Saturday of Week 17 of Ordinary Time – Gospel

Commentary on Matthew 14:1-12

Our reading is about the death of John the Baptist at the hands of Herod. When Herod the Great died, his kingdom was divided among four of his sons. One of them, the Herod of today’s Gospel (also known as Herod Antipas), is called a “tetrarch”, meaning that he was the ruler of a fourth part, or a quarter of a territory.

Herod Antipas ruled over Galilee and Perea from 4 BC to 39 AD, that is, all during the life of Jesus and beyond. He is the same one who wanted to see Jesus, and whom Jesus called “that fox”. He is the one to whom Pilate sent Jesus during his trial. His rather painful and loathsome death is described in Acts (12:20-23). Although only a tetrarch, Matthew calls him ‘king’ because that was his popular title among the Galileans and also in Rome.

It seems that, by all accounts, Herod was a nasty man and, as revealed by today’s story, a weak and highly superstitious one as well. It is striking that, even today, many seemingly powerful people are made insecure by superstition (for example, needing to wear the same ‘lucky’ business suit or only drive or ride in a particular model of car).

Herod was hearing extraordinary things about Jesus and he came to the conclusion that Jesus was a reincarnation of John the Baptist whom he had executed for reasons he knew very well to be totally wrong. Now here was John’s spirit come back to taunt him, for he had killed God’s servant. This leads to a retelling by Matthew of the events which led to John’s death.

John, who was no respecter of persons, had openly criticised Herod for taking his half-brother Philip’s wife, Herodias, as his own partner. This was in clear contravention of the Mosaic Law. Herod’s fault was not so much in marrying a close relative, but for taking her as his wife when Philip was still living and, at the same time, putting away the wife he already had.

It was already an extraordinarily incestuous family. Herodias was a granddaughter of Herod the Great and therefore a niece of Herod Antipas. First, she married another uncle, Herod Philip, who lived in Rome. He was a half-brother, from a different mother, of Herod Antipas. It was on a visit to Rome that Herod Antipas persuaded Herodias to leave her husband for him. This, of course, was strictly forbidden by the Mosaic law:

You shall not uncover the nakedness of your brother’s wife; it is your brother’s nakedness. (Lev 18:16)

Herod, doubtless under pressure from Herodias, had wanted to rid himself of the embarrassment John was causing him, but was afraid to do anything because, in the eyes of the people, John was a prophet and spoke in the name of God.

Herodias got her chance on the occasion of Herod’s birthday. Knowing her new husband’s weaknesses, she got her daughter to dance in his presence. According to the Jewish historian Josephus, the daughter was known as Salome. She later married her granduncle, another Philip, and a son of Herod the Great who ruled over the northern territories. He is mentioned by Luke.

Whether the dance was lascivious (as old Hollywood movies have suggested) we do not know, but Herod was greatly taken by the performance. In the presence of his courtiers and very likely having drunk too much wine, he promised the girl he would give her anything she wanted, even half his kingdom. Under the prompting of her mother, she asked for the head of John the Baptist delivered on a dish. Herod was clearly appalled and also afraid, but he had made his oath in the presence of a large number of people. He could not go back. John was decapitated and his head delivered as requested. His disciples came and buried the body and then went to tell Jesus.

There are echoes in this story of Jesus’ own death. He also died because of the moral weakness of Pilate, who gave in to the threats of the Jewish leaders for the sake of his own career. Jesus’ death, too, was the result of blind hatred. And when he died his disciples arranged to have him buried.

Undoubtedly John was a martyr. He died as a witness to truth and justice in the service of God. Herod, on the other hand, put expediency and his own convenience before truth and justice. He was in an immoral relationship with a woman and he gave in to what he felt would be the criticism and perhaps the derision of others. He had indeed made an oath, but it was one that, in the circumstances, he was obliged not to observe.

With whom do I identify more? John the Baptist, the fearless champion of truth and justice? Or Herod, the vacillator, the one who compromised truth and justice because of pressure of opinion and his own personal interests? I am sure all of us can think of times when we compromised with what we knew was the good or right thing to do and took the line of less resistance.

John is an example to us of integrity. And like him, we have, each one of us, been called in our own way to be prophets, to be spokespersons for God’s way. It may not always be easy.

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Saturday of Week 17 of Ordinary Time – First Reading

Commentary on Leviticus 25:1,8-17

Today in our second and last reading from the Book of Leviticus, we read of the tradition of the Jubilee. The Jubilee was calculated as happening at the end of seven times seven sabbatical years, in other words, every 50 years. To arrive at this number, the preceding year of jubilee was included in the count, and therefore this was more exactly the 49th year, the seventh sabbatical year. The word ‘jubilee’ is derived from the Hebrew word yobel, which means ‘ram’s horn’, because a horn was blown to announce the beginning of the Jubilee.

The observance of the Jubilee began on the 10th day of the seventh month, the feast of Atonement (Yom Kippur), when a horn or trumpet blast was heard throughout the land. The main purpose of the Jubilee was to restore social balance to the community. The year was to be made sacred first of all by proclaiming freedom for all citizens. This involved the restoration of both personal and economic freedom.

On the level of personal freedom, all Israelite slaves were to be set free. On the level of economic freedom, all ancestral land was to be given back to the original owner. For this purpose, everyone was told to return to their own property and everyone to their family land.

The idea was to restore the social balance in a community which was family-based and whose livelihood depended on the ownership of family land. For various reasons, for which family members might or might not be responsible, people might be forced to sell their land in order to survive and, in more severe cases, might even have to sell themselves into slavery. The purpose of the Jubilee was to have their ancestral property and status restored to them.

This arrangement was also an attack on land monopolies, which are denounced later on by the prophets. So Isaiah says:

Woe to those who join house to house,
who add field to field,
until there is room for no one,
and you are left to live alone
in the midst of the land! (Is 5:8)

And Micah says:

They covet fields and seize them,
houses and take them away;
they oppress householder and house,
people and their inheritance. (Mic 2:2)

Both prophets could be talking about situations in our own contemporary societies.

Whether selling back or buying back alienated property to or from the original owner, justice was to be observed and only a fair price charged. The price was to be calculated on the basis of the number of years the property had been held—a longer period meant a higher price, because, in effect what was being sold back was not only the land, but also the harvests which it yielded during that time.

In addition, during the Jubilee, there was to be no sowing, reaping of after-growth or picking grapes from untrimmed vines. Only what was taken directly from the field could be eaten and not any other produce from it. In other words, fields were to be left fallow during this year. It was easier to give back a fallow field to the original owner than one on which there was a valuable crop which had been planted by the person who had been holding the property.

All this seems a highly admirable arrangement and a model of social justice, but it seems that it was only a late attempt to make the sabbatical law—which had similar stipulations—more effective, and it does not seem that this particular law was ever really observed.

The passage concludes by urging all to deal fairly with their neighbour and stand in fear of their God:

…I am the Lord your God.

One is reminded of similar ideals for a just society which one reads in the Acts of the Apostles. We are told that the new Christians would bring forward their property and give it to the community for the shared use of all. No one had any wealth which belonged to them privately. One couple, who gave only part of their property claiming that it was all that they had, was struck dead for their dishonesty (see Acts 5:1-10).

Although this ideal never really took root in the Church, there is certainly much that could be done in parish communities to see that those in need are helped by their brothers and sisters. Each of us needs to seriously consider the many ways we can put the ideal of Acts into practice.

The Church has a great record of speaking about justice and also, in many places, of doing justice, but we are a long way from perfection. So we say:

“Let there be justice done on earth, and let it begin with me.”

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