I can’t remember how old I was when I first saw the movie Star Wars. All I remember is the incredible special effects, the thought of the vastness of outer space, the beauty and truth of that thing that they called The Force and the ultimate evil of Darth Vader. For a kid, Darth Vader was as bad as it could get. In a time when computers were a little scary and unknown, he was a man who was machine. His breathing, do you remember it? I could hear that breathing in my sleep at night, it haunted my worst nightmares. And that black face, devoid of all expression. And let’s not forget the music. No bad guy would be quite so bad without his music. All I had to do was hear the first few notes and I knew exactly who was coming.
We love movies because they separate the light from the darkness so clearly. They take our complex and broken world, where there is so much beauty and so much pain and they make is simple. Bad guys and good guys. We all wish it were so easy. Just kill the bad guys off and live happily ever after. If we just wipe out the bad guys, we’ll be back in Eden, right? Unfortunately, in the real world, it is so much more complex, because part of the bad guy, part of the problem, lives inside our very selves.
Take Judas. He is the bad guy of the gospels, the guy everybody loves to hate. We love to write him off, the one who betrayed the Son of God. We never think of him as a person, as a disciple. As somebody who once loved Jesus. Thinking of this is too hard for us. It means that Judas might be like you or me. And we wouldn’t want to admit that we too could have betrayed Jesus, so we paint Judas as an evil person and move on.
But let’s go back to the beginning. All of Jesus’ disciples were called by him, singled out to become his closest followers. Judas would have been called, invited. And he answered that call! Not everyone who Jesus invited was willing to follow him. Remember the rich young man who turned Jesus’ invitation down and went away sad because he would not give away his money? Judas was willing to give up his life as he knew it. Who knows what he left behind to follow Jesus. Did he leave a family behind, a wife and children? Did he leave his parents, relatives, a job? Whatever life Judas lived before Jesus came, he was willing to leave it all behind for Jesus. And beneath all this is the clear indication that Judas loved Jesus.
Most human beings are only willing to sacrifice for those whom we truly love. Judas loved Jesus and he believed in him! He followed Jesus across the country, from the Galilee to Jerusalem. He listened as Jesus taught, ate with Jesus, sat at his feet. He was there when Jesus rode into Jerusalem. And then Judas started to go wrong.We will never know when the doubts and worries began in Judas’ mind, but this gospel reading is a clear indication that Judas was beginning to question his master. Listen to the gospel today as if you have never heard it before. It is six days before the Passover, six days before Jesus will be crucified. He is enjoying dinner at his friends’ home, the closest thing that he has to a home, in Bethany. Martha is doing her usual thing, remaining busy in the kitchen and probably holding a grudge about it. Lazarus, her brother, has been raised from the dead and is sitting at the table, eating. (I always imagined that Lazarus might have had some kind of a dazed expression on his face, like, huh? What in the heck happened to me?) And then there is Mary. Mary the devout one, who loved Jesus with such passion and zeal that she didn’t give a hoot what she looked like or what everyone thought of her. Mary reminds me of the great saints of old who ran around in rags praising Jesus with such love that people thought they were mad. I remember reading of one saint who loved to speak of Jesus, so people began to follow him in great numbers. But one day, someone said that he was like Jesus. This comment appalled him, for his Lord was so much greater than he was. So he shaved half his beard. I need to look like a fool, so that people will learn to love Jesus and not me, he said. For centuries, there have always been Mary’s, people who do abundant and passionate things for God, and gladly suffer the consequences of their actions.
Mary was so in love with her Master that she got some oil. Now this was costly oil, made of pure nard. It might have been her most valuable possession and there was one pound of it. It was scented, as perfume. She poured the whole pound of it on Jesus’ feet. Picture a pound of oil! I tend to get the small pints of olive oil. This was a LOT of oil. It would have been running everywhere, over his feet, over the floor, onto her clothes and legs. I’m sure Martha thought about the mess that Mary was making, but she now knew enough to keep her mouth shut.
Usually oil was used to anoint the head. In the Old Testament, it was used to anoint kings and to signify their God-given appointment. The prophet Samuel anointed David to be King of all Israel when he was just a boy and it was believed that this anointing symbolized God’s hand in selecting him above all others to rule the land. Never had oil been used to anoint the feet. This was like saying, your feet are my King. Your dirty, callused feet are higher than those of the highest leader. The feet were considered the lowest part of the body, dirty and insignificant. Washing someone’s feet with water was a huge act of servitude.
And then she did something worse. She wiped them with her hair. A woman’s hair was precious and beautiful, something to be hidden. Women wore headdresses in those days, covering their hair with a cloth so as to be modest. But this woman not only showed her hair, she used it as a washcloth, covering it with oil and the dirt of his feet. She ignored her beauty in order to serve Him.
Judas was struggling. He sat at the table with his Master, having seen Jesus raise Lazarus from the dead, and he stewed. Why was this woman making such a fool of herself? Wouldn’t it be far more cost-effective to sell that oil and give the money to the poor? It says, in the Gospel of John, that Judas was stealing from the common purse. When did he start doing that? Was he afraid that he would be caught? Had Jesus already reprimanded him? Whatever was happening between Judas and Jesus, Judas was becoming critical and no longer trusted Jesus. As the powerful scent of the perfumed oil fills the room, Judas criticizes Mary for her opulence and her careless adoration. And Jesus retorts with a sharp tone.
“Leave her alone,” he says. You will always have the poor but you will not always have me.”
Already Judas was criticizing, displeased. What was his true criticism? Was he waiting for Jesus to become the king, the Messiah that the Jews had expected? Was he disappointed that Jesus did not force a take over of the city and rule? Did he not want to be in that small house, eating dinner? What was he expecting?
Whatever it was, Judas’ criticisms grew, until he felt justified in taking money from the common purse. Until he felt justified in selling Jesus to his enemies. Something entered Judas’ mind, the mind of a man who once had been willing to drop everything for Jesus. Something had come into his mind that had made him feel superior, able to criticize and eventually to betray.
Judas gave up Jesus for money. He lost his love of Jesus amidst his greed, arrogance and criticisms. He lost his Lord and then he betrayed him.
To really see Judas is to see a man like us. A man who loved Jesus and then left him.
To really see Judas is to admit that we all have qualities of self-righteousness, of greed of disappointment that lead us to question God and sometimes even abandon God.
To really see Judas is to see how complex we are, human beings. How incredible it is that we could one day love Jesus and the next day kill him.
It is only when we acknowledge that life is not black and white and that the seeds of cruelty lie inside of us, it is only then that we can truly kneel at Jesus’ feet along with Mary and realize what he came to save us from.
Jesus loved Judas. And I believe that Jesus loved Judas even after the betrayal. He loved Judas as he loves all of us who mess up and hurt each other.
I believe that Jesus would have forgiven Judas, would have broke bread with Judas, if only Judas had said that he was sorry. But instead Judas ran, taking his own life. He failed to believe in the immense forgiveness and mercy of God.
For even now, Jesus waits to break bread with all of us, with Judas, with you and with me.
No matter what we have done. No matter what we have left undone.
He sees us for who we are: complex and beautiful, good and not so good, mean and kind, honest and tricky. He sees our complexity, our sins and our goodness. And he loves us. Oh, how he loves us still.
