could hear it.

The truth never stays buried, y’all. It has a way of resurfacing at the worst possible time – like the night of Herod’s birthday party.

We know the story of how Herodias’ daughter dances for her stepfather on his birthday. Josephus calls her Solomé. This text calls her Herodias, like her mother. But, whatever her name, we must be careful with the daughter’s story. So often this scene is depicted as a seductive trap for Herod. The text calls her a young girl – a word used for girls as young as 12 years-old. It could be that Herod was that lecherous. But, perhaps, she was just a daughter dancing for her stepfather on his birthday. Herod was delighted by her sweet little dance. He was proud and drunk and foolish. And so, in front of God and everybody – all the very powerful and elite guests at his party – he told his daughter that she could have anything she wanted, even half his kingdom. A gift from him to her on his birthday.

Herodias saw her chance and she pounced. She hated John from the start. That big mouth of his was a threat, not just for her but also for her husband and her daughter. What would happen if the temple turned against them? What would happen if John convinced the people to rise up like they did 30 years before when Rome crushed the rebellion and crucified two thousand Jews all at once? It was a disaster. John had to go. A buried truth can rise again, so it must be killed.

The girl went to her mother: What should I ask for? And her mother told her: The head of John the Baptist. It was in everyone’s best interest.

A heart-sick Herod could not turn her down. He made a promise at an elaborate, indulgent party in front of Roman officers and Jewish leaders. He could lose face. He could lose their support. After all, John spoke truth about them, too. They all wanted him dead.

Lest we lose sight of who we’re really talking about, the Gospel of Mark is actually about Jesus, not John the Baptist. So is Matthew, Luke and John. Up until this point in the story, things have been going pretty well for Jesus and his followers. Jesus heals people, preaches, tells a few parables. There’s a couple of questions about Jesus’ teaching and authority, but that’s just the religious leaders being picky. No big deal.

But the death of John the Baptist, the one more popular than Jesus, the one everyone flocked to – that’s when things get real. John’s death raises the stakes. If John was a prophet, and prophets speak the truth, and if that truth gets John killed, then what does that mean for Jesus – the embodiment of truth on earth? What does that mean for his disciples? If the idiot in charge couldn’t save a prophet he respected from the religious elite and his own stupidity, how on earth will Jesus survive this?

Spoiler alert: He doesn’t.

And that’s the takeaway, I’m afraid. I tried to find good news in today’s lesson – I really did. The truth – if we can find it – is just as dangerous today as it was back then. And those who speak the truth are in just as much peril as John was on Herod’s birthday.

The Wall Street Journal reported in March that Israeli forces killed 21 journalists covering the war in Gaza. They believe seven of them were targeted by Israeli forces – killed because they were journalists. The Guardian reported that the number of environmental journalists (the people who report on what we are doing to our earth) attacked or killed is rising. After war reporting, environmental journalism it is one of the most dangerous places for a journalist to be.

Media confidence in the United States is at a record low. For adults under 30, social media is trusted almost as much as national media outlets. We lament that we don’t know what’s true anymore.

My question is – do we even want to hear the truth? Why don’t we go looking for it? Is it too inconvenient? Does it disrupt our lives and our livelihood just a little too much? Or are we just too exhausted by the barrage of lies pretending to be truth?

I’ll be honest with you. I’m not a prophet. I’m one of the landowners in Jerusalem telling John to keep his voice down. They weren’t bad people. They weren’t breaking any laws. They were planning for their family’s future. They couldn’t help it if someone borrowed more than they should. They played the game to get ahead – a game that was rigged in their favor by a government that trusted wealth and influence more than integrity.

I think we know the truth when we hear it. I think truth disturbs us in place that lies can’t reach. Truth feels like a threat at first, like an earthquake shaking the foundations of everything we’ve ever believed in and we want to push it away.

But the promise of the gospel is this: That earthquake of truth also sets us free.

The stories this morning of Amos and John, are not happy ones. No one gets saved. No one goes to the land of milk and honey. No one gets ice cream. One prophet gets tossed out on his ear and the other loses his head. But in my desperate search for a bit of good news, let me point to this morning’s Psalms and to the epistle Ephesians.

They provide the hope that if we have ears to hear, we can handle the truth. With honest reflection about who we are as a people, with deliberate work to find the truth we’ve buried, and with considerable effort to share our resources, repair economic inequity, and right our violent past (and present), mercy and truth will meet together and righteousness and peace will finally embrace in a kiss.

They killed John for the truth. But the truth lived on in Jesus. The killed Jesus for the truth, but they could not keep it buried. And this Christ, whom we worship – the bearer of light and truth in a world filled with darkness and deception, showing us how we can rectify our community no matter how painful and disruptive – this Christ the bearer of truth is also our peace.

Amen.

Preached at St. Thomas’ Episcopal Church, July 14, 2024