Food for All
John 6:1-14
July 26, 2009
After this Jesus went to the other side of the Sea of Galilee, also called the Sea of Tiberias. A large crowd kept following him, because they saw the signs that he was doing for the sick. Jesus went up the mountain and sat down there with his disciples. Now the Passover, the festival of the Jews, was near. When he looked up and saw a large crowd coming towards him, Jesus said to Philip, ‘Where are we to buy bread for these people to eat?’ He said this to test him, for he himself knew what he was going to do. Philip answered him, ‘Six months’ wages would not buy enough bread for each of them to get a little.’ One of his disciples, Andrew, Simon Peter’s brother, said to him, ‘There is a boy here who has five barley loaves and two fish. But what are they among so many people?’ Jesus said, ‘Make the people sit down.’ Now there was a great deal of grass in the place; so they sat down, about five thousand in all. Then Jesus took the loaves, and when he had given thanks, he distributed them to those who were seated; so also the fish, as much as they wanted. When they were satisfied, he told his disciples, ‘Gather up the fragments left over, so that nothing may be lost.’ So they gathered them up, and from the fragments of the five barley loaves, left by those who had eaten, they filled twelve baskets. When the people saw the sign that he had done, they began to say, ‘This is indeed the prophet who is to come into the world.’
I recently read a very good book that I probably won’t recommend to too many people. The book is titled, Jesus Interrupted, by Bart Ehrman, a New Testament scholar at the University of North Carolina. It is a very, very good book in terms of talking about a topic that many Christians shy away from. It’s a book about the contradictions of the Bible, about dealing with passages, parables, and stories that contradict each other. For people who really understand the Bible, it’s a very good book. The problem is that for people who don’t know the Bible very well, nor how to understand these contradictions, the book can diminish faith. The reason is that Ehrman is an atheist. Imagine that, an atheist biblical scholar. Being an atheist, he interprets these contradictions in a way that causes those inexperienced with the Bible to lose faith in the Bible.
What makes the book good is that it is sophisticated in its arguments, but simple in its writing. Being an atheist allows him to look at the Bible in an honest way that many Christians won’t. He bases his writings on what is called the historical-critical method. This method of understanding the Bible is nothing new. It arose out of German biblical scholarship in the nineteenth century, and it has grown in its use ever since. Most credible biblical scholars are experts in this method. It is a way of looking at scripture in a way similar to how historians research history, and how literary scholars research literature. The point of this method is to get away from reading scripture to hear only what we want to hear, and to read it more in light of what it actually says.
So, to read scripture in this way means letting go of the focus most of us have when we read the Bible, which is to ask, “What is God saying to me through this passage?” Instead, we read it and ask, “What was going on when this passage was written? What was going on nationally, socially, culturally, and historically? Who wrote the passage and what was he or she hoping to say—what was his or her agenda? Who was the author writing to, and what problems were they facing?” The method is a wonderful for getting to the heart of what the passage is saying, but it has a darker side. It is an ultra-rationalist way of reading scripture, and in the process of being moved to a more rational perspective, people can lose their sense of awe and reverence.
I know this happens to a lot of people when they go to seminary, where the historical-critical method is taught. A common complaint among many seminary students is that they lose their faith because of it, and then have to try to reconstruct it afterwards.
Now, why am I mentioning this book? I’m mentioning it because our passage for today is one that perplexes scholars like Ehrman, and those who use the historical-critical method. The fact is that it doesn’t fit easily into historical-critical formulas for deciding whether or not a biblical event really happened. Determining whether or not an event occurred is a concern for many of these scholars. They believe that some biblical events may be fabrications created to sway people to a particular point of view. As a result, they develop semi-scientific formulas for deciding whether or not an event really took place.
One of those formulas is a simple one that determines the probability of that a gospel event occurred. For example, if an event appears in only one gospel, then there is only a 25% chance that it occurred. If it appears in two, 50%. Three, 75%. Four, 100%. So, for example, according to these scholars the virgin birth only has a 50% probability of having occurred because it appears in only two gospels—Matthew and Luke.
What I find to be a problem with this way of deciding the veracity of biblical events is that it discounts the possibility that a writer of a particular gospel has to pick and choose what to include based on the audience. Think about this for yourself. If you are telling the story of someone’s life, with the hope that it will inspire your audience, what events will you include and leave out? You only have so much room. A fantastic story might inspire one group, but not another. So, you would tend to cite those events that resonate in your audience. I think that this may have taken place with the gospel writers.
For instance, Matthew was writing to Jews who care about the fulfillment of prophecy, and the virgin birth is a fulfillment of prophecy. Luke was writing to Gentile Christians who had previously been part of religions, such as the Greek or Persian ones, that had myths about great kings being born of virgins. For their audiences, the virgin birth was important. Mark was writing to Roman Jews who probably didn’t care so much about a virgin birth. So he left it out. John bypassed the virgin birth in favor of a deeper understanding of Jesus, which is that he already was at the beginning of creation. I believe in the virgin birth, but I also believe that it wasn‘t then, nor now, a crucial belief for belief in Christ. I don’t need the virgin birth for my faith, but some people do. I can still believe it happened, even if it isn’t as influential. Apparently Mark and John agree with me.
The other formula has to do with rational likelihood. Ehrman has another term for it, but let’s leave it at this term here. Basically, this formula registers the likelihood of something happening according to how well it corresponds with rational conclusions. So, for Ehrman, many miracles aren’t rationally likely. He would say that if a miracle appears in only one gospel and isn’t rationally likely, then it probably didn’t happen.
So, here’s the issue: this passage confuses scholars today. It also confuses pastors and laity, and it even confused people back in the early church. Did it really happen, and if it did, why would Jesus waste a miracle on feeding people when they probably could have gotten food on their own?
It’s hard to understand this miracle until you do something that Ehrman says we should do. Don’t focus so much on the actual event, but on what the writer is trying to say through writing about the event. Ehrman’s absolutely right about that. You see, the author of John’s Gospel wants to teach us about Jesus through the telling of the event, and to do so he uses lots of symbols in the passage.
Let me start by giving you some background to the passage. First, the event took place in the northwest corner of the Sea of Galilee. Jesus had been teaching in the city of Capernaum, and was now tired and retreating to the north-central part of the lake where the Jordan River empties into it. Capernaum is surrounded by arid land, but the area where Jesus went to, Bethsaida Julius, was off of a delta of the river, and so it was lush and green. He went by boat, a four-mile trip, but those following him walked, which was a nine-mile trip. By the time they got to Jesus, they were very tired. Also, most of those gathered around him had been on a pilgrimage south to Jerusalem, so to follow Jesus meant that they were backtracking nine miles. What does that say about them? That they were passionate about hearing what Jesus had to say.
John tells us the story, but in doing so he loads the story full of numerical symbols that the readers of his gospel would have gotten immediately, but that we don’t get today. Let me take you through the symbols. First, there were 5000 people gathered. Was that the exact number of people? Probably not. I don’t think any of the disciples went around counting. Instead, there were probably somewhere between 3000 and 7000. But the number given matters because it says something about the nature of the miracle and of Jesus.
First, we have to start with the number 5 in the 5000. The number 5 always symbolizes sacrifice that leads to receiving God’s grace. For example, how many wounds did Jesus suffer on the cross? Five—two on the hands, two on the feet, and one in the side. So what the number 5 tells us is that the people gathering around Jesus were making a sacrifice by being there. Five is then multiplied by 1000, which is 10x10x10, or 103. Why is that significant of 1000? The number 10 symbolizes God’s complete work on earth, hence the Ten Commandments. The fact that it is ten to the third power means that God is involved. The number three always stands for God, as in the Trinity. Thus, 1000 indicates that God is actively doing something complete in this place. So, reading the numerical symbology of the passage, the people heard 5000, and they immediately thought, “Wow! These people made a sacrifice because of their passion, and as a result they received God’s grace and became God’s people.
Next, we move to the two fish and the five barley loaves. That equals seven pieces of food to start with. The number 7 always stands for God’s perfection being accomplished on earth. It is the addition of two other significant numbers: 3 and 4. As mentioned above, three always stands for God, but four stands for the earth—the four corners of the earth (people back then believed there were literally four corners) and the four seasons. Thus, we’ve learned that earth was created in seven days, which means that God (3) was shaping the earth (4). When the people heard that there were seven pieces of food, they understood immediately that Jesus was about to create something amazing with that food. But there was more there than just the numbers. The fact that he started with two fish caught from the Sea of Galilee and five barley loaves said that he was with the common people. This was common food, not the food of the wealthy. It said that Jesus is one with the common folk. That was really important to John because he was most likely writing to Gentile Christians living in the areas north of the Sea of Galilee. He was saying that Jesus was one among them.
Then we move onto the scraps that were left over. How many were there? Twelve. What’s the significance of twelve? It’s the multiplication of 3x4, which symbolizes God’s influence and the multiplication of God’s work on earth. Thus, you have 12 tribes of Israel and 12 disciples. When they read that twelve baskets of scraps were left over, they knew that this meant that God’s grace was so abundant that God’s grace overflows when it works in the world.
So, summing all this up, what lessons do we have to learn from it? First, the passage teaches us that God wants to feed us not only spiritually, but also physically and mentally, but we have to have the passion to seek God out and receive it. Second, there is grace in abundance for anyone who wants it and is ready for it. It won’t run out. Third, if we are willing to sacrifice for our faith great things happen. Finally, and I don’t want to lost this in this concept, miracles do happen to those who have faith. They really do, but to experience them we have to first be open to them.
Let me close with a story that captures the last point. You’ve heard me talk before about Corrie ten Boom, a woman who brought a deep faith and prayerfulness into her experiences in a German concentration camp during World War II. She had been captured as a member of the Dutch resistance in 1944 after being caught hiding Jews. At first she was put into a prison camp, but then she was eventually transferred to Ravensbrück concentration camp.
Conditions in the camp were horrendous. Not only did they sleep on hard palates, stacked against each other, but the straw they slept on was full of filth and fleas. Their food was barely enough to keep them alive. Somehow, though, they had managed to smuggle into the barracks a small vial of davitamon, or a daily vitamin supplement. Corrie and her sister first used the vial for themselves, but as people learned of it, they shared it. Each morning a crowd would gather around them. One-by-one they came forward, put out their tongue, and one drop of the davitamon would be dropped on their tongue. This went on for weeks. The vial never ran out. How many drops in a small vial do you think there would be? 100? 200? They should have run out after several days, but each morning the same people came forward, and drops were placed on their tongues. Corrie expected each drop to be the last, but every time she tipped the bottle the applicator would let out one drop.
At one point Corrie tried to figure out how much liquid was left in the bottle. She held it up to the light, but the bottle was too dark. Her sister, Betsie, told her to quit trying to figure out the miracle and to just accept it.
Several weeks later, one of the fellow prisoners in their barracks walked in carrying a large sack. She said, “Look what I managed to get out of the infirmary!” They looked into the sack and saw a thousands of vitamin pills. They agreed that they would begin taking them as soon as the vial of davitamon ran out. The next morning they tipped the bottle for the first person, and it was dry. The vial had finally run out. But the next miracle was being given other vitamins.
The point of our passage is both simple and complex. The complex message has to do with numbers and the rest, but the simple message is this: miracles do happen, they can happen to you, and all you have to do is to have a passionate faith that opens you to grace.
Amen.
Abolishing the Law
So then, remember that at one time you Gentiles by birth, called ‘the uncircumcised’ by those who are called ‘the circumcised’—a physical circumcision made in the flesh by human hands— remember that you were at that time without Christ, being aliens from the commonwealth of Israel, and strangers to the covenants of promise, having no hope and without God in the world. But now in Christ Jesus you who once were far off have been brought near by the blood of Christ. For he is our peace; in his flesh he has made both groups into one and has broken down the dividing wall, that is, the hostility between us.
He has abolished the law with its commandments and ordinances, so that he might create in himself one new humanity in place of the two, thus making peace, and might reconcile both groups to God in one body through the cross, thus putting to death that hostility through it. So he came and proclaimed peace to you who were far off and peace to those who were near; for through him both of us have access in one Spirit to the Father. So then you are no longer strangers and aliens, but you are citizens with the saints and also members of the household of God, built upon the foundation of the apostles and prophets, with Christ Jesus himself as the cornerstone. In him the whole structure is joined together and grows into a holy temple in the Lord; in whom you also are built together spiritually into a dwelling-place for God.
I’m going to divulge a long-kept secret this morning—one that I’m not even sure my wife knows. Back in January of 1986, for one evening, I had a modeling career. It only lasted that one night, but for that night I was a model. I modeled bright green and pink Benneton sweaters and scarves.
I had been asked by a friend of my sister-in-law to be part of a fashion show at Schenley Park ice rink in Pittsburgh. I don’t think I was asked so much for my looks as I was for my skating ability. So on that cold evening I went to the ice rink, put on my Benneton clothes, and proceeded to do a skating dance routine in which I skated around with eight girls, ranging from 11 to 14 years old, as we danced to a song called “Crush on You,” by the disco group The Jets. It was a completely embarrassing evening, especially since none of those girls had anything remotely like a crush on me. You could read their embarrassment on their faces as they skated around me. That’s probably why I’ve kept this my little secret until now.
I think that the woman who put me in the show was a bit embarrassed for me, so to make it up to me she invited me out one evening to meet a friend of hers, an artist, who was very, very pretty. So, we met that evening at a restaurant in Shadyside, and were having a good time until somehow the conversation turned to the problem of gangs and whether people naturally know right from wrong and good from evil. She was adamant: “People know right from wrong from birth. So anyone caught doing wrong should be severely punished because its their fault.” Having been trained as a counselor, I took a different tack, telling her that I thought concepts like right and wrong, and good and evil, had to be taught—that how we are raised often determines the extent to which we know the difference. She got very angry with me: “No! We are born knowing right from wrong. Criminals and gang members all know that what they are doing is wrong.” I responded, “But what about the kid who is born to a drug dealer who is taught from childhood that dealing drugs is right?” She hit her hand against the table, BLAM, and said, “No, they know the difference.” Suffice to say that we never really clicked after that.
So what do you think? Do people automatically know right from wrong, good from evil, God’s way from our way? Do we know by birth, or do we have to be taught? I think the answer may be that both are true. We may have a natural ability to tell right from wrong, good from evil, God’s way from our way, but it also needs to shaped and brought out of us. In fact, teaching right from wrong, good from evil, God’s way from our way is a large part of both parenting and churching.
If you are, or have been, a parent, think about what a significant part of your parenting consists of: “No, you can’t do that. It’s wrong! No! You can’t push your brother down the stairs! Stop that! It’s not right to steal toys from your sister. You need to behave when we go to Grandma’s house. Stop fighting! Stop hitting! Stop yelling!” Do you recognize these sentences? Have you uttered them yourselves? They are part of our parental task of teaching children right from wrong, good from evil, God’s way from our way. Our churches have a similar task. A lot of what we do is to teach the differences between right and wrong, good and evil, God’s way from our way.
One of Paul’s points from this morning’s passage is that we have to learn to cultivate this ability to distinguish between how God wants us to live and how we want to live. And his main point in our passage is that in the process of learning to distinguish between the two, the old ways of following the law had failed
Listen again to what Paul said: “[Christ] has abolished the law with its commandments and ordinances, so that he might create in himself one new humanity in place of the two.” Do you recognize how radical a statement that is? What Paul said goes completely against what many, many Christians believe. Think about it for a moment. What do many Christians say that we base our faith on, other than faith in Christ? What are the rules of our faith? The Ten Commandments? If you said that, you’d be right. Many Christians say that following the law is one of our major duties in obeying Christ. Why else do these Christians care so much about the issue of whether or not the Ten Commandments should be posted in courthouses? To them Christianity is based on the law. So, what do you make of the fact of Paul saying that Jesus had abolished the law? What does he mean that Jesus has abolished the law?
Now, if you are a particularly astute Bible reader, you also are now forming another question: “Isn’t what Paul said in direct contrast to what Jesus said in Matthew 5:17?” Jesus said, “Do not think that I have come to abolish the law or the prophets; I have come not to abolish but to fulfill. For truly I tell you, until heaven and earth pass away, not one letter, not one stroke of a letter, will pass from the law until all is accomplished.”
We’ve got a biblical problem here. Paul and Jesus seem to be at odds. In this corner is Paul, saying that Jesus has gotten rid of the law. In the other corner we have Jesus, who tells us that he has come not to abolish, but to fulfill, the law. Do we just assume that because Jesus is a greater authority that he wins this fight?
Actually, I think both Jesus and Paul were trying to get across the same message, but they were speaking from different sides of the same coin. Both were saying that when left to our own devices, we do not live the way God wants us to live. We do not follow the law properly, and as a result we do not live the way God wants us to live. Jesus is saying that the law was meant to unite us with God in a way that God’s life flows through us, but that the people’s following the law had failed to do that. He had come to fulfill the purpose of the law, which was to unite humans and God. Paul went further. He was saying that the law had actually become an impediment to this union because through the law the Jews had lost their connection with God. They had become so obsessed with figuring out how to apply the law to the minutiae of life that they had forgotten God. Modern Christians do this, too. We can become so obsessed with running to the Bible for guidance that we forget to look to God for guidance. We can become so biblically focused that we lose sight of God. Both Paul and Jesus were trying to say that there was another way, a way modeled by Jesus and taught by Paul.
This way is the way of listening to the voice of Christ within us, and to the guidance of the Holy Spirit all around us. Think about how Jesus lived. Although he periodically quoted scripture, he most often acted after having discerned the Father’s will in prayer. He even said that the law was made for humans, not humans for the law. What he meant is that too many Jews were turning the law into a false god, and as a result were no longer allowing the law to guide them to the real God. He wanted us to have a direct connection with God so that this living relationship could guide us. He was guiding people to prayer, and to listen to God’s voice within, which always acts in accordance with the ultimate purposes of the law.
The Quaker writer, Thomas Kelly, wrote about following the voice of God when he said, “Deep within us all there is an amazing inner sanctuary of the soul, a holy place, a Divine Center, a speaking Voice, to which we may continuously return. Eternity is at our hearts, pressing upon our time-torn lives, warming us with intimations of an astounding destiny, calling us home unto Itself. Yielding to these persuasions, gladly committing ourselves in body and soul, utterly and completely, to the Light Within, is the beginning of true life. It is a dynamic center, a creative Life that presses to birth within us. It is a Light Within which illumines the face of God and casts new shadows and new glories upon the face of men. It is a seed stirring to life if we do not choke it. It is the Shekinah of the soul, the Presence in the midst. Here is the Slumbering Christ, stirring to be awakened, to become the soul we clothe in earthly form and action. And He is within us all.” What he is saying here is very close to what I believe Paul was getting at. We no longer need the law because through Christ’s incarnation in our hearts the law becomes written on our hearts. The law isn’t done away with. The law is fulfilled even more deeply as we connect with God.
That does not mean that we get rid of the law or don’t need to learn it. What it means is that we are now able to pay attention to Christ speaking within us, and the Spirit speaking around us, to gain a sense of what is right and wrong, good and evil, God’s way versus our way.
Today many people see religion as being just a collection of moral dos and don’ts, all with the purpose of getting us into heaven. They like rules and law, as well as the clarity that they bring, so they try to turn Christianity into a religion of either following the law of scripture or the rules of the church. But that’s not the faith that Paul or Jesus taught. They taught a faith in which we attune ourselves to God, much like a radio, in which our task is to tune ourselves in to God’s frequency, and live out of that. Under this idea, our main task is to allow our lives to be filled with God’s Spirit so that we can live according to God’s will in everything.
Let me close by giving you an example of what I mean. During the week after the invasion of Normandy on D-Day, a small unit of American soldiers pushed through the French countryside. They were an advance team tasked with discovering the whereabouts of the German lines, as well as their strengths and weaknesses. As they pushed forward, they got into a small skirmish, and one of their members was killed.
Knowing that they had to push forward quickly, they looked for somewhere to bury him. Eventually they found a church with a graveyard, and asked the priest if they could bury their comrade there. The priest said yes, but then asked whether the soldier had been baptized a Roman Catholic. The soldiers didn’t know. The priest then said, “I’m sorry, but unless he was Catholic, we can’t bury him in our graveyard.”
Not knowing what else to do, the dejected soldiers asked if they could bury him on the other side of the fence surrounding the graveyard. The priest told them that they could. So they spent the evening burying their friend, leaving a small dirt mound on top. They then walked a short ways away to find a safe place to sleep.
The next morning they got up early in order to push forward, but before doing so they walked to the graveyard to say good-bye to their fallen comrade. When they got there, they couldn’t find the grave. As hard as they looked all they could see was smooth grass. It was as though no grave had never even been dug. What happened to their friend’s grave? Was this some sort of miracle? Were they in the wrong place?
As they stood perplexed, the priest walked out to join them. They asked the priest what had happened to their friend’s grave. He said, “I struggled all night with my decision to keep him out of our cemetery. It bothered me, and I couldn’t sleep. How could I keep out a man who had given his life to release all of us from the German evil? I knew that I didn’t have the strength to uncover his body, move it, and then dig a new grave, so I did the next best thing. I spent the night digging out and moving the fence so that your friend could now be in the cemetery.
This is a priest who was tuned into God. He had at first followed the rules—good rules if you are a Catholic. But he recognized that these were not God’s rules. So, he fulfilled the rules by changing the them. He listened to God, to the voice of Christ within, and that made all the difference.
To abolish the law doesn’t mean we can’t or shouldn’t learn it. What it means is that there is another way to access what the law was intended to do, but couldn’t. We discover the meaning of the law when we become people of prayer who seek and follow the voice of Christ in our hearts, minds, and souls.
Amen.
Would You Rather Lose Your Head or Your Faith?
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.
What would you be willing to die for? Would you be willing to die for your country? A lot of people today say they would. How about for family—your children, your parents, your brothers and sisters? What about for your friends? In thinking about what you’d be willing to die for, how high would your faith rank? Would you be willing to die for your faith?
Compared to the tests of faith that the original Christians faced, our faith doesn’t get tested that much anymore—at least not to the point of death. There have been periods throughout history where people had to make a severe choice—give up their lives or give up their faith. In fact, the early Christians often had to make that choice. The fact is that for the first 300 years of the Christian faith, the faithful constantly faced a choice between their livelihoods, or their lives, and their faith.
The persecution of Christians wasn’t consistent for all 300 years. There were periods in which the worst persecution Christians faced was the ridicule of others, but there were other periods in which they were killed out of prejudice and for pleasure. What seemed to determine the level of persecution was the degree to which the reigning emperor of the time wanted the people of the Roman Empire to worship them as gods. Those who wanted to be worshiped tended to persecute Christians heavily, while those who didn’t care tended to let the Christians be. Why? Because the one thing that marked the Christians is that many (not all, but many) refused to worship the emperor. Often emperor worship consisted of going to the local temple or magistrate office once a year, and either bowing down before an image of the emperor or paying a monetary tribute. Out of all the religions, Christians gained a reputation for refusing to bow or pay. The Jews normally would have gained a similar reputation, but they were actually given dispensation by most emperors to not have to fulfill the requirement. When Christians refused to worship, they were persecuted.
The worst of all the persecutors was the emperor Nero, who was pretty much of a nut-job in general. Nero had grand designs to rebuild Rome in his own image, including tearing down many popular sites in order to build a magnificent palace to himself. When much of Rome burned, which Nero probably ordered to pave the way for his building projects, he blamed the Christians.
The most popular excuse for persecuting Christians was that Christians were cannibals. That sound ridiculous to us today, but you can easily understand how they could misrepresent Christian faith. What they would say is that the Christians had saved the body of this Jesus fellow, and that on Sundays they would break off pieces of his body and eat it, and then drink his saved blood. For the Romans this rumor justified their persecution of Christians, which included letting them be eaten by lions for sport in the coliseums.
One Christian, who experienced this kind of persecution, was a man named Genesius. He is remembered today in the Catholic Church as St. Genesius. He is the patron saint of actors, comedians, lawyers, stenographers, and torture victims. Genesius had gained a reputation as a comedic actor in the court of the Roman emperor Diocletian. Whenever Diocletian was feeling particularly bored or melancholy, he would call for Genesius and ask him to act out the emperor’s favorite play. It was a comedic take on the Christian sacrament of baptism. Genesius would start by looking very sad and despondent. Another actor, dressed as a priest, would invite him to be baptized. Then several actors would throw Genesius into a large vat of water and dunk him. Genesius would emerge sputtering and making all sorts of noises, at which the emperor would howl in laughter. He would be dunked over and over again, much to the emperor’s delight.
What the emperor didn’t know was that for some time Genesius had been learning more about the Christian faith, and he was becoming sympathetic to it. One particular day, when Diocletian asked for the play, Genesius started out with his mopey act, and then was thrown into the vat. But as he emerged he refused to sputter. He stood there, looking straight ahead. The emperor told him to do his act, but Genesius refused. He declared himself to be a Christian, at which the emperor told him that if he did not do the act, he would have Genesius’ legs broken. Genesius refused again. He was taken away and put in dungeon, where his legs were broken. Still Genesius refused to comply. This, by the way, is where we get the phrase in the theater, “break a leg,” before performances. It means that actors should be true to themselves when they act, just as Genesius had been. Eventually Genesius faced a choice: act or be killed. He refused to do the act, and he was beheaded. He faced the choice between his faith and his life, and he chose his faith.
John the Baptist faced the same kind of choice as Genesius. Why did John get beheaded? For a very simple reason: he ticked off king Herod. You know of Herod. He’s the guy who sings, “So if you are the Christ, oh the great Jesus Christ, prove to me that you’re divine. Change my water into wine” in the play, Jesus Christ, Superstar. Herod was the king of the region around Galilee and Judea, the area surrounding Jerusalem. The Roman Empire had a very weird arrangement in which while they had governors of provinces and regions, yet within some of them they still had kings, who were part figurehead, part ruler. These kings could raise armies and invoke laws, but they had to stay submissive to the Roman Caesar and the governor.
Herod was an incredibly self-indulgent man who was known for his lavish parties and bizarre behavior. John made him angry by criticizing him for his lifestyle, especially his marriage. What was wrong with Herod’s marriage? This is a bit complicated, but bear with me. To understand it helps to start with Herod’s father, Herod the Great who was descended from the generals who divvied up the Greek empire after Alexander the Great’s death. Herod was called “the Great” because of all the building projects he did, but he was anything but great. In fact, he was petty and paranoid. To get an appreciation of the complexities of Herod’s family life, it helps to look at the chart below of Herod’s marriages and sons:
Herod the Great was married five times, and had seven sons. Three of them, Antipater, Alexander, and Aristobulous, he had killed because he was paranoid that they wanted to take power from him. The Herod from our passage was Herod Antipas, his son from his fourth wife. Here’s where it all gets confusing.
Herod Antipas’ half-brother, Herod Philip, lived in Rome and had a wife named Herodius. Herodius was the daughter of Herod Philip’s other half-brother, Aristoblus. Therefore, Herod Philip had married his niece. The two of them had a daughter, who in our passage is also called Herodius, but elsewhere in the Bible is called Salome. As if marrying a niece wasn’t bad enough, Herod Antipas lusted after Herodius. He schemed and plotted to wrest her away from his brother. To do so, he divorced his own wife. He then convinced Herodius to divorce Herod Philip and marry him. This is what John criticized. In effect, Herod Antipas not only was divorced for no reason, which was against Jewish law, and married his brother’s wife, which was against Jewish law, but he also married his niece, which was against Jewish law, and became stepfather to his niece. And John the Baptist had the temerity to criticize Herod for it. So Herod imprisoned John and eventually had him killed because of the scheme between Herodius and Salome in our passgae. As a side note, Herod’s other brother, Philip the Tetrarch, married Salome, thus becoming her grand-uncle, step-uncle, and husband all at the same time. The Herod family definitely put the “fun” in dysfunctional.
The point of the passage is that John looked at this situation and criticized Herod and his family. He wantd Herod to be a better ruler, and to be one who lived more according to the biblical law that Herod said that he followed, as a Jew. Herodius, who felt pangs of triple-guilt, couldn’t handle the criticism, and demanded that John be killed. John could easily have saved his life by going back on his criticism, but he chose his faith over his life. He was speaking God’s judgment against Herod, Herodius, and their family, and he would not go back.
Herod did get his comeuppance in the end, though. His divorced wife’s father, Aristus the king of the Nabateans, decided to attack Herod to get his revenge. Herod raised an army to defend himself, was defeated, and had to get Rome to bail him out. Later, when Agrippa was made a king, Herod complained to the Roman emperor about it, at the insistence of Herodius, hoping to gain more power. Instead, the emperor Caligula stripped him of title, property, and wealth, and Herod ended up dying a poor man in southern France.
Getting back to our passage, what is it that allowed John to choose faith over life? For John it was very simple: He saw the world as filled with God. He didn’t separate life like we do, seeing sacred and secular worlds. He only saw the sacred, and wanted to serve God in all of life. As a result, he lived life in a way that filled it with God.
How do you see the world? How do you live in the world? What would you be willing to give up your life for? Where would God rank in that list?
Amen.
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