A Day of Consequences

A sermon preached at Faith Episcopal Church on Palm Sunday, April 9, 2006.

It’s been quite a week for things long hidden to come to light. First there was that fossil that appears to be a missing link between aquatic life and land-lubbing life. That was pretty exciting. Darwin must be enjoying a toast wherever he is.

Then we have the rather extraordinary news of the Gospel of Judas – the recently translated text of which is being released today. The papers have been full of the gist of this document which portrays Judas as Jesus’ close friend who was asked to play a necessary part in Jesus’ final drama. I’m feeling a little put out myself because I’ve always wanted to preach a Judas sermon that begins in God’s study. God tells a somewhat apprehensive Judas that he has a particularly difficult job or role for him to play; one that will end with everyone hating him and even going so far as to make his name synonymous with “traitor.” But God needs someone to willing to shoulder the burden of that role because it will be a necessary part of God’s great experiment – the incarnation. Only by living as one of us and suffering all of worst that humankind dishes out, only then will God bridge the gap between the Creator and the creatures. If God is going to help us through our flirtation with self-annihilation God needs to feel what it is to be human – to feel our joys and our sorrows and our hurts. God chooses to suffer along with us. “So, Judas,” God asks, “do you love me enough to do this for me?”

Well, my thunder has been stolen! But I’m always happy about things that get people thinking about their faith. Do you think there is any other way to think about Judas? The article in the LA Times on Friday said this

“Some scholars argue that the Greek word paradidomi in the original texts of the Gospels, normally translated as "betray," actually means "to hand over," suggesting that Judas was simply doing God's will.” But however you reframe Judas, he was a part of handing Jesus over to the people who wanted him dead. You could say that he did a wrong thing for the right reason.

The crowd on the other hand did the right thing for the wrong reason. They were right about Jesus being a king but he was not and would never be anything like the kind of king they wanted. They wanted someone to fix things, to chase out the Roman presence, to make them well and happy. They wanted Jesus to be responsible for their well being. Nothing about Jesus’ teachings indicate that he was that kind of a leader. Whenever Jesus said something like “I am the way,” he meant for people to get up and walk along that way. Walking Jesus’ path is a difficult one as today’s gospel will attest. Jesus was and is a king – but a king of love and peace and justice. Those are all hard things and none of them is very popular.

What would have happened if Jesus had some how been put into power? What kind of social and economic policies would he have tried to put into place? It boggles the mind. One thing is certain, a whole lot more people would have wanted him dead when he started talking about land and income redistribution and food and days off for everyone. How do you think he would have directed the public treasury? What sort of tax reform would he have proposed?

Jesus was never meant to be a political leader. He is meant to be the conscience by which we evaluate our common life because how we treat each other is how we treat him. But you don’t have to think that’s what he was or is. The Gospel of Judas shows that people disagreed about a whole lot of things from the very beginning of the Jesus movement. I’m glad that this manuscript has come to light right now. We need a reminder that there was not then and there is not now, a definitive interpretation of Jesus, of Christianity or any of its doctrines. My faith is not threatened by a different interpretation of Judas. I don’t need him to be the bad guy. In fact, he is more challenging to me as the heroic figure that played a part that no one else wanted. His suicide is understandable because he came face to face with the consequences of his action. Even if he were absolutely confident in the coming resurrection, the horror was overwhelming.

Palm Sunday is a day for understanding consequences. It is the day when Jesus’ ministry was celebrated – his popularity has brought adulation and the inevitable scrutiny by the power holders. They were the political and religious authorities. Jesus knew well that he was on a collision course that would end in his death. He accepted the consequences of his preaching and actions. Jesus knew that the only way to heal a broken system was to let it play out its violence on him. His death exposed the fanaticism of power. Only then could God’s intention be understood.

Consequences are the product of not only an action, but the intention and the means by which the action is achieved. Gandhi wrote that true peace could not be achieved by violent means. Peace achieved by violence does not last because along the path to peace, the seeds of more violence are sewn. They will bear fruit in their own time. Jesus’ intention was always to make the Kingdom of God real on earth. Jesus’ intention was love, his means were love and his death on the cross was the ultimate example of love.

The fall before the war in Iraq began, I preached a sermon at the Cathedral in Paris about the law of unintended consequences. It caused quite a stir – some thought I was unpatriotic some cheered. I reread that sermon the other day with an eerie sense of having been quite prescient – and given the state of Iraq, all of mangled and misstated intentions, the consequences are very real and deadly. Now there is talk of using war, complete with tactical nuclear weapons, against Iran. If we don’t take seriously the nature of the intention, the means and the reality of the consequences of such a move, we might unleash a horror beyond imagining on our world – on God’s world.

Palm Sunday is about understanding and accepting the consequences of our actions. It is also about trusting that God is present now and in the future we create. You are invited to walk with Jesus through this holy week. Sit at table with him and his friends for the Passover meal. Understand servant ministry as we wash each other feet. Be present at Calvary. Feel the emptiness and then be ready for joy.