The Kiss of Judas: Themes of Betrayal & Forgiveness in the Scriptures – III
admin | 18 March 2013This is the third in a series of four Lenten devotional reflections given by Fr. David Curry on The Kiss of Judas: Themes of Betrayal & Forgiveness in the Scriptures. The first is posted here, and the second here.
UPDATE (22 Mar.): The four addresses have been compiled into a booklet, which can be accessed here.
“Judas, betrayest thou the Son of man with a kiss?”
There are kisses and there are kisses. One has only to think of the sensual imagery of the kiss to realize how profound the very idea of a kiss as betrayal really is. And yet, it takes the larger view of the biblical panorama in all its complexity, and, dare I say, confusion, to bring home to us the radical nature of betrayal that in turn can be so simply and yet profoundly captured in a kiss.
The pageant of Holy Week immerses us in the theme of betrayal. In a way, it seeks to concentrate our minds on the ways in which we all participate in the kiss of Judas, the archetype of all betrayal. That may seem very distant and dismal, rather dark and disturbing, but the point is quite the contrary. Our being awakened to the awareness of betrayal in each of our hearts is the spring that catapults us into the freeing grace of Christ. The paradox is that we can really only come to that by way of the horrendous spectacles of betrayal. Two stories stand out in the Old Testament view of things that illumine so much of the later New Testament perspective.
The two stories that I have in mind are the stories of the Levite’s Concubine and the story of David’s betrayal of God. The one is told in the Book of Judges, the other in the books of Samuel and First Kings. The story of the Levite’s Concubine is probably, I am afraid to say, completely unknown to you. It does not figure in the Church’s public reading of Scripture. You can only know it from your own reading of Scripture or perhaps from the odd and curious reference from some preacher, no doubt odd and curious too! And there is very little about the story in the older commentary tradition either.
The story of the Levite’s Concubine is the most disturbing story of the whole of the Old Testament. It is at once complex and confusing yet quite compelling about the nature of a kind of inchoate form of betrayal, of betrayal avant la lettre in a way and yet as illuming après la lettre something of the deeper aspects of betrayal. The story appears at the end of the Book of Judges, a book which is buttressed by the telling theme that “in those days there was no king in Israel.” The idea of a king in Israel raises intriguing and compelling questions about authority. That the Book of Judges raises the question about Kingship in this way signals a kind of change and a problem. The problem is about how to give expression to our commitment to things spiritual and intellectual – to God and the soul, as it were. The whole Book of Judges is taken up with the problem of how the people of God are to be governed and organized under the ultimate authority of God. In other words, how are the transcendent principles of the Kingdom of God to be translated into the practical life of the people of God? Ultimately, it is a question about mediation, the mediation of authority.
In the Book of Judges, Israel is governed, so to speak, by a series of charismatic leaders who are called Judges. They are quite a collection of characters, strong-willed men and women such as Deborah, Gideon and Samson, for example. But there is something inherently unstable about rule based on charisma, upon the personal gifts of an individual, rather than upon the objective nature of the office of political rule. The whole Book of Judges points to a further feature of this unstable and unsettled period in the history of Israel, namely, an aspect of lawlessness in the people of Israel themselves. This is something which reaches back to the giving of the Law in the wilderness. The Law, in the form of the Ten Commandments, has to be given twice because of Israel’s disobedience. In Moses’ absence, they persuade Aaron to make the Golden Calf as the sign and symbol of their deliverance from Egyptian bondage when they were under the yoke of Pharaoh, the God-King of Egypt, as it were. It signaled a rejection of God’s Word and Will objectively proclaimed in the Ten Commandments and objectively presented on the two tablets of stone; a rejection of God himself and a betrayal of the Covenant, a turning away from God and a turning towards the idols of our own hearts and minds.
The challenge, explicitly stated in the Prophets, such as Ezekiel, is for the Law to be written not just outwardly on stone but inwardly in our hearts. It is a major part of the spiritual journey for each of us. The Book of Judges is part of the spiritual journey of Israel in the continuing discovery of what it means to be the people of God, defined by the Law and coming to terms with the political forms needed to realize their vocation as God’s people. No story, perhaps, reveals more clearly the aspect of the lawlessness of the people of Israel. Not only was there no king in Israel but “every man did that which was right in his own eyes” which we may understand as being really the same as saying that “the people of Israel did what was evil in the sight of the Lord,” “serv[ing] the Baals,” the pagan gods of the Canaanites and “forsaking the Lord, the God of their fathers who had brought them out of the land of Egypt” (Judges 2.11), a frequently repeated refrain in the Scriptures of the Old Testament. It belongs in other words to a denial of the First Commandment, the Commandment which undergirds all of the Commandments. To put it bluntly, God is God. “I am the Lord thy God who brought thee out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of bondage. Thou shalt have none other gods but me”(Exodus 20.2,3).
And no story is more disturbing. It begins, even as the Book of Judges ends, with the words “in those days … there was no king in Israel.” A certain Levite had a concubine from Bethlehem who “played the harlot” as the King James Bible puts it or got “angry with him” as the Revised Standard Version puts it and returned to her father’s house in Bethlehem. Four months later the Levite, described as her husband, “arose and went after her, to speak kindly to her and bring her back” travelling with a servant and a couple of asses. The Levite is received with joy, enjoys several days of hospitality in Bethlehem and indeed is pressed to stay longer but late on the fifth day the Levite insists on leaving with his servant, his concubine, and a couple of saddled asses. They journey and come near to Jebus (that is Jerusalem) but despite the servant’s entreaty to spend the night in the city of the Jebusites, the Levite says that “we will not turn aside into the city of foreigners, who do not belong to the people of Israel; but we will pass on to Gibeah,” which is a city of the Benjaminites, one of the tribes of Israel. There is the sense that there should be greater hospitality and greater safety in one of the cities of the people of Israel.
They arrive in Gibeah and sit in the open square of the city, “for,” tellingly, “no man took them into his house to spend the night.” Only an old man, coming in from his work in the fields, takes them to his house and he is said to be from the hill country of Ephraim, another tribe of Israel, and was sojourning in Gibeah, the city of the Benjaminites. It is to be noted that the company of the Levite have “straw and provender for their asses, and bread and wine for themselves.” They are not looking for a hand-out; only a place to stay. There was, to be sure, no Super-Eight in Gibeah. The old man from Ephraim invites them in and provides for them.
This is where the story gets ugly. While they are making merry, “the men of the city, base fellows, beset the house” demanding that the man, meaning the Levite, be brought out to them “that we may know him,” the reference is sexual and brutal. The old man remonstrates with them not to do this vile thing and violate the Levite and offers them instead his virgin daughter and the Levite’s concubine in place of the Levite, his guest! “Ravish them,” he says, “and do with them what seems good to you; but against this man do not do so vile a thing.” We hear nothing about his virgin daughter only that the concubine is seized and “abused all night until the morning.” Then she “came and fell down at the door of the man’s house where her master was, till it was light.” In a most poignant image, she lies at the door of the house “with her hands on the threshold” where the Levite finds her when it is time to go. “Get up, let us be going,” he says, “but there was no answer.” She is dead.
The story is horrible in every way from giving up the concubine to the rapacious desires of the men of the city of Gibeah to the sense of indifference about finding her on the doorstep with her hands outstretched. But it doesn’t end here. The Levite puts his concubine upon the ass and goes to his home where he takes a knife and divides the body of his concubine into twelve pieces and “sent her through all the territory of Israel.” Gruesome? Grotesque? In a way, I think, it is the lesson which the concubine teaches. The lesson is Israel’s complete betrayal of God and of themselves as the people of God. “And all who saw it said, Such a thing has never happened or been seen from the day that the people of Israel came up out of the land of Egypt until this day.” Israel has to confront the nature of the betrayal of the law and of the common law of our humanity as it were.
The consequence of the sending of the body parts to all the tribes of Israel is a war against the Benjaminites for “the wanton crime which they have committed in Israel.” “The Lord” it is said, “defeated Benjamin before Israel” and the tribe of Benjamin is reduced to a remnant plus the men of Israel refuse to allow any of their daughters to be married to a Benjaminite, thus threatening the very existence of the tribe of Benjamin who have to have recourse to getting wives through conquest from Jabesh-gilead and Shiloh, the one a city of Israel that did not join in the campaign to punish the Benjaminites, the other a Canaanite city.
But the story is about the revulsion in Israel to the forms of its own lawlessness, in this case through the Benjaminites. It is a violent and grotesque story about human wickedness and lawlessness, a wickedness and a lawlessness within Israel. It is a story of the betrayal of the principles that define Israel’s identity as the people of Israel. A collection of tribes, each of whom have their own particular traits as celebrated in poem or song known as Jacob’s blessing in Genesis, they are properly defined by their identity with God through the Law. “Benjamin is a ravening wolf, in the morning devouring the prey, and at even dividing the spoil,” as Jacob’s blessing says, a blessing rich in ambiguity given the story of the Levite’s concubine ravished in Gibeah.
The behavior of the men of Gibeah is abominable, an outrage in every way. It is not how sojourners or Levites or women are to be treated. It suggests too something of the callous disregard of the Levite for his concubine, hardly a pretty picture. It is a moral tale that convicts Israel of her disregard of the Law of God. It is a picture of the wanton violence that arises when “every [one] does as is their wont” and “there is no king,” no ruling power, “in Israel.”
The story convicts the conscience of Israel about the betrayals of the Law both outwardly and inwardly we might say. It shows the horrible picture of the radical disarray of our humanity when there is no law, no rule.
How do we face our betrayals? No story perhaps is clearer and more direct on that account than the story of David. A beautiful and compelling narrative artfully told, the story of David runs through the Books of Samuel and First Kings. It, too, is a story that has its origins in the question about the mediation of divine authority. There is a tension between prophecy and kingship, one which anticipates much later questions about church and state and their interrelation. There is the prophet Samuel and there is King Saul, a troubled and uncertain king.
The story of David begins with David being anointed by Samuel as King while Saul is still King. David is the youngest of the sons of Jesse. There is the wonderful insight, too, that runs through the whole story of David, namely, that man looks on the outward appearance but God looks on the heart. David is a kind of everyman. He is presented initially as a shepherd but will be anointed king; he is as well a musician, a player of the lyre who in the service of King Saul is able to soothe his troubled mind but David, too, is a man of valour, a man of war. He stands up against Goliath, the giant Philistine all because Goliath has defied God. He persuades Saul to let him take on Goliath; after all, he has protected the sheep from the lion and the bear. Saul agrees and gives him his armour to put on. It is a humorous scene. David puts on the armour but then is unable to move; it is too heavy for him. He takes off the armour and arms himself instead with five smooth stones and his sling-shot. Mocked by Goliath, David’s retort is marvellous. “You come out to me with a sword and with a spear and with a javelin but I come to you in the name of the Lord of hosts, the God of the armies of Israel, whom you have defied” (1 Samuel.17.45). The rest, as they say, is all history. David slays Goliath with one stone slung from his slingshot. All well and good, it seems. David has all the credentials of a hero but in the biblical view there really are no heroes only fallen human beings. Everything is directed to the power and grace of God as the ruling force and principle of good in the world.
David is the great king, however, under whose leadership and skill the tribes of Israel are united and united in worship centered in the city of Zion, Jerusalem. David is, indeed, a kind of everyman however but perhaps most importantly in being a sinner. He shows us as the poet/preacher John Donne puts it “the slippery ways into sin.” It is a compelling story. David, the successful king, is at home while his armies are at war. Walking about on his roof-top patio, he looks over into the neighbouring property only to see the beautiful Bathsheba, the wife of Uriah the Hittite, bathing and nude.
He is smitten. The lust of his eyes leads to the lust of the heart and to adultery. She conceives. “O what a tangled web we weave when first we practice to deceive” (Sir Walter Scott, Marmion). Upon hearing that she is with child, David immediately recalls Uriah from the battle, fêtes him and bids him go down to his home and be with his wife in the hopes that the child can conceivably be passed off as Uriah’s child. But Uriah the Hittite – a non-Israelite, by the way – adheres to the warrior code. His men are in battle sleeping in the field; he will not go down to his own home and to his wife but sleeps at David’s doorstep. Drats! Foiled in his scheme, what next? Well, he sends Uriah back to the battle with a note for Joab, David’s commander in the field, bidding Joab set Uriah in the midst of the battle where he is likely to be killed. And he is. Adultery and now murder. David takes Bathsheba to be his wife and she bore him a son. In a marvel of understatement, we are told that “the thing that David had done displeased the Lord” (2 Samuel 11.27).
But the progression of sin is fascinating. First, he covets another man’s wife. Then he commits adultery. Then he conspires to cover it up – a form of false witness, we might say – which only leads to a greater conspiracy, the conspiracy to have Uriah killed. Quite a progression whereby we learn how we go from one thing to another in a steady and downward spiral of sin and wickedness; the slippery slopes of sin, indeed! From the breaking of the tenth commandment, to the seventh and sixth with a sidelong glance at the ninth as well, we might say. And yet, there is something more, something deeper, a deeper betrayal, a betrayal of God. The Ten Commandments are all interconnected and in a way they are all about the first commandment.
The question however is about what happens next? And here, as Donne remarks, “David not only shows us the slippery ways into sin but also the penitential ways out of sin.” How does that happen? By being confronted by our own follies. This is the marvel of the narrative, the marvel of the story of David, the man whose heart God sees and whose heart, too, we are allowed to see. It happens through the telling of a story.
The Lord sends Nathan the prophet to David. He is the story teller who acts, we might say, as the conscience of the King. He tells a story about a rich man and a poor man. The poor man had but one little ewe lamb which he loved and loved dearly. The rich man had many sheep and lambs but was loathe to sacrifice even one of them for the purposes of the rites of hospitality to a visitor, so he took the one little ewe lamb of the poor man to provide a meal to his visitor. Upon hearing the story, David was angry and said, “As the Lord lives, the man who has done this deserves to die; and he shall restore the lamb fourfold, because he did this thing, and because he had no pity” (2 Samuel 12. 6).
In an economy of expression, Nathan responds with four simple words, “Thou art the man” (2 Samuel 12.7). Exquisite and powerful, the real point has to do with David’s response. He has been convicted of his own sin. Nathan makes it perfectly clear how the parable refers unambiguously to David’s sin. How does David react? Does he try to weasel out of it? Does he try to blame the beautiful Bathsheba? Does he whinge and whine? No. David says to Nathan, “I have sinned against the Lord” (2 Samuel 12.13). This story is sometimes understood to provide the occasional basis for the great penitential psalm of Lent, psalm 51. “Against thee only have I sinned and done that which is evil in thy sight.” David confesses and in his confession we see something of the true nature of confession; it is about looking to the Lord from whom we have turned away. David indeed shows us not only the slippery ways into sin but also the penitential ways out of sin. He shows something of the nature of penitential adoration. The truth of God is greater and matters more than the follies and schemes of our humanity. David is, we might say, the Old Testament paradigm of the repentant sinner.
The story of David’s sin is the story of betrayal, the betrayal of the Law but most importantly, a betrayal of God. “Against thee only have I sinned.” The real power of the story is seen in how David responds to what he has done: “I have sinned against the Lord.” There are consequences for David. He will not get to build the temple in Jerusalem because there is blood on his hands, the blood of Uriah, to be sure.
The story of the Levite’s Concubine and the story of David help to illumine the forms of treachery and betrayal in the New Testament. For there, too, there are the egregious miscarriages of justice which are part of the pageant of betrayal. Let me end simply by recalling the scene of Pontius Pilate washing his hands as a way of distancing himself from the sentencing of an innocent man; it belongs to the theme of the miscarriage of justice by those in authority. It is a scene of singular instance, if for no other reason than Pilate has the dubious honour of being named in the Creed, a testimony to history and a testimony to the failings and limitations of human justice but made part of the greater story of divine love.
Somehow through the pageants of betrayal we learn even more about the importance of repentance and the grace of forgiveness. It all has to do with our openness to the truth of God. He makes a path to himself even out of the wayward ways of our hearts. The betrayals of intimacy serve to gather us into the greater intimacy of God’s love. The outstretched hands of the Levite’s Concubine, David’s hands of blood, and Pilate washing his hands – all these serve as images to teach us about betrayal and forgiveness, about human sin and divine grace.
“Judas, betrayest thou the Son of man with a kiss?”
Fr. David Curry
‘The Kiss of Judas: Themes of Betrayal & Forgiveness in the Scriptures’ III
Tuesday, March 5th, 2013