| Matthew 26:14-25 "Mares of the Night" |
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| Written by Rev. Don Lee | |
| Saturday, 25 March 2006 | |
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Confession is good for the soul, they say, and right now my soul could use some catharsis. Last week I was on the 8th floor of Presbyterian Hospital in Dallas waiting for the elevator that would take me down to the lobby. An elderly man who looked like he was in his 70’s, limped slowly toward me, favoring a cane, and took his place by the elevator. He cleared his throat, I thought to initiate conversation so I took the lead and said to him, “How are you today?” He told me he was taking his daughter home from the hospital and he pointed down the hall. There were a number of people scattered down the hall, but the one closet to me was sitting in a wheelchair with blue helium balloons tied to it. You know the kind with “It’s a boy,” emblazoned across the front in big words. “Did she have a baby?” I asked. “No,” he replied. “She was having a brain tumor removed.” Caught completely off guard by his reply, I asked, “How did it go?” And he replied, “Not good, they couldn’t get all of it….” He sighed, and then there was silence. “I’m taking my daughter home to die,” he was saying. I’d like to tell you that I knew exactly what to say but I confess I was totally at a loss for words. As I frantically searched for the right words, everything I could possibly think of seemed much too trite. I’m ashamed to say, all I could manage was a mumbled, “I’m so sorry,” as the elevator doors opened. And then, not knowing what else to do or say, I stepped into the elevator. As long as I live I will never forget the sadness on that man’s face as the elevator door slid close. I’ve berated myself a thousands times for my pathetic response and yet, what do you say to someone whose heart is breaking? There are no easy answers, here. I know… I’ve been there, ROCK BOTTOM. God, where are you? “How could things have ended up this way?” I can’t breathe. I suspect a lot of us have been there, ROCK BOTTOM. If, by the grace of God “we” Christians are indeed “Living the dream,” WHY the nightmares? I looked up the etymology of the word Nightmare. Mare or mara is an Anglo-Saxon and Old Norse term for a demon that sat on sleepers' chests, causing them to have bad dreams. And while my rationale mind can easily dismiss such “superstition,” there are times it still feels as if something is sitting on my chest, making it hard to breathe, and leaving me desperately seeking a way to get that “whatever” off! Jesus also had his nightmares. One of his own betrays him. He will grieve alone, praying for deliverance that never comes. His closet friends will desert him. One will even deny knowing him. Jesus will suffer the ultimate of indignities; he will be ridiculed and paraded through the streets like a criminal. He will be brutalized and then stripped almost naked, and publicly executed. Even in death, his remains will be treated as criminal, guarded and despised. You see, even Jesus, the author of our faith suffered mares of the night. What happens when the dream becomes a nightmare? Our reading comes from the gospel of Matthew 26:14-25. Please stand for the reading of the Gospel. 14 Then one of the twelve, who was called Judas Iscariot, went to the chief priests 15and said, ‘What will you give me if I betray him to you?’ They paid him thirty pieces of silver. 16And from that moment he began to look for an opportunity to betray him. 17 On the first day of Unleavened Bread the disciples came to Jesus, saying, ‘Where do you want us to make the preparations for you to eat the Passover?’ 18He said, ‘Go into the city to a certain man, and say to him, “The Teacher says, My time is near; I will keep the Passover at your house with my disciples.” ’ 19So the disciples did as Jesus had directed them, and they prepared the Passover meal. 20 When it was evening, he took his place with the twelve; 21and while they were eating, he said, ‘Truly I tell you, one of you will betray me.’ 22And they became greatly distressed and began to say to him one after another, ‘Surely not I, Lord?’ 23He answered, ‘The one who has dipped his hand into the bowl with me will betray me. 24The Son of Man goes as it is written of him, but woe to that one by whom the Son of Man is betrayed! It would have been better for that one not to have been born.’ 25Judas, who betrayed him, said, ‘Surely not I, Rabbi?’ He replied, ‘You have said so.’ Prayer: O Great Spirit, whose breath gives life to the world, And whose voice is heard in the soft breeze: We need your strength and wisdom. Cause us to walk in beauty. Give us eyes Ever to behold the red and purple sunset. Make us wise so that we may understand What you have taught us. Help us learn the lessons you have hidden In every leaf and rock. Make us always ready to come to you With clean hands and steady eyes. So when life fades, like the fading sunset, Our spirits may come to you without shame. Amen. There are actually 3 stories here connected by one common theme, betrayal. It begins with Judas, one of Jesus’ 12 disciples, agreeing to betray Jesus for 30 pieces of silver. Verse 15 claims the religious leaders pay Judas upfront! Not half down, and half when the job is done. He could have taken the money and run! But I guess he’s got too much integrity to do that! Ironic, isn’t it! Instead we are told he begins to look for a (you-ka-ree-a)“eukairia,” opportunity, the “right moment” for betrayal. Of the four gospels, only Matthew’s states the price as 30 pieces of silver. Scholars suggest this amount is actually a reference to Zechariah 11:12-13: 12I then said to them, ‘If it seems right to you, give me my wages; but if not, keep them.’ So they weighed out as my wages thirty shekels of silver. 13Then the LORD said to me, ‘Throw it into the treasury’—this lordly price at which I was valued by them. So I took the thirty shekels of silver and threw them into the treasury in the house of the LORD. In Matthew 27, the gospel writer picks up on this reference from Zechariah. He tell us the Judas “repented of his betrayal” and threw the money on the floor of the temple, when they refused to accept it. In the Bible 30 pieces of silver is a token, if paltry sum of money. In the next scene, stating that his “kairos” or time is near, Jesus instructs his disciples to find a place for them to celebrate the Passover. The only legitimate place to celebrate the Passover meal in Israel during the 1st century was within the walls of Jerusalem, the holy city. Even as the disciples fulfill this task, Judas is engaged in a concerted effort to find the right time to hand Jesus over to the authorities. In the final scene, it is evening and they are eating together. Jesus predicts that someone among them will betray him. The narrative contrasts Judas’ eukairia (opportunity), or the right moment for his betrayal, with Jesus’ kairos or (time), the right moment for his self-giving. Even when humanity is at its worst, God is at God’s best. With his betrayal, Judas hits rock bottom and Jesus responds by fulfilling his own words in John 15:13. “No one has greater love than this, to lay down one’s life for one’s friends.” While Judas cannot escape responsibility for his actions, all 12 of the Disciple will turn their back on Jesus; all will betray him. As we leave the story, Judas’ opportunity and Jesus’ time converge upon one another. The nightmare has begun. In his memoir Night, Holocaust survivor Elie Wiesel writes of his memories of the nightmare world of the death camps and the genocidal campaign that took the lives of his family. Wiesel’s book raises the question, “How can the God he once so fervently believed in have allowed these monstrous events to occur? The book provides no easy answers to this question. In one deeply troubling chapter, a young boy he describes as having the “face of a sad-eyed angel,” is hung along with two men accused of sabotage. The camp residents are forced to watch. Wiesel writes, “Someone behind me was asking, ‘Where is merciful God, where is HE?’ Then came the march past the victims. The two men were no longer alive…But the third rope was still moving: the child, too light, was still breathing… “Behind me, (Wiesel continues) I heard the same man asking “For God’s sake, where is God?” And from within me, I heard a voice answer: Where is he? This is where - hanging from the gallows. That night the soup tasted of [death]…” p.64-65 What do we do when it seems as if our dreams have turned into nightmares; “when the soup tastes of death?” When it feels as if even God has abandoned us? I think the answer lies in the meaning of the Passover meal. Seated at the table, surrounded by his followers, Jesus officiates the Seder, a retelling of the Exodus story. Enslaved in a foreign land, and ruled by a merciless Pharaoh Israel endures the hardship and brutality of forced labor. Generations give their lives building a Valley of tombs. Their male children are drowned in the Nile. It is a story of despair, of a people who feel abandoned, who cry out to their God for deliverance. It’s a story of humanity at its worst. To Israel, the Passover represents God’s deliverance. It serves to remind them of God’s faithfulness in the past and present. Despite the appearance of things, God is working to redeem even our darkest nightmares. As I told our children, God believes in happy endings. Grief will eventually become hope; brokenness, healing; and, hate, love. That is God’s gift to the world. So while there are no easy answers, there is still hope. We stand on that hope when we retell those stories when it seemed that things were most dire, and then, God showed up! We affirm our faith when we reenact the rituals (sacraments) that reminds us of God’s faithfulness. When we baptize a child or break bread together, we affirm that God is good. We tell our children the stories of Jesus, stories that nurture hope within them. Ever since I saw that man’s sad face as he prepared to drive his dying daughter home, I have berated myself for not having said something more compassionate, more loving. What could I have done or said? In the forward to Wiesel’s book, (fran-swaw) Francois Mauriac penned these words concerning Wiesel, then just a young reporter interviewing him for the Tel Aviv Daily. “I, who believe that God is love, what answer was there to give my young interlocutor whose dark eyes still held the reflection of the angelic sadness that had appeared one day on the face of a hanged child? What did I say to him? Did I speak to him of that other Jew, this crucified brother who perhaps resembled him and whose cross conquered the world? Did I explain to him that what had been a stumbling block for his faith had become a cornerstone of mine? And that the connection between the cross and human suffering remains, in my view, the key to the unfathomable mystery in which the faith of his childhood was lost? And yet, Zion has risen up again out of the crematoria and the slaughterhouses. The Jewish nation has been resurrected from among its thousands of dead. It is they who have given it new life. We do not know the worth of one single drop of blood, one single tear. All is grace. Of the Almighty is the Almighty, the last word for each of us belongs to him. That is what I should have said to the Jewish child. But all I could do was embrace him and weep.” That’s when it hit me. Maybe the best we can do when the nightmares come and God is silent, is to embrace each other and weep. And when we do… that’s when and where we find God. Our “time of brokenness” meets “God’s time of self-giving.” Opportunities for these “God Moments” are all around us. And I have promised myself I will look for them; and I hope you will too. After all, God is most active in the church when we participate in the divine initiative to create a more just and loving world! Amen! |
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