The Judas Explanation

MT 26:14-25

PS 69:8-10, 21-22, 31 AND 33-34

IS 50:4-9A

I've been dissatisfied with Judas Iscariot's story as long as I can remember thinking about it.

I remember vividly a version of the final day of Jesus's life as depicted in a movie I have otherwise forgotten because it offered an utterly human reason for Judas Iscariot.  One of the Twelve (I think Peter) saw Judas just after Calgary and shoved him into an alley.  But Judas was already hurting himself far worse than Peter could.  And he sobbed his explanation -- that he had been trying to force Jesus's hand.  He got too impatient waiting for the Messiah to act (politically), so he thought he would force the matter.  Even if it made him the villain.

Which is a particularly human version of a reading of Judas Iscariot as the ultimate secret hero.  The person who is willing to play the villain or even act the villain in order to make the good things happen.  Severus Snape, for my generation, and just like Severus Snape, it's not a clear-cut "He was good after all" so much as a "the worst thing he did was to save us all."

Because it doesn't make sense.

Jesus Christ Superstar is a really, really weird play I have zero interest in working on, but I at least GET the Judas as depicted there.  Human, jealous, disenchanted.  Full of faith and disappointment and very PERSONAL anger.

Because it just couldn't be for the 30 pieces of silver we hear about here.  Yesterday's reading made a huge point about how Judas kept the purse for Jesus's crew and that he skimmed off the top as much as he wanted.  Thirty pieces of silver may have been an objectively larger payout, but when we're talking about a man who recently received a gift worth 300 denarii, it seems plainly short sighted if it was all about the money.

Was it about politics?  Breaking away from the group because he thought their number was almost up?  But the reception into Jerusalem was joyful and Jesus was claiming a method of travel prophesied for the Messiah.  Wasn't there every reason to hope that Jesus's star was in ascendance and soon he would see the perfect time to strike back at Rome?  If that's what Judas was waiting for.

Or was the pairing of this moment with the Old Testament reading and psalm once again beyond brilliant?  Turning the key of understanding.

Because Isaiah starts with what sounds like it will be praise -- gifts of God to do active, concrete good in the world -- and then immediately nosedives into persecution.  And the psalm repeats again and again, after describing different torments, "Lord, in your great love, answer me."

And in that I hear something in myself.  Left over from years ago but probably still more active than I'd like to think.  From when I prayed for God to heal my father and still he died.  And I still want to know why.

Something went wrong, and Judas's heart was broken.  Was it Mary's sister Martha?  "You talk constantly about selling everything you have to give to the poor and now you're letting a beautiful woman wash your feet with a fortune because..."  Like suddenly realizing Mother Theresa was Joel Olsteen.  Was it the procession into Jerusalem, when suddenly everything was real?  Did Judas never want a political leader or was the reality too frightening?  Was it the squabbling over who would be the greatest or his lack of inclusion in the Transfiguration on the mountaintop?

Because if something broke his heart, and he cried out, "Lord, in your great love, answer me."  Explain it to me.  Please, please, explain to me how it's different.  Please, please, help me see how it's a good plan after all.  Please please please be the person I thought you were yesterday.  Please please please tell me it isn't true.

And the cruelest thing there is silence.

I mean, that's probably not true.  Any time I say anything is the cruelest thing it just shows a lack of imagination.  But if Judas's heart was broken, I could see him testing Jesus one last time.  "Surely it is not I, lord?"  Please tell me you have an answer for what has broken within me.  Please tell me I'm not going to break and turn on you.  Please tell me I'm going to go back and spit in those high priests' faces because I was wrong.  Please tell me I was wrong.  Surely it is not I, lord.

"You have said so."

It didn't have to be him.  Judas wasn't trapped.  He wasn't given no way out.  But sometimes you do have to choose, to pray, to love in God's silence.  Without his explicit guidance or His answers to our questions.  Even the desperate ones at the core of our souls.  That's also what faith means.  Not just the warm and fuzzy stuff.  The hard and cold and hope-sucking part.  You will have to believe when life is hard and your world is scary and things seem contradictory and your heart is breaking.  You will have to believe most then.

And when God seems most far away, all He's really doing is reminding us that it's our choice.  You don't want to betray me.  You are asking if you do anyway.  You don't have to.  You have said you don't want to do it.  So don't.

Sometimes a gentle reminder that we don't have to take the desperate way out is all that we get.  Sometimes we get less.  We still must have faith.  We still must choose love.  We still must stay the course.

And perhaps that is what we can finally learn from Judas Iscariot.