14 Jul SUNDAY, JULY 14, 2024

Herod was a most suspicious and paranoid tetrarch. The seventh son of Herod the Great and a Roman administrator to Galilee and Perea, he lost his position of authority around 39 AD after hoping to rise to the true level of monarch, and not merely be thought of as a king. Since the time of Jesus’ birth, every ruler named Herod had acted swiftly upon any hint of rumor to the tune of murdering their very own blood relatives, figuring that the closer they were, the greater they were to be considered a real threat. 

The Herodians were a dynasty of rulers who likened themselves to J. Edgar Hoover. They figured that everyone you didn’t know everything about was a threat to the Herodian way of life, their kind of liberties, and their ways of pursuing happiness. They wanted answers and explanations for every happening that gained popularity or at the very least, garnered people’s attention. 

Who exactly IS this Jesus whose name has become known? Some said, “John the baptizer raised from the dead,” others, “Elijah,” others, “a prophet of old.” How is it that power works in him? Power must come from somewhere. The powers that be notice that Jesus has a force that no one just has on their own, he must be working with a government agency or group of organized power mongers “who aim to take over social structures and use them for personal gain at everyone else’s expense.” 

Being self-absorbed and arrogant, of course, Herod thinks that Jesus has come to repay him for beheading John. Everything revolves around Herod, even God’s big plans. Surely Herod sees God as a cohort, a peer and king like Herod who understands the need to rid himself of threats, to honor a promise made publicly, and who suffers the weight of decisions which determine people’s fate: those literal consequences involving life or death. 

Let’s revisit today’s first reading where the Lord God shows Amos a plumb line, a cord with a non-magnetic weight attached at one end held so the weight or plummet dangles freely and is able to determine an exact vertical line. It’s a tool for building mentioned in the Book of Zechariah which is used as a standard because a plumb line always obeys the law of gravity. Always obeying the law of gravity. And as you know, some laws are considered disputable, perhaps even negotiable; but the law of gravity is not one of those up for debate. 

Amos and John the Baptist were plumb lines, too. They were bearers of truth who aimed to point at the exact words of God to help people understand how God would judge them, to help them see whether they themselves were built straight and upright or instead, were built crooked and leaning. 

Doesn’t every person benefit from having a reliable reference point, from having something or someone that tells them if they or what they’re building will serve as a good load bearing wall? If they or the thing they are building  will stand the test of time and serve to support a larger, more expansive structure in the future? 

Doesn’t every person benefit from having a reliable reference point…?

That’s one rationale for going to seminary and for me taking more Clinical Pastoral Education. Both of those processes keep a pastor from making assumptions. The combined overall experience forces a minister to examine what they’re made of. Both processes bring to light one’s deeply held beliefs, thoughts and values. They reveal one’s strengths and expose one’s limitations.

You see, not just leaders, but every person needs others for input, to maintain one’s own bearings, to see where one needs propping up, to be adjusted or tilted to counteract our leaning to one side or the other. Herod came from a family who avoided standing next to vertical plumb lines at all cost, who couldn’t risk having their behavior compared to what were considered God-ly virtues. 

Herod Antipas recognized John as righteous and holy, he just didn’t count on his own namesake, his daughter Herodias, to connive with her mother to have John destroyed. What also complicated Herod’s life was his choice to keep company with nobles such as high ranking government officials, military officers, wealthy and other prominent Galileans. 

It’s practically a law of human nature, that if individuals lean toward a desire for elevated status and this gets combined with unconscious cravings for unlimited power that the end result will be this: a narrow inner circle of those with high level connections. And this nearly always leads to eventual corruption. So if grand ambitions often lead to ruin, let’s see if we can find good news in Paul’s letter to the Ephesians. 

In Christ, we find spiritual blessings in heavenly places through the gift of God the Father who chose us before the foundation of the world to be holy and blameless before him in love. Oooo. That is good news. Paul just told us that to be holy and blameless before God in love is the equivalent of our spiritual plumb line. 

We already know that we will never be holy and blameless before God in love on our own. We were only destined for adoption as God’s children through Jesus Christ according to the good pleasure of the triune God’s will. 

God doesn’t stand beside us measuring how straight we stand, God freely bestows grace upon us. He props up our natural leanings, even if we only possess a few good tendencies or even if we are like Herod, and lean toward our individual or our family’s ego. God is the one who lines us up with the plumb line, the totally upright completely vertical stance of Jesus Christ. 

In him and only him, we have redemption whereby forgiveness and grace are richly lavished upon us. In him and only him, we gradually come to share in the knowledge, wisdom, insight, and mysteries of God’s good pleasure, to take part in God’s plan for the fullness of time, which means to gather up all things in God which exists in heaven or on earth. 

If only Herod had realized that in Christ he could have had a greater inheritance, that in Christ we may accomplish all the purposes of God according to God’s good counsel and will. If only Herod could have heard Paul say, “Set your hope on Christ. Live for the praise of his glory. For when you hear the word of truth, this is the gospel of your salvation. Believe in him and be marked with the seal of the promised Holy Spirit.” If only Herod could have understood this pledge of redemption toward God’s own people. 

So for our encouragement today, hear this. “Don’t be afraid to stand still and be compared to what God hopes to build, to build from your precious and possibly misdirected life.” Look what happened in Herod’s case. When he heard of the disciples’ preaching his first thoughts were guilty ones. He knew he’d done wrong by beheading John the Baptist. Yet, he was still impressed by what he had experienced firsthand, the fact that John was different from anyone that Herod had ever known. John was a righteous and holy man, a man deserving of Herod’s time and protection. 

Herod was struck by having done something so wrong that he thought God himself had raised John from the dead to come back and tell Herod once again that what he was doing was not lawful. Herod finally gets it! He knows that he royally messed up rather than has earned the title of king. He understands that he was foolish and was played. He understands that pride got the better of him. That more than one kind of lust had driven him to sin and led him to make bad, irreversible choices. 

The act of killing John hurt many. It wounded Jesus. The soldiers who had to carry out Herod’s orders may have suffered moral injury. The guards had to deliver death on a whim and on a platter to a young girl who had been corrupted by all of her parents. The scene ends with John’s disciples hearing about what happened, coming to take Johns’ body and laying it in a tomb. 

No matter what happens, we are claimed by God and will return back to God. The manner of our death will not separate us from the One to whom we belong: the ones we love and the ones who love us, especially God.  Things Herod probably never knew were the type of love offered by God and the type of forgiveness God could give, two big things John was trying to teach him. 

What might we learn from Herod today? That perhaps we don’t have to try and control every aspect of life. How about, that it’s not up to us to keep up appearances, to make sure that we only associate with the right people or that it’s not necessary to work so hard to avoid others because we’re afraid of how they might change us. 

Most of all, I hope we’ve learned that it’s okay to stand next to the plumb line, Jesus. Recently as I entered a hospital room, a gentleman was talking aloud with no one else present in the room. Moments before, he’d been on the phone, then after that speaking with a case worker. 

I said, “Who are you talking to?” He answered, “I was praying,” then burst into tears. He said, “I’m so afraid that when I get to heaven’s door that God’s going to say, ‘I don’t know you.’ I’ve tried to do the right thing, but I sinned long ago while I was in the service and I keep sinning by arguing with my wife.” His tears continue, his breathing grows shallow. 

He was worried about that plumb line, about measuring up to a standard of perfect righteousness. We talked about God seeing us through the lens of Jesus and how only Jesus is worthy. He repeated this prayer with me, “Lord, I am not worthy to receive you, but only say the word and I shall be healed.” 

We all need to remember that we are both saint and sinner. We are all members of the same human family as Herod, John the Baptist and the prophet Amos. We are all disciples, students learning from and grieving over our mistakes. We are all loved and forgiven by a God who is wise and just, without concern for appearances except as we are seen through the lens of Christ. 

We have been given grace to believe. May we have the desire to live according to God’s plan and will for our lives. Let us pray. 

You know us, Lord, inside and out. Your aim is not only to measure us, but to help straighten us to bear the load and weight of life. We do so feeling sometimes burdened, but more often than not, feeling glad to uphold our duties, to be part of our families and homes, to be alive in your presence. We give you thanks and worship you as the king of our hearts and of the entire universe. In your holy name we pray, Amen.