Matthew
26:1-5, 14-16
Maundy
Thursday
April
13, 2017
William G. Carter
When Jesus had finished saying all these
things, he said to his disciples, “You know that after two days the Passover is
coming, and the Son of Man will be handed over to be crucified.” Then the chief priests and the elders
of the people gathered in the palace of the high priest, who was called
Caiaphas, and they conspired to
arrest Jesus by stealth and kill him. But
they said, “Not during the festival, or there may be a riot among the people.”
Then one of the twelve, who was called Judas
Iscariot, went to the chief priests and
said, “What will you give me if I betray him to you?” They paid him thirty
pieces of silver. And from that
moment he began to look for an opportunity to betray him.
One
of the hardest discoveries of the novice Christian is that there are sinners in
the church. Perhaps they connect to a community of faith, aglow with the Holy
Spirit, excited by scripture, ignited by the music. Then they discover there
are people in the church who are selfish, argumentative, self-righteous, and
downright mean.
Not
only that, there are people in the church who are capable of doing terrible
things to others as well as themselves.
There's
no reason for me to try to illustrate that point at any length. We would be
here all night telling stories and most of us would leave more depressed than
we should. All I will do is mention a name and leave it there. The name is
Judas Iscariot.
What's
he doing in the church? Here's the answer: Jesus invited him, called him by
name, and gave him responsibilities. He was the bookkeeper for the group that
traveled with Jesus. He handled arrangements for travel. He paid for the bread
and wine. He was loved by the Christ and welcomed into the inner circle. He was
also a sinner.
Tonight
as we hear of the final night that Jesus spent among us, we also hear of the
final night of Judas. It's difficult to hear of such
stories. We want them to turn out well and sometimes they don't.
One of my family members decided to
try a new church. It didn't go well. They put on a good show on Sunday, with
lively music, flashing lights, handsome preacher. There was also a creepy
person in the nursery who started to stalk their son, and others who denied
there was any problem at all, telling her that she was making it all up. She
said, "Is it too much to expect Christians to act like Christians?"
It's a hard dose of reality to
discover people are not what they say they are, or not what you believe them to
be. It's even harder to discover that all of us have some unfinished
business in our own souls. And I do mean all of us.
Don't pick on Judas Iscariot, O
church of God. Don't single him out or make him the scapegoat. Learn from his
temptation, and scrutinize your own spirit.
Sometimes Christian people live with
the idea that, if only they work a little harder or push a little deeper, they
can actually improve and become better people. A friend calls that "the
Methodist fallacy."
In all fairness, she's a Methodist. She admits that
she preaches a lot of sermons with the same basic message, namely, "Let's
get out there and be a little better." When her church treasurer was
arrested for borrowing fifteen thousand dollars from the building fund with no
plan to pay it back, we had a little conversation about the merits of Calvinism
and its doctrine of total depravity.
It is hard to 'fess up, hard to look
ourselves in the mirror. In fact, I saw one of our church members at lunch
today. She wasn't sure she was coming tonight. She didn't think she was up for
the challenge.
But as hard as it is to be honest
about ourselves and whatever brokenness we bear, let me say a few words about something
that is even harder. Sometimes it is our move toward Christ, our desire to be
close to him, that shows us our own weaknesses.
You
may know a book called The Screwtape Letters, where C.S. Lewis reports
on the overheard correspondence between a senior devil and a junior devil.
Screwtape, the senior devil, keeps giving advice on temptation to Wormwood, the
junior, and Wormwood keeps screwing it up. It was a popular book, so popular
that Lewis’ fans wanted him to write a sequel. He didn’t do it, but he did
write an extra chapter called “Screwtape Proposes a Toast.”
All
the demons gather for a banquet, and Uncle Screwtape gives a speech. He concludes
with a charge for increased demonic activity, beginning in the church. And he
says words that continue to haunt me, words that create a lot of work for church
sessions and presbytery commissions: “The fine flower of unholiness can grow
only in the close neighborhood of the Holy. Nowhere do we tempt so successfully
as on the very steps of the altar.”[1]
What's he saying? That there is something
about drawing near to Christ that brings out the worst in us. I don't want to
be believe that, but it's true.
My sister would return from a week
at church camp, so full of Jesus and his love and grace. It made her tough to
be around, so I snarled and let her know. And then she would get angry and
blow, and I'd say, "Ha! So much for church camp!" What got into us?
There's something about drawing near
to Christ that stirs up the dark magic of hell. The 4th century monk Evagrius
named it as the power of sloth, what one of the Psalms called "the demon
of noon day" (Psalm 91:6). That's the demon that comes when the sun is out,
and life is full of joy and success and music, and precisely then you do
something or say something that is so destructive. Why did we say it? Why did
we do it? What got into us?
The Gospel of John describes it
another way. Jesus Christ comes as the light of the world, and that's good
news. He comes to uncover all the darkness, to expose the twisted secrets, to
reveal what we would rather keep hidden. But as soon as he does that, the darkness
cries out, "Turn out the lights." People love darkness rather than
the light, and they will do whatever they can to snuff out the light.
As Jesus says, according to John,
"If I had not come and spoken to them, they would not have sin; but now
they have no excuse . . ." (15:22)
There's something about drawing
nearer to Christ that brings out the worst in us. I don't say that to be
judgmental - who am I to stand in superiority? Rather I say it as a signpost
for our souls. As we grow in grace, we never outrun the possibility of evil.
So I say this as a reminder of two truths.
First, let us have the courage to be honest with ourselves, to face who we are
and what we are capable of doing. If
there is some form of destruction still active in our lives, have the courage
to dismiss it, to send it away, to declare that we wish God to cleanse us and
set us free.
Second, let us also have the courage
to be honest about God. God already knows who we are, what we have done and
what we have left undone. As Judas prepares to do his worst, Jesus hands him
the cup, and says, "Drink from it, all of you, for this is my blood of the
covenant, poured out for many for the forgiveness of sins."
The seductive power of evil is real.
It's very real. But there is always a greater grace at work. And it is the
grace that will set us free.
Thanks be to God, through Jesus
Christ our Lord.
(c) William G. Carter. All rights reserved.
[1] C.S. Lewis, “Screwtape Proposes
a Toast,” in The Screwtape Letters
(New York: MacMillan Publishing, 1982) p. 172.
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