Marked not by our betrayal, but by His love | A Sermon for Maundy Thursday
A Sermon by the Reverend Mother Crystal J. Hardin for the people of St. George’s on Maundy Thursday, April 1, 2021.
1 Corinthians 11:23-26; John 13:1-17, 31b-35
The New York Times featured an article a few years back titled, “Great Betrayals.”[1] Written by Anna Fels, a psychiatrist with years of clinical experience unraveling the complex and destructive elements of betrayal, it speaks to what makes it particularly painful. In short, betrayal disrupts our narrative, our sense of who we are.
The discovery of a betrayal is like a pair of well-sharpened sheers cutting through the fabric of our lives with shocking ease. The act itself is meaningless really, in our narratives anyway, until discovered. But when it is, in the words of Fels,
insidiously, the new information disrupts [our] sense of [our] past, undermining the veracity of [our] personal history. Like a computer file corrupted by a virus, [our] life narrative . . . invaded. Memories are now suspect. . . . It’s as if [we] are constantly reviewing [our] past lives on a dual screen: the life [we] experienced on one side and the new “true” version on the other. [2]
You see, the story of betrayal is no story at all, completely lacking cohesion. Instead, it’s marked by detachment, disorientation, and dismemberment.
Perhaps this is why Judas will be forever known as the betrayer. His epithet reveals the end of his story and marks it as his narrative forever.
But, before Judas was the betrayer, he was the beloved. Was he not? After all, he is counted among the disciples of our Lord Jesus Christ. Nine times in the Gospels he is identified as a traitor, sure. But he is also identified nine times as one of the twelve, one of the chosen ones, a trusted disciple.
Because that’s the thing, isn’t it? There can be no betrayal where there was no trust. This is why it causes such turmoil to our sense of story, our sense of control, our sense of the world we thought we knew.
Judas betrayed Jesus who trusted him, loved him, put confidence in him and responsibility on him. Judas betrayed his relationship with Jesus. It is relationship that builds the story, that builds the trust, and that is betrayed.
And what are relationships if not promise and risk placed side by side in the hearts of those who would allow it? The greater the promise, the greater the risk.
Hence the fragmentation that follows a betrayal: the dis-membering of the relationship due to the breach of trust.
Judas Iscariot, the betrayer, apostate, snake. The trusted and loved friend and apostle of Our Lord Jesus Christ, who sat with him at supper, witnessed the washing of feet, and heard those tender, yet challenging words of the new commandment, love one another.
For thirty pieces of silver, he did the unthinkable, severing any trust between him and Jesus, yes, but also, with that, weakening the foundation between them all. His kiss marked death for the one who was and is life itself, and, after that, well, how does anyone trust again, hope again, love again?
Judas is the very archetype of the betrayer, the unworthy, the unlovable one.
And yet, he is also us. We are Judas.
As Paul reminds us in the words of Good Friday, there is no one who is righteous, not even one (Rom. 3:11).
From the Garden on, our narrative is one of relationship, deep, abiding, trusting, loving relationship, a gracious gift of God, marred by our inability to give unto it what it offers to us, what it asks of us. Our inability to cede control, to be vulnerable, to resist temptation. We will always grab the fruit, slay our brother, worship the golden calf. We will always complain about manna, ignore the prophets, and engage in wars. We will always look to all manners of places other than God for our worth, our sustenance, and our story. We will always cast a Judas in hopes that by pinning them with sin unforgivable we might wash ourselves clean of it entirely.
Judas. If it’s him, it’s not me. And with that, we betray ourselves.
We live a fractured narrative. One that is marked by trust and also by breach of trust. You cannot, this side of heaven, have one without the other. In acknowledging the ways in which we are Judas, we also acknowledge the trust gifted to us –by those we love, sure, but most importantly the trust gifted to us by our God who desperately, constantly, is in pursuit of us.
On Maundy Thursday, we come together to remember. Because we are a people prone to wander, too busy chasing our personal, individual story to remember THE story. That is why it is so important that we gather as community –virtually and, hopefully soon, in person –to remember together the story of our lives, the story that is Jesus.
Who, when he knew that his hour had come to depart from this world and go to the Father, having loved his own who were in the world, he loved them to the end (John 13:1).
Even at the last, trust. Even at the last, love. Even at the last, for Judas.
On Maundy Thursday, we come together to remember, and yet what does it mean that before we remember, betrayal is named?
Listen closely now to those words we hear often, the words of institution, those famous Maundy Thursday words. Listen closely:
For on the night when he was betrayed, he took a loaf of bread, and when he had given thanks, he broke it and said, “This is my body that is for you. Do this in remembrance of me.” (1 Cor. 11:23-24).
For on the night he was betrayed. By Judas, sure. By us? By me and by you? Certainly. And yet. What does Jesus do with those who betray him?
He breaks bread with them and for them. He gives his life for them. He loves them, even to the end.
All of us like sheep who have gone astray; . . . turned –every one—to his own way (Isaiah 53:6).
But our God is a God who gives grace to his betrayers, affection to his enemies, hope to the hopeless and life to the walking dead. Why? Why does Jesus love the unlovable, the unworthy, the betrayer? Because that is the only kind of people there are.
In the words of one preacher:
You see, on the night that Jesus was betrayed it says he took something. And if you didn’t know what that something was, what would you assume? On the night that he was betrayed, he took a sword. On the night that he was betrayed, he took an army. On the night that he was betrayed, he took his betrayer’s life in righteous justice.
No. On the night he was betrayed, he took bread. And he broke it. And instead of breaking his betrayer, he yields himself to be broken for his betrayer. Instead of pouring out the blood of his enemy . . . he allows his enemy, you and me, to spill his blood for our sake. [3]
For on the night when he was betrayed, he took a loaf of bread, and when he had given thanks, he broke it and said, “This is my body that is for you.”
And that’s not all he said. He said, “Do this and re-member me.” Re-member. The betrayal of Judas cut through the fabric of their lives that night with shocking ease. Friends, followers, family at supper together, at the table with Christ himself at the head –that body of those faithful would, after the betrayal, disintegrate, deny, and flee. And yet, knowing that, Jesus breaks bread and bids them re-member. All can seem lost, hope, relationship, meaning, all can seem lost. All can be broken. And yet nothing is out of reach. All can be re-membered, made whole, in and through God.
That is what Jesus promises at the Last Supper. We the body of Christ will be re-membered, made right, put back together. Marked not by our betrayal, but by His love.
Amen.
[1] Anna Fels, “Great Betrayals,” in Opinion, The New York Times, 5 Oct. 2013, https://www.nytimes.com/2013/10/06/opinion/sunday/great-betrayals.html.
[2] Ibid.
[3] Zac Hicks, “We Are Judas,” preached on 18 April 2019 at Cathedral Church of the Advent, Birmingham, Alabama, https://audio.adventbirmingham.org/categories/maundy-thursday. Hick’s sermon, which I discovered last year, inspired this one more generally.
