I once had a colleague who was generally acknowledged by the rest of the staff to be a very good hater.  

When I was new, they quietly warned me about her. 

She had a particular contempt for religion and was looking forward to the prospect of a new chaplain.  Apparently, she had said so. 

Soon enough, it did, indeed, turn out that I was on her list, not that I ever knew why.  

More to the point, I was in great company. 

The list of her contempt was a long one. 

She could get in a dig at your expense quicker than just about anyone, like a Don Rickles who didn’t smile and who wasn’t actually kidding.  

Needless to say, most of the time, she ate lunch with one or two specific other people.  

One was more or less like her.  

The other was totally different.  

She was so kind that she’d stick up for anyone, even an umpire who made a bad call during a game she hadn’t actually seen in a sport she didn’t actually follow.  

If her other two lunch companions were very good haters, she was almost the least talented person at hating you could think of, and being around them didn’t seem to faze or corrupt her.  

Somehow, it all just managed to roll off her.  

Of course, it also meant that when you were in her presence, you couldn’t get away with hating the haters. 

There was no trying out a little dig or two of your own, no keeping your antennae up for a glimmer of recognition or appreciation from her – no hope for an eye roll or a momentary smirk.  

Nope.

It was some serious Zen master technique, if you think about it, because the harder you tried to get my kind colleague to play along, the clearer it became that you weren’t nearly so different, nor nearly so untalented in the art of hating as you wanted to believe you were.  

Her behavior was a mirror like that.  

II.

So as we think about this morning’s gospel, I wonder if Mark has one eye in the mirror as he tells us about Herod.  

Herod was significantly hate-able guy, and Herod knew it.  

In addition to the testimony of the gospels themselves, there are historical records that suggest cruelties even more extreme, which I actually won’t get into. 

Rest assured that, true or not, even if these anecdotes were just part of the loreabout the Herodian dynasty, then the gospels are leaving a tremendous amount unsaid.   

If the point was to make readers really really hate Herod, there was a lot more they could have included. 

But they don’t.  

In fact, Mark does something a lot more interesting.  

He describes this evening in Herod’s court with a few particularly icky details.  

The daughter dancing in front of Herod and all his friends.  

The king overcome with creepy delight, promising her up to half his kingdom.  

Her running into the next room to ask her mother how to respond, and her mother taking the opportunity to eliminate a rival in a particularly gruesome way—particularly at a banquet.  

Roman emperors did stuff like this, and the example would not have been lost on Herod’s guests.  

And yet the thing that gets me about Herod is not his shocking cruelty so much as his gaping emptiness. 

I don’t mean to downplay the cruelty.  

But Mark is sure to let us know that Herod has resisted this until now.  

He tells us that Herod has been speaking with John the Baptist, that, in fact, despite all expectations to the contrary, Herod actually likes to listen to what John has to say.  

(Wouldn’t you love to know what that was? I would.) 

Herod is a person who has done so much wrong, and yet John seems to see something else in him, to hold out hope for him. 

John’s whole thing was calling people to account, and that was a dangerous game with Herod in the best of circumstances, much less when he has you imprisoned in the basement of his palace.  

Nobody would have blamed John for hating Herod – he had every reason to – but it seems as if he didn’t.  

Whenever he called people to account, it wasn’t from a place of hatred.  

And whatever he said to Herod, Herod didn’t hate him for saying it.  

III.

Sometimes people can be quick to shoot the messenger. 

Have you ever had to deliver a message someone didn’t want to hear?  

It gets personal very quickly – at least, it can, can’t it? 

It was for Herod’s wife, after all.  She’s out for blood, and that’s that. 

And yet, for Herod, not so much. 

Because if you think about it, John the Baptist down in that dungeon may be the only person who loves Herod enough to try telling him the truth.  

John is only one who will give voice to the thoughts in Herod’s own head – the doubts and regrets that he already has for what he’s done. 

Deeper than any of his dungeons is the desire of Herod’s heart for a new and better path forward.  

This foolish public vow he makes after his daughter’s dance: is the point that he’s just gross? 

Or is the point a more subtle one, that, given what his life has become, Herod would give literally anything for one moment of actual connection or actualjoy?  

And yet, given what his life has become, he can’t even have a moment. 

Whenever he opens his mouth, his words just unleash some new horrific freak show.  

John the Baptist is the only one who speaks different words to him, and who offers a way for Herod to imagine speaking words of life instead of death.  

If we went around this room, I suspect it would not take us long to name the words of life that we’ve been blessed to receive along the way. 

For all the moments when faith and hope and God can feel hard to find, there are other moments when words of life hit the ground like Dorothy in the “Wizard of Oz,” when everything goes from black and white to technicolor.  

They are not always easy words. 

Yes, sometimes those words are things like, “I love you, too,” or “welcome home,” or “you’re cured.” 

Sometimes they are things like, “you need help,” or “I need help” or “something’s not working” or “this isn’t right.” 

Life is often good but rarely easy.  

Nevertheless, we know when the truth comes out and real life – new life — beckons.  

When it does, we must be brave enough to say yes. 

Herod does not find it in himself to be that brave. 

Even so, I think Mark wants us to be very very careful about indulging the temptation simply to hate him, or to refuse to bother trying to understand him.   

We live at a moment when cartoonish perspectives are all around us. 

Fear, distrust, and even hatred are “in” right now, and the effort involved in seeking actual understanding can feel like a heavy and thankless lift.   

But in his own time, John the Baptist didn’t think it was.  

Jesus didn’t think it was.  

Their faith in words of life, and in the God who speaks the world into being, was unshakeable.  

Their delight was far too great. 

All those people whose lives they touched, who had found the courage to say yes to a life that was close to God, accountable to God, and which glorified God, had reaffirmed their every hope.  

That hope was so deep that they wanted it even for Herod, just as they want it for you and me today. 

Let’s keep wanting that for one another, and humbly, for ourselves — especially now. 

And I hope we turn out to be remembered later on for how we became really really bad at hating, and how we helped the world to find its way. 

Amen.