Saturday, May 19, 2012

The Betrayal of Judas - a sermon for May 20, 2012


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.

Saturday, May 12, 2012

Our Home is in God - a sermon for May 13, 2012


A Sermon for the 6th Sunday of Pascha (RCL B) 5-13-2012
Offered by Nathan Ferrell for Trinity Episcopal Shared Ministry

Texts:              Acts 10:44-48; Psalm 98; 1 John 5:1-6; John 15:9-17
Themes:         Mothers’ Day, home, the motherhood of Jesus
Title:              Our Home is in God

My dear friends in Christ: what do you think of when you consider the word “home”?

This one word, with all the multitude of mental associations connected with it – this one word is one of the most profound and deepest in the English language.

Home. What comes to your mind? What do you consider to be your home?

Hopefully, God willing, you have mostly positive memories and happy feelings when you consider home. For many of us, there are some painful memories mixed in there as well.

But no matter what comes to your mind when you think of home, this morning we need to consider this fact, this basic reality, of our lives as human beings: Our only true and lasting home is in God.

Today is Mothers’ Day, of course, and this naturally brings up ideas of home. For nearly all human beings throughout history, it has been our mothers who have maintained the family home.

Traditionally, men have been the ones to go out and bring back the provisions needed for the home, while the women maintain the home itself. This arrangement is changing rapidly in today’s era of gender equality, of course, but this is the tradition that has been in place for thousands of years.

In the minds of most of us, our mother and our home are inextricably linked.
This is good and normal and understandable, but I believe that God wants us to develop a new association in our minds between these words: home and God.

In our reading from the First Letter of St. John, we heard this today: “Everyone who believes that Jesus is the Messiah has been born of God, and everyone who loves the parent loves the child” (1 John 5:1).

I wish this were always true: if you love the parent, then you automatically love the children as well.
In my experience, that’s not always the case. I can think of many times when trying to visit with friends, or being in a Bible study group with fellow church members, and their child is acting like a ridiculous maniac, out of control and not allowing us adults to have the good conversation that seems so rare as adults and which we’re really into at the moment…
Love for the ornery child is not the primary thing in my heart at that moment, do you know what I mean?

But of course, this scripture is referring to the relationship within the Holy Trinity, between the first and second persons of the Trinity. Everyone who loves God the parent loves Jesus the child as well.

On May 8, Tuesday of this past week, the Church remembered once again the profound insights and spiritual visions which were given to the woman known as Lady Julian of Norwich. Her feast day always falls near to Mothers’ Day here in America, and that to me is a gift of wonderful serendipity.

For one of Lady Julian’s most moving insights is that, as a balance to the emphasis upon the fatherhood of God, in our Lord Jesus Christ we find all of the qualities of motherhood.  

Every May I return to drink from this deep spring of wisdom and every May I am awed and refreshed by what this woman experienced in God.

Listen to a few of Lady Julian’s remarkable words:
“So Jesus Christ, who opposes good to evil, is our true Mother.
As truly as God is our Father, so truly is God our Mother.
All the lovely works and all the sweet loving offices of beloved motherhood are appropriated to [Christ]. [A] mother can give her child to suck of her milk, but our precious Mother Jesus can feed us with himself, and does [so], with the blessed sacrament.
This fair and lovely word ‘mother’ is so sweet and so kind in itself that it cannot truly be said of anyone or to anyone except of [Christ] and to [Christ] who is the true Mother of life”
(Showings – Long Text, Chapters 59 & 60).  

How many of you have ever thought of Jesus as our heavenly mother? The one who gives us spiritual birth, and the one who feeds and nurtures our souls, the one to whom we can always run for comfort and help and protection.

In fact, it is Lady Julian’s assertion that Jesus is our only true Mother, because all the goodness of motherhood comes from him.  

This is the point where we are challenged by God’s vision for our lives.
You see, it is easy to become overly attached to material things. We are creatures of flesh and blood, with mothers and homes and the family dining room table and memories of the holidays.
All of this is good; the stuff of life is very good. But we cling to it at our own peril.
These things can also become a hindrance to our growth in Christ, a block to our ability to bear fruit in Christ, to love as he commands.

All of us know that change is the one constant of human life. Nothing on earth stays the same.
Matter and energy are in constant motion and we are part of this movement.

And in the midst of experiencing all of this change and flux, it is normal and ordinary for people to grasp for something that stays the same, something that is solid and immovable.

That is a perfectly normal human tendency. The problem is that we try to hold on to things that are also changing, also in motion. We might try to save the family home, or some photographs from our childhood. We might not be able to imagine life without our mother, or our spouse, or our friends.

Whatever the particulars might be for you, you know what I mean about clinging to things, and about resisting and fearing the change, which we all know is inevitable!

And this is why, if we are to be spiritual healthy and centered, then we must come to know – in the very depth of our being – that our only true and lasting home is in God.

Can you say that with confidence, my friends, about yourself? That you know where your only true and lasting home is, and that you know it is only in God. Can you say that about yourself?

Thankfully, we have many good and faithful guides in learning how to find our home in God.
Please turn to the back of your bulletin, and there you will find A Litany To Honor Women of God.
Let us read through this Litany together now. We will begin it together.

A LITANY TO HONOR WOMEN OF GOD
Adapted from Common Prayer: A Liturgy for Ordinary Radicals

People:  We walk in the company of women who have gone before, mothers of the faith both named and unnamed,
Leader: testifying with ferocity and faith to the Spirit of wisdom and healing. They are judges, prophets, martyrs, warriors, lovers, poets and saints, who are near to us in the company of the blessed.

We walk in the company of Deborah,
Who judged the Israelites with authority and strength.

We walk in the company of Esther,
Who used her position as queen to ensure the welfare of her people.

We walk in the company of you whose names have been lost or silenced,
Who kept and cradled the wisdom of the ages.

We walk in the company of the woman with the flow of blood,
Who audaciously sought her healing and release from Christ.

We walk in the company of Mary Magdalene,
Who wept at the empty tomb until the Risen Lord appeared.

We walk in the company of Phoebe,
Who led an early church within the empire of Rome.

We walk in the company of Perpetua of Carthage,
Whose witness in the third century led to her martyrdom.

We walk in the company of Christina the Astonishing,
Who resisted death with persistence and wonder.

We walk in the company of Lady Julian of Norwich,
Who wed imagination and theology, proclaiming that “all shall be well.”

We walk in the company of Sojourner Truth,
Who stood against oppression, righteously declaring in 1852 “ain’t I a woman!”

We walk in the company of Alice Walker,
Who named the lavender hue of womanly strength.

We walk in the company of you our mothers in the faith,
Who teach us to resist evil with boldness, to lead with wisdom, and to heal the world. Amen.

Thanks be to God that we walk today in this great cloud of witnesses, all of these faithful women who have given us an example of loving one another as Christ loves us; and who have taught us that our only true and lasting home is in God.

Consider this, my friends and give thanks. Every good thing which you have experienced through your earthly mother and in your earthly home comes from Christ who is himself the source of all goodness, and who will be our home – our dwelling place – for evermore. Amen.