Still born or born to freedom?

An audio recording of today's gospel and blog can be downloaded via this link.

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Tomorrow’s gospel is a repeat of the gospel of the five wise and the five foolish virgins which we reflected on a couple of weeks ago. The lectio for the end of the week, therefore, is taken from today’s gospel concerning the beheading of John the Baptist (Mark 6: 17-29).

The story is quickly told. John preached against Herod’s marriage to Herodias for she had previously been married to his brother Philip. To placate Herodias, Herod locked John away but punished him no further, knowing him to be a good and holy man. Herodias was not so tolerant, however, and when Herod offered Salome, her daughter, as much as half the kingdom to reward her for her dancing before him and his guests, Herodias suggested Salome ask for the head of John the Baptist from whose mouth came forth the condemnation of Herodias’s preferred lifestyle choices. Checkmate, one might say, against John and Herod. A guard wandered down the many dark steps to John’s dungeon, removed the offending item, and they served it on a dish.

There are so many fascinating figures in this tableau: Herod, the man of power with a tender spot for religion; Salome, the sexualised teenager who was still innocent enough to want to please her mother; Herodias who – as she no doubt told her mother -  only ever wanted to be happy … And John, who came to preach preparation for the passage of the Messiah and who dies now in prison because, some would say, of his inability to wink at a touch of marital irregularity. After all – we heard it in a recent gospel – didn’t Moses permit divorce? The radio phone-ins the next day would have all been about how John, the harsh rigorist, got what was coming his way.

Yet, here is the thing. As much as the figure of John evokes the prophets of the Old Testament, he is no longer looking backwards but now forwards. John’s call is to open the door to a new phase in salvation history in which the sacraments of the Temple and all the intricacies of the Old Law will cede to the new laws of Jesus, the way, the truth and the life. The plan is no longer simply to bless things from the outside, as if the ritual cleansing under the Old Law were ever sufficient. Jesus’ plan is for things to be transformed from the inside out.

Marriage was instituted by God in the beginning; male and female He made them. Jesus comes now to redeem humanity and form with them a new kind of marital bond: Jesus the groom, the Church the bride. In this new age, marriage is no longer just a law of nature, a social arrangement, a romantic adventure, or even a painkiller to cover up our sense of loneliness. And, so, John’s death, far from being unconnected to his vocation of announcing the way of the Lord, is in fact a martyrdom in defence of this new reality: the nuptials of Christ with those He has redeemed. God has called us to something better than a comfortable arrangement and mere companionship. Will we hear the call?

Will Herod? Herod is the archetypal figure of modern man: he hasn’t entirely closed his heart to John’s message – he recognised John as a good and holy man and had not put him to death. So, what is stopping him actually releasing John? Herodias’s displeasure, and no doubt, his own. After Salome’s dance, however, the choice shifts. The choice is no longer whether he will or will not kill John. Now, it is whether he will or will not break a rash promise he should never have made in the first place.

Should Herod hold on to the goodness of John at the risk of losing Herodias and his good name (for what would his guests then think of his rash promise?)? Or does he fulfil a rash promise, retain his comfortable domestic arrangements, and forego the thrill of occasionally hearing John preach like a good’un? If Herod’s life were a TV show, he would undoubtedly have switched off at this point. Yet, there is no escape. Once we have the power of free will, we have its responsibilities also.

It is easy to think of Herod as a distant figure, unconnected to our purer, humbler lives. And yet, his complexity is ours; his rashness is ours; his seductions are ours; his accommodations are ours. The only thing left to decide is whether his choices will be ours also.

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Down in the dungeon, John sits on a damp stone ledge and hears distant footsteps at the top of the long stairwell that leads to his cell. Weeks in prison have given him endless time for uninterrupted thought, away from the crowds who usually besieged him. He likes Herod. He does not like incarceration. Divorce is permitted among the Jews. Is he right to have held Herod to a higher law?

What chance of ever bringing Herodias or Salome to the good if he carries on condemning their domestic arrangements? Herodias deserves to be happy, doesn’t she? She’s a fine woman; an accomplished one even. Salome is a sweet girl really. The footsteps on the stairs are getting closer.

And then, through the ventilation gap in his prison wall, he spies the breaking of the dawn in the east. Herod’s drunken party up above has gone on all night. The dank cell seems suddenly fresher; he hears the stir of a breeze beyond its walls, and suddenly becomes aware of a trickle of water down the wall that summons to his memory another morning not long ago, when he stood in the waters of the Jordan facing His cousin, pouring water on His head, and hearing voices from above.

As he contemplates this inner scene, all the deceitful murmurings of the enemy, the deceiver, cease in his brain, the door swings open, and a guard steps in. But John no longer sees his surroundings; he has made his choices. And at last, he stands, not to defy his executioner but to greet the light that comes from above.