Herod and the Heart of the World, Part 1

Matthew 14:1-12

English Standard Version (ESV)

The Death of John the Baptist

At that time Herod the tetrarch heard about the fame of Jesus, and he said to his servants, “This is John the Baptist. He has been raised from the dead; that is why these miraculous powers are at work in him.” For Herod had seized John and bound him and put him in prison for the sake of Herodias, his brother Philip's wife, because John had been saying to him, “It is not lawful for you to have her.”  And though he wanted to put him to death, he feared the people, because they held him to be a prophet.  But when Herod's birthday came, the daughter of Herodias danced before the company and pleased Herod, so that he promised with an oath to give her whatever she might ask.  Prompted by her mother, she said, “Give me the head of John the Baptist here on a platter.”  And the king was sorry, but because of his oaths and his guests he commanded it to be given.  He sent and had John beheaded in the prison, and his head was brought on a platter and given to the girl, and she brought it to her mother.  And his disciples came and took the body and buried it, and they went and told Jesus.

The Word of the Lord,

  Thanks be to God

In so many ways, this passage is a fantastic portraiture of worldliness.  Herod exemplifies a person caught in the heart of the world--in the center of loves, motivations, and actions that stem out of a heart caught up not in God but rather in the "world".   By "world" here I am using the biblical language that refers to the evil system of corporate humanity in the throes of its opposition to God.  This is perhaps put best by Paul in Ephesians 6 when he describes the sort of warfare in which Christians really ought to be engaged, "For we do not wrestle against the rulers,against the authorities, against the cosmic powers over this present darkness, against the spiritual froces of evil in the heavenly places."  That is worldliness--the evil spiritual powers at work with and in human beings rioting against the plan and purpose of God. 

      Unfortunately, the thing about human beings is that we are often blind to this conflict.  It is the presence and power of the God of light that ennables us to actually see this darkness, this worldliness, and we spend much of our lives being blind and numb to all this spiritual violence.  And our blindness signifies our "caughtness" in the heart of the world.  The less we percieve, the more "caught" we are.  The more we are aware of this spiritual conflict in and around us, the closer we are to freedom.  But Herod in our passage today is caught fast in the heart of the world.

      The word "fame" here we see so close to the beginning of the passage is telling.  Herod knows of Jesus' fame--and ironically, this is the fame of the world, not fame in the sense of good report and being known by God.  Everyone is talking about Jesus because Jesus is one of those miracle workers.  And fame tends to be wordly because it is vacuous, it lacks content.  One could be infamous just as well as famous, and you get the impression from Herod in the passage that he's the sort of person who would be just as interested in infamy as he is in fame.  In any case, whatever "knowledge" Herod has gathered about Jesus isn't true knowledge, it is closer to the "demonic knowledge" that James describes in chapter 2 of his epistle when he says, "You believe that God is one; you do well [that's sarcasm, folks].  Even the demons believe--and shudder!"  Herod's knowledge of Jesus probably ought not even be called that, because this is a knowledge that never results in obedience, just as Herod's knowledge of John the Baptist before Jesus never results in obedience to John's message.  On the contrary, all of Herod's knowledge ultimately leads him to further rebellion against (or indifference to) God and the kingdom of God.

     And for what?  Why?  If Herod knows both John and Jesus, and seems to know on the most superficial of levels that John and Jesus are holy, miracle-working men . . . why not have some good ole-Proverb like fear of the Lord?  What is it that stands in the way of Herod fearing God enough to revere God's work being done through the lives and ministries of John and Jesus?  How on earth does Herod even have the chutzpah to put John to death?  Especially if his first response to hearing about Jesus' ministry is, "This is John raised from the dead."  

    Well, luckily for us, this passage in Matthew (and the corresponding passage in Mark 6:14) nicely chronicles Herod's actions and give us some insights into the motivations and concerns that accompany those actions.  We learn that Herod "seized" John--potent language--and put him in prison "for the sake of Herodias".  The Markan passage expounds on this more, saying that Herodias in particular "had a grudge" against John and desired his death.  In an odd way, the Mark passage paints Herod with some very different strokes.  Though Herodias wants to see John killed, Herod is willing to defy her enough to keep John sake.  Mark tells us, "for Herod feared John, knowing that he was a righteous and holy man, and he kept him safe. When he heard him, he was greatly perplexed, and yet he heard him gladly."  Pushing back against this picture of a slightly nobler Herod, the Matthew passage says Herod wants to keep John alive because "he feared the people."  In other words, Herod's motivated by self-interest and crowd control.  It's a tumultuous time in Jewish history--they can't really afford any more social unrest than they presently have, and killing John is one way that would really incite the populace.  Herod's not willing to do that out of both common sense and self-preservation . . . but not necessarily out of fear of the Lord.
      Herod, then, is a bit of a mixed-bag.  He clearly recognizes John's holiness and righteousness--but this doesn't actually result in Herod living anything like a godly life in reponse to John's teaching.  This whole story is reminescent (though not necessarily identical to) the cycle of stories in Kings about Ahab and Jezebel.  King Ahab's not a nice guy and he never really is enough of a sympathetic character that you actually come close to feeling sorry for him, but you get the feeling that Jezebel is quite a bit further along in evil than he is.  Ahab, like Herod, fears the prophets (partly because he's an Israelite and Jezebel isn't), and fears God enough that in the light of some confrontations, he actually backs down from doing all the evil he could, while Jezebel goes out of her way to persecute the prophets.  Herod, too, is not willing to take evil to the extremes that Herodias is--he doesn't want to kill John for his sake, but for Herodias'.  However, when push comes to shove, he is willing to do great evil for sake of pleasing someone he loves and for maintaining his own pride and authority in the public setting.
   Which takes us to the next bit of our story: the celebration of Herod's birthday and his unfortunate oath to Herodias' daughter.  Herodias takes the opportunity to wreak vengeance in the way only a petty tyrant can: by killing people who have humiliated you by telling the truth.  We learn that Herod is "sorry" about "having" to keep his word to Herodias and her daughter, but he ain't about to back down.  He's not going to lose face, he's not going to bow to morality or common sense . . . instead he is going to trade the life of a holy man for saving face and staying in the good graces of a manipulative, power-hungry, selfish, and vain woman who is willing to instigate the murder of someone in order to have a false sense of vindication.  Charming.
   A cursory reading of Mark's gospel might leave you with the impression that the gospel writer wants you to sympathize with Herod for being caught between a rock and a hard place because Herod "was exceedingly sorry" and originally had heard John with great joy.  I don't really think that's the case.  While on the one hand, it is certainly grevious that a person who had once heard the word of the Lord with joy now disobeys that word with such impunity and for no real good (and certainly with no real moral dilemma).  On the contrary, I think what we have here is, as I said earlier, a portraiture of worldliness--and of the kind of wordliness in particular that is described in the Parable of the Sower.
     There are different kinds of ground in the Parable of the Sower, but the one that interests us is the "rocky ground, where they [the seeds] did not have much soil, and immediatly they sprang up, since they had no depth of soil, but when the sun rose they were scorched.  And since they had no root, they withered away."  Jesus even explains what this means for us: "As for what was sown on rocky ground, this is the one who hears the word and immediately recieves it with joy, yet he has no root in himself, but endures for a while, and with tribulation or persecution arises on account of the word, immediately he falls away." (Matthew 13:5-6, 20-21)
   To put it bluntly, Herod is rocky ground.  Herodias is more like the seed sown along the path--the word comes, she doesn't understand it, she doesn't even care because she doesn't understand it, and the enemy successfully "snatches away what was sown in the heart."  That is what happens with John's rebuke in her case.  Herod hears with joy initially--but at the first sign of real resistence in his life, when he might actually have to give something up in order to be a follower of John's teaching, he bails.  He immediately falls away.
     I find it interesting that the Parable of the Sower distinguishes between "rocky ground" and "thorny ground".  Both are undesireable, but you rather get the feeling that it is better--though perhaps not by much--to have thorny ground in the soul than rocky ground.  At least something survives in thorny ground, and maybe some weeding will get done eventually so the good seed can survive.  But you get the feeling that "rocky ground" is a place where there was only the appearance of hope--but there was no real chance for the seed to survive there.  To me, that's a little scary.  To be able to hear the word of God at all with joy seems like a good thing--it's disturbing to think this can be a cheat.  
       And why this cheat?  "Because he has no root in himself."  Interesting that Jesus did not say, "has no root in me," but rather, "has no root in himself."  The description of the thorny ground is one of the "cares of the world and the deceitfulness of riches choke the word and it proves unfruitful."  That is your typical portraiture of worldliness.  That is a picture of a person embroiled in conflicting desires, desires for obedience and life with God being overwhelmed by other kinds of things and being decieved . . . and how easy it is to be deceived!  But the person who has no root in himself . . . well, you should probably go to your friendly neighborhood commentary for a better researched answer to this question, but I wonder if isn't about having a sense of personal integrity.  Having a sense of a personal moral compass.  Having some sort of commitment to something that makes one a deep enough person to have a capacity to recieve what is profound . . . instead of being "all surface", so to speak, all thin soil sitting a top of infertile bedrock where nothing can grow.  To put it harshly, sometimes people completely "sell out" to the world around them and are completely abandonded to whatever comes their way, with no real capacity to either stand firm in themselves or to say "no" to those things that come their way.  They all like a"wave driven by the wind and tossed."  No rootedness, so solidity, no character, no integrity--because the beginning of integrity is the ability to say "yes" or "no" to the things that come your way out of some sense of self, identity, ethics--something.
   Sometimes the Parable of the Sower is used as spiritual fortune-telling or doomsaying: once diagnosed rocky ground, always rocky ground.  I don't think that is Jesus' point, because prophetic utterance, however "judgmental" it may sound, is always God's invitation into real life with him.  Temporal judgment is invitation.  Hence also, Jesus's words, "He who has ears, let him hear."  Firstly, this means "everyone", and secondly it means you--the one hearing Jesus' words right now.  His words aren't for someone else, they're for me and they're for you.  All of them.  All the time.  So, take them to heart.
    These are parables of the kingdom, and this case is at the very least an explanation for why God's word doesn't seem to bear fruit in so many lives.  They are a spiritual paradigm that we can use to understand the patterns of sin in ourselves and in the world.  And they may be used for the purposes of convicting ourselves and our neighbors--but never for condemning them.  While they're alive on this earth, God's words are an invitation.
    But Herod I think was a man who was not willing to stand for anything.  And  paraphrasing Chesterton, "Those who stand for nothing, fall for anything."  It's so sad that these folks often fall for the worst that the world has to offer, and this case, that's exactly what Herod does.  Not being willing to stand for anything--in this case he's quite unwilling to stand to protect the saints of God--he falls for all of Herodias' evil scheming and falls right into the hands of the devil, and even becomes part of the devil's schemes to kill the saints of God.  It's tragic, really, to move from joy in God's word, to participation in first the murder of John, and later, the murder of Jesus.  We don't get to see the end of Herod's days--the Herod who is so ingloriously "eaten by worms" in Acts 12 is actually this Herod's successor--but the trajectory doesn't look good.
      Herod was a man hopelessly captured by the heart and love of the world.  So much so that he doesn't even hesitate to betray his own principles . . . which isn't hard to do when you have no committments to your own principles . . . when they only exist as momentary and passing likes and dislikes, pleasures and pains.   
     But my question is, what does it mean to be like Herod?  How are we like Herod?  How are we caught in the heart of the world?  Or, can we read this passage or the Parable of the Sower "sectionally"?  One of the best sermons I have ever heard on the Parable of the Sower was a very short homily that invited us to view our hearts as possessing all the kinds of ground, and to examine to see what's going on in our hearts.  But more on all of that next time. 

A Little "Cosmological Mystery"

If you're an avid Scientific American reader like me, you may have stumbled across the recent article (reprinted from Nature) about an experiment that actually had scientists bringing a bit of gas below absolute zero.  At first glance, one might think this absolute rubbish--or as the article itself says--"It may sound less likely than hell freezing over, but physicists have created an atomic gas with a sub-absolute-zero temperature for the first time. Their technique opens the door to generating negative-Kelvin materials and new quantum devices, and it could even help to solve a cosmological mystery."  The "cosmological mystery" this technique may or may not help solve is the question of "dark energy" and the exciting new idea (though nowhere near ready to be a real hypothesis yet) of the scientists in question is something like this, "Matter acts quite a bit differently than you would ever expect in negative-Kelvin temperatures, if matter somehow is under the same conditions, maybe it just acts differently than we expected and dark energy really just is normal energy under some incredibly unexpected conditions . . . ."
    I liked that idea, and not just because it satisfies the part of me that wants to slash the imagination of science down to size with Occam's Razor, though it does do that.  And not also because it puts a "face" on dark energy for me--makes it look like something more than a place-holding name for a phenomenon for which scientists have observed, but in reality haven't come remotely close to cracking.  Granted the connection between negative-Kelvin gas and dark energy is probably just a clever connection in spe but not in re, but I like clever connections, so why don't we run with this clever connection for a moment or two?
      When I read about Supersymmtery "failing" a few months ago, I was strangely pleased about it.  It was a nice vindication of the fact that at its best science seeks the truth, and sometimes that means finding out that the thing you've been searching for probably doesn't exist.  It's still possible that it's too soon to tell about Supersymmetry.  But the evidence is mounting that's she's a goner or Supersymmetry is going to look quite different than most expected.
    I have some affection for the unexpected, and perhaps the connection between both of these articles is the reality of science stumbling while breaking ground on new frontiers.  I don't mean that at all pejoratively--if you don't stumble while breaking new ground . . . well, I don't have a metaphor for it--you're either God or you're stumbling.  It's the most human enterprise, and stumbling (or "meandering" as one SciAm writer put it) toward truth is also the best human enterprise.
     In this case, the "stumbling" is made all the more interesting because the stumbling seems to end in resting against the firm foundation of some firmly established ideas.  In the case of the apparent failure of Supersymmetry, it comes on the heels of a most profound victory for the Standard Model.  Supersymmetry may have failed, but the Standard Model has, simply, worked.  It is not a grand unifying theory, but we're clearly getting quite a bit right here.  No dark matter yet, no singular theory of the fundamental forces, but we can account for the minute in a very detailed fashion.
       On the other hand, this new article on negative-Kelvin gas sparks some ideas--maybe (and it's such a maybe) dark energy really can be accounted for by the matter/energy in the universe that exists already.  Maybe there's no such thing as dark energy--or that it is the far side of the moon, the Janus-face of matter we're just not used to seeing--and there isn't anything else out there to be looking for.  Which doesn't mean there isn't anything left to discover, on the contrary, it means that we don't know what we do know quite so well as we thought.  If--and it's a huge hypothetical if--dark energy is just normal energy in an extreme state . . . it would mean that the answer to the question has been here the whole time, we just have yet to be able to even imagine the right questions.  It would be akin to another Einsteinian revolution: Newton (and co.) had a really great explanation for what we commonly observe in nature, but Einstein's crazy-complicated ideas that completely revolutionized our entire thinking about time, space, and light, was the right one.  What Newton did was remarkable, but what Einstein did was absolutely revolutionary on the cultural and psychological level--he rewrote the book on everything we thought we knew and could experience with the most common of senses.  For the scientific community, what we knew about the universe had already been problematized, and he found the solution in the place only genius thought to look.  But for everyone, he revolutionized the way we think about space and time and even "relativity".  For our purposes now, the reference is analogical: if dark energy is just energy, and not another "kind" of energy filled with exotic particles in far-flung corners of time and space, then we have no idea of what energy is capable.  We already know the energy contained in just an atom is remarkable--perhaps we have only glimpsed the beginning of the potential of matter/energy to do incredible things and simply to be incredible.
   In any case, I imagine we'll find out someday, and I imagine we'll do better than the current Wikipedia page on dark energy which makes me scowl a little because it sounds like science doing a "god-of-the-gaps" hypothesis as bad as the luminferous ether ever was.  Perhaps I'm supposed to be hearing, "We have no idea how to account for the disparity needed for the expanding universe model (when the universe is flat), and we're calling the potential solution for this problem "dark energy"?"  Being a Thomist and generally supportive of coherent metaphysical systems, I really don't like god-of-the-gaps hypotheses . . . but more on that in another article.