Nestled into the midst of this sordid tale is the curious line in verse 20 that Herod liked to listen to John. What do we make of that? Did he like to listen to John in the way a man might enjoy watching a trained monkey or the antics of a pet dog? Was John the Baptist a kind of court jester for Herod—someone whose wild-eyed, red-faced, veins-popping-out-of-his-neck preaching helped to pass the hours on lazy palace afternoons? Or did he like to listen to John because something about John's bracing honesty and impassioned words about the kingdom of God were getting through to Herod? It's hard to say, though the former may have some weight in that we know that John had confronted this King Herod (see the Textual Points for more information on Herod Antipas) over his very public affair with his sister-in-law. That sufficiently angered Herod to have John jailed but the message surely never penetrated Herod's thick skull (nor his hidebound heart). He may have liked to listen to John but he didn't take much to heart. So maybe John was a kind of court jester.

If so, maybe this is one of the earliest examples of why preaching always makes us "fools for Christ." To those whose hearts are not touched by the Holy Spirit, even the best preaching (and John's was some of the best the world has ever known) looks like a sideshow, a freak show, the weirdest thing in the world. Preachers today don't have quite the respect and social cache they once enjoyed, but most people don't burst into paroxysms of laughter and giggles when you tell them, "I'm a preacher." What we sometimes forget, however, is that at the heart of what we do as preachers (or what anyone does who witnesses to the gospel) is something that, to the mind of the wider world, is silly.

Maybe sometimes we preachers try to hard to be liked, to be respected on a par with doctors and lawyers and other white-collar professionals. And maybe that's the wrong goal—for preachers, for all gospel witnesses. If preaching meant maybe losing our heads—literally—would we still do it?