Herod and the girl known as Salome - what images that creates…

O you men! How easily history shows how you succumb to us ladies!

We put on our glad rags, our lipstick and lashings of mascara and you poor lot become putty in our hands!

Look at Delilah!
Look at Jezebel!
Potiphar’s wife…
Examples of Biblical seducing sirens and there are more…

History is littered with femme fatale – especially those who have brought the down fall of their quest

The first I remember of such goings-on was the Profumo affair remember that? Christina Keeler and Mandy Rice Davies who gave us that quotable ‘Well he would say that wouldn’t he?’

In more recent times – Paddy Ashdown, John Major
Prince Charles

Ah we women that fascinate you - with our limpid eyes – ‘deep pools of desire in which a man might drown and die an exquisite death’ as Moliere so eloquently put it!

To be fair – to be really even-handed – the same has happened to women as well. The fair sex too has succumbed to lusts of the flesh attracted by the male attributes. Not recorded in detail of course the problem being that the bible was written by men for men as was history; women previously being regarded as sexually objects rather than sexually subjects.

But male or female, young or old lusts of the flesh have and do affect all.

It is an emotion that overtakes common sense and reason, it makes us do and say and think things that in our saner moments we would not dream of doing or saying. A base instinct of human nature, a gut wrenching desire that we feel has to be satisfied.

Now we could argue that we need sexual attraction – at the very least we need it for procreation, for satisfaction of physical needs – BUT remember what Jesus said ‘If a man so much as looks at a women and lusts after her he has already committed adultery’

Why do Christians get so hot under the collar about lust and about adultery?

Lust is not love. Lust does not value the person but what the person can provide. It de-humanises the object of desire down to a thing, a mechanism a piece of equipment to be used for a purpose, or personal gain.

That is not love, that is not the context for sexual union. The marriage service puts it well

The gift of marriage brings husband and wife together in the delight and tenderness of sexual union and joyful commitment to the end of their lives.
Delight and tenderness the mutual giving and receiving…
It sounds harsh what Jesus said. But he was talking about the betrayal of adultery.

Admiration is not adultery! You can look at a woman or man and admire and appreciate their looks and physique - That’s why God created George Clooney!

Adultery – adultery is serious it is a matter of betrayal.

Marriages breakdown – it happens. When I say those words at the chancel steps to the bridal couple – ‘those whom God has joined together let no-one put asunder’ – I do not know how to judge which are the couples whom it is that God has joined which ones have defied God’s best intent! Sometimes marriages just don’t work. They breakdown for many reasons other than adultery.

But I tell you this it is the marriages that have suffered the betrayal, humiliation and the faithlessness that are the hardest to come through. To be fair the same can be said for long-term relationships that have not been solemnized in marriage and break up through adultery of a partner.

Lust is injustice, lust is lack of integrity, lust is abusive it is not creative and mutually enriching the way a partnership should be… Adultery is injustice; Adultery is lack of integrity, Adultery is betrayal and abusive
Relationships break down it is a fact of human existence but the deceit and betrayal of adultery is so hard to go through.

Herod was an adulterer, he had ‘acquired’ his brother’s wife she was not legally his wife

John stood up to him and told the truth about Herod and he thrown into prison for his outspoken honesty.

We have all seen what lust as opposed to love can do in our families and friends and colleagues if not in our own personal experience. If we should criticise or express concern or disapproval at what we see we are called fuddy-duddy, frigid, out of touch, ridiculed.

Herod was led to murder because of his improper relationship and his improper fascination with Salome. It is an extreme case but emotions such as hate anger and inappropriate desire often lead to extremes of behaviour.

What happened to John the Baptist was extreme but he was right in what he said and in the context of what he was about he was right to have said it!

Saddam Hussein son –
He was, with his armed guard, travelling passed a wedding. He invited the newly wed couple to go with him to ‘help them celebrate’ – not an offer to be refused… He raped the wife, tortured the husband, the wife committed suicide throwing herself off a 50ft balcony. Another extreme example - but extreme examples are salutary warning to us all.

The secular world tend to regard adultery and lust as a bit of a joke, a nod and a wink – it is not so funny when in its extremes it leads to abuse and injustice at best and rape and murder at worst.

So what do you think?

The Church nationally was quite silent about the open relationship Prince Charles had with Camilla when married to Diana – and she it seems as a consequence also took a lover, and as stories that have been told since she did suffer injustice in those relationships she had.

What happens when Charles, if he does, becomes King? Is it all in the past and doesn’t matter now?

What is our reaction when it happens – as it will - in our families and circle of friends?

Shall we ignore it, turn a blind-eye?
Go along with everyone else?
Love the sinner and hate the sin?

We do have to live alongside this, we don’t want families split up and us looking all-pious and holier-than-thou, how do we deal with it?
Perhaps we cannot generalise here and take each occurrence as it happens.
How do we keep our Christian integrity?

It is perhaps the hardest part of being a Christian to be standing against the current tide, being mocked, and considered outdated and irrelevant because of a view contrary to popular opinion.

May God’s grace support us, guide us, direct us, give us humility and strength to deal with all these issues in a manner that proclaims the Gospel and the love of God.
Amen.

Rick