Way back in the Garden of Gethsemane, those who betrayed Christ perfectly mirrored those who betray him today.
On the one hand, he was betrayed by what we might loosely call “the right”: the Pharisees who elevated the letter of the law over the spirit of the law.
Those who sat in the front of the church casting disdainful glances at the sub-par sinners, silently crowing, “At least I am not like them.”
Those who could never quite hear Christ when he said, “Healthy people don’t need a doctor; sick people do,” and “I have come to call not the righteous, but sinners.”
Those who were appalled by the wretched poor: the lepers, the deaf, blind, lame, and hemorrhaging; the adulterers, prostitutes, and tax collectors.
Jesus didn’t care who you were: he cared that, convinced of your miserable need, your utter inability to heal yourself, and your complete incapacity for true self-reflection, you were in bad enough shape to thirst for a savior.
Always it was the one willing to step out from the crowd and beg for mercy that moved Jesus’ heart. The blind man who threw his cloak aside. The one leper who came back and prostrated himself in thanks. The woman who begged, saying, “Lord, even the dogs are allowed to eat the scraps from the table of their master — I’ll be satisfied with scraps, too” (Matthew 15: 26–28).
Always he loved the humble and the desperate, not the perfectly virtuous.
But Jesus was no pushover. Nobody played Jesus. He could spot a hypocrite a mile away, and a power-mongerer, too, no matter how purportedly well-disguised.
Because if Jesus was tried, sentenced, and tortured to death at the urging of the Pharisees, he was betrayed as well — most directly betrayed — in fact, by Judas: a member of what today we might loosely call “the left.”
Judas, the keeper of the purse; Judas, who purported to be stewarding the money for “the poor.”
These are the people who vaunt their works of mercy but who wouldn’t lift a finger to help, say, a wealthy, white, heterosexual person in distress. These are the priests, lauded for their “inclusivity,” who lead dysregulated private lives and urge the same on their followers.
In her book, “Sister Wendy's Nativity” (Harper, $28.53), British religious sister and art historian Sister Wendy Beckett (1930-2018) wrote, “The horror of Judas is not that he was unlike the other disciples but that he was just like them. … We are being asked here to examine not the problem of Judas and his sin but the problem of our own: why do we betray, and walk away?”
We are all Pharisees, in other words, and we are all Judas, hiding bad motives under purportedly good ones.
In the parable of the Pharisee and the tax collector (Luke 18: 9–14), “The Pharisee took up his position and spoke this prayer to himself: ‘O God, I thank you that I am not like the rest of humanity: greedy, dishonest, adulterous…’ ”
Who hasn’t thought some variation of: “I follow the rules. I show up at Sunday Mass in a suit and tie, I put my envelope in the basket: Jesus will give me a pass on this one.”
Who hasn’t thought some variation of: “All’s fair in love and war. I’m generous. I’m kind. I do so much for the poor; Jesus will give me a pass on this one.”
Maybe the opposite of betrayal isn’t fidelity but rather honesty.
Do not all our betrayals start with the notion, perhaps subconsciously, that we’re not good enough, that we have to prove ourselves in God’s eyes?
At a recent Mass, the priest gave a homily on Mark 12:10–11: “The stone that the builders rejected has become the cornerstone.”
The same phenomenon goes for us, the priest observed: we reject the parts of us that are fragile, weak, and wounded. “If only we had the qualities of this or that person!” we think. “If only we moved through the world with the effortless ease of those better equipped: more efficient, more confident, more self-sacrificing.”
But those other qualities wouldn’t be right for us. We’ve been given exactly the qualities, whether strengths or weaknesses, that we need in order to come to our fullest fruition.
So while we don’t need to prove ourselves, we do need to examine our deepest conscience and admit to ourselves what we’re avoiding.
What’s more righteous, for example: to go to jail for our political beliefs or to do the hard, anonymous work of, say, recovering from an addiction to pornography?
What’s more righteous: to head up the local chapter of a respected civic-religious fundraising organization, or to do the hard, emotionally risky work of reconciling with the same-sex-oriented daughter we’ve shunned and rejected?
It’s always easier to make the public righteous gesture, to loudly proclaim that we’re on “the right side,” to make a show of our virtue and good works.
On our own, none of us can avoid betraying Christ.
This Lent, let us all go to our rooms, wipe away the tears that come from wrenching the beam from our eye, and pray to the Father — for mercy — in secret.
