All Saints’, Dorval
May 12, 2024
The Last Days of Judas Iscariot, Plymouth State University, Plymouth, New Hampshire, March 2013. Photo (and set and lighting design) by Matt Kizer.
Then they prayed and said, “Lord, you know everyone’s heart. Show us which one of these two you have chosen to take the place in this ministry and apostleship from which Judas turned aside to go to his own place.”
Judas is one of the enduring mysteries in the gospel story. Why did he do what he did? Why did he choose to “go to his own place” rather than seeking Jesus’ forgiveness? How could Peter the denier become the greatest of the Apostles, while Judas the betrayer died – depending on which scriptural account you consult – either in a gruesome accident, or by his own hand?
And then, of course, there’s the larger speculation about – whether it was Judas or someone else – why Jesus had to be betrayed, tried, and executed as he was. Was that the only possible outcome when God came to earth and became human, or could there have been an alternative reality in which the whole story played out a different way? Could the Incarnate God defeat death without dying himself?
I’m not sure it’s possible to answer the latter question within our human frames of reference. And witnessing the impact that this story has had on human souls for the last two millennia, I’m not sure we need to answer that question. The story is profoundly, powerfully, uniquely true, and large enough to contain innumerable interpretations. It is enough for us to hear it, to meditate on it, to live inside it, and to let it change the way we live our daily lives.
But the question of Judas, his motives, and his fate – that one preoccupies us. We are fascinated by what could drive someone to commit this act of ultimate betrayal, and then by whether we believe that Judas could ever be saved or redeemed beyond the grave.
From the Gnostic Gospels to Dante (whose Judas is being chewed by Satan in Hell for all eternity) and Sayers’ The Man Born to be King, from Jesus Christ Superstar to the 2005 play The Last Days of Judas Iscariot, literature has delved into this material, presented us with the many possibilities of Judas, and frequently left us more questions than answers.
Was Judas greedy, or mistakenly idealistic? Did he think he was smarter than Jesus and that he, Judas, needed to keep Jesus focused on what Judas understood to be his true mission, even when Jesus was unwilling? Was Judas “put up to it” by Jesus himself in the service of a larger plan? (What does it mean that Jesus describes Judas as “the one destined to be lost” in today’s Gospel reading?) Did Judas call the cops on Jesus like a white guy in the 21st century whose Black friend was in trouble, not realizing – or refusing to admit to himself – that those cops would not treat Jesus the Galilean the same way they would treat Judas the Judaean?
And after the whole sordid story had played out, after Jesus had vanquished death by undergoing it and Judas had put himself beyond the reach of his living Saviour’s forgiveness, did Jesus encounter Judas when he harrowed hell? Did they come face to face again after the Ascension? Was there, is there, any possibility of heaven for Judas Iscariot?
The photo on the sermon slide for this morning is of the production of The Last Days of Judas Iscariot that I was lucky enough to attend at Plymouth State University in 2013, a couple of years after first reading the script. The original off-Broadway production of this play involved the popular spiritual writer Father James Martin, SJ, as its unofficial chaplain, and one of my longstanding regrets is that I wasn’t smart enough to nominate myself for the same role in the PSU production.
It is an extraordinary show, chock-full of both rock-solid theology and an astonishing amount of highly inventive profanity; in my next parish, I convened a group to read large portions of the script together, and saw elderly Scandinavian Lutherans moved to tears after acting out the climactic scene between Jesus and Judas in the waiting-room of Hell.
The Last Days of Judas Iscariot leaves the audience with a deep sense of compassion both for Judas, and for those who cannot conceive that Judas could ever be forgiven. Ultimately, the greatest question that it poses is not whether God could forgive Judas, but whether Judas could forgive himself.
In today’s reading from the Acts of the Apostles, the narration of the process by which Matthias was chosen to replace Judas is brisk and factual. Peter stands up amid a crowd of 120 people – ten for each of the original apostles – and informs them (using a frankly rather dubious interpretation of a couple of verses from the Psalms) that the scripture was fulfilled through Judas’ betrayal, and so it is now time to replace him. Two candidates are proposed; the assembly prays and cast lots, and Matthias is chosen. That’s all we know about Matthias; his name is never mentioned again.
One has to imagine, though, that there was a lot more emotion and uncertainty in the room than the writer of Acts conveys on the page. This is the only event recorded as taking place during the ten days between Jesus’ ascension into heaven and the coming of the Holy Spirit on Pentecost. The Crucifixion and Resurrection are only six weeks in the past. The apostles and their companions have only just survived the trauma of Jesus’ death and the joyful shock of his return from the tomb. And the Holy Spirit has not yet arrived to reassure them that God is still moving among them and that they have not been left comfortless. One can only imagine how lost and adrift they feel.
I wonder whether Peter, as he stood up and confidently interpreted Scripture to explain how Judas’ betrayal had been foretold, was concealing his own lingering guilt about denying Jesus before the high priest’s servants. I wonder what the other 119 people in the room thought about this way of handling the situation. I wonder whether Barsabbas was relieved, or disappointed, not to be chosen. I wonder what other stories there are from that strange in-between time, that didn’t make it into the book.
It was for this moment that Jesus prayed the long prayer of which today’s gospel reading is almost the final portion. He prays that God the Father will protect the disciples, unify them, and sanctify them in the truth. I wonder whether any of them, six weeks later in that upper room as Peter spoke, remembered this prayer, and how Judas had already left the room during the Last Supper when Jesus prayed it, and asked themselves whether anything would have been different if he hadn’t.
Even in the midst of deep liminality and uncertainty, even with the memory of the worst possible betrayal fresh before their eyes, the disciples prayed, and discerned, and planned for future ministry. Jesus had ascended, but the spread of the Good News must go on. Judas had gone to his own place, but the number of the Twelve must remain complete. The Spirit has not yet been sent, but prayer is still valid. Peter preached, and the community called upon God, and Matthias accepted the responsibility of leadership.
The story of Judas has confused Christians, and made us think, for two millennia, and I certainly don’t offer you any new and brilliant answers this morning (though I would love to get together and read The Last Days of Judas Iscariot again!). But what this brief account does offer us is the reassurance that even the worst betrayal does not have to be the end. That even in the aftermath of the wreckage of all our hopes, and while still waiting for a manifestation of the Spirit that has not happened yet, we can trust, pray, discern, be faithful, and make plans to tell the good news and care for God’s people.
Amen.
Leave a Reply