- Back in Feb. 1988 I was in college, majoring in music. I was planning on attending seminary in the fall.
- It was my dream to become an ABC Pastor. I soaked up whatever I could from people who were in ministry. I wanted to know what it was like to serve in ministry.
- I was looking for people I could model myself after.
- One day someone mentioned a news story – and this story showed me that people in ministry are flawed human beings just like everyone else.
- Pastor Jim Springfield was the pastor of Good Hope Freewill Baptist Church, in Chicago. It was a west side church that met in a storefront.
- Pastor Springfield preached about people avoiding all kinds of sin in their lives. One of the sins he railed on was gambling. He told people the Bible taught that it was a sin. He pointed to passages which supported his conviction.
- He had quit job to become pastor at the church – the job paid him $150 a week. His wife Barbara was an administrative assistant at bank – she made $25,000 a year. Their salaries didn’t cover the bills.
- The church was broken into one cold February night. Thieves made off with a television set, telephone, adding machine, electric heater and a silver chalice that was a gift to the pastor from the congregation.
- The pastor was devastated. Now, he might not have been aware of it – but his wife was a frequent user of IL lottery. Which is gambling. She combined a few birth dates and a tip from a Chinese fortune cookie combination-7-12-13-25-30-37. The day after the break-in her number was drawn. She won $1.2 million.
- Pastor Springfield was suddenly in a bad position – since he taught his parishioners that gambling was a sin, should he refuse to accept it? Or should he take the money and use it for the church’s good – support himself while he continued in ministry at the church?
- And how should he deal with questions about why his wife was playing the lottery? He said, “I prayed for her and asked the Lord to forgive her.”
- They decided to keep the money. She said she would continue to support two overseas children through a church program.
- She also used the money to fix the leak in the church ceiling, the old pews and the floor that needed some work.
- That’s all admirable. I would have been tempted to do the same thing. But this story illustrates the struggle we all face as we try to be true to our own values as Christians.
- Life itself presents opportunities every day for us to either be true to what we believe or betray our values when certain situations present themselves. I want to make the case this morning that it’s always the best policy to know what your values are and stick to them.
- Few stories from the Bible better illustrate that point than the story of Herod Antipas and John the Baptist. It’s such a troublesome story because it demonstrates the catastrophic consequences we can get ourselves into when we abandon our own values in order to achieve some other goal, like saving face or gaining acceptance or getting a leg up on others or making friends.
- Flashback – took place before Jesus’ ministry.
- This is a story about Jesus’ predecessor – some would say his mentor. John was a preacher who taught people that God was going to come and cleanse the world of evil. They ought to stop doing wrong and get ready.
- He grew a big following – including Jesus and many of those who would become Jesus’ disciples. There are more than one account of how John’s ministry ended. But it certainly ended when he was arrested by Herod Antipas.
- Antipas was called king, but really wasn’t. He was appointed by Romans to rule over one fourth of the territory that his father Herod the Great ruled.
- His father was the one who tried to have Jesus killed while Jesus was a baby in Bethlehem. Now Antipas ruled over area where Jesus grew up.
- The Herod family was like a family soap opera – brothers and sisters intermarrying mostly in order to maintain royal blood and stay in power.
- Antipas ruled Jews in Galilee and Perea, but he didn’t even attempt to set a godly example for his subjects. He lived like a pagan. He wasn’t any kind of moral or religious model for the people he ruled.
- That’s one of the reasons why John the Baptist was so popular. People wanted someone to set an example, to show them what godliness looked like, someone to stand up to Antipas and say, “You’re ruling over God’s people. One of these days you ought to start acting like it.”
- One of Antipas’ moral failings involved his brother and sister-in-law.
- Antipas had two relatives who also ruled part of their Herod the Great’s territory: Phillip and Agrippa. Slide
- His brother Agrippa was married to a woman named Herodias (also Herod the great’s granddaughter). Mark says Herodias was married to his other brother Phillip, but Mark has Agrippa and Phillip switched around in this instance. Agrippa and Herodias had a daughter named Salome.
- Herodias was unhappy in her marriage for some reason. Herodias divorced Agrippa and married Antipas, who, if you’re keeping score at home, was both her uncle and Agrippa’s half brother.
- It was a huge royal scandal. Almost no one had the courage to call Antipas and Herodias out for this kind of behavior. It was a hot mess, and anyone who pointed that out could be arrested for saying so.
- The only person who had the moral authority to question their behavior was John the Baptist. And John did just that. He publicly said, “Antipas and Herodias are out of line. They’ve broken God’s law here.
- That was a risky thing for John to do. But people had so much respect for John that Antipas couldn’t just have John killed. He would lose what little support he had from the people of Galilee.
- Antipas did have him arrested to keep him from stirring up any more trouble. Mark’s gospel also says that Antipas respected John as a teacher. He didn’t like John confronting him about his marriage, but he was interested in what John had to say.
- Herodias, well, not so much. She hated John for publicly shaming them. And she wasn’t the type to let things go. She waited around for the perfect opportunity to permanently get rid of John.
- She eventually found it. Antipas had a birthday party one year. To most God fearing Jews that was considered a pagan thing to do. They didn’t celebrate birthdays. But as I said, Antipas wasn’t a religious ruler.
- He had all of his royal court officials there for the party. They were partying like a bunch of pagans when Antipas came up with this great idea. He wanted to impress his guests with a little entertainment.
- He asked Herodias’ daughter Salome to come and dance for them. Now the text doesn’t come out and say this, but the implication is that she wasn’t dancing a number from her ballet recital. Her dance was downright profane. It was obscene.
- Antipas and his guests were mesmerized. I mean, can you just imagine how ridiculous this whole scene was? How can Antipas respect John as someone who speaks with authority about God, while at the same time completely disregarding what John says about moral issues like adultery and divorce?
- And isn’t there a moral problem with trotting Salome out like an object to entertain his guests in this way? Where do his values really lie? Where does his allegiance really lie?
- He soon got a chance to answer that question. He was so overwhelmed by Salmome’s performance that he said something kind of stupid – he offered to give her a gift in return for entertaining them.
- The problem is that he offered her anything she wanted. Even if she wanted half of his kingdom, she could have it. Salome was young; she was overwhelmed by such an offer. So she told him to hang on for a second.
- She took Herodias aside and asked her, “Mom, what should I do?” That was the moment Herodias had been waiting for. She told Salome, “Ask him to bring you the head of John the Baptist on a platter!”
- Now Salome probably didn’t understand the meaning of this bizarre, gruesome request. Antipas probably had prisoners beheaded on a regular basis. But when she told Antipas what she wanted, he was horrified.
- He didn’t want everyone to blame him for needlessly executing someone they all respected. But he also didn’t want to get shown up in front of all his court by having to go back on his word. So did he go with what his values told him was right, or did he betray his values just to show what a powerful leader he was?
- That’s the kind of conundrum we’re all so often faced with, from the time we’re teenagers and someone is passing us a bottle of booze to the time we have an opportunity to be in an intimate relationship we know is wrong, to the time when we’re tempted to go along with people who are ridiculing another person for no fault of their own.
- When you’re being challenged to betray your values, you know it. You can feel it in your gut. You may not always pay attention to that feeling. You may be so mesmerized like Antipas that you stop asking yourself what’s right.
- There are a couple of things this passage can teach us about being true to our own values. The first is we should avoid putting ourselves into a position where we know we´ll be tempted to go against our values.
- Antipas should have never made Salome the kind of offer he made her. In fact, it was inappropriate to ask his own wife’s daughter to dance like that in front of all of these men. As someone who respected John the Baptist and liked John’s teaching, he knew better.
- If drinking lowers your inhibitions and makes it easier for you to justify going against your own values, then it’s your responsibility to think a week ahead in your schedule and ask yourself, “I know I’m going to this party. I know I’m going to that event. How can I make smart choices? How do I avoid being blindsided by the Salome in my life?”
- If you have that one friend or relative you like but who still makes racial slurs or insulting remarks about others, you owe it to yourself to think ahead about how you’re going to handle that. How do you keep from just going along with what they say?
- Because if you do, you’re going to know you’ve just compromised your values. You’re going to know that God is looking down at you, shaking his head. So it’s better to think ahead and not put yourself in those kinds of situations in the first place.
- That’s not just something your parents used to tell you. It is you doing yourself a favor. It is an important way of being obedient to God.
- The other thing this passage tells us is that if you do get into one of those situations, it’s always better to stick to your values. Right up to the very end you can make the choice to do the right thing and be true to your own faith values.
- Antipas didn’t have to go along with Herodias. His life would have gone on just fine even if he lost face by saying to Salome, “You know what dear, I made a mistake. I’m not willing to do that. What else can I give you?”
- In the long run he would have been more at peace with himself. His administration would have survived a moment of embarrassment. We wouldn’t be talking about it 2000 years later.
- You can do the same thing in your life when you’re confronted with the temptation to betray your values. Right up to the end you can say, “Sorry, I’m not going to go back on who I am and what I believe.”
- Life will go on. People will still like you. But most important, you will be at peace with God and with yourself. Bad choices do not usually lead to good choices – but to more bad choices. This is something we worry about with our children. We want to have them make good choices so that their chance for making more good choices will be increased.
- We can avoid betraying ourselves and our faith in our own lives if we will follow a simple plan:
- Listen for the voice of God. In Psalm 85 the Psalmist says “Let me hear what God the Lord will speak…”. When God speaks, peace follows. That voice, the voice of God, the voice of your own values is within you. Listen to it.
- Decide to make your relationship with God the top priority of all your relationships. The consequences of our top priorities will shape the character and quality of our lives, our families and our homes.
- Keep your eyes on who you are in Christ. In Ephesians it says that we have already been blessed “with every spiritual blessing” in Christ. We don’t need to go looking for other people’s approval if we keep our focus in the right place.
- NO reward can ever take the place of the inheritance we have been promised in Christ. No matter what benefits are promised by any opportunity – none will ever surpass what we already have. Herod had gained so much of what the world has to offer, he could give half of it away in a pompous gesture.Each time we gather in worship, opportunity knocks once again. The Holy Spirit comes whispering the words of scripture, “Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places…”Herod frittered away the blessing of God in a huge bad choice. You and I sometimes miss God’s blessing in ways that do not seem so extreme.And maybe that’s more dangerous. There’s an old saying that “the devil is in the details.” It is in the details of our living where we are most vulnerable to making choices that get in the way of our relationship with God.But here we are once again.
- Gathered together as the family of Christ to receive the blessing of God and to re-center our lives in the one who gave up everything that we might lack nothing.