Preferring Nothing to Christ

Isaiah 50:4-9 
Matthew 26:14-25

Today we have Matthew’s telling of the Last Supper. Once again Judas is in full focus and his actions seem inevitable. Those thirty pieces of silver are lodged in our collective imagination through art, poetry and hymnody.

Stories of betrayal are always uncomfortable. Betrayal can happen in a matter of seconds. We can say or do something that we can never take back. Perhaps Judas stands for all of our moments of betrayal? Perhaps he stands for all the times we have ‘headed out into the night’? Perhaps he stands for all those times we have watched our hope die and made a wrong choice?

Scripture scholar Ben Witherington comments that Judas may have been a zealot and so would have expected a political Messiah: ‘If this was Judas’ background, then his dreams of what Jesus would accomplish at Passover A.D. 30 would have been shattered by the last supper in which Jesus made clear he was about to give his life for his disciples, and others. We must all beware when we love our vision and dream of the Kingdom more than we love Jesus– for Jesus will require it of us. I suspect Judas was such a person.’

How do you see the character of Judas?

Isaiah 49:1-6
John 13:21-33,36-38

While at supper with his disciples, Jesus was troubled in spirit and declared, ‘I tell you most solemnly, one of you will betray me.

In today’s Gospel the mood intensifies. We can easily imagine the scene of Jesus sharing a meal with his disciples. When film producers portray this they build the drama with music and dramatic pauses. I always imagine it as a sultry night.

Meals are intimate occasions. Friendships can be deepened and difficulties healed through the sharing of food. They can also highlight discord and deepen rifts. In this meal the figure of Judas comes into full focus for us. It’s uncomfortable and leaves me unsettled. I am always left wondering what motivated Judas. There seems a certain inevitability about the events that will unfold. His fate seems sealed:
As soon as Judas had taken the piece of bread he went out. Night had fallen.

This always chills me. In John’s Gospel there is a play between light and darkness, sight and blindness. The very next lines in the text are ‘now has the Son of man been glorified’. There is no portrayal of a victim here. Jesus is in control. That God’s glory is to be revealed through suffering is our focus now, to this we cling.

Imagine the scene.
Do you follow Judas out into the night?
Or do you stay sitting at the table?

How is God speaking to you through this scene?

Isaiah 42:1-7
John 12:1-11

The anointing at Bethany stops me in my tracks each year. For much of the liturgical year the lectionary leads us through the teaching and miracles of Jesus. From time to time we have a personal encounter: Zacchaeus, the Syro-Phoenecian woman, the Samaritan woman etc. Each encounter is life-changing.

Today’s text from John 12 always shifts the focus for me. Here at Bethany Jesus is amongst friends. He has shared his life with them. He has been more than a teacher and a worker of miracles. And then, at this crowded gathering, Mary does one of the most intimate things recorded in the Gospels. In all love and reverence she kneels at his feet, pouring out perhaps the most costly thing she had. She doesn’t speak. She shows her love in a silent action. We are left to imagine how Jesus experiences her love and reverence.

I find Janet Morley’s writing helpful here:

My cup was spilling with betrayal,
but she has filled it with wine;
my face was wet with fear,
but she has anointed me with oil,
and my hair is damp with myrrh.
The scent of her love surrounds me;
it is more than I can bear.
She has touched me with authority;
in her hands I find strength.
For she acts on behalf of the broken,
and her silence is the voice of the unheard.
Though many murmur against her, I will praise her;
and in the name of the unremembered,
I will remember her.

(All Desires Known)

Can you picture yourself in the scene?

What do you see?

Listen to Miriam’s Story
Read Ps 118 and Mark 11:1-11

Imagine that you are part of the crowd.
What do you see? What do you hear?

Miriam sings Ps 118, longing for the Messiah to come.
What do you long for as Holy Week begins?

Image © Ally Barrett (www.reverendally.org) and used with permission. 

Isaiah 50:4-7
Philippians 2:6-11
Luke 22:14-23:56

Each morning he wakes me to hear,
to listen like a disciple.
The Lord has opened my ear.

As we begin Holy Week the Church invites us on a journey. This week is like no other in the year. The Church tells her story in words and images, in ritual and drama, and in silence and song. We are invited to find ourselves in the scriptural stories.

The First Reading for today from Isaiah 50 can be a helpful starting place for the week. The servant knows himself as a disciple. Each day his task is to hear what God is saying. God has already created in him an openness and a readiness. God has opened the servant’s ear. I hear this as promise that God will speak to us.

Make a conscious effort this week to listen to God in the scriptures and those around you.

What do you most want to hear?

ZION

For ZION was saying: ‘The Lord has abandoned me, the Lord has forgotten me.’ Does a woman forget her baby at the breast, or fail to cherish the son of her womb?

In the language of Isaiah the covenantal bond between God and the Israelites is often spoken about in relational terms. The chosen people are the object of God’s love and as a form of shorthand, they are referred to as Zion. In turn, Zion is used as a shorthand for Jerusalem.

Isaiah’s words in Ch 49 are spoken to a people in Exile. Hope in God’s plan has been replaced by feelings of despair and abandonment. Landless and living in an alien land they wonder if God is even aware of their plight. Re-assurance comes: God’s commitment to them and compassion for them are stronger and even more intense than that of a nursing mother. Zion can rest secure that her time of Exile is coming to an end.

We have reached the final stage of our Lenten journey and now we prepare to walk alongside Jesus in Jerusalem. Every promise made throughout the Old Testament now takes flesh on the wood of the cross. Like the Israelites, Jesus will experience a feeling of abandonment and like the Israelites, he will cry out. Jesus knows himself rooted in the Father’s love, in a love that will never forsake him.

How have you been aware of the Father’s love this Lent?

(Isaiah 49:8-15, Wednesday, Fourth Week of Lent)

YOUNGER

A man had two sons. The YOUNGER said to his father, ‘Father, let me have the share of the estate that would come to me.’

The hearers of Luke’s Gospel will have been familiar with the opening of this parable. In the literary conventions of the Old Testament, when a story starts with a man having two sons, it is usual to identify with the younger. We can trace a thread in the story of our salvation history through younger sons whose deeds, and at times, misdeeds, were part of the fulfilment of God’s promises. The human dynamics in the parable of the Prodigal Son cannot fail to touch our own experience. The younger son’s choice to go off into the world with his dreams and a bag of money always stirs me. His barefoot and bedraggled return to his father, portrayed so poignantly by Rembrandt, is fixed firmly in my biblical imagination.

What is less commonly portrayed is the son’s full restoration with robe, sandals and a ring. Every sign of the father’s acceptance and welcome is lavished on the younger son. The long sleeved robe is likely to be the best garment that the father has. The sandals mean that the father has restored him as a household member and not a slave. And the ring, likely used as a family seal, assures the son that his lineage is not in question. The son is now safe and secure in his father’s love. This love is to be celebrated with a feast.

How has God made his love known to you this Lent?

(Luke 15 1-3, 11-32. Saturday, First Week of Lent)

CHRIST JESUS
Ιησούς Χριστός

Make your own the mind of CHRIST JESUS: Who, being in the form of God, did not count equality with God something to be grasped.

There is a sense in which the whole of Lent is an opportunity to ‘make our own the mind of Christ Jesus.’ I hear in this quotation the implication that if my mind is like Christ’s then my heart and soul will be too. The pages of the Gospels give many different insights into the mind of Christ. How we absorb these texts and try to live them is the work of a lifetime. In the classical language of the spiritual life humility emerges as a significant theme. It’s a theme that is very easily misunderstood and caricatured.

The famous scene in the Nun’s Story where Mother Marcella asks Sister Luke to intentionally fail her exam to show humility, is etched on my mind. Thankfully, the reverse has been true in my own living of the Rule of St Benedict. Humility is not a negation of who I am, but a call to be my truest self. In Benedictine life it involves, amongst other things, putting others first and trying not to order things in a way which is easier for you. In community life you see this modelled around you. Little by little you can learn to live what is modelled. You can’t force it. You need space inside yourself for grace to work. In time you learn that humility is as much about learning to accept a compliment with grace as it is about putting the other first. It’s about becoming fully human.

How has Christ called you to be your true self this Lent?
(Philippians 2:1-11, Good Friday)

WHEAT GRAIN

Unless a WHEAT GRAIN falls on the ground and dies, it remains only a single grain; but if it dies, it yields a rich harvest.

As we come to the final weeks of Lent we might feel that our hopes and plans haven’t quite come to fruition. The Liturgy can gently nudge and prompt us to go a little deeper. It can also shock us into action too. This text from John’s Gospel always prompts me to go a little deeper. The imagery draws me in and I imagine fields and fields of golden wheat, stretching as far as the eye can see. It isn’t long before I am faced with the reality of what it means for a wheat grain to fall to the ground and die. As the wheat grain dies, so must I die to self.

On Holy Saturday at Lauds we sing these verses from the Byzantine liturgy:

How can you die, Christ our Life,
How can you lie in the tomb?
How can you die, Christ our Life,
How can you lie in the tomb?
By your death, you will destroy the power of death,
And you will raise the dead from their tombs.
Lord, you were like a wheat grain in the heart of the earth.
Lord, you were like a wheat grain in the heart of the earth.
The grain dies and the wheat springs up a hundredfold;
truly, you are our Bread and our Life.

In the starkness of our chapel on Holy Saturday these words go straight to the heart. Daunting as it may feel to confront the reality of dying to self, this pattern of dying and rising has already been imprinted on each of us at baptism. We are sealed and strengthened with Chrism and called to pattern our lives on Christ as priest, prophet and king. We carry within us the potential to die to self and embrace new life. Lent sharpens our focus. Each Lent the invitation is the same.

Which opportunities has Lent given you to die to self and to embrace new life?

(John 12: 20-33, Fifth Sunday in Lent)

VIRTUE

For I tell you, if your VIRTUE goes no deeper than that of the Pharisees, you will never get into the kingdom of heaven.

When I learnt the Catechism at aged seven I really enjoyed the pages where the Theological and Cardinal Virtues were listed. It all looked very neat and tidy and I would happily reel off the lists. Though I must admit I couldn’t make any great distinction between the Virtues and the Gifts and Fruits of the Spirit that were to be found on the same pages. When you are seven it all seems to come down to being good and trying your best.

When Jesus speaks of virtue I still hear those Catechism answers, but now I know that there is a whole world of meaning in what our text has rendered as ‘virtue’. What is at issue here is in fact a whole way of life. Jesus is asking us to live in such a way that our intentions, words and deeds are all in harmony. This is a picture of integration in its fullest sense. Outer performance or observance is to be in harmony with our hearts.

You may have got to this stage in Lent and feel that you have gone adrift. Lent offers us the opportunity to be intentional about living in an integrated way. Often it is the smallest shoots which bear fruit, so it is always worth paying attention to the tinniest shifts in our inner and outer worlds. We can keep tilling the soil and watering. One day we will notice a little shoot of grow.

How do you hear this text? Have you noticed any new growth in yourself this Lent?

(Matthew 5:20-26, Friday, First Week of Lent)