A Sermon
for the Sunday after Ascension Day (RCL B) 5-20-2012
Offered by
Nathan Ferrell for Trinity Episcopal Shared Ministry
Texts: Acts
1:15-17,21-26; Psalm 1; 1 John 5:9-13; John 17:6-19
Themes: the
wicked and the righteous, Judas, Matthias, the high priestly prayer of Jesus
Title: The Betrayal of Judas
It was March 25, the Feast of the
Annunciation, the day each year – 9 months before Christmas Day – when the
Church remembers the surprise visit by the angel Gabriel to Mary in order to
announce her pregnancy by the Holy Spirit.
In this village in Ireland, it was the
custom on this day for all the young girls to wear a blue scarf on their head
as a sign of their devotion to the Virgin Mary. One girl, who was herself named
Mary, was in her room getting dressed for the morning Mass, when her younger
brother burst into the room and grabbed her blue scarf and began to play with
it, using it as a jump rope and other things.
“That’s a holy scarf!” Mary yelled at
her brother, named Michael. “Give it back right now!”
But Michael was being a boy, and he went
out playing and skipping and laughing.
“You are committing a sin,” Mary said,
trying to use some kind of leverage to get the scarf back. “And you must fast
all day on Friday as a penance for this sin!”
Eventually, their Mother heard the
commotion and came in and ordered Michael to give back the scarf, which he did.
And they all went off to worship. On the way, Mary was keen to remind Michael
that he must fast on Friday to make up for his wrongdoing.
“From dawn till dusk, no food or drink
must pass your lips,” she said, wagging her finger at him.
This was Tuesday, and two days later, on
Thursday, Michael developed a high fever and went to bed early. It was Mary’s
job to nurse him. And in her heart she made the decision that, despite his
fever, she was going to make sure that Michael kept that fast on Friday, as a
way to learn his lesson.
Mary told her mother not to prepare any
food for Michael on Friday, that she would take care of whatever he needed. Her
mother, of course, had no idea of Mary’s intention.
All day long, Mary brought no food or
water to her brother. And without any water, his fever grew worse. Sweat poured
from his body until he was so dry that he could not sweat any more. But Mary
remained convinced that Michael had to complete this fast, as a just punishment
for his wicked act.
She said to herself: “If I relent now,
he will think that he can get off lightly in the future, and so he will keep
acting badly.”
As the sun began to set in the west,
Michael’s breathing grew slower and heavier. Then, as the sun disappeared, his
breathing stopped.
When Mary realized what had happened,
she rushed and told her mother, and then ran to fetch the priest. From that day
on, Mary wore a blue scarf, not just on the Feast of the Annunciation, but
every day of her life, in order to remind herself of how, in her pride and
arrogance, she had betrayed her brother and betrayed the Virgin Mary. (Adapted from
Celtic Parables by Robert Van De Weyer, p. 79-81.)
Family. Love. Betrayal.
These are some of the most common
experiences of life, and I bet that most of you know a bit of what betrayal is
all about.
Family. Love. Betrayal.
A few weeks ago, in April, we will
remember that we had our Doubting Thomas Sunday.
Well, today then, my friends, in my
estimation, is our Judas Iscariot Sunday.
Judas is central to nearly all of our
lessons today.
In his high-priestly prayer from the
Gospel of John, the Lord recognizes that he has called beloved together his
community and he has protected them. He says that “not one of them was lost
except the one destined to be lost” – that is, of course, a reference to Judas.
The Psalm appointed for today can
certainly be understood as a reference to Judas, as the prime Gospel example of
one who walked in the counsel of the wicked.
And, of course, our reading from Acts is
all about how the community recovered from the scandal of Judas. In this text,
the apostles speak of Judas as one “who became a guide for those who arrested
Jesus.” And when they pray, they recognize that “Judas turned aside to go to
his own place.”
In the saga of Holy Week and the Lord’s
Passion, Judas is the prototypical bad guy – the trusted friend who betrayed
the Master and handed him over to his eventual torture and death.
But that’s too simple, too easy. We tend
to brush off Judas too quickly and put him aside as someone who is unworthy of
our thought and meditation.
Let me suggest to you that there is much
that we can learn from the story of Judas, and let me begin by making one thing
perfectly clear: Judas loved Christ! Judas loved the Lord.
Let’s be clear about this. Judas was one
of the first in that core group who left the security of their old lives behind
in order to follow Jesus. And he walked with the Lord and journeyed with him
and stayed with him all throughout his years of ministry. He was a faithful
companion of Jesus for years. No one does something like that except out of
love. I am convinced that he faithfully loved Jesus in his heart.
And yet, Judas did betray the Master.
Why then did he do it?
It wasn’t for the money. You may
remember that later he tried to give the money back, and he threw it down in
the temple. It wasn’t about the money.
So why then did he do it? What was the
betrayal of Judas?
Let me suggest to you there is a very fine
line between love and betrayal, a fine line which gets crossed all too commonly
in our families, among our friends.
The betrayal of Judas was this: in his
love for the Master, he became convinced that he knew what was best for the
Lord, and he decided to take control by himself of the situation.
Just like Mary in the old Irish story
with which we started: Mary loved her brother Michael. There is no reason to
assume that she did not love him. In fact, it is clear that she wanted what was
best for him; she wanted him to mature, to grow up. The problem is that she
felt sure that she knew how to make that happen, she knew the best way to force
him to mature, and she took control of the situation.
You can call it pride perhaps, but this
betrayal is really much more subtle than this.
Can you think of a situation with a
friend, with a son or daughter, with a parent perhaps, where you are convinced
that you know what is best for their life, and you are frustrated that they
will not see their situation in the same way that you do?
When that happens, we are tempted to
take charge, to take control, to make sure it happens exactly according to the
blueprint that we have formulated in our minds.
Judas was certain that Jesus was the
promised Messiah, the Son of God who was sent to make the world right again! To
break the bonds of oppression. To right the wrongs of injustice. To heal the
broken. To alleviate the suffering of the poor.
Judas loved Christ; he believed in Jesus
and knew that he was the One!
The problem was that Jesus was not
acting in accordance with the plan that Judas had in mind.
He needed to confront the Romans and the
corrupt leaders of the Temple. If he just grasped the reigns of power, then
Judas was sure that he could set the world right, the way that God had always
intended it to be!
And so Judas decided to take charge, to
take control of the situation, to make sure it happened according to the
blueprint that he formulated in his mind.
And that is the betrayal of Judas, the
betrayal to which we all are tempted at one time or another.
The truth is that there is a fine line
between love and betrayal.
We must not be surprised by Judas. All
of us know exactly how he could do so such a thing.
We know because we are tempted to do
likewise all of the time.
The sad thing is that Jesus had taught
Judas and all who would listen about a better way to be, a better way to live
free from the need to control and manipulate others.
Dallas Willard summarizes the very
practical teaching of Jesus in this way:
“We are always to respect other people
as spiritual beings who are responsible before God alone for the course they
choose to take of their own free will. God has paid an awful price to arrange
for human self-determination [and] obviously places great value on it” (The
Divine Conspiracy by Dallas Willard, p.230 - http://www.dwillard.org/books/DivConsp.asp).
Every week during these Great Fifty
Days, as we have been renewing the covenant made at our baptism, we have been
promising to “respect the dignity of every human being.”
We fail to do this when, like Mary in
our story today, and like Judas, we force upon others the change which we want
to see in their lives, which we are sure is for their best!
God never does that with us. God respects
the process of our free will.
And we follow Jesus in his life-giving
way when we choose never to manipulate others, but to respect them as beings of
infinite worth in God’s sight, who must make their own choices and choose their
own path.
This is how we love others without falling
into the trap of betrayal. Amen.
