*Mark 6:14-29*
Whenever I hear the story of the beheading of John the Baptist my mind always recalls William Shakespeare's King Henry the Fourth Part II, specifically Act 3, Scene 1, where for the first time the King speaks in the play. I won’t recount the entire plot, but these verses come when the King finds himself awake in the middle of the night having just received letters from his enemies that he will need his allies to read over and help him with. He sends the letters off with a page and then begins to speak alone to himself in an utter state of exhaustion:
How many thousand of my poorest subjects
Are at this hour asleep! O sleep, O gentle sleep,
Nature’s soft nurse, how have I frighted thee,
That thou no more wilt weigh my eyelids down
And steep my senses in forgetfulness?
Why rather, sleep, liest thou in smoky cribs,
Upon uneasy pallets stretching thee
And hushed with buzzing night-flies to thy slumber,
Than in the perfumed chambers of the great,
Under the canopies of costly state,
And lull’d with sound of sweetest melody?
O thou dull god, why liest thou with the vile
In loathsome beds and leavest the kingly couch
A watch-case or a common 'larum bell?
Wilt thou upon the high and giddy mast
Seal up the shipboy’s eyes, and rock his brains
In cradle of the rude imperious surge
And in the visitation of the winds,
Who take the ruffian billows by the top,
Curling their monstrous heads and hanging them
With deafening clamor in the slippery clouds
That with the hurly death itself awakes?
Canst thou, O partial sleep, give thy repose
To the wet sea-boy in an hour so rude,
And, in the calmest and most stillest night,
With all appliances and means to boot,
Deny it to a king? Then, happy low, lie down.
Uneasy lies the head that wears a crown.
In this speech the king is bitterly wondering why the poorest of his subjects can sleep at night in their tattered beds, but he, a wealthy king, is too weighed down with thought to do the same. He concludes that those in positions of power are not as carefree as those who aren't because with power comes great responsibility. In this way, I think these musings of the King relate to another King and group of people in the story of Mark’s gospel that we just heard.
A grand feast is planned to celebrate Herod, the tetrarch's birthday. Courtiers, officers and leaders of Galilee all gather for a joyous evening to honour the most powerful man in their region. The best entertainment is had, including a special dance from Herod’s stepdaughter, and oh what a dance it must have been because it is after this dance that we see so many people act irresponsible with the power they wield:
Herod offers the stepdaughter half his kingdom or anything she wants. In this drunken stupor, in his ecstatic high, Herod takes the power he has and swears it away without thought.
Then the daughter who has been given the power to have any wish granted to her takes that and passes it off to her mother.
When she returns with the request for John’s head, again Herod had a chance to use his power to refuse it, but instead of owning up to his mistake, he allowed his pride of not being seen to break an oath dictate his commands.
Herodias, it cannot be clearer where her power lies, that is with her child, and the responsibility she has as a parent to raise another human being. But blinded by her vengeance and rage, she put aside the well-being of her child for her own needs.
Lastly, even the guests at the party had power in this story, they could have stopped Herod or excused the situation, but silent they stayed as they watched the king struggle to decide and then make the command. In their complacency they relinquished their power.
But, of course, there was one other person in this story who had power, and that was John, the camel's hair, leather belt wearing, locusts and wild honey eating baptizer from the wilderness. His power was his ability to speak truth. He blessed people, he called out unlawful acts when he saw them, and he proclaimed the love that God had for all people. He was arrested for it and he was killed for it. He did not try to save face in his moment of death, he did not keep quiet to avoid arrest, and he did not use his powers for self-advancement, he embraced the responsibility of the power that he had been given, and met every consequence of it head on.
"Heavy lies the head that wears a crown". In life we all wear some sort of crown, we all hold some sort of power, whether that be with our family, our friends, our career or community, we hold power to make decisions that will affect others. So how do we use this power responsibly, what can help us? Well as this story foreshadows what it is to come in the life of Jesus, maybe we can look to the person who wore the heaviest crown, that of thorns, to help us try and use our power with love and humility like he did. I pray that this story inspire us to remain true to the power we hold in our hands and conscious of how it affects all life around us.
-Cynthia Reynolds
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