Patrick Comerford
We are continuing in Ordinary Time in the Church Calendar and this week began on Sunday with the Thirteenth Sunday after Trinity (Trinity XIII). The Church Calendar today remembers the Beheading of Saint John the Baptist (29 August).
Before today begins, I am taking some quiet time this morning to give thanks, for reflection, prayer and reading in these ways:
1, today’s Gospel reading;
2, a reflection on the Gospel reading;
3, a prayer from the USPG prayer diary;
4, the Collects and Post-Communion prayer of the day.
Matthew 14:1-12 (NRSVA):
1 At that time Herod the ruler heard reports about Jesus; 2 and he said to his servants, ‘This is John the Baptist; he has been raised from the dead, and for this reason these powers are at work in him.’ 3 For Herod had arrested John, bound him, and put him in prison on account of Herodias, his brother Philip’s wife, 4 because John had been telling him, ‘It is not lawful for you to have her.’ 5 Though Herod wanted to put him to death, he feared the crowd, because they regarded him as a prophet. 6 But when Herod’s birthday came, the daughter of Herodias danced before the company, and she pleased Herod 7 so much that he promised on oath to grant her whatever she might ask. 8 Prompted by her mother, she said, ‘Give me the head of John the Baptist here on a platter.’ 9 The king was grieved, yet out of regard for his oaths and for the guests, he commanded it to be given; 10 he sent and had John beheaded in the prison. 11 The head was brought on a platter and given to the girl, who brought it to her mother. 12 His disciples came and took the body and buried it; then they went and told Jesus.
Today’s Reflection:
It is about six weeks since the Sunday Gospel reading told the story of the execution of Saint John the Baptist (Mark 6: 14-29) and a little more than two months since we commemorated the Birth of Saint John the Baptist (24 June 2024). Now, the Church Calendar today again marks his Beheading.
This Gospel story is full of stark, cruel, violent reality. To achieve this dramatic effect, it is told with recall, flashback or with the use of the devise modern movie-makers call ‘back story.’
Cruel Herod has already executed Saint John the Baptist – long ago. Now he hears about the miracles and signs being worked by Jesus and his disciples.
Some people think that Saint John the Baptist has returned, even though John has been executed by Herod. Others think Jesus is Elijah – and popular belief at the time expected Elijah to return at Judgment Day (Malachi 4: 5).
On the other hand, Herod, the deranged Herod who has already had John beheaded, wonders whether John is back again. And we are presented with a flashback to the story of Saint John the Baptist, how he was executed in a moment of passion, how Herod grieved, and how John was buried.
When I was reflecting on this story in Saint Mark’s Gospel last month (Sunday 14 July 2024, Trinity VII) is asked: Did you ever get mistaken for someone else? Or, do you ever wonder whether the people you work with, or who are your neighbours, really know who you are?
I was thinking then of two examples. Anthony Hope Hawkins was the son of the Vicar of Saint Bride’s in Fleet Street, the Revd Edwards Comerford Hawkins. He was walking home to his father’s vicarage in London one dusky evening when he came face-to-face with a man who looked like his mirror image.
He wondered what would happen if they swapped places, if this double went back to Saint Bride’s vicarage, while he headed off instead to the suburbs. Would anyone notice? It inspired him, under the penname of Anthony Hope, to write his best-selling novel, The Prisoner of Zenda.
The other example I think of is the way I often hear people put themselves down with sayings such as: ‘If they only knew what I’m really like … if they only knew what I’m truly like …’
What are you truly like?
And would you honestly want to swap your life for someone else’s?
Would you take on all their woes, and angsts and burdens, along with their way of life?
It is a recurring theme for poets, writers and philosophers over the centuries. It was the theme in John Boorman’s movie The Tiger’s Tail (2006). Brendan Gleeson plays both the main character and his protagonist. Is he his doppelgänger, a forerunner warning of doom, destruction and death? Or is he the lost twin brother who envies his achievements and lifestyle?
The doppelgänger was regarded as a harbinger of doom and death. There is a way in which Saint John the Baptist is seen as the harbinger of the death of his own cousin, Christ.
The account of Saint John’s execution anticipates the future facing Christ and some of the disciples, and Christ’s own burial (see Mark 15: 45-47). The idea that John might be raised from the dead anticipates Christ’s resurrection.
As well as attracting similar followers and having similar messages, did these two cousins, in fact, look so like one another physically?
But Herod had known John the Baptist, he knew him as a righteous and a holy man, and he protected him. Why, he even liked to listen to John.
Do you think Herod was confused about the identities of Christ and of Saint John the Baptist?
Is Herod so truly deranged that he can believe someone he has executed, whose severed head he has seen, could come back to life in such a short period?
Or is Herod’s reaction merely one of exasperation and exhaustion: ‘Oh no! Not that John, back again!’
We too are forerunners, sent out to be signs of the Kingdom of God. To be a disciple is to follow a risky calling – or at least it ought to be so.
To be a disciple is to follow a risky calling – or at least it ought to be so.
I once had a poster with a grumpy looking judge and the words, ‘If you were accused of being a Christian, would there be enough evidence to convict you?’
Last Sunday’s Gospel reading told of how Christ sent out the disciples, two by two, inviting people into the Kingdom of God. But they are beginning to realise that the authorities are rejecting Christ.
Now with Herod’s maniacal and capricious way of making decisions, discipleship has become an even more risk-filled commitment.
But Herod’s horrid banquet runs right into the next story in Saint Mark’s Gospel where Christ feeds the 5,000, a sacramental sign of the invitation to all to the heavenly banquet – more than we can imagine can be fed in any human undertaking.
The invitation to Herod’s banquet, for the privileged and the prejudiced, is laden with the smell of death.
The invitation to Christ’s banquet, for the marginalised and the rejected, is laden with the promise of life.
Herod feeds the prejudices of his own family and a closed group of courtiers. Christ shows that, despite the initial prejudices of the disciples, all are welcome to his banquet.
Herod is in a lavish palace in his city, but is isolated and deserted. Christ withdraws to an open but deserted place to be alone, but a great crowd follows him.
Herod fears the crowd beyond his palace gates. Christ rebukes the disciples for wanting to keep the crowds away.
Herod offers his daughter half his kingdom. Christ offers us all, as God’s children, the fullness of the kingdom of God.
Herod’s daughter asks for John’s head on a platter. On the mountainside, Christ feeds all.
Our lives are filled with choices.
Herod chooses loyalty to his inner circle and their greed. Christ tells his disciples to make a choice in favour of those who need food and shelter.
Herod’s banquet leads to destruction and death. Christ’s banquet is an invitation to building the kingdom and to new life.
Would I rather be at Herod’s Banquet for the few in the palace or with Christ as he feeds the masses in the wilderness?
Who would you invite to the banquet?
And who do you think feels excluded from the banquet?
We may never get the chance to be like Herod when it comes to lavish banqueting and decadent partying. But we have an opportunity to be party to inviting the many to the banquet that really matters.
Who feels turned away from the banquet by the Church today, abandoned and left to fend for themselves?
And, in our response to their needs, when we become signs of the Kingdom of God, we provide evidence enough to convict us when we are accused of being Christians.
Today’s Prayers (Thursday 29 August 2024, the Beheading of Saint John the Baptist):
The theme this week in ‘Pray With the World Church,’ the Prayer Diary of the Anglican mission agency USPG (United Society Partners in the Gospel), is the ‘Theological Education Executive Leadership Programme in Africa.’ The course is expected to start in August 2024 and run until December 2025, and this theme was introduced on Sunday with a programme update from Fran Mate, Regional Manager Africa, USPG.
The USPG Prayer Diary today (Thursday 29 August 2024) invites us to pray:
We pray for the smooth running of the Theological Education Executive Leadership Programme as it begins in September.
The Collect:
Almighty God,
who called your servant John the Baptist
to be the forerunner of your Son in birth and death:
strengthen us by your grace
that, as he suffered for the truth,
so we may boldly resist corruption and vice
and receive with him the unfading crown of glory;
through Jesus Christ your Son our Lord,
who is alive and reigns with you,
in the unity of the Holy Spirit,
one God, now and for ever.
The Post Communion Prayer:
Merciful Lord,
whose prophet John the Baptist
proclaimed your Son as the Lamb of God
who takes away the sin of the world:
grant that we who in this sacrament
have known your forgiveness and your life–giving love
may ever tell of your mercy and your peace;
through Jesus Christ our Lord.
Father Irenaeus, a monk in the Monastery of Saint Macarius in Wadi Natrun in Egypt, shows me the relics in the crypt of Saint John the Baptist below the northern wall of the church (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)Yesterday’s reflection
Continued tomorrow
Scripture quotations are from the New Revised Standard Version Bible: Anglicised Edition copyright © 1989, 1995, National Council of the Churches of Christ in the United States of America. Used by permission. All rights reserved worldwide. http://nrsvbibles.org
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