The Kiss of Judas: Themes of Betrayal & Forgiveness in the Scriptures – III
This 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.