In his rule for monks living in community, St. Benedict of Nursia, the classic founder of conventional monasticism, describes four kinds of monks. The first group includes the cenobites, who are monks attached to a particular monastery where they live in obedience to a rule and the abbot. In the second group are the anchorites and hermits who have weathered time in monasteries but have moved on to the challenges of living in the desert wilderness.
But St. Benedict’s strong opinions rise to the surface in describing the third and fourth types of monks. He describes the sarabaites as “detestable,” lacking in experience, not living by a rule, and with “character as soft as lead.” “Still loyal to the world by their actions,” he says, “they clearly lie to God by their tonsure.” The fourth group, the gyrovagues, seem to be the most objectionable to Benedict, and he describes them as even worse than the sarabaites. The great fault of the gyrovagues is that “they never settle down,” as Benedict puts it. They are peripatetic and “are slaves to their own wills and gross appetites.”[1]
After all, the whole point of Benedict’s rule is to shape a stable community of monks, sharing in life’s joys and sorrows together, through obedience to God, to the abbot or head monk, and to one another. In such a grounded community, monks don’t leave because they’re having a bad day. They don’t leave if the food isn’t to their liking. And they certainly don’t leave if they get bored. Life in religious community is all about stability despite the sway of fickle human emotions or personal preferences.
Such stability is often found in a physical place, such as a religious community or parish church. But underlying this stability is a deeper spiritual grounding, that can be found no matter how peripatetic one might be. It's no coincidence that St. Mark includes the story of Herod and John the Baptist within the larger story of Jesus sending his disciples out two by two into the mission field and their return to Jesus to report on what they’ve done. Mark’s message is clear if you look at the narrative as a whole. To be a true disciple, you can’t be a spiritual gyrovague. You need roots. It’s no use being a spiritual listener and not a spiritual doer. True disciples don’t wander around pleasing whomever they’re with at the moment. True disciples know how to settle down and find their anchor in something beyond political power, cultural fads, and shallow spiritual gurus.
And Herod is the prototypical foil to spiritual stability in St. Mark’s Gospel. Herod comes across as a mixed character. On the one hand, he has certain qualities that could very well have pulled him in the direction of goodness, that part of humanity that’s still in touch with the image of God. We’re told that he delights in listening to John the Baptist. He even knows that John is holy and righteous and therefore keeps him safe, at least for a time. And in that tragic moment when he promises more to Herodias’s daughter than he should have, we’re told that he’s “exceedingly sorry.” He really doesn’t want to put John to death. But he does it anyway.
Herod’s spiritual and emotional instability sounds a lot like the gyrovagues, whom St. Benedict accuses of never settling down. Herod can’t settle down. Herod is not his own man. He fears John the Baptist because he senses something holy about him but probably even more because he’s concerned about how John’s followers will react if John is harmed. Herod doesn’t know to whom or what he should be loyal, and that’s a very dangerous thing.
And because Herod has no spiritual grounding, he loses control at his birthday banquet, where he makes a hasty and irresponsible promise. When he promises to give Herodias’s daughter whatever she asks, he’s captive to his emotional fervor and spiritual weakness (and most likely at least a little inebriation). So, when Herodias asks for the head of John the Baptist, he can’t refuse. Here, Herod is more concerned about honoring a hasty promise than he is about preserving life. Sure, he may have once listened gladly to John the Baptist, but now, he’s willing to hand over his head on a platter. Herod doesn’t know where his heart is.
Although Herod discerns that there’s something profound about John and although he even delights in listening to him, it goes no further than that. Listening to John isn’t enough. Being moved by John isn’t enough. For Herod, the titillation of his senses and the pricking of his heart have no ultimate effect on his actions.
If Herod’s crude instability is a foil to true discipleship, such instability may also epitomize the groundlessness of our own day. It seems that we live in an age of gyrovagues, where people increasingly struggle to settle down. And this makes it incredibly difficult to settle down as disciples of Jesus. In her weakest moments, the Church is willing to promise whatever people want because she merely wants to please, and before long, religious principles have been handed over on a platter and souls have been sold to a political party or to an agenda. Give to the world anything it wants, and give to God what’s left.
But perhaps even more chilling is a propensity to be listeners of Christ and not followers. On some level, it’s rather easy to relish the stock phrases of Jesus that challenge oppressive systems and promise liberty to the captives and to delight in the inclusive love of a God who constantly forgives and to feel righteous anger at a Jesus who overturns the tables of moneychangers in the temple and stands up for the underdog and to feel a rush of adrenaline when singing the Magnificat and hearing of injustices being righted. Simply put, it's rather easy to be intrigued with Jesus—even perplexed by his teaching—and to gladly hear what he has to say to us. And yet, when it becomes inconvenient to follow him or his words challenge a way of being and living, his teaching is handed over on a silver platter, however reluctantly.
It’s increasingly less obvious that the Church is where we really learn to be spiritually grounded. It’s here, in a parish community, that we’re stabilized amid the fickle winds of a world that’s lost its moorings. It’s here in worship that we find the stability needed to ensure that we’re not spiritual gyrovagues but committed disciples of Jesus. The Mass teaches us that it’s not enough to be intrigued by the words of Jesus or by a sermon that agrees with our point of view. The Mass compels us to go forth from being fed to feed others, to be transformed from simply being delighted by Christ’s gift to being a part of the delight of all God’s beloved children.
There’s no better place to find our spiritual grounding than before the altar of God. Here, we’re invited to submit our own emotional and spiritual vagrancy to loving obedience to Christ. Here, we’re put next to people who think and vote differently from us, who chisel down our rough edges and conceit, and with whom we can receive the Eucharist with gladness and thanksgiving, even if we don’t always see eye to eye. Here, God’s eternal, abiding promise perfects our own fledgling promises, as we strive to be more than those who are simply interested in Christ and his message. Here, we learn to be transformed by that message so that we can be hearers and doers of the word. Here, God shows us that it’s not enough merely to be intrigued by Jesus. We must decide to follow him or not.
And although the cost to follow him is great, the reward is infinitely greater. The reward is that when we allow God to order our lives, we become truly free. We’re no longer pawns in sinful systems of human power. We’re no longer captive to our unstable emotions. We’re free: free to live and love and delight in God and one another. And in that love and delight, we find our true home.
Sermon by Father Kyle Babin
The Eighth Sunday after Pentecost
July 14, 2024
[1] The Rule of Saint Benedict, ed. Timothy Fry (New York: Vintage, 1998), 7-8.