Lenieuw Utipur Blas ;¥l

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JUDAS
Lenten Vespers
March 25, 1981
He was, at the very least, a man of great potential. | Jesus

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Saw something important in him, something that could become
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vital in the process of the Kingdom.
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He was, apparently, a Judean, in the middle of eleven Galileans;
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geographically one southerner and all the rest northerners. \ He

became the treasurer of the small group.\\ Jesus and his entourage

of twelve friends spent a portion of three years traveling...
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Someone had to arrange for funds and meals and places to stay.

Judas was the one, performing a valuable, if unromantic function.
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When a woman emptied out a bottle of expensive perfume on Jesus,
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an act of lovely extravagance, a kind of Symbolic annointing

for death which he accepted at face value, it was Judas who
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remonstrated, with levelheaded common sense, that the perfume
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could have been sold and the proceeds distributed to the poor.
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He was a deeply committed man: |strong, effective, efficient,
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ovat. | Most of the scholars who work with the texts and the
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fragmentary data of history conclude that pudas was, above all
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else, passionately patriotic. \ some believe that he was a mem-

ber of the Zealots, an underground, revolutionary, political
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party devoted to independence and freedom for Israel. | The

Zealots effectively harassed the Romans, using classic guerrilla

tactics of surprise raids, murder and intrigue. | Their purpose

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was to prepare for the day when the whole nation might rise up

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and drive the hated Romans into the sea.
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The Zealots were watching and waiting for the Messiah.
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When he came, they would be ready to fight with him and die

for him,

What Judas actually did is terribly famitiar,\ He went to

the officials of the Temple in Jerusalem who intended to get
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rid of Jesus as quickiy as they could anyway, and offered to
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lead them to him and to identify him for the purposes of

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arrest. | 70 seal the bargain the Temple authorities gave him

the thirty pieces of silver \ Judas played it straignt.\ He

left the table in the Upper Room - in the middle of some
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opaque references to betrayal, met the Temple guards and led

them to the Garden of Gethsemane] Thet€, to prevent a quick

substitute by one of Jesus' friends, he identified Jesus by

greeting him in the way customary for disciple and Rabbi, with
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a kiss.

It couldn't have been the noney. | The amount is not
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sienificant, I am perhaps. | it simply

doesn't make sense for a disciple of three years to sell out
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his master for a few dollars.

Again, the scholars believe that Judas was a disappointed
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and disillusioned patriot.| Assume for a moment that he was
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a Zealot. [ wren Jesus intentionally entered Jerusalem in the

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way the Messiah was supposed to arrive, and when the common

people wildly welcomed him to a city filled with religious
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pilgrims celebrating their liberation from oppression centur-
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ies before, and when Jesus went straight to the Temple and

ejected physically the very symbols of corrupt religion and
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politics, Judas thought that the moment had come The revolu-

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tion was about to begin) All it needed now was for Jesus to

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say the word.| When he didn't, when instead of the speech which
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set off the revolt, he withdrew to Bethany for the night, Judas

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knew that the moment, the moment for which he had given three

years of his life, had come and gone - slipped through his
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fingers as quickly as water. \ ana so in profound disappointment,

perhaps rage, Judas betrayed his master. \Perhapg he did so,

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convinced that Jesus was an imposter, a fraud, a hoax who had
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deluded Judas and a lot of others with his delusions of grandeur
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about God's Kingdom, and then betrayed them by his loss of nerve

at the last moment,

That seems to me to be a distinct possibility. | ana it
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could have been even more subtte.\ Perhaps Judas thought that

Jesus was, himseif, waiting for the right moment: \ that Jesus
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was watching and waiting to see if any of his friends had the
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heart for real confrontation and conflict.) Perhaps he was
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intentionally waiting for someone to set up a situation

which his hand would be forced and he would have reason to
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respond with strength to mobilize the popular followin
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which he had gathered. [Pezhans - and this is the saddest and
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the most plausible possibility ~- Judas left the Upper Room, not

knowing that he was the betrayer, instead thinking that he

was the only one who really understood Jesus \_ How else toa

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explain what must be the most forlorn sentence in the Bible:

("wen Judas saw that he was condemned, he repented..." Dees

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it mean what it cars: | sag didn't know? Judas didn't

intend for him to be condemned? | Judas thought that he was

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acting with decisiveness and courage, and suddenly saw that
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he was responsible for Jesus' "death"'?]7 The most forlorn

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sequence in the Bible. ("He brought back the thirty pieces of

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Silver - saying, ('t have sinned in betraying innocent blood.’

They said, ‘What is that to us?'.\. and throwing down the pieces

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of silver in the Tempie, he departed: and he went and hanged
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himself." (Matthew 27:3+5)

Perhaps we have made Judas into such 4a scoundrel because
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that disguises the fact that the betrayal was appallingly human
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and terribly familiar.\. Perhaps if we consign Judas to the pits

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of hell we will not have toa confront the truth that betrayals

are not always treacherous and betrayers are sometimes doing

the best they know how to do, and that almost always betrayals

happen when personal priorities begin to rule our behavior and
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we discover, to our delight, that we can rationalize whatever
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we want to do.

I don't know many people who have broken the promise of

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fidelity and betrayed a husband or wife, who intended to be

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treacherous. § People don't cften mean to hurt one another.
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People don't plan to betray. |r happens for what seems at

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the time to be very lesitimate reasons. \ Traitors who give
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away vital military information believe that they are doing

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it out of love for their own country. [avers they regard their
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betrayal as an act of high moral courage,
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The story of Judas is a description of what happens when
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we attempt to force Jesus Christ into the mold of our own
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priorities. | Jesus, very simply stated, was not the kind of

Christ Judas wanted\ and instead of altering his own expec-

tations, Judas destroyed Jesus by trying to force him to do

something he could not do. \re is a warning against that

dynamic in any age. \ Jesus can't be enlisted to support our
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church, priorities, our nation, our way of doing things, our
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way of life. | To force him is to betray him.

There is a lot to be learned from this forlorn story.

But most important of all is that in his zeal for his own
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priorities, and his shame when he realized where it had taken
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him, Judas missed the one thing that could have saved his life.

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- the grace and forgiveness of God in Jesus garist.\ Judas had
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read the scriptures but had not understood. \ The "new thing"
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the prophet promised was not a revolution, but salvation;|a
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new dimension of love and grace acted out in history which .would

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forever offer peace to the Judases of the world. } He missed that.

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Too bad he couldn't have waited until the first day of the
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week.}# Too bad he couldn't have known that crucifixion wasn't
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the last word. [ Too bad he didn't see the church begin and

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row in every city of the world.{ Too bad Judas couldn't have
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lifted up his remorse, guilt, shame and self—~loathine to God,

seeing the cross, not so much as symbol of his own sin but _of

God's invitation to wholeness and life and joy. \ r00 bad Judas

couldn't have lived long enough to learn that nothing could

keep God from loving him - not even the cross.
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That's the dimension Judas never sav. | That's a dimension
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we can miss too, if all we perceive in his story is a bad man
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doing 2 very bad thing. Judas was loved, too ~ Jesus never

stopped loving him.{ "Father , forgive them for they know not

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what they ao.) could have applied to him as well. | | aaa nC

Each of us bas pesraved. But the

reaches out. to us in spite | a love big enough ‘to

forgive and accept and, in
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life.

AMEN.