Memorial of the Passion of Saint John the Baptist
The story we encounter in Mark today is a story of a very powerful man (King Herod) who as king can hand out punishments as easily as rewards. And whether he does the former or the latter is entirely up to him. While his wife (Herodias) undoubtedly enjoys many privileges, she doesn’t have anything like the power of her husband. If she wants to get something done, she has to go through the king or work in the shadows.
Perhaps most people back in the days of Herod’s reign and apparently a whole lot of people today think that sort of uneven power distribution among men and women is just fine. Does this story confirm that understanding?
In this scene, King Herod is throwing a party for himself. It’s his birthday, and he has invited very important, powerful people—his courtiers, his military officers, and the leading men of Galilee. It’s an impressive gathering to be sure. In the course of the evening, some entertainment offered. It comes in the form of a young female dancer (Herod’s daughter, to be specific). Though she is the daughter of a king her power in this scene is nearly nonexistent. Her job is to dance in the hope of winning the king’s favor.
It turns out that she does. Delighted by her performance and feeling the strength and breadth of his power, he boasts to her and to all those important people at the party that that she can have anything she wants. All she has to do is ask him for it. What an incredible display of his power—to think he could grant any wish.
And how pitifully thoughtless. He places no limits—no ethical or moral limit on the demand a young girl might make. Perhaps in his hubris he failed to consider the possibility that a girl might ask for something significant.
But it turns out that there’s much more going on here. In a culture in which women cannot exercise power directly or publicly, they are obliged (if they want to exercise power at all) to work behind the scenes. Thus Herodias, long wanting to rid herself of the threat that John the Baptist posed to the legitimacy of her marriage to the king, obliges the girl to demand his head. In a single horrible utterance, the girl makes her “request”—the head of John the Baptist.
And because of all his posturing and hubris and showmanship of his power, Herod is obliged to grant the request.
When, as in patriarchy, some people have so much power in proportion to others everyone pays. On Mark’s telling, it cost us all the blessed John the Baptist.
Lord have mercy on us all.
- Sue Trollinger