Memorial of the
Passion of Saint John the Baptist
(I Thessalonians 3:7-13; Mark 6:17-29)
In the gospel reading today and in one of the first
readings last week a man makes an oath to do something that turns out to be immoral. Herod promises his stepdaughter anything that
she might ask. He does not imagine her wanting
him to murder. In the Book of Judges Jephthat
promises to sacrifice the first thing that emerges from his house upon his return
if God grants him victory. Does he likewise
not contemplate the possibility of killing someone? In any event he was not thinking of making a
holocaust of his own daughter. We must
ask, “Are such oaths binding?”
No, they are not because they involve doing something
evil which is always wrong. In both
cases, unfortunately, the men are so proud that they see themselves as God
whose word of necessity is efficacious. They
need humility. The should humble
themselves by begging forgiveness from God for their mindlessness. Instead each carries out an unconscionable
act.
Of course, today’s celebration of the passion of John the
Baptist should be for us more than a lesson on oath-taking. John dies like an Old Testament prophet
giving witness to the truth. His manner
of death prefigures Jesus’. A civil
system that arrests a man for speaking out against immorality will hardly tolerate
one who seeks to inaugurate an even higher righteousness throughout the land. A more perfect man than John the Baptist,
Jesus will suffer a more brutal death.
