District Resource Day: Vance Ross

Last week I attended a District Resource Day with Vance Ross, deputy general secretary of GBOD. His topic was Pastoral Leadership for the Evangelical Task.

Honestly, it took me a while to warm up to Ross' presentation. I attribute this, though, to the fact that we didn't have a projector for his presentation right away - it arrived about 20 minutes after he started. So he was forced to 'wing it' a bit more at the start. Once everything was set up and on task, I really enjoyed his presentation. Here are my mostly un-edited notes:

***

Easier to talk about who Jesus is than what he said and what he did. Jesus isn’t the good news message alone – it is the coming kingdom that is the message.

Evangelism is our code-word for growing numerically, when it should have a bigger meaning than that.

Trying to observe, methodically, the Sabbath.

8 Necessities for Leadership:

Call – Our own, calling others (remembering God’s call on your life)

Confidence (being able to get it done), Character, Chemistry (being able to work with others) (Hybels)

Courage – Quoting – “courage is fear that is said as prayers”

Competence

Caring – actually have to love people!

***
You can’t lead where you don’t go.

Deep spirituality is critical to the evangelical task because “this is about faith which is necessarily beyond the rational.”

When losing, go back to basics

Only organization that exists for non-members. This church is not made for you, but for others.

How do we initiate connections, and how do we expect our people to do it if we don’t?

Mission Statement – biblical, specific, transferable, measurable, and UTILIZED:

• Teach mission statement in worship regularly. Teach it in new member classes and refresher classes.
  
• All meetings.
• On walls of classrooms, hallways, conference rooms, etc.

Connection to God is center of life corporately and individually. Must know why we do what we do. God is the source of transformation and reconciliation.

Hospitality culture receives ‘other’ with joy

• “It is inhospitable to be cheap.” Your church is not hurt by being generous. Inhospitable to try to get off cheap and easy.
• Sustain hospitality 5 minutes, welcome in worship, greeters and ushers, fellowship time before and after worship, fellowship meals

Canon – setting the bar – “because I can’t get over it, doesn’t mean we lower it.” We get in shape, and get over it.

Just as I am doesn’t mean “just as I’ll stay.”

Targeting Culture. God places your church in a particular and peculiar context. Some people church is more likely to reach than others. Ok to start by picking the low-hanging fruit, and then reach a little higher.

Congregational growth is comprehensive

Look at the entire church’s life in evangelism

Concern for Physical Needs and Justice Needs of congregation – Cornell West, “Justice is what love looks like in public.”

“You tell me who Jesus locks out.”

One side needs of community, other side how we respond. And then, how it connects to Kingdom of God, otherwise we’re just a social service agency.

Empower Laity to Verbalize – Three Levels (Michael Green)

• 1. Invite them to come to church.
• 2. Share your story.
• 3. Invite them to have relationship with God in JC.

Our vision: is God’s preferred future for our particular context. (I like this.)Our goal is to set the proper environment for this future to take place.

Happy Anniversary to Me....

Today is my five year anniversary of blogging! (Ok, it's actually 1:02am as I'm writing this, so the anniversary was technically yesterday...) It is hard for me to believe I've been blogging for so long. It took my blog a while to get rolling. About six months in, I posted a plea searching for other UMC bloggers, since I couldn't find many. In the responses, I got linked up with some now-defunct blogs, but also Jay Voorhees, Questing Parson, and Shane Raynor.

Over the years, I've had the chance to meet many of my blogging friends in person, and sometimes I forget I first 'met' them online. I think we've built a nice community over the years, haven't we?

My passion for blogging has waxed and waned... I started out slowly, and picked up to blogging quite frequently (although never daily.) For a while it seemed I couldn't attend an event without thinking about how I would blog it later, and I was a compulsive checker of my stats. Lately, though, I've had to struggle a bit to keep the blog going. I'm not even sure why, exactly. I've considered stopping altogether, but can't quite seem to let it go. So I just blog when I feel so inspired, and hope there's still a few folks around to read it. I guess maybe that's a good enough balance for now! Thanks for being one of my readers ;)

Dan Dick: United Methodeviations

I have a problem with Dan Dick's blog, United Methodeviations: his posts have too much content for me to process. I am constantly bookmarking his posts because they are harder to take in with a quick scan (like I give most of the blogs I read). So I bookmark his posts, and try to get back to them later, ending up with a situation like my current one where I have 11 of his posts bookmarked that I still want to read more carefully. If you aren't reading his blog yet, you really should be. In an effort to actually read his posts more carefully and share them with you, here's a summary of some of the posts I've bookmarked:

Show Me the Money Mission - talks about giving being up during the recession in congregations that are mission focused rather than self-focused. "Too many churches focus on giving to the exclusion of generosity, ignoring the fact that you can alter a person’s giving patterns (behavior modification) without helping them to become a generous person."

Theology of Worship? - questions what theology undergirds what we do in worship. Not as in liberal or conservative theology, but what it is we think worship is about. "I am not advocating a particular theology that all United Methodist congregations should subscribe to. I am reporting that the congregations experiencing the most vital, vibrant, transformational and meaningful worship (as reported by the worshipers, not the worship leaders) are those where the leaders can articulate a clear, precise, deeply spiritual, and widely shared answer to the question “what are the underlying beliefs and motivations about God and the worship of God that shape and inform what you offer as leaders?”"

Mediocrity Not a Goal and Blasphemediocrity - why do we settle for (and sometimes even only strive for) mediocre in the church? "I have a fat folder of notes, e-mails, and letters from former lay leaders, pastors, council chairs, trustees, choir directors, children’s coordinators, teachers, and team/committee chairs explaining their decision to leave their church and go elsewhere — some choosing to leave altogether. The most common thread is this — the church has broken their heart by failing to be Christian. As one powerful letter puts it: 'I am not mad. I’m crushed. I am not leaving the church because it is doing bad things. I am leaving it because it isn’t doing any good things."

How Deep the Well - one of my favorite posts, about clergy wholeness/wellness. Pastors and parishioners should really take a look at this one. "How deep is the well from which we draw? If we are not being fed on a regular basis, what makes us think we have anything of value with which to nourish others? If we are not drawing from a renewing, sustaining source, why are we so surprised when we “burn-out?” The correlation is strong and, unless we as Christian leaders reorient our priorities, the message is clear. If we do not cultivate a vital prayer life, dedicate ourselves to an intensive study of scripture and spiritual teaching, participate in worship as a fully engaged member of a congregation, commit to regular and intentional self-care — physically, emotionally, and intellectually – and nurture and protect key relationships we will not be the people God needs to lead God’s people."

Sermon for Third Sunday in Lent (non-lectionary)

(Sermon 3/15/09, Matthew 27:1-2, 11-26)

Pontius Pilate

It is strange that while the twelve spent three years of their lives with Jesus, we know so very little about them, while Pontius Pilate, the focus of the message today, spent just a short time with Jesus on one day, and yet we hear more from Pilate than we do half the disciples. We still don’t know a lot about Pilate’s background – there are some conflicting stories over where he was born and what family he was part of – and we don’t know much about his life before he appears in the gospels. But we know that he was a prefect in Judea, and that prefects had certain duties – mostly military oversight and collecting taxes, but also judicial responsibility in some local affairs. During big religious festivals like the Passover, Pilate would be expected to be in Jerusalem, to make sure things were kept under control. And we know that he served as prefect in Judea from 26-36 AD, recalled to Rome perhaps just a year or two after Jesus’ trial. (1)

In the gospels, Pontius Pilate appears only in the trial of Jesus and surrounding events. His name is occasionally mentions in Acts and in the writings of Paul, but only in reference to Jesus being tried before him. But in the gospel accounts of Jesus’ trial, we get the same general story – we see a Pilate who seems to be struggling between a feeling that Jesus is innocent of the crimes he’s accused of, and a Pilate who is concerned about the crowds and potential mob rule, wanting to please the people to keep them under control. Jesus has been arrested, and already been interviewed by the chief priests. But Pilate had authority over certain matters – in fact, even the high priest was named by the Roman government (1) – and the religious leaders wanted Pilate to condemn Jesus. In Matthew’s account, on which we focus today, Pilate interviews Jesus, asking him if he is the King of the Jews, a claim with political overtones that would threaten both the Jewish religious leaders and the Roman authorities. But Jesus keeps silent, despite the questioning.

Pilate then offers to release a prisoner – Jesus Barabbas, or Jesus “who is called the Messiah.” At this point, we read some commentary from Matthew: Pilate thinks Jesus has been handed over to him because the religious leaders are jealous of his authority and popularity with the people, and also, his wife warned him to have nothing to do with “that innocent man” Jesus, because of a nightmare she had about him. Pilate seems to want to find a way to set Jesus free without having to actually come out and make the decision. The crowds shout for the release of Barabbas and begin to chant for Jesus’ death – “Let him be crucified! Let him be crucified!” We read that Pilate was overwhelmed by the crowd’s response, feeling he had no choice but to give in: “So when Pilate saw that he could do nothing, but rather that I riot was beginning, he took some water and washed his hands before the crowd, saying, ‘I am innocent of this man’s blood; see to it yourselves.’” Then Pilate releases Barabbas, as the people requested, has Jesus flogged – we’re not even sure why – and hands him over to be crucified.

I have a lot of questions about Pilate. What do we make of Pilate and his actions? Did he just get caught up in something that was out of his control? Is it true what he thought? If he hadn’t allowed Jesus to be put to death, would there really have been a riot that the Roman soldiers could not control? Would Jesus have just been put to death another way by the angry crowds? Can you just wash your hands of a situation and really be free from responsibility? Can Pilate simply declare himself innocent? Who, ultimately, is responsible for Jesus’ death? Could Pilate have taken a stronger stand? Wasn’t he in charge?

I’ve said that this Lent we’re focusing on who people say that Jesus is, and how who they say Jesus is changes who they are themselves, or how who they are changes who they say Jesus is! So if we take these somewhat jumbled questions, and apply them to Pilate, what do we come out with? Who does Pilate say that Jesus is? Surely, we don’t have a lot to go on. But we start to gather a sense even from this scene in Matthew that Pilate catches a glimpse of who Jesus is. He has a feeling that Jesus is something different. He can see that the religious leaders are jealous of Jesus. He knows that his wife has had a strange dream about Jesus and pronounced him innocent. He sees that Jesus is unwilling to argue with him over accusations and frantically defend himself. He is reluctant to condemn Jesus, and anxious not to be held responsible for what will happen to Jesus. When we take all these pieces, these clues, and put them together, it seems that Pilate, if not ready to call Jesus the Messiah exactly, knew that there was something about Jesus . . .

But for Pilate, ultimately, who he is is much more important to him than who Jesus is. Pilate is a prefect of the Roman Empire. What Pilate wants most is to escape blame, from Rome, from the Jews, no matter who Jesus turns out to be. He wants to have no responsibility for the situation before him, which is ironic for someone who wants desperately to keep their role of responsibility and authority. Pilate might believe there’s something more to Jesus – but ultimately, it doesn’t make a difference to him, because who he is, what he wants – his power, his control, his position – all of that is more important to him.

As always, what we learn here, what we learn about Pilate is only meaningful if we can see ourselves in his place. So, I have to ask – are there things that you believe, but your believing doesn’t make a difference to you, make a difference in how you live your life? Let me give you an example of what I mean. You all know that I’ve been a vegetarian for many years. But if I took what I believed, my reasons for being a vegetarian, and followed them to their conclusion, I know I would really need to become a vegan – to eat no animal products at all. I believe that a vegan diet would be the best one, the one that best fits what I believe. But I’m still not a vegan, and have no immediate plans to become one. I have to admit that although I believe a vegan diet would be more ‘right’, it hasn’t made me stop eating cheese pizza. What I believe about a vegan diet is apparently not important enough to make a difference in the way I live. That’s just a minor example of what I mean.

But what about our faith journeys? What about discipleship? What I want to know is this: What do you believe about Jesus? Who do you think that he is? And what difference has that made in the way that you live? Or, like Pontius Pilate, are there too many things about who we are and what we want for ourselves for us to actually let what we believe about Jesus change our lives?

This week one of my colleagues posed a question on his blog: “What is the most destructive force in a congregation?” He listed multiple-choice responses, including unresolved conflict, which had the most votes, followed by power struggles, narrow-mindedness, gossip, and keeping secrets. But I selected the ‘other’ option and added in my own response: apathy. The church is at risk when people don’t translate what they believe into how they live as individuals and as a congregation. To me, what is most destructive to churches is just this dilemma that we see in Pontius Pilate. We believe something, but what we believe doesn’t necessarily change anything. If we consider what we believe as I congregation, I trust that generally we believe in God, believe in Jesus, believe that Jesus set an example for us, believe that we’re meant to be disciples, believe that God loves us, and so on. We might come down differently on exactly what those beliefs mean in detail, but at the core, I think we’re on the same page. Where we need to ask ourselves the hard questions, where we need to do some soul-searching is when we ask ourselves: what difference does what we believe make?

Every Saturday, one of my pastor friends and I chat on the phone and talk about our sermons for Sunday. I can proudly tell you that by the time we talk, my sermon is always done, but hers hardly ever is. Last weekend, she was preaching on the text that I’ve been mentioning throughout Lent: “If any want to become my followers, let them deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me.” She was struggling with how to explain what the cross was that we had to bear. What is it we are taking up? I said to her that I think most of us know exactly what the cross is for us, and it is different for each person. Taking up the cross means taking a risk to follow Jesus, and what we must risk is different for each one of us. But in our heart of hearts, when we think about taking risks for God, I think we each know what is holding us back. You know if it is doing mission work in Africa or doing mission work in Paterson. You probably know if it’s working with children or working to fight hunger or working with the elderly. You know if it’s giving more, or spending more time here, or spending more time praying. Maybe it isn’t true for all of us, but I think most of us have an idea of what risks God is calling us to take, because we feel those nudges, we have those things in the back of our mind that we think we can never do. It’s not that we don’t know what our crosses are. It’s that we’re not sure we’re ready to bear the cost, to take that risk yet. What is it that you are afraid to risk? I’m guessing, that with a little introspection, it wouldn’t take you long to answer that question.

In our discipleship, in our faith journey, we get into trouble when the cost of following Jesus is always more than we are willing to pay, and when what it costs us is always a bigger concern than acting on what we believe. When we believe, but still fail to act, that’s apathy. When we believe, but still fail to act, that’s of more concern than those who don’t know what they believe yet. For Pontius Pilate, the cost to himself was his primary concern. He knew Jesus shouldn’t be condemned to death. But the cost Pilate would bear was too much. What he was willing to risk, willing to ‘spend’ on what he believed was nothing. What are you willing to spend? What will you risk? What is that task to which God is calling you that nags at the back of your mind, the corners of your heart? What do you believe about God? And so what? How has it changed you? Who do you say that Jesus is? And how will your answer change your life?

Amen.

Festival of Homiletics: Who's Going?

In just over two months is one of my favorite continuing-ed events: The Festival of Homiletics. This year it is taking place in Atlanta, Georgia, and has such a fabulous list of speakers, including (my favorites): Desmond Tutu, Barbara Brown Taylor, Grace Imathiu, Brian McLaren, Fred Craddock, Will Willimon, and Adam Hamilton.

The festival is a really fabulous week of preaching and lectures, interspersed with some great music in the evenings. I couldn't attend last year because of General Conference, and I'm looking forward to getting back this year. Who else is going? Methoblogger meetup?

Sermon for Second Sunday in Lent (non-lectionary)

(Sermon 3/8/09, Matthew 26:47-56, John 6:1-15)

Simon, The Zealot

Last week when we talked about Judas Iscariot, I mentioned how very little we knew about someone who was so notorious. He was the betrayer of Jesus, but we know hardly anything else about him at all. Well, this week, as we continue looking at characters from the passion story, things get worse, in that regard, not better. Simon, called the Zealot, was another of the twelve disciples. He is not mentioned outside of the list of the twelve disciples at any time, never named specifically in some incident, event, or scene. He’s one of the twelve, and as important as that is, we know nothing about him from the biblical scriptures. There are some writings about him outside the scriptures, and some stories that were built up about Simon over time. For example, the twelve disciples all have a ‘symbol’ that goes with them, and Simon’s is the saw, because he is said to have met his death, his martyrdom, by the saw. But we don’t know much, other than that this word, this loaded word is attached to his name in some of the gospel of Luke – Simon, The Zealot.

The word Zealot has some very specific connotations in first century Israel. Like there are denominations in the same faith tradition of Christianity, there were denominations of sorts in Judaism – sects, or schools of thoughts. We encounter all of them in the gospels, to various degrees. The Pharisees we see most often – the teachers and scholars of the law, who advocated for strict adherence to hundreds of commandments – the group with whom Jesus was most often in conflict. Then there were the Sadducees – the priestly class, who did not believe in resurrection after death, and who appear less frequently, arguing with Jesus, but who also try to trap him theologically. And there were the Essenes. We don’t see much of them in the gospels, but we catch a glimpse in Jesus’ cousin and forerunner, John the Baptist. The Essenes were an ascetic group who lived on the fringes of society. They lived on the outskirts, shunned the comforts of life, and tried to follow a spiritual path, living in community with one another. And then, there’s a fourth group. The Zealots.

The Zealots were a group that really formed cohesively in the years between Jesus’ resurrection and the destroying of the temple by Roman forces in 70 AD. The Zealots were Jews in political movement who sought to overthrow the occupying Roman government by force. They wanted, essentially, to still up rebellion and revolution, and get people to join them in their cause against Rome. They hated that Israel was occupied Rome and considered it, like most Jews did, a desecration of their faith, not to mention oppression of their right to be a self-governing people. But unlike most citizens, the Zealots wanted to take action, to fight, to use violent force to win back freedom. They were successful for a brief time – they led the Jewish Revolt of 66 and regained Jerusalem. But in 70, Rome regained the land and the temple was destroyed.

But in Jesus day, in the 30s when Simon was a disciple, the Zealots weren’t a cohesive group. To call someone a Zealot was more to label them with ideals – they wanted Rome to be overthrown, supported an aggressive response to occupation, but weren’t at the point of organization to lead a revolution. They were zealous – a word that means “ardent or passionate in pursuit” – zealous on behalf of God, and ready to use whatever means possible to bring about God’s kingdom on earth. We have to make some assumptions about Simon, since virtually nothing is given to us in the scriptures texts, but we can gather this: that Simon was zealous – passionate – on God’s behalf – for the bringing about of the kingdom of God, by whatever means necessary. It is this sentiment that is captured in our song “Simon Zealotes” from Jesus Christ Superstar. In the musical, a crowd gathers to dance with joy and to encourage Jesus to take action, to lead a revolution. Simon sings, “Christ, what more do you need to convince that you’ve made it, and you’re easily as strong as the filth from Rome, who rape our country, and who’ve terrorized our people for so long. There must be over fifty thousand, screaming love and more for you. And every one of fifty thousand would do whatever you asked them to. Keep them yelling their devotion, but add a touch of hate at Rome. You will rise to a greater power. We will win ourselves a home. You'll get the power and the glory for ever and ever and ever.”

In the musical, Jesus responds that Simon and the crowds don’t understand what true power is, or what true glory is. And though we don’t have scripture passages that tell us more than Simon’s name and that he was a Zealot, we have these two gospel lessons today that echo Simon’s song and Jesus’ response. First, we read the passage of the feeding of the 5000. Jesus has been preaching, teaching, and healing in a large crowd of people who’ve been following Jesus and the disciples around the countryside. And rather then sending them on long treks back home, Jesus wants the disciples to provide them food. When the disciples seem clueless, Jesus gathers 5 loaves and 2 fish from a small boy, blesses it, and hands it out. Everyone finds they have enough to eat. But whatever miracle took place here isn’t our focus today – it’s on how the crowds responded to Jesus. He fed them, and the people suddenly started calling Jesus a prophet. We read, “When Jesus realized that they were about to come and take him by force to make him king, he withdrew again to the mountain by himself.” Jesus has to flee the scene because they want to make him king, this man who can provide for their physical needs – heal them and feed them. They want him to be king – but Jesus knows they’re missing the point, and tries, after they still follow him, to show them a different way.

And then, in our gospel lesson from Matthew, we continue in the passion story where we left off last week. Judas betrays Jesus into the hands of the chief priests and elders. And when they move to arrest Jesus, one of the disciples draws a sword – maybe we can even imagine it is Simon, the Zealot – and strikes the slave of the high priest, cutting off his ear. The disciples are ready for a fight, a confrontation, in which they will defend Jesus using necessary force. But Jesus says, “Put your sword back into its place; for all who take the sword will perish by the sword. Do you think that I cannot appeal to my Father, and he will at once send me more than twelve legions of angels? But how then would the scriptures be fulfilled, which say it must happen this way?” Again, Jesus tries to show even his disciples another way, when they would be ready to fight, to force, and to crown Jesus king on earth.

Do we understand this compulsion the people had to make Jesus king? Can we relate to the feelings of Simon or other Zealots who wanted to use any means necessary to get Rome out of power, out of their sacred and holy lands, out of control of their lives? Can we put ourselves in a first century mindset for a minute? Jesus keeps talking about the kingdom of God being at hand. And here he is, healing people from disease and sickness, providing food for hungry people, and teaching with a wisdom and authority that not even the religious leaders of the day seem to have. Wouldn’t you want Jesus to be the king? And really, what would have been so wrong with that? After all, the golden days of Israel, the good old days that everyone would have talked about were days when a good king ruled over mighty Israel – the days of King David. And isn’t Jesus even from the House of David? Who better to be made king? Finally, things can be restored, the holiness that once was can be regained, things can be right for God’s people again. If you start to think about it this way, doesn’t it make sense for Jesus to be made king? If God wants God’s kingdom on earth, isn’t Jesus-as-king a good way to make it so?

Understanding the first century mindset is the first step. The next is to ask ourselves if we’re really so different today. Maybe we don’t think we’d want Jesus to be our king. But I wonder if things have really changed so much. Aren’t we in fact in desperate need to fix our mess? To overhaul the crises we are currently facing as a nation? If we could find a leader who could end wars, bolster the economy, give us jobs, bail out companies, save our homes, fix the environment, give food to the hungry, educate the children, and keep us the nations of nations, wouldn’t we elect that person? In fact, isn’t that what we expect, in some way, our president to do? And don’t we think about the good old days? I’ve heard a lot of talk lately about former presidencies, and the way things used to be. And we certainly have those conversations in the church, don’t we? About the golden era, when the pews were full? Wouldn’t it be nice to have someone who could just fix things? Make it right? And what would we do, what would be willing to do, to make such a thing possible? If we thought we had a person who could make things right, what wouldn’t we do to get that person into the position of power? Maybe we’re not in first century Jerusalem. Maybe we don’t have a party of Zealots anymore. But maybe we can understand exactly why the people would want Jesus to be king.

So maybe the better question is this: why didn’t Jesus want to be king? Why didn’t Jesus use the Zealots to take control? Why didn’t Jesus ask God to command legions of angels for him? If Jesus is the Savior, why didn’t God put him in place to fix the mess we’ve been making of things? Wouldn’t that have been simple than trying to get this whole kingdom of God thing to spread by word of mouth through faulty disciples who deny and betray Jesus at every turn? Why leave so much up to us? How is Jesus saving us, exactly, if things are still so bad, and if we still have no one in charge who can make it better?

As I was pondering these questions this week, I kept thinking of passages I read in Brian McLaren’s The Secret Message of Jesus, the book we read together as an Administrative Council last year. McLaren writes, “Violent revolutions . . . aren’t revolutionary. Noisy regime changes are utterly predicable – brought about by displays of power and hollow promises and indomitable wealth . . . what is the alternative? We really must consider this question. Could the kingdom of God come with bigger weapons, sharper swords, more clever political organizing? . . . Perhaps the kingdom of God could come with flawless, relentless, irresistible logic – a juggernaut of steamroller counterarguments to flatten every objection. Or would that . . . [reduce] the kingdom of God to a kingdom of coercive stridency? What if the only way for the kingdom of God to come in its true form . . . is through weakness and vulnerability, sacrifice and love? What if it can conquer only by first being conquered? What if being conquered is absolutely necessary to expose . . . these principalities and powers, these human ideologies and counterkingdoms . . . what if the kingdom of God must in these ways fail in order to succeed?” (32, 69, 70)

Hopefully, we’ve understood that Jesus has said God’s kingdom is coming, and is in fact here already, near, at hand, among us. But sometimes when we look around us, and see the way things are, we find it hard to believe that God’s kingdom is really here. And so we start wondering what we can do to move things along. I can admire Simon and the Zealots because of what they were willing to do to bring God’s kingdom about: they’d do anything. But what Jesus tries to tell us over and over is that the coming of God’s kingdom requires of us something that is both simpler and harder at once: Those who want to be first must be last. Those who want to save their life must lose it. Strength is in weakness. To be exalted is to let yourself be humbled. And if those messages are too hard to understand, Jesus showed us: From death comes true life. If any want to be my disciples, he said, let them deny themselves, take up the cross, and follow me.

“Neither you Simon, nor the fifty thousand, nor the Romans, nor the Jews, nor Judas, nor the twelve, nor the priests, nor the scribes, nor doomed Jerusalem itself understand what power is, understand what glory is, understand at all . . . to conquer death, you only have to die.”

Amen.

Sermon for First Sunday in Lent (non-lectionary)

(Sermon 3/1/09, Matthew 26:6-50, 27:3-10)

Judas, Who Later Betrayed Him

Judas, you might say, has always been my favorite disciple. Maybe ‘favorite’ isn’t quite the right word for it. Judas has always been the disciple by whom I’ve been most intrigued. I’ve spent the most time studying him. The most time pondering who he is, why he did what he did, what his role was in the passion story. I’ve been fascinated by Judas. And I have to admit that it started with a crush. When I first went to see Jesus Christ Superstar in seventh grade, I developed a big crush on the actor who was playing Judas. He played the role for the next three years, and when I would go see the production, I would focus mostly on Judas! And so even though my crush was on the actor, I became really intrigued by the character. Jesus Christ Superstar is told from Judas’ perspective, in a sense. It is his story of Jesus’ last week, his relationship with Jesus that is central to the musical. And, in Andrew Lloyd Webber’s interpretation, Judas, in the end, even after his suicide – well, his story continues.

One question became central for me to answer. As we heard in our gospel reading today, Judas committed suicide, hung himself, out of guilt for his actions, for betraying Jesus and putting him into the hands of his enemies. I had been taught that suicide was a sin that condemned someone to hell. An unforgiveable sin. But the way Judas was portrayed in Superstar made me wonder. Right there, in our text today from Matthew, we read this: “When Judas, his betrayer, saw that Jesus was condemned, he repented.” Judas repented. That word, the word used here – it’s the same word for repentance that Jesus and John the Baptist use when the first preach their message: Repent! If Judas repented, how could he be condemned to eternal punishment? And what’s more: In the gospel of John, Jesus talks about Judas’ betrayal being part of the plan. If Judas had to betray Jesus in order for Jesus to go through the suffering and death and resurrection, how can Judas be held accountable for his actions? Was he acting as part of his own free will, making his own choices, or was he predestined to betray Jesus? And if he was predestined, can he be judged for his actions?

I presented all of these questions to my Sunday School teacher at the time. Her answer to me was simple: Judas committed suicide, so Judas went to hell. I was not satisfied with her answer. I was just sure there had to be more to it. So I wrote a letter to a publication that used to exist called Youth! Magazine – it was just for United Methodist Youth, and I loved it. They had a column for questions like mine, and I hoped for an answer. My question never got printed, but the editor of the magazine wrote me back a long, wonderful letter, that I wish I could still find. In it, he said what I have come to believe is true – basically sharing with me a message from Romans 8 – nothing in life or in death can separate us from God’s love. He said God’s grace was so amazing that he was unwilling to put any kind of limits on God’s love, even for, or perhaps especially for – Judas. Needless to say, I found his letter very comforting. My Sunday School teacher, on the other hand, was not so excited to be so contradicted! And as I mentioned on Wednesday, my fascination with Judas carried me all the way through college, when I wrote my senior religion paper on the characterizations of Jesus and Judas in fiction.

So now you know why I’m so intrigued by Judas. But my questions haven’t changed much: Who is he? Why did he do what he did? The truth is, like many of Jesus’ disciples, we don’t know very much about Judas at all. We don’t know his family background, we don’t know what he did, we don’t know where he came from. I’ve read many different theories, but of course, most are conjecture, imaginings, really, rather than fact-based theories. And since we know so little about Judas, we also don’t know very much about his motivations for betraying Jesus. Only the gospel of John mentions that Judas is treasurer for the group of disciples, and suggests that greed for the payment of silver is the motivation for betrayal. But the other gospels never mention anything like this at all. As in our gospel reading for today, Matthew, Mark, and Luke segway with new interlude into mentioning that Judas was looking for an opportunity to betray Jesus. Things get confusing, for me, to understand logically. Why would the religious leaders even need Judas to betray Jesus? They knew where Jesus was, and showed up to hear him preach and teach all the time. It wasn’t as though Jesus was in hiding and Judas led them to a secret location. We can’t imagine that 30 coins alone would have tempted Judas to betray Jesus – even though it was a hefty sum, it wasn’t enough make him set for life, a year, or even half year actually. What motivates Judas? I wonder, very much. But what we know for sure is that almost every time Judas is mentioned in the scriptures, he is called, “Judas, who later betrayed him.” We know that from Mark, the earliest gospel, to John, the latest written, Judas is increasingly portrayed as villainous and evil. And I can tell you that while Judas was always known for his betrayal, it was a few centuries after the birth of the church that Judas began to be seen as the sole disciple responsible for Jesus’ death. In fact, over time, Judas began to be a symbol for all Jews who didn’t accept Christ, and was a figure used by anti-Semites in their hatred of Jews. Judas, who later betrayed him.

Imagine if your whole life, you were called by a name that was based on one event, one action. Beth, you know, Beth who preached that awful sermon? Russell, who messed up the offertory. Joe, who couldn’t hold down a job. Marge, who really screwed up her kids. Bob, who caused that car accident. What if, your whole life, you had to carry descriptors of your mistakes, even your worst ones, as part of your name? Judas, who later betrayed him. What does it mean to betray someone? In the case of Judas, the definition of his actions which I found to best fit was this: "To prove faithless or treacherous to, as to a trust or one who trusts; to be false to; to deceive; as, to betray a person or a cause." (1) That fits, doesn’t it? Whatever Judas’ motives were, I think we can accurately say he proved faithless to Jesus. Why ever it was, whatever caused it, Judas ultimately did not have faith in Jesus. That’s the take of the song we heard today – a Judas who is having serious doubts about the path Jesus is going down, a Judas who thinks Jesus is out of control, a Judas who doesn’t see, doesn’t trust, the direction of Jesus’ ministry, and acts to stop Jesus.

What does it all mean for us? What difference does Judas’ betrayal mean for us? To me, in some ways, Judas is important in just the same way understanding every other text in the scriptures is important. We draw closer to God through understanding, and we understand by putting ourselves into the text, seeing ourselves in the story. Can we see ourselves in Judas, who later betrayed him? My biggest problem with how we’ve remembered Judas in the Christian Church is that by seeing him as so evil, we fail to see ourselves in him. Vilifying him makes us feel better. At least we’re not Judas, right? At least we’re better than Judas, the greedy traitor.

And yet, if we think of the definition of betrayal again, we have some hard questions to answer. To betray is to prove faithless to. Can you say honestly that you’ve never proven yourselves faithless to Jesus? We may find it hard to believe that after spending three years as a disciple following Christ from place to place that we'd then turn Jesus over to men we knew were trying to kill him. On the other hand, we may not find it so hard to think of ways that we betray Jesus, perhaps even on a daily basis. If to betray means to prove faithless, then we are indeed very much like Judas. Judas, for whatever reason, did not have faith enough to believe in the path Jesus was following. Do we have enough faith? Maybe, sometimes, more often than we want to admit, we don't have faith enough to believe that God has called us for plans beyond our imagination. We don't have faith enough to invest ourselves, our money, our time, and our gifts into God's care. We don't have faith enough to believe that God gives us grace, a gift there for the taking, without our needing to do something to earn it. We don’t have enough faith to actually follow Jesus instead of our plans for ourselves. And our lack of faith betrays Jesus as surely as Judas did.

But if we can let Judas be redeemed, if we can let Judas be more than the one who later betrayed him, if we can believe, like that magazine editor did, that God’s unconditional love is truly unconditional, than perhaps we can help Judas move beyond, as we move beyond. If we can see ourselves in Judas, if we can admit that our actions often betray the Jesus we claim to follow, then we too, like Judas, can repent. But we can also move beyond. Judas couldn’t move beyond what he’d done, and neither could those who would tell his story. I can’t imagine the grief and guilt he must have felt. And I wonder what might have happened, if Judas had chosen another path, if reconciliation might have been possible in his life on earth, as I believe it is always and everywhere possible with God. We are blessed always with the chance – the hope and promise really, that we can move beyond. We aren’t defined by our sins, but by God’s love and forgiveness. Beth, whose sermon made me think. Russell, whose music touched my soul. Joe, whose life God changed. Marge, who is really wonderful with children. Bob, who God loves. You, who proved yourself faithful to God’s love. Amen.