Rev. Tom Sorenson, Pastor
March 24, 2005

Scripture:

Let us pray: May the words of my mouth and the meditations of all of our hearts be acceptable in your sight, O God, our strength and our redeemer. Amen.

One of the things I keep telling folks here at this church, and maybe the others of you have heard it before too, is that the great Bible stories aren’t just about things that happened to other people a long time ago in a place far away. They are about us too. That’s what keeps them alive for us. That’s what keeps God’s word in them alive for us. We just heard Luke’s account of the Last Supper and the conversations Jesus had with the disciples immediately afterwards. That story is, of course, about something that happened to other people a long time ago in a place far away; but it is also about us, especially the part about the exchanges between Jesus and the disciples after he had instituted the Sacrament.

As soon as Jesus spoke the words that are so familiar to us as part of the Eucharist he said: "But see, the one who betrays me is with me, and his hand is on the table." Jesus then basically gave a prediction of his Passion and said woe to the one by whom he is betrayed. The disciples then began to try to figure out which of them would possibly betray the Master.

We usually think that Jesus’ words about the one who betrays him are about Judas Iscariot, the one who betrayed him to the authorities, and of course it is; but I don’t think that that’s all that the story is about. Look at what Luke puts right after Jesus’ words about someone betraying him. He doesn’t put anything about Judas. Rather, the first thing Luke relates is a dispute among the disciples about which of them is the greatest. Jesus has to correct them and tell them once again that among them the leader must be the one who serves. Then, Jesus predicts not Judas’ betrayal of him but Peter’s. Peter denies that he will deny Jesus, swearing that he is ready to go with Jesus to prison and to death; but of course that’s not true, as we learn as the story unfolds.

Let me suggest that what’s going here in the way Luke tells this story is that the disciples, all of the disciples, are betraying Jesus just as they are all assuring him, each other, and most of all themselves that they would never do such a thing. Luke gives us here two images of betrayal, and they don’t include the betrayal by Judas, the one actually known as the betrayer. They are images of betrayal by the ones known to the tradition as the faithful disciples. And these images, my friends, like all good Bible images, aren’t just about them, they are about us.

The first image is an image of the way that we betray Jesus when we fail to understand his message, when we fail to understand what his life was all about. The disciples showed that they didn’t understand Jesus’ message, didn’t understand what his life was all about, when they started arguing about which of them was the greatest. Jesus’ message, and his life, weren’t about being great. They were about being servant to all of God’s people and especially to the poor, the marginalized, the outcast, those people whom the religious and social establishments of his time, and ours, consider impure and unworthy. The disciples didn’t get it; and their refusal to listen, their closing their hearts to Jesus’ message of God’s love for all people, was a betrayal of the one they claimed to follow. That’s why Luke put his story of their incomprehension immediately after Jesus’ prediction of betrayal, to make the point that the disciples betrayed Christ when they refused to hear his message; and so do we.

The second image is an image of betrayal by failure to follow. Jesus calls us not only to understand his message but to follow him in living that message regardless of the consequences. In our Gospel lesson this evening, Peter claimed that he would do that, but he was deceiving himself. We didn’t hear that part of the story tonight, but we all know it. When the chips were down, Peter didn’t have the courage of his convictions. He denied Jesus to save his own skin. He betrayed Jesus by denying him and failing to follow him when following him got tough, got unpopular, got dangerous; and so do we. Who among us can truly say that we have not compromised our commitment to Jesus and to his universal Gospel of God’s love for all people, his Gospel of peace and nonviolent resistance to evil, for the sake of our comfortable lives, out of fear of rejection, fear of what people will think, fear of standing out, of being different? I know I sure can’t. I make those compromises every day. And when I do, I betray my Lord and Savior every bit as much as Peter did on that fateful night so long ago and so far away.

So, friends, on this night when we commemorate Jesus’ betray unto death, and tomorrow as we symbolically walk with him to Calvary and to the cross, let us search our hearts to discern the ways in which we too betray him. How do we compromise his teachings to make them more comfortable? How do we fail to follow him out of fear or complacency? You see, we all do get a second chance, and a third, and a fourth, and as many as we need. After all, those disciples who didn’t get it that night so long ago and so far away went on after the Resurrection to be Christ’s apostles in the world. Peter, who could not follow Jesus that night so long ago and so far away, went on after the Resurrection to become the Rock on which Christ’s church is founded and to die a martyr’s death for his Lord. We get another chance. Let’s see what we can make of it. Amen.