by CCW | 16 March 2015 09:00
The kiss of Judas gathers into itself all of the forms of betrayal. Not least is the idea of the betrayal of brotherhood and fellowship, betrayals that are related to our betrayals of ourselves and God and that lead to disorder and disarray. In a way, those aspects of betrayal are captured best in the Old Testament story of Joseph and his brothers and in the New Testament story of the Peter’s betrayal of Christ. Both stories bring out the nature of betrayal and the prospect of forgiveness through contrition and repentance; paradoxically, the very things refused and denied by Judas himself.
Giotto’s poignant portrayal[1] of Judas’ betrayal has Jesus look directly into the face of Judas and speak to him. And yet, the story of Judas is also the denial of redemption, of the possibilities of forgiveness and mercy. That is, it seems to me the horror of the kiss of Judas. It shows us the fullest possible extent of human sinfulness – not only do we deny the truth of God but we persist in our denials to the point of willful destruction. Such is the end of Judas. And it serves as an object lesson precisely about lessons not learned!
The stories of Joseph and his brothers and of Peter’s betrayal concern the matter of recognition. Joseph makes himself known to his brothers and they, in turn, confront themselves and the consequences of their actions. Jesus, “on the night in which he was betrayed,” is hauled before the High Priest and turns and looks at Peter who has just denied him. Powerful moments of recognition and repentance.
But who are we that God should recognize us? How are we known to him and to each other? How shall we divine an understanding of who we essentially are? We are so good at deceiving ourselves and one another. We are so good at betrayal.
But coming to terms with ourselves is not easy. It is often a matter of tears, “a broken and contrite heart, O God, thou shalt not despise.”
Consider the story of Joseph. Joseph was the beloved son of Jacob by his beautiful wife Rachel. Rachel, the love of his life, only bore Jacob two sons, Joseph and Benjamin, in his old age, before dying in childbirth at Benjamin’s birth. Apart from Joseph and Benjamin, the sons of Jacob and Rachel, there were the other sons of Jacob by Leah as well as some sons from the handmaidens of both Rachel and Leah. These are the stories belonging to the origins of the twelve tribes of Israel; stories, too, that pit human presumption and desire against God’s will and purpose, as if God could be made subject to human folly and human ambition. Somehow the providence of God is accomplished in spite of ourselves, even more profoundly, it is accomplished in and through our follies and wickednesses.
Joseph, the story goes, had managed to become an annoyance and a nuisance to his other brothers, particularly since his dreams seemed to suggest his rule and power over them. As a result, the brothers conspired to get rid of him, casting him into a dry well and then selling him into slavery. Placing the blood of a lamb on his coat, they informed their father, Jacob, that Joseph was dead. Meanwhile, sold into slavery, he ended up in Egypt where, having spurned the sexual advances of Pharoah’s wife, he was nonetheless falsely accused and thrown into prison.
While in prison, he came to Pharoah’s attention as an interpreter of dreams. Successfully interpreting Pharoah’s dreams, he was rewarded with the portfolio of Minister of State, we might say, and was put in charge of domestic affairs. In that capacity, or at least its Egyptian equivalent, he saw to the storing up of wheat and grain during seven years of plenty in anticipation of seven lean years. During those years of famine, the sons of Jacob, also known as Israel, came down to Egypt looking for food. So Joseph finally encounters his brothers who had betrayed him. What will happen? They are at his mercy.
Through the device of a cup – the cup of divination? – the brothers are brought back to Joseph. What will he do to them? After all, they had betrayed him and sold their own brother, the beloved son of their father, into slavery. What will transpire? Revenge? No, instead, reconciliation, but only through the conviction of recognition. The cup found in their sacks serves as the instrument that brings them into Joseph’s hands and into his presence for judgment and mercy. The scene is exquisite in its tenderness. Joseph, unable to contain himself, reveals himself to his brothers. They are at once convicted of their betrayal of their brother and yet are made to realize that God has accomplished a greater purpose through their evil. “I am Joseph, your brother, Joseph, whom you sold into Egypt. And now, do not be dismayed, or angry with yourselves, because you sold me here; for God sent me before you to preserve life.” A powerful and eloquent narrative that has, in turn, inspired others, such as Thomas Mann’s narrative literary classic “Joseph in Egypt.”
The story of Joseph is compelling and touching. It helps us to understand an even more compelling and touching story, it seems to me, the story of Peter’s denial of Christ. Luke is the master storyteller. At supper in the upper room, celebrating the Passover, the ancient ceremony that recalls Israel’s miraculous deliverance from Egyptian bondage, after Jesus had taken the cup, saying “This cup is the new covenant in my blood, which is shed for you,” he adds that “the hand of him that betrayeth me is with me on the table.” It is, of course, Judas, but in a profounder sense, it is all of us. We are all the betrayers of Christ and the betrayers of one another in the sad and sorry tale of all our lies and deceits. Peter, in the course of the dialogue, protests his utter loyalty to Christ: “Lord, I am ready to go with thee both into prison and to death.” Jesus’ response was to say to Peter that “the cock shall not crow this day, before that thou shalt thrice deny that thou knowest me.”
Luke proceeds to capture just that moment when Peter recognizes what he has done. And all because Jesus “turned and looked upon Peter.”
What was that look? It is, I want to argue, the look of loving and infinite compassion which convicts us more surely, more strongly than anything else. It is the look of God’s love for us in the face of our rejection of him. If this will not move us, what will?
We are told what Peter’s response was to this look of Jesus. “Peter remembered the word of the Lord … and Peter went out and wept bitterly.” Such tears are the tears of repentance. They arise out of the recognition of the compassion of Christ for us. They are salvation and grace. We confront ourselves in the sad tale of our betrayals and deceits but, even more, we confront the love of God. The awareness is everything.
The cup in the sack of the brothers of Joseph served to bring them to the recognition of themselves as his betrayers but, more profoundly, it gathers them into the mystery of God’s redemption of our humanity. Another cup, the cup of blessing, also serves to recall us to God’s recognition of us and ourselves as the false ones, like Peter discovering with a kind of fall of his heart that he has betrayed “his own familiar friend,” as the psalmist puts it. It reaches the height of intensity in the Passion of Christ. Part of the story of our humanity, it is wonderfully captured in a liturgical act that reminds us that love is stronger than death, stronger than the death of our deadly sins of betrayal. The betrayals of his love become the redemptive way of our entering into his love.
And yet, the kiss of Judas leads to the refusal of contrition. There is remorse on the part of Judas, remorse leading to despair and desperation. Judas becomes the paradigm of unrepentant remorse that paradoxically serves to deepen our contrition and repentance.
In the mediaeval cathedral of Durham in northern England, a ritual known as the Judas Cup ceremony was instituted as part of the Maundy Thursday liturgy in the fourteenth century. It offers a stark and compelling image of the theme of betrayal. Following Holy Communion, a large cup or bowl called a mazer, known as the Judas cup, was placed before the monks. It was called the Judas cup “because the face of Judas was worked into its bowl so that when the monks drank from it they could see, as it were, the face of Judas looking at them and, in a sense, mirroring their own face” (Thomas Davies). We confront ourselves in these stories. They are the poignant spectacles of betrayal. We behold the Judas in each of us. Even more, we behold the pageant of divine love. And all because as Giotto suggests on Luke’s account, Jesus looks at Judas even as he turns and looks at Peter. At issue is our response.
Fr. David Curry
Sermon for the Lenten Quiet Day
Saturday, March 14th, 2015
Sponsored by the PBSC NSPEI[2]
Held at King’s-Edgehill School
Windsor, Nova Scotia
Source URL: https://christchurchwindsor.ca/2015/03/16/sermon-for-lenten-quiet-day/
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