Saturday of the Seventeenth Week in Ordinary Time
In today's Gospel, I want to pay less attention to Herod and the fear and distress he experienced. I also want to pay less attention to John and his martyrdom. I even want to pay less attention to Christ's off screen role in this whole passage.
I really want to focus on 'the people.'
Matthew tells us that “although [Herod] wanted to kill [John], he feared the people, for they regarded him as a prophet.” Who were these people? What were their lifestyles like? Would we have been one among them?
We won't know the specifics of these questions, but I believe we can safely come to several conclusions. These people were not John's direct disciples, though they may have been baptized by him. These people likely did not include Jesus and His direct disciples, though they may have been among the 5,000 who will be fed in the very next passage. They had to have been a sizable amount of people for Herod to fear them, and they had to be more present to Herod than he perceived God, because he obviously feared them more than God. Finally, I think we can conclude, and this is where I believe we can apply this to our lives, that they cared more about the messenger than they did the message. And we need to ask ourselves if we do the same.
So what is wrong with caring more about the messenger than the message? In all reality it isn't always wrong depending on where the message originated. Caring more about your postal worker than the junk mail that shows up is both reasonable and moral. But what about when the message isn't from a credit card company, but is from the Lord. At that point do we start to make mistakes when we care more about the messenger than the message, I think so.
We see that they cared more about the messenger than the message, because Herod feared for his reputation if he killed John more than he feared their response to John's message. Herod locked John up after he condemned Herod's relationship, so the word was out, it was unlawful. But it seems that a prophet's proclamation of unlawfulness did not carry the weight to make Herod fearful, but the act of executing the prophet caused him to hesitate. Also, why was John the only one in prison for this message? In the Old Testament the people followed Moses, a prophet, into the desert! This people, however, would not follow John in declaring Herod's relationship unlawful.
Now, I might be a little harsh on 'the people.' Maybe some did speak up, but without John's reputation their voice didn't carry, and that is understandable. My point is not to condemn a group mentioned in one line of this gospel. My point is to lead us up to some questions that help tell us the value of God's message in our life. So let us ask ourselves:
How often do I value good preaching only because I was entertained and not because I was convicted?How often do I walk away from good preaching only saying “Wow. that really makes you think” instead of also saying “I really have to change...”? How often have a encountered a powerful message from the Lord, and never shared it with a soul?
We can't ask ourselves these questions once and we're done. They are life long questions and they help us when we step back and ask ourselves: Are we being just one of the people that Herod feared? Or are we disciples that experience conviction, undergo conversion and change, and share all that God shares with us?
Most times we're somewhere in between, may God always give us the grace to be His disciples more and more.
- Spencer Hargadon