SPEAKER_00: There's one sentence in today's gospel that is probably more disturbing than the beheading of John the Baptist.
SPEAKER_00: Saint Mark tells us that Herod liked to listen to him.
SPEAKER_00: Think about that.
SPEAKER_00: Herod knew John was a righteous and holy man.
SPEAKER_00: He feared him.
SPEAKER_00: John's words were perplexing him.
SPEAKER_00: And yet Mark says he liked to listen to him.
SPEAKER_00: Herod was interested in truth.
SPEAKER_00: He just wasn't willing to live by it.
SPEAKER_00: That may be the real tragedy of this gospel.
SPEAKER_00: Today the church celebrates what we call the Passion of Saint John the Baptist.
SPEAKER_00: It's kind of an unusual feast.
SPEAKER_00: We celebrate John's birth on june twenty fourth, and today, august twenty ninth, we commemorate his martyrdom.
SPEAKER_00: Why?
SPEAKER_00: Well, because John has a unique place in the history in the story of salvation.
SPEAKER_00: His entire life pointed away from himself and towards Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: Before John was born, he leapt in his mother's womb at the presence of Christ.
SPEAKER_00: As an adult, he stood in the wilderness preparing people for Christ.
SPEAKER_00: At the Jordan he pointed to Jesus and said, Behold the Lamb of God.
SPEAKER_00: And when his own disciples began leaving him to follow Jesus, John said, He must increase, I must decrease.
SPEAKER_00: And today that decreasing reaches its final point.
SPEAKER_00: John loses everything, his freedom, his influence, and finally his life.
SPEAKER_00: And yet even in death he is still doing exactly what he has always done, bearing witness to the truth.
SPEAKER_00: John is imprisoned because he tells Herod something Herod does not want to hear.
SPEAKER_00: He says, It is not lawful for you to have your brother's wife.
SPEAKER_00: That sentence puts John in prison, and eventually cost him his head.
SPEAKER_00: But notice the contrast Saint Mark creates.
SPEAKER_00: John is physically imprisoned, but he is the freest person in the story.
SPEAKER_00: Herod is a king, but Herod is trapped, trapped by his desires, trapped by Herodias, trapped by his own foolish promise, and finally trapped by the opinions of the people sitting around the table.
SPEAKER_00: And when the girl asks for John's head, Mark tells us that Herod is deeply distressed.
SPEAKER_00: He does not want to kill John.
SPEAKER_00: So why does he do it?
SPEAKER_00: Well, Scripture tells us because of his oaths and the guests.
SPEAKER_00: The guests.
SPEAKER_00: That may be one of the saddest reasons for committing a terrible act anywhere in the scriptures.
SPEAKER_00: Herod knows what is right, but everyone is watching.
SPEAKER_00: He would rather kill an innocent man than look weak in front of the room.
SPEAKER_00: And suddenly this ancient gospel becomes very modern.
SPEAKER_00: How many times do we know what is right but look around the room first?
SPEAKER_00: What will people think of me?
SPEAKER_00: What will this cost me?
SPEAKER_00: Will I lose the friendship?
SPEAKER_00: Will I look foolish?
SPEAKER_00: Will people still approve me?
SPEAKER_00: Herod listened to the truth until the truth demanded courage.
SPEAKER_00: John lived the truth even when the truth demanded his life.
SPEAKER_00: That's why today's first reading fits so beautifully.
SPEAKER_00: Saint Paul says God chose the weak of the world to shame the strong.
SPEAKER_00: Well, who looks strong in today's gospel?
SPEAKER_00: Herod, Herod has a palace, soldiers, a banquet, powerful people of Galilee sitting around him at a table.
SPEAKER_00: And John?
SPEAKER_00: Well, John is alone in a prison cell.
SPEAKER_00: Yet two thousand years later we name our children after John.
SPEAKER_00: We build churches in his honor.
SPEAKER_00: We proclaim the words at every mass, behold the Lamb of God.
SPEAKER_00: And Herod is remembered largely because he killed them.
SPEAKER_00: So who was powerful then?
SPEAKER_00: That's the strange mathematics of the kingdom of God.
SPEAKER_00: The world says power means controlling other people.
SPEAKER_00: God says power is having enough freedom within yourself to remain faithful when everything else is taken away.
SPEAKER_00: And perhaps that's what this feast day asks of us.
SPEAKER_00: Most of us will never face the martyrdom of John the Baptist, but every Christian will eventually face a smaller version of Herod's banquet, a moment when truth costs something, a conversation, a decision, a relationship, a room full of people whose approval matters to us.
SPEAKER_00: And in that moment the question will not be whether we know the truth, Herod knew the truth.
SPEAKER_00: The question will be whether we love the truth enough to stand by it.
SPEAKER_00: John the Baptist spent his entire life pointing towards Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: And even from that prison cell, even with an executioner approaching, his life was still saying the same thing.
SPEAKER_00: Christ must increase, I must decrease.
SPEAKER_00: Herod had had a throne and was a slave.
SPEAKER_00: John was in chains and was completely free.
SPEAKER_00: So today the church remembers which of those two lives truly mattered John the Baptist.
SPEAKER_00: May God give us the courage not merely to listen to truth, but to live it, especially when everyone in the room is watching.
SPEAKER_00: Amen.