We’re going to go for a little stroll away from today’s story about King Herod murdering John the Baptist, but only so that we can wander back.
In Mark chapter 8, Mark’s Jesus is in the boat with his mates because they’re sick of arguing with the Pharisees. Jesus says to them ‘beware of the leaven of the Pharisees and the leaven of Herod’. The disciples, who are cast by Mark in the role of idiot sidekicks, say ‘oh, Jesus is grumpy because we’ve run out of bread’. Jesus cracks it.
Why are you talking about having no bread? Do you still not perceive or understand? Are your hearts hardened? Do you have eyes, and fail to see? Do you have ears, and fail to hear? And do you not remember? When I broke the five loaves for the five thousand, how many baskets full of broken pieces did you collect?’ They said to him, ‘Twelve.’ ‘And the seven for the four thousand, how many baskets full of broken pieces did you collect?’ And they said to him, ‘Seven.’ Then he said to them, ‘Do you not yet understand?
They really didn’t understand.
The word leaven, or zume is often translated as yeast. But obviously it didn’t come in a nice little packet so you could add it to your dough. It was more like those sourdough starters that all the cool kids have. It’s a bit of fermented dough that you can add to flour to turn it into bread that rises. The thing about leaven, or starter, is that once it’s in, you can’t get it out again. To the Jesus of Mark’s gospel, both the moral and legal teaching of the Pharisees, and the corrupt governance of Herod and his chums at the Temple, are a pervasive evil. They’ve infected the Jewish people.
But Mark’s Jesus then points to an entirely different type of bread. The bread that was shared at two recent events depicted in Mark’s gospel. Most recently, there was the feeding of four thousand Gentiles. This happened near a Greek-speaking Roman settlement which is one of a group of ten Romanised settlements called the Decapolis. (It might have been Be’it Shan. I’ve visited the ruins there and sat on one of the Roman dunnies.) In that story, Jesus takes seven loaves, feeds four thousand people, then has seven baskets of leftovers. The number seven symbolises perfection or completeness, so perhaps the story is a foretaste of the way the good news will spread beyond the Jewish people and reach all people of the world.
Before the miraculous feeding of four thousand Gentiles is the miraculous feeding of five thousand Jews. That story takes places somewhere on the shores of Lake Galilee, and the only food the disciples can find is five loaves and two fish. (If you do the maths, you’ll notice another sneaky seven there.) The feeding of five thousand Jews has twelve baskets of leftovers. Twelve, of course, is the number of tribes of Israel (the sons of Jacob), and also conveniently the number of Jesus apostles, and so the leftovers could be taken to represent the fullness of the Jewish nation being fed with plenty to spare. Or something.
So Jesus warns them of the leaven, or pervasive evil, of Herod - then draws their attention to the two big mass-feeding banquet events that they have recently been a part of.
So let’s now take a look at what happened at Herod’s place.
King Herod Antipas had married Phasaelis, but then divorced her to marry Herodias, who had the peculiar distinction of being both his niece and his sister-in-law. Herodias brought her daughter Salome with her into the new marriage. We assume that the dancing daughter in Mark’s gospel is Salome, because there wouldn’t have been time for Herod and Herodias to have a daughter of dancing age by the time of this story. The truth is that the whole story is kind of fanciful, and may have been more like an ‘urban myth’ that Mark picks up, rather than a factual report. But at any rate, let’s read the story as we have it in the text.
Herod is both afraid of and fascinated by John the Baptist. The text suggests that Herod has been to see John live in concert, and may have appreciated his style and charisma. Nevertheless, Herod has John captured and thrown in jail. Josephus says it’s because Herod was worried that John would start a rebellion. Mark says it’s because John had chastised Herod for marrying his brother’s missus. Either way, John was in the chokey. But Herodias apparently still had it in for John.
It’s Herod’s birthday. Happy Birthday, Herod! There’s a big party. All the men are in one room, and all the women in another. This was the fashion at the time. Weirdly, and somewhat creepily, Herod’s step-daughter dances for the blokes. There’s nothing to say that the dance was erotic, and it certainly wasn’t the dance of the seven veils – that part was Oscar Wilde and Richard Strauss getting carried away. But, it’s hard to imagine that a member of the royal family would dance for an gathering of bureaucrats. Nevertheless, this is the story that Mark reports, and apparently her dancing is so good that Herod wants to reward her. There’s a bit of literary appropriation when Herod offers her as much as half the kingdom – it’s a well-known phrase borrowed from King Ahasuerus in the book of Esther. Salome runs into the other room and consults with Mum, who tells her to ask for John’s head on a platter. Herod begrudgingly complies.
So let’s compare the feasts.
Herod’s feast is the feast of a ruthless puppet leader, celebrating himself surrounded by his sycophants, ogling his daughter and making grandiose offers. This feast is for his elites, the powerful administrators of his client kingdom. Invitation only. The climax of the feast is a murder. And not just any murder – the gory execution of one who called for Jews to be holy and righteous. John’s head on a platter in the middle of Herod’s banquet is a devastating indictment of Herod’s corruption, which is Rome’s corruption, which is the Temple’s corruption. The imagery is unmistakeable.
Contrast this with the very next story in Mark. Sitting on the grass by the lake, in groups of fifty or a hundred. Jesus takes the bread, blesses and breaks it, and there is food enough to go around, with an abundance left over.
But as if that’s not enough, there’s a third feast to drive home what Jesus is really about. Surrounded by foreigners who speak another language, and presumably worship other gods (I’ve seen the shrines). In a Roman city, built as a kind of ‘home away from home’ for Roman military and business personnel and their families. Jesus shares the bread with them too, thousands of them. He gives thanks, breaks the bread, shares it, and there’s a massive surplus left over there as well.
I like to read the three banquets as a story of destruction and redemption. At Herod’s banquet, we see the unjust, immoral reality of first century Judea under Roman rule. At the feeding of the five thousand Jews, we see an alternative vision for Jesus’ own people, something pure and refreshing, akin to the Israelites eating manna from God in the wilderness. And in the story of the feeding of four thousand Gentiles, we see the feast spread from one person in one place, to all people in every place. It is the story of the good news in three glorious parts.
But the truth, I suspect, is that many of us would prefer Herod’s banquet, at least some of the time. The food is better. The beautiful, important men are there. It’s close to the seat of power. It’s glamorous and bit risqué. Jesus’ banquets, on the other hand, are a bit basic. Honestly, sitting on the grass sharing a loaf of bread with strangers? Is that even COVID-safe?
The banquets of Jesus, including at this table, are not fancy affairs – no matter how much ceremony or music or poetry we put around them. We don’t come to the feast because we are part of a powerful elite, or a chosen inner circle. We come to hear the words of eternal life, and stay to share a simple meal with our neighbours. And to ready ourselves for the New Creation, where there is food enough for all and no one is ignored, where no one is more powerful than anyone else, and selfishness has no place, where instead of a death there is only life, and life in abundance.
The Lord Be With You