Joshua 24:1-2a, 14-18; Psalm 34: 9-14; Ephesians 6:10-20; John 6:56-6
The Rev. Candice B. Frazer
Jesus and Judas–we don’t talk that much about this combination outside of Holy Week mainly because we associate the betrayal of Jesus with the Last Supper and the Garden of Gethsemane when Judas arrives with the Temple authority to arrest Jesus. So, it may come as a bit of a surprise that early on in Jesus’s ministry, after he has called the twelve disciples–including Judas—he publicly outs one of them as his betrayer.
For Jesus knew from the first who were the ones who did not believe, and who was the one that would betray him. (John 6:64b)
Jesus knows exactly who that betrayer will be. Though we’ve been reading the whole of John 6 over the past five weeks, for some reason the lectionary omits the last three verses of the chapter:
Jesus answered them, “Did I not choose you, the twelve? Yet one of you is a devil.” He was speaking of Judas son of Simon Iscariot, for he, though one of the twelve, was going to betray him. (John 6:70-72)
I’m pretty sure that the lectionary’s omission of these verses is so as to not water down the “Bread of Life Discourse” that we have been digging into so deeply with talk of betrayal–or at least not point the finger at Judas as betrayer without understanding that we too, betray Jesus.
Jesus reaches the climax of his discourse today in describing his relationship with God and invites us to be active participants in that relationship, “Those who eat my flesh and drink my blood abide in me, and I in them.” He goes on to talk about how he lives because of the father and those who partake of him will also live.
It is a hard teaching for a whole bunch of reasons, not least being the sense of cannibalism that it elicits. And this does become an early criticism of the church in the first century. Jesus’ words continue to offend even today. Not the cannibalism part, the necessity of the Eucharist–the consumption of bread and wine—the need to go to church—as the path toward relationship with Jesus and, by extension, with God. These verses have plagued the church and its understanding of this sacrament. Often, we get bogged down in questions like can we drink grape juice instead of wine. In the 15th, 16th, and 17th centuries of European expansion and
empire building, the church found itself sending missionaries with grape plants to exotic places around the globe in order to ensure there would be wine for communion. These concerns may seem a bit silly to us today, but Jesus is pretty adamant about what gives eternal life, we just get confused thinking that he is talking about elemental forces instead of divine ones.
This is why it is such a hard teaching–if we could just eat some bread and drink some wine and profess our love of Jesus–then this whole faith thing would be pretty easy. For the most part, that is all we have to do but it shouldn’t escape our notice that Judas did that too. And Judas is not the only one.
Jesus knows that there are those who were present at the feeding miracle of the five thousand that happened at the start of this chapter and though they’ve made it this far, they will soon fall away leaving only twelve behind, “many of his disciples turned back and no longer went about with him.” These were the same people who questioned and complained about this difficult teaching. In response to their complaints regarding the difficulty of this teaching, Jesus doesn’t reject them of judge them, he offers salvific love. He tells them that it is the spirit that gives life, the flesh is useless.
It is in these words that Jesus has laid the choice before them. Choosing life means we must release our own desires, what Freud would call the ego, the way we want the world to be. No longer can we hold fast to our expectations, goals, or particular desires about how we think the world should be; to abide in God is to allow God to design the world around us. We have a responsibility to care for ourselves, for others, and for all of creation but as soon as we start thinking of ourselves as in charge or the only ones who can do the job, then we move into a place that denies and even betrays Jesus. Our job is to live in love, act responsibly, care for others and never accept or place any mantel of control or power upon our own shoulders.
This is why it is so hard, why so many of the disciples turn back, why Judas betrays Jesus. We can profess faith, but do we keep showing up for Jesus in all the ways? Do we release our own need for power and allow God’s power to be enough? The easy ways are simply to come to church and surround ourselves with those who profess a faith grounded in love. The more challenging ways are to profess love for others even and especially when they keep letting you down or eventually betray you. But that is what it means to be a follower of Jesus. Jesus kept loving Judas even though he knew he was a devil. Jesus called Judas to be a disciple even though he knew that he would also be the one to betray him.
That betrayal isn’t simply Judas showing up in the Garden of Gethsemane with the Temple authority. It is the betrayal of flesh over spirit–the desire for worldly concerns over eternal
ones. Acquisition, power, control, vengeance, judgment, condemnation, resistance these are the red flags that help us to see the times we stray from a Jesus path onto a Judas one.
It is not about denying flesh but holding it in tension with the spirit; releasing its needs and recognizing that confession of faith alone is not enough. We must also act like Jesus followers in our words and in our deeds. Stanley Hauerwas, a theologian at Duke Divinity and named America’s best theologian in 2001, says that to be a follower of Jesus you only have to do four things: get baptized, go to church, take communion, act Christian. When we do these things, we discover that it becomes easier to release our ego and not hold so tight to what we want in the world or what we believe the world needs to do or be for us. Instead, we grow in hope and trust of what God will and can do in the world around us.
We must also be mindful that a confession of faith may not be enough. When Jesus asks the twelve if they too wish to go away, Simon Peter replies,
Lord, to whom can we go? You have the words of eternal life. We have come to believe and know that you are the Holy One of God. (John 6: 69)
Though this confession is a sign of Simon Peter’s faith, it does not immunize him from his own betrayal of Jesus. Peter will deny him three times before the cock crows.
The thing is that Jesus keeps responding to our betrayals, doubts, and questions in love. He invites Judas to be one of the twelve even though he knows he will betray him. He charges Peter with feeding his sheep, even though Peter has denied him. He hears the people’s complaints and instead of resisting the, arguing with them, judging them or denying them, he responds with an invitation of salvific love. He chooses the twelve even though he knows their faith will wane at times and their struggles with their faith will lead to his death.
None of this is new. God has been responding to our complaints and doubts and failures with salvific love from the very beginning. The manna in the wilderness was a response of salvific love to the complaints of the Israelites who had just been saved through the Red Sea, delivered out of Egypt. Joshua declares that “as for me and my household, we will serve the Lord” and all the people respond by declaring their service of God as well. Yet, the whole story of Israel from that day forward is a story of their failure to do just that. And no matter how many times we serve other gods and worship false idols, complain against God, and betray his love for us; he keeps responding with salvific love. That is the difference between us and the divine. God loves us no matter what. There is nothing we can do to keep ourselves from the love of God.
Jesus and Judas. We don’t spend a lot of time thinking about the relationship between the two of them but maybe if we did, we might rethink how we profess our faith. It is not enough to be Jesus at church if we discover we are Judas in the world.
Get baptized, go to church, take communion, and act like followers of the way of Jesus in the world.