Socrates is reported to have said that “the unexamined life is not worth living.”
Judas' conscience - G.E Nikolaj (1891)
Any honest self-examination knows that to be human is to experience betrayal. We betray and we are betrayed.
Would it help to think of God as being closer to our betrayals than we ever dare to be?
Would it help, perhaps, to see your betrayal of others and your self-betrayals, as scenes in a drama with many different scenes and acts, a drama bigger than betrayal? A drama of One who knows our nature. Our fears. Our dashed hopes. Our un-trustworthiness. The side of us so ugly that we dare not look it in the eye – the side that, for thes moment, cannot imagine the larger dramatic piece and the hopeful theme we have forsaken: the persistence of love, of forgiveness, of life out of death, the resurrection of love itself…here and now…not just then and there.
There are two traditions about Judas, disciple of Jesus whose betrayal has been handed down across the ages, the scapegoat Betrayer we don’t want to be.
According to the first story In Matthew, “when Judas, [Jesus'] betrayer, saw that [Jesus] was condemned, he repented and brought back the thirty pieces of silver…and throwing down the pieces of silver…he departed; and he went and hanged himself.” The first story puts Judas at the end of his own noose. But there’s an altogether different tradition according to which Judas exploded from within while walking across a field. In this story, the Betrayer is a walking dead man, walking with such self-hatred – a self-loathing so profound – that he could not live with himself, and as he was walking, “all his bowels gushed out” (Acts of the Apostles 1:18).
A few of us have attempted suicide. Most of us have not All of us, if we’re honest, know something of what it’s like to walk through life with unsettled stomachs and intestines. The prescriptions we take for upset stomachs or roiling bowels cannot touch the issue of betrayal when we have betrayed or have been betrayed.
But – stay with me a moment longer -here’s the thing I’ve come to see. The word for “gift” in New Testament Greek is didomi. The word most often translated “betrayal” is paradidomi - to give over - para (over or across) and didomi (gift). Tradition is handing over the gift from one generation to the next.
Interesting…strange, even…that these words are so closely related. In Christian tradition, Jesus is the great Gift. Judas, the Betrayer, unwittingly passes on the gift, gives the gift over, hands the gift over… to the authorities…and to us…with a kiss.
With Judas’ kiss the story of Jesus the betrayed becomes OUR story: the story of the Betrayer and the Betrayed, the tradition handed over to us across the millenia.
Betrayal Steve Shoemaker, Urbana, IL, 2012
J. seemed a friend–he chose to join the group.
We trusted him. We let him keep the purse
we held in common. We would meet for supper
often–yes, our hands would touch, we’d curse
the same opponents, be amazed and shake
our heads at miracles. We later learned
he stole, and made a secret deal to take
the silver from the Priests–from grace he turned
to greed.
Soon after, he was overcome
with shame: he threw the money at their feet.
J. left us then, he had himself to blame
and took his life: Disciple of Defeat.
The greatest miracle of all he’d miss
because he betrayed Jesus with a kiss.
Betrayal is not the most importance scene in life. Stick around for the next scenes and acts that transform the laments of examined lives into anthems to the One who is closer to our betrayals than we ever dare to be. The examine life is worth living.
