Loyalty, Betrayal, and the Wise and Loving Life

This week, our focus is on Matthew 26:1-5; 14-18 and the character of Betrayal and restoration.

Kathy and I have become occasional, and in Kathy’s case, reluctant, watchers of the television show, “Agents of Shield.” [1] 5432f52971f7fIt currently appears that Agent Ward has betrayed his colleagues, and especially “Skye,” who is emotionally attached to him and to whom he is also emotionally attached. It turns out that Agent Ward is not really a loyal agent of Shield; he has betrayed Shield, his team, and his love, having been an agent of the enemy, Hydra, all along. In addition,

A scene in which Skye confronts Agent Ward mesmerized me. She was really mad. Her love for Grant Ward has turned to disgust at who Ward really is and what Ward has done. She turns him into the police, she berates him publically, and she finally reveals that she would rather die than give Ward what he wants from her. The actress who plays Skye does a wonderful job of portraying the anger and fury one feels at betrayal.

Today, we are visiting about the subject of betrayal, forgiveness, restoration, and the life of wisdom and love. Betrayal is a feature of fallen human existence. Everyone to some degree feels betrayed by someone during the course of life. Lovers, spouses, business partners, friends, fellow church members, sooner or later all feel betrayed to some degree at some point in life. Worse, we all betray someone who is entitled to our trust to one degree or another at some point in life. It can be a big betrayal, or as small as disclosing some trivial secret. Therefore, we need to understand how to be delivered from betrayal.

This week, I wrote a  meditation for Facebook and to be included  in the bulletin that says, “There is no worse experience than the experience of being betrayed. The experience of being betrayed is unbelievably painful–and so is the shame and guilt of being a betrayer. The betrayed needs to be delivered from the anger that comes from being betrayed, and the betrayer needs to be delivered from the shame and guilt of betrayal. Judas dies because he cannot escape his guilt. Peter is restored because he can accept forgiveness and change.” This points out an interesting fact: Everyone involved in a betrayal needs a kind of deliverance.

Text and Prayer.

Briefly, our  occurs on Wednesday of Holy Week. Jesus has entered the city of Jerusalem. He has confronted the priests, Pharisees and Sadduces. He has cleansed the temple. The leaders of the people have had enough and are looking for ways to get rid of  him. Just before today’s text, Jesus has made his prophesy of the end of the Jewish Temple and of the Final Judgment. You can imagine the fear and anger of the religious leaders. Jesus has now finished his active ministry. All that is left is his betrayal, arrest, trials, suffering, and death. This is how Matthew describes what comes next:

When Jesus had finished saying all these things, he said to his disciples, “As you know, the Passover is two days away—and the Son of Man will be handed over to be crucified.” Then the chief priests and the elders of the people assembled in the palace of the high priest, whose name was Caiaphas, and they schemed to arrest Jesus secretly and kill him. “But not during the festival,” they said, “or there may be a riot among the people.”

 While Jesus was in Bethany in the home of Simon the Leper, a woman came to him with an alabaster jar of very expensive perfume, which she poured on his head as he was reclining at the table. When the disciples saw this, they were indignant. “Why this waste?” they asked. “This perfume could have been sold at a high price and the money given to the poor.” Aware of this, Jesus said to them, “Why are you bothering this woman? She has done a beautiful thing to me. The poor you will always have with you, but you will not always have me. When she poured this perfume on my body, she did it to prepare me for burial. Truly I tell you, wherever this gospel is preached throughout the world, what she has done will also be told, in memory of her.”  

Then one of the Twelve—the one called Judas Iscariot—went to the chief priests and asked, “What are you willing to give me if I deliver him over to you?” So they counted out for him thirty pieces of silver. From then on Judas watched for an opportunity to hand him over (Matthew 26:1-16).

Prayer: Faithful God: You are eternally faithful to yourself, to your promises, to your creation, and to your people. We, however, are not always faithful to you, to creation, or to other people. Forgive us. Come and allow us to sense your presence and your healing power in our meditation. In Jesus Name, Amen.

The Character of Betrayal.

There is no sadder figure in American history than the figure of Benedict Arnold. Arnold was a brave, skilled military leader, pershps the best combat general serving under General Washington. Washington respected and admired Arnold. images-3
Unfortunately, Arnold could be abrasive and made enemies in the Revolutionary Army. Other men were promoted above him. He began to be resentful. In addition, he lived beyond his means and engaged in practices that the Continental Congress found objectionable. He was court marshaled. Even then, Washington protected him and gave him a very mild reprimand. He wanted to save a good general’s career. Unfortunately, Arnold had married an English sympathizer, who led him into treason. He proposed handing over West Point, where he was in command, to the British. When the plot was uncovered, Arnold fled to the enemy lines and went on to lead British troops in Virginia and Connecticut. He later moved to England, though he never received all of what he’d been promised by the British. He died in London, in relative obscurity. Today, to call a person a Benedict Arnold is to call that person a traitor.

What makes people so deeply hate a betrayer? I think it is the fact that betrayal involves a breach of trust personally, publically, financially or otherwise. We can only be betrayed by people with whom we are friends, partners, spouses, lovers, fellow soldiers, etc. Those who can betray us owe us a duty of loyalty. We are relational people. We need relationships; however, we can be hurt in relationships. Because vulnerability is a part of any deep relationship, betrayal is especially terrible.

When a spouse, partner, or public servant betrays our trust, it strikes at our sense of security in a deep and terrible way. We are filled with a kind of fear and horror that we can be so vulnerable.  The result for the betrayer is either shame or a slow journey into a deep lack of character. A betrayer cannot be trusted by anyone. The result of any betrayal is deep anger and pain among all those involved, and especially for the one betrayed.

Judas the Betrayer.

With this background, let’s look at the man we call Judas Iscariot. Judas was one of the original Twelve Disciples. He must have had a good mind and some kind of financial expertise, because he was made the treasurer of the Twelve and was responsible for the common purse they kept. He was with Jesus  from the beginning of his ministry. He heard Jesus’ powerful teachings. He witnessed Jesus’ many  healings and mighty deeds of power. He saw demons cast out. He experienced Jesus’ prayer life and love for people. Judas is a reminder that going to church, being surrounded by Christian brothers and sisters, participating in Christian activities, and even experiencing the blessings of the Christian life, does not guarantee faith nor does it guarantee we will not betray Christ and our faith.

Everywhere Judas is mentioned in the Bible, he is spoken of in a negative way. How could Judas have betrayed Jesus? Judas, like us, probably didn’t set out to become evil. John indicates that he was greedy and took money from the common purse (John 12:6). I imagine it began innocently.
images-4He would take a few shekels into a city to buy food and forget to put the change back in the common purse. Off on an errand, he bought a few personal items without reimbursing the little group of disciples. Gradually, ever so gradually, Judas began to lose his moral bearings. He first became a thief, and then became a betrayer.

Like the other disciples, Judas expected Jesus to be a messianic King. He expected Jesus to overthrow Roman rule and reestablish the kingdom of Israel. He expected to be part of the leadership of a kingdom that would never end—at least not in his lifetime. As Jesus moved closer and closer to Jerusalem and to that last Passover, Judas, like the other disciples, was probably disturbed by Jesus’s prophecies that he would be betrayed and die a terrible death. As Holy Week went on, Judas could see that the religious leaders and powerful people were lining up support to get rid of Jesus. I suspect Judas did not want to die.

Knowing that someone was going to betray Jesus, and that sooner or later Jesus and his followers were going to come to a bad end, Judas decided that those who came to a bad end would not include him. Eventually, he went to see the religious leaders and cut a deal with them—Jesus for safety and thirty pieces of silver (Matt. 26:15). At that moment, Judas walked over a line. He might have just quit and gone home. He might have stood up and spoken against what Jesus was doing. Those would have been honorable courses of action. Betraying Jesus was an act of moral cowardice.

Judas’ life is a reminder to all of us. Very few people set out to betray a spouse, or lover, or a friend, or a business partner. It happens slowly, one compromise at a time. There is a kind of slow moral slide. A lunch that should have been avoided, a deal that should never have been done, a present that should never have been accepted, a word that should never have been spoken. That is how betrayal begins. Then, one day, we’ve done something and become someone we never intended to do or become.

Judas, Jesus and Peter.

It appears that Jesus knew he was going to be betrayed and that Judas was the betrayer. imgres-4The New Testament clearly records that Jesus identified Judas as his betrayer, and that Judas left the meal before it was over (Matt. 26:23-25; John 13:18-30). We know this to be true because Judas had to go to the high priests home and get the military officials who would actually arrest Jesus in the Garden of Gethsemane (Matt. 26:47-50; Mark 14:43-44; Luke 22:47-48; John 18:1-4). Confronted by Jesus and his understanding of what he was about, Judas walked over the boundary line between good and evil, became a true servant of evil, and betrayed the Messiah.

There was another person present that night who would betray Jesus. We are going to hear his story in a few weeks when we talk about disappointment. Peter was there when Jesus prophesied that all the disciples would desert him and he would die abandoned and alone. Filled with pride, Peter told Jesus that he would not desert the Messiah even if everyone else did so (Matt. 26:33). Jesus knew otherwise. He told Peter that, before the rooster crowed in the next day’s dawn, he would betray Jesus (v. 34). Sure enough, that evening, filled with terror, Peter denied the Lord three times.

The Bible tells us that, after Jesus was betrayed, Judas regretted what he had done. Apparently, he tried to give the thirty pieces of silver he had received back to the High Priest and Sanhedrin. When they refused to take the money back, Judas committed suicide (Matt. 27:3-5). In Mark’s rendition of the first Easter, the Angels tell the women to go tell the disciples, and Peter, to meet him in Galilee (Mark 16:7). Peter, you see had abandoned Christ.  He was a deserter, no longer a disciple. Nevertheless, at the end of John, we see Peter speaking of his leadership with the risen Lord (John 22:15-19). images-2

Both Judas and Peter were betrayers of the trust Jesus placed in them. Both owed him loyalty and were unfaithful. Why did Judas commit suicide and Peter become the chief of the apostles? I think the answer is this: Judas, filled with pride, shame, and guilt, could not go to the Lord and asked for forgiveness and be restored. Peter repented of what he had done, accepted his guilt and shame, asked for forgiveness, and was restored. The big difference between Judas and Peter is not what they did, but how they reacted to the love of God.

Everyone Needs Deliverance from the Deliverer.

Everyone needs deliverance from betrayal and its consequences. There are people whose lives are ruined because of a betrayal. Some of these people are the betrayer who never repents and turns his or her life around. Others are the betrayed who never release the anger and pain and whose lives are twisted by desire for revenge. Both betrayers and the betrayed need their own deliverance.

Wednesday evening someone shared with our group the following story. A loved one was betrayed by someone who could not overcome an addiction. The loved one ultimately died. It was a young, tragic, and unnecessary death. Naturally, the family had a hard time forgiving the one who betrayed their daughter. The person who was an addict ultimately became sober and embarked on a new life. The parents, however, still had to cope with the loss of a daughter. One day, in a conversation, the addict said that, “The one thing he could do was to provide a sober parent for their child.” In that moment, a healing began. I want to share with you just a little bit of an email I received this week:

“Then I told our Bible study what you said to me, something I’ll never forget that a changed me. You told me that the one thing you COULD do for [our daughter] was to be a sober dad for [our granddaughter], that you being [her] dad was the one thing she wanted more than anything, which was so true. That stuck with me from that moment forward. It was a beautiful thing to say & gave me a lot of comfort. Then we were able to spend Christmas together and talk about things regarding …. I’ll be honest, at first I had to pray every day for God to change my heart so I would love you & care about you, that I would let go to all that stuff in the past between you & [our daughter]. And God did – and you did. I’m so grateful that [we] are working together to parent [our granddaughter] and to raise her. I never would have thought. I didn’t know you well and didn’t understand how deeply devoted you are to [her] and that you did love [our daughter] … I wanted you to know how I feel and how grateful I am for everything that is happening…. “ [2]

I wanted to share this with you for a reason. The healing that began on the phone call did not make what happened any less tragic. It did not excuse past behavior. It opened up the potential for a new future.imgres

Our deliverance does not eliminate the past or all the consequences of the past. It does not eliminate the need to change or make amends. Instead, it provides a point for a new beginning. It provides a way to healing and wholeness again for both the betrayed and the betrayer, so we can experience that healing and wholeness in this life as far as possible and not be trapped in the past and its pain.

The spouse that cannot forgive a betrayal, the parent or child who cannot forgive a past betrayal, the business partner who cannot forgive a past betrayal becomes trapped in the past they cannot forgive. Such persons need a healing.

The person who betrayed that person, if they cannot repent and turn their life around, and accept the forgiveness of God, becomes trapped in the past as well. Like Judas, they commit a kind of emotional suicide, and morally,  spiritually and emotionally hang themselves on the rope of their past betrayal.  It is only when a betrayer (and we) repent, forgive, accept forgiveness, and make amends for the past  that we receive the healing and  new life that Christ offers us.

Amen

Copyright 2016, G. Christopher Scruggs, All Rights Reserved

[1] See, Marvel: Agents of Shield: Season 1, (ABC Studios, Marvel Studios, 2013-2016).

[2] Personal Email, February 18, 2016. Used by Permission.