On Passion (Palm) Sunday this year, we read the passion narrative from the gospel according to St. Matthew. The reading opens with Judas Iscariot:
"Then one of the Twelve, who was called Judas Iscariot, went to the chief priests and said, 'What are you willing to give me if I hand him over to you?' They paid him thirty pieces of silver, and from that time on he looked for an opportunity to hand him over. " (Matthew 26:14-16, NAB)
Judas is a question mark: why did he do it? As the evangelists so often do, Matthew tells us in two stark sentences what Judas did, but he doesn't tell us why. Down through the centuries, readers and commentators and artists and poets and librettists have filled in the blanks: he did it for the money, he did it because the devil made him do it, he did it because Jesus had failed to live up to his expectations of a political messiah, he did it...well, no one knows why he did.
As we read, Judas becomes one facet of the mirror the gospel holds up to us. Looking in that mirror, we see the face of our own betrayals looking back at us. Piety may forbid us to see anything but horror in Judas: he sold Jesus Christ to his killers. Honesty might require us to admit that he is not alone in having sold down river the one thing that mattered. How many of us have sold our prayer for entertainment, our integrity for power or prestige, our life's work for an easy ride? Is selling God's gifts to us "for a handful of silver" any less heinous, really, than selling the Savior?
Come now, you're probably saying, there is no comparison. I've made my little compromises, sure, but nobody died for it. As I grow older, I've begun to wonder whether that's true. Jesus died in a few hours on one unforgettable day, but we die no less decisively when we trade away our own truth over a lifetime of little compromises. St. Basil the Great defines sin as the use of God's gifts for purposes other than those for which they were given. Most grievous, he says, is the misuse of love. Someone is a gifted storyteller and puts the gift to use writing trash for cash. Someone is a gifted singer but remains mute for fear of jealousy. Someone is a gifted homemaker but abandons the satisfaction of using the gift for the comfort of sitting in front of the TV. Not major crimes, surely? The serpent's tooth may poison us by small bites. And the serpent is well disguised by "everybody does it" or "you've got to take care of number one" or "come on--don't be a prig" or "look, it's easy".
After awhile, maybe, we forget that we have options. The good news that seems to have fallen on deaf ears in the tragic Judas is laid out before us this week in all its urgency. We all have hidden somewhere our little stash of silver coins, the reward for our betrayals of the self we were made to be, but it's never too late to trade them in again for forgiveness, freedom, life. The loss may be painful, the prospect of change frightening, the way back long and hard. But the offer is always there.
If Judas remains a question mark, so does God's mercy. Peter also betrayed Jesus, but he regretted fiercely his moment of weakness, and found forgiveness from the very one he had betrayed. Why didn't Judas? Why didn't God save him from his own despair? I wonder if it was because he had so eroded his soul with a lifetime of betrayals that he could no longer see the outstretched hand. Having walled himself into a very small cell, perhaps he could no longer recognize the window or the open door. And who knows? Maybe, in the privacy of one of those moments of anguish and grace that go unreported by the evangelists--who had reason to think ill of Judas anyway--God's fingers finally managed to catch hold of Judas' fist and fill it with something far better than thirty pieces of silver. We know as little about God's response as do about Judas' motives.
Why did he do it? Why did he sell out Jesus? Why did he hang himself after three years in the company of God's mercy made flesh? Perhaps he didn't know himself. If Judas is question mark, puzzle, thorn in the flesh of Christian mind, he is also, like all of us, mystery. How many of us can really fathom in ourselves the depths where betrayal and grace meet? I would rather not reduce Judas to a simple explanation. I would rather allow him to remain a mirror. If I can't see into his soul, perhaps he can let me see into mine. My prayer is for the courage to look.
Note: The phrase "for a handful of silver" comes from Robert Browning's moving poem about betrayal and forgiveness, The Lost Leader. See http://rpo.library.utoronto.ca/poem/282.html
©2008, Abbey of St. Walburga©2008, Abbey of St. Walburg
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