In 1987, Chuck Colson wrote a book titled KINGDOMS IN CONFLICT. Colson was a mover and shaker in the Presidency of Richard Nixon. He was known as Nixon's hatchet man. And he went to jail for his role in the Watergate scandal. While in prison Colson had a genuine conversion experience and today he is a leading spokesperson for evangelical Christianity. He has first-hand experience of kingdoms in conflict.
Our story from Mark's Gospel concerns a man caught in a conflict. His name is Herod. Thinking about Herod reminds me of a census taker in West Virginia who was climbing to a cabin nestled high up on a mountain side when he met a youngster.
He asked the boy, "Do you live around here?" "Yep," the young man answered, "up in that cabin." "Good," said the census taker, "is your daddy home?" "Naw," said the young man, "he's in the state pen." "Well, is your mother home?" asked the census taker. "Nope," replied the young fellow, "she's in the house of correction." "Do you have a brother?" asked the census taker. "Yep," said the young man. "Where is he?" asked the census taker hopefully. "He's at Harvard," replied the young man. "Harvard! What's he studying?" asked the census taker. "He ain't studying nothing, mister," the boy answered. "They're studying him." (1)
Herod makes for an interesting study. We've run across the name Herod before in the New Testament. Herod was the name of the dynasty under Rome that ruled Jewish Palestine from 37 B.C. until 70 A.D. There were several prominent members of this dynasty. It was Herod the Great who ordered the Slaughter of the Innocents in Matthew's account of the birth of Jesus. The Herod in today's account is Herod Antipas, a descendent. When Herod Antipas heard about Jesus and his amazing miracles, his first thought was that Jesus was John the Baptist come back to life again. Perhaps it was wishful thinking borne out of guilt.
It was Herod Antipas who sent soldiers to arrest and imprison John the Baptist because John kept saying it was wrong for the king to marry Herodias, his brother Philip's wife. Herodias wanted John killed in revenge, but without Herod's approval she was powerless. And Herod respected John, knowing that he was a good and holy man, and so he kept him under his protection. Herod was disturbed whenever he talked with John, but even so he liked to listen to him. Herodias' chance finally came, however. It was Herod's birthday and he gave a stag party for his palace aides, army officers, and the leading citizens of Galilee. As part of the festivities Herodias' daughter Salome, Herod's stepdaughter, came in and danced for the men and was sensational. "Ask me for anything you like," the king vowed, "even half of my kingdom, and I will give it to you!" Salome went out and consulted her mother, who told her, "Ask for John the Baptist's head!" So Salome hurried back to the king and told him, "I want the head of John the Baptist--right now--on a tray!" The king was sorry he had made this vow to her, but he was embarrassed to go back on his word in front of his guests. So he sent one of his bodyguards to the prison to cut off John's head and bring it to him. And the soldier did just that. And the head of John the Baptist was brought to Salome on a tray and she took it to her mother. It's a yucky story.
What a terrible burden of guilt for Herod Antipas. He had allowed an innocent man--a man whom he admired--to be put to death simply because he did not want to be embarrassed in front of his friends. James Russell Lowell wrote these haunting words:
"Once to every man and nation /Comes the moment to decide
In the strife of truth with falsehood /For the good or evil side
Some great cause God's new Messiah /Offering each the bloom or blight
And the choice goes by forever /Twixt the darkness and the light." (2)
Herod was a man caught in the conflict between good and evil, darkness and light. Kingdoms in conflict.
"Jesus came preaching the kingdom of God," says the author of the Gospel of Mark. Jesus knew that it was only a matter of time before conflict would come between men and women who followed him and those in positions of authority. Intense commitment always brings conflict. This is the conflict that Chuck Colson discovered in his life. Many of you face it too. Ethical indecision, moral compromise, spiritual surrender. There is a price to be paid when our decisions are influenced by greed rather than by God. John Paul Getty, one of the world's wealthiest men, said: "I would to trade my whole fortune for just one happy marriage." How sad.
There are basically three kinds of conflict that come to all of us. SOME CONFLICTS ARE INTERNAL. They are conflicts that go on in our own mind and heart. Others may not even be aware of the battle we are fighting within. Should I do this or should I do that? Should I give this up or should I give that up? We see this kind of conflict taking place in Herod. Even though Herod has locked up John the Baptist in prison, he feared John, protected him, and actually sought his guidance. Here we see a strange mixture of error and truth battling for control of the mind and spirit of this man, Herod. It is like there is a civil war going on in his brain.
You and I have been there, haven't we? If only life were simpler. If only there was only one side to every issue--if we did not have to make choices--if we did not have to prioritize.
Herod had a choice to make between being embarrassed in front of his friends and letting a good man die. And the consequences of that choice haunted him for the rest of his life. But that is the first kind of conflict--internal. When the choice is between that which we know to be good and that which we know to be evil, we had better choose the better side. There is a terrible price to be paid when we choose wrongly.
Several years after inventing radar, Sir Robert Watson Watt was arrested in Canada for speeding--in a radar trap. Afterwards he wrote this poem:
Pity Sir Robert Watson Watt, /strange target of his radar plot,
And this, with others I could mention, /A victim of his own invention.
We become a victim of our own wrong choices. That's internal conflict.
THE SECOND KIND OF CONFLICT IS EXTERNAL. This is the conflict between ourselves and others. Some of this conflict is necessary and good. When people confront us because we are standing for Christ, this is conflict to be welcomed. When we are in conflict because of pride or because we are in the wrong, this is to be avoided.
There is a silly story about a man who walks into a bar and says, "Bartender, give me two shots." The bartender asks, "You want them both now or one at a time?" The guy says, "Oh, I want them both now. One's for me and one's for this little guy here," and he pulls a 3-inch-high man out of his pocket. The bartender asks, "He can drink?" "Oh, sure," says the man, "He can drink." So the bartender pours the shots and sure enough, the little guy drinks it all up. "That's amazing" says the bartender. "What else can he do, can he walk?" The man flicks a quarter down to the end of the bar and says, "Hey, Jake. Go get that." The little guy runs down to the end of the bar and picks up the quarter. Then he runs back down and gives it to the man. The bartender is in total shock. "That's amazing" he says, "what else can he do? Does he talk?" The man says "Sure he talks. Hey, Jake, tell him about that time we were hunting in Africa and YOU CALLED THAT WITCH DOCTOR AN IDIOT!" (3) Not all conflict is healthy or desirable. But some conflict is unavoidable. "Be careful," said Jesus, "when all men speak well of you." (Luke 6:26)
As the disciples went forward to do the work Christ had called them to, they stirred the soul and spirit of Herod's kingdom. His power was being challenged. His empire was being threatened. Evil always responds with fear and anger when light or love appears on the scene. At such a time conflict is unavoidable.
Some scholars believe this story appears at this junction in the gospel of St. Mark to teach the disciples that Christianity is not a trip to Disney World but a question of destiny and discipleship, life and death. The reality is stark. The struggle is intense. The stakes are high. The shadow of the cross looms large in the background.
When we attempt to live a life worthy of the gospel it is because our understanding of "worth" is far different from the world's. John the Baptist was not beheaded because he went along with the status quo. John gave his life because of his commitment to truth as he understood it. Much like Dietrich Bonhoeffer and his struggles with Nazism and Hitler. Being a pastor in the German Lutheran Church, Bonhoeffer was forced to choose. Loyalty to God or to an insane ruler. He was executed in 1945 for the opposition he voiced to the satanic rule of Hitler. As G.K. Chesterton so concisely wrote: "It is not that Christianity has been tried and found wanting, but tried and found difficult." Life has many roads to travel. However, we choose the road on which the shadow of the cross falls. It always leads to freedom and to victory when the final lap of the race is run. Some 2000 years later, we speak of the reigns of the Herods and Caesars with pity and disdain, but the names of John the Baptist and Jesus Christ live on as those for whom life was lived with devotion and courage.
There are internal conflicts and external conflicts. BOTH OF THESE GROW OUT OF A THIRD FORM OF CONFLICT--AND THAT IS SPIRITUAL CONFLICT. There are those times in life when God shows us a higher calling and gives us a choice--to respond or not to respond.
Sister Mary Scullion lives in a 4th floor cell at a former Franciscan convent that is now home for 25 male addicts in various stages of recovery. Inspired by Mother Teresa and others in 1976, at a Eucharistic Congress, Sister Mary began to see the hungry and homeless in her midst in her hometown of Philadelphia. And a conflict began in her soul. "Before this I would go to Mass and think I was fulfilling my obligation," she says. "But now, I began to see that there really was hunger in our city and around the world, and I came to realize how much more needs to be done." She was teaching 7th grade math and working toward a degree in social work, when she volunteered at Mercy Hospice, working with the homeless. Later, she would found a shelter for women, called Women of Hope. Other things followed. Along the way she met Joan Dawson-McConnon, at that time a graduate student with a degree in accounting and soon to have a master's in taxation. Joan had the same Christian impulses as Sister Mary and soon they were working together. Today the two--Sister Mary Scullion and Joan Dawson-McConnon--oversee a program with a six million dollar budget that provides shelter, education and rehabilitation of both people and neighborhoods that has become a model far and wide. (4)
Sister Mary and her friend Joan heard the call of God. They were raised from internal and external conflicts to the stature of spiritual conflict. They had a decision to make before God to go on with their lives as if they had never heard God's call or to give themselves to something greater than themselves.
I wonder what kind of conflict you brought into this room. Someone in this room is in internal conflict. You are being asked to do something you know is against your values. The stakes are high. Some of you may be experiencing external conflict with someone who is opposing you, hurting you, perhaps even persecuting you. What I hope, though, is that you are in spiritual conflict. I hope that you hear God's call to serve God's people, and that you are on the verge of saying, "Yes" to God. Losing an argument with God is the best conflict you will ever know.
1. Thanks to Dr. William Schwien of Carmel UMC, Carmel, Indiana for this story.
2. THE BOOK OF HYMNS, The United Methodist Publishing House, 1979, Hymn No. 242.
3. From the Internet. Source unknown.
4. NATIONAL CATHOLIC REPORTER, 12-10-99, pp. 3-4, PROJECT H.O.M.E.--Broken Lives Are Mended in North Philadelphia Program" by Tom Roberts.