The readings
Amos 7:7-17
This is what he showed me: the Lord was standing beside a
wall built with a plumb line, with a plumb line in his hand. And the Lord said
to me, “Amos, what do you see?” And I said, “A plumb line.” Then the Lord said,
“See, I am setting a plumb line in the midst of my people Israel; I will never
again pass them by; the high places of Isaac shall be made desolate, and the
sanctuaries of Israel shall be laid waste, and I will rise against the house of
Jeroboam with the sword.” Then Amaziah, the priest of Bethel, sent to King
Jeroboam of Israel, saying, “Amos has conspired against you in the very center
of the house of Israel; the land is not able to bear all his words. For thus
Amos has said, ‘Jeroboam shall die by the sword, and Israel must go into exile
away from his land.’” And Amaziah said to Amos, “O seer, go, flee away to the
land of Judah, earn your bread there, and prophesy there; but never again
prophesy at Bethel, for it is the king’s sanctuary, and it is a temple of the
kingdom.” Then Amos answered Amaziah, “I am no prophet, nor a prophet’s son;
but I am a herdsman, and a dresser of sycamore trees, and the Lord took me from
following the flock, and the Lord said to me, ‘Go, prophesy to my people
Israel.’ “Now therefore hear the word of the Lord. You say, ‘Do not prophesy
against Israel, and do not preach against the house of Isaac.” Therefore thus
says the Lord: ‘Your wife shall become a prostitute in the city, and your sons
and your daughters shall fall by the sword, and your land shall be parceled out
by line; you yourself shall die in an unclean land, and Israel shall surely go
into exile away from its land.
Mark 6:14-29
King Herod heard of it, for Jesus’ name had become known.
Some were saying, “John the baptizer has been raised from the dead; and for
this reason these powers are at work in him.” But others said, “It is Elijah.”
And others said, “It is a prophet, like one of the prophets of old.” But when
Herod heard of it, he said, “John, whom I beheaded, has been raised.”For Herod
himself had sent men who arrested John, bound him, and put him in prison on
account of Herodias, his brother Philip’s wife, because Herod had married her.
For John had been telling Herod, “It is not lawful for you to have your
brother’s wife.” And Herodias had a grudge against him, and wanted to kill him.
But she could not, for Herod feared John, knowing that he was a righteous and
holy man, and he protected him. When he heard him, he was greatly perplexed;
and yet he liked to listen to him. But an opportunity came when Herod on his
birthday gave a banquet for his courtiers and officers and for the leaders of
Galilee. When his daughter Herodias came in and danced, she pleased Herod and
his guests; and the king said to the girl, “Ask me for whatever you wish, and I
will give it.” And he solemnly swore to her, “Whatever you ask me, I will give
you, even half of my kingdom.” She went out and said to her mother, “What
should I ask for?” She replied, “The head of John the baptizer.” Immediately
she rushed back to the king and requested, “I want you to give me at once the
head of John the Baptist on a platter.” The king was deeply grieved; yet out of
regard for his oaths and for the guests, he did not want to refuse her.
Immediately the king sent a soldier of the guard with orders to bring John’s
head. He went and beheaded him in the prison, brought his head on a platter,
and gave it to the girl. Then the girl gave it to her mother. When his
disciples heard about it, they came and took his body, and laid it in a tomb.
The Messsage
During the years around Jesus life, ministry, death and
resurrection there was several King Herods who ruled the areas where Jesus and
his first followers lived, traveled around, taught and started churches.Throughout
this era, Judea and the surrounding places were under the rule and oversight of
the Roman Empire. Each king or ruler of
the region held power by the empire’s permission and could be just as easily
removed as he was appointed. To some
degree, the lives and political actions of these leaders and their governments
were like anything you could see on Game of Thrones, House of Cards or other
dramas today. Each Herod had done great, creepy and awful things. The First
King Herod was Herod the Great who ruled from the years 37 to 4 before Jesus
birth. He was a great builder and powerful but brutal to many people, including
the murder of people in his family, many religious leaders and the slaughter of
the Innocents (the killing of all babies under the age of two in an attempt to
destroy the newborn Christ, who had already fled to Egypt with Mary and Joseph). The other king Herods who held power after him
were all relatives including his sons and grandsons.
This morning, we meet Herod Antipas, a son of Herod the
great and the ruler placed in charge of the region during the life of Jesus. He
played a role and made decisions during the execution of John the Baptist that
we just heard about and in the trial and death of Jesus. In his personal life,
Herod Antipas does something against the law that many people were offended and
bothered by. He divorced his first wife
Phasaelis, the daughter of King Aretas IV of Nabatea and marries Herodias, who
had left his brother Herod Philip I.
John the Baptist condemns this action as a violation of the law and the
trust that should exist in human relationships. Here we get the impression that
Herod Antipas thinks he can basically do whatever he wants while John the
Baptist insists that all people are under God’s law, even if saying so places
his very life in danger. To quietly let a public leader live in this
relationship with Herodias would set the empire’s power and law above God’s
power and law. John does have some
protection. He is seen as a holy man and a prophet, he has a tremendous amount
of support from the people. Any action against him would incite great anger,
protest and perhaps revolt. In the
Gospel reading, we see Herod as frightened and manipulated. He is afraid of John,
afraid of the people and he is afraid of his guests. All of his actions have
nothing to do with right or wrong, they are calculated by what others will think
and what he needs to do to stay in power. John, on the other side, does not do such
math, he speaks the truth. In the years
following John’s execution, Herod ends up at war with Aretas (whose daughter he
divorced) where he is severely defeated.
After more years of political maneuvering, betrayal and changes in the
Roman Empire’s leadership, Herod is removed and exiled.
In this story we get a sample of the relationship between
faith and state, with the ways of God and the ways of the world, with God’s
desire for our relationships with others and our own desires for power and
status. God asks us to see each other as
children of God, as loved, forgiven and cared for while our desire is often to
use people to fulfill our own political, social or psychological wants. That brings us to our first reading from the
prophet Amos and the plumb line. The
prophet Amos was active around 750 years before the birth of Jesus. Compared to
many of the other prophets, Amos wrote at a time of relative peace and
prosperity. It was also a time when religion was neglected and there was an increased
disparity between the very rich and the very poor. Like John the Baptist, Amos speaks the condemning,
critical, truth, the stuff people do not want to hear. In this case, Amos says that “the high places
of Isaac shall be made desolate, and the sanctuaries of Israel shall be laid
waste, and I will rise against the house of king Jeroboam with the sword.”
Obviously these words angered all those who saw the high places of Isaac and
sanctuaries of Israel as the centers of religious power and life. Also the people of the house of King Jeroboam
were not too happy with the word that God would rise against them with the
sword. A priest at Bethel hears what
the Prophet Amos is saying and urges him to shut up and run away. This kind of talk would hurt the delicate
relationship between the government and religion. So far things were quiet, I mean people were
not being particularly religious, they were not keeping the promises made to
God but they were not really persecuting religion either. The religious leadership were pretty
comfortable and there was no need to upset things. Amos responds to the priest’s request that he
keep God’s word to himself, shut up and go away by telling the priest ‘Your
wife shall become a prostitute, and your sons and your daughters will be killed
and your land stolen; you shall die in an unclean land, and Israel shall surely
go into exile”. Like John the Baptist, Amos will not let anything stand in the
way of announcing God’s word, of calling people to faith and proclaiming God’s
joyful, comforting vision for us.
Now, the danger with being like Amos or John, of speaking
God’s word to power, with boldly confronted inequality and faithlessness and
telling the world things they did not to hear , is that not everyone who takes
on the prophets role is necessarily speaking God’s word. Even today, we hear a lot of people making
prophetic statements, words condemning the supreme court ruling on gay marriage
or words celebrating the decision, we hear people calling out for war and
demanding peace, people teaching racism from the scriptures and people
advocating for better ways to live together, looking forward to doom or joy.
This is all done in ways that look, sound and claim to look a lot like
prophets.
That brings us to the plumb line at the start of the reading
from Amos. Now a plumb line is a string
with a rock, piece of metal or other heavy object tied to the end of it. No
matter what else was happening around you, dropping the string would create a
straight line. Today this work is done by lasers and all sorts of digital
sensors but this incredibly simple tool was used for 1000’s of years and
essential to the construction of the world’s most famous structures like the pyramids
in Egypt or the temple in Jerusalem. God
gives us, set a plumb line in the world, by which we can tell the prophets from
the selfish or confused. This plumb line, this thing that does not change, by
which we can measure prophesy is love for God and love for others.
