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Judas and You
6 min
Gospel
Mt 26:14-25
Then one of the twelve, who was called Judas Iscariot, went to the chief priests and said, “What will you give me if I deliver him to you?” And they paid him thirty pieces of silver. And from that moment he sought an opportunity to betray him.
Now on the first day of Unleavened Bread the disciples came to Jesus, saying, “Where will you have us prepare for you to eat the passover?” He said, “Go into the city to such a one, and say to him, ‘The Teacher says, My time is at hand; I will keep the passover at your house with my disciples.’” And the disciples did as Jesus had directed them, and they prepared the passover.
When it was evening, he sat at table with the twelve disciples; and as they were eating, he said, “Truly, I say to you, one of you will betray me.” And they were very sorrowful, and began to say to him one after another, “Is it I, Lord?” He answered, “He who has dipped his hand in the dish with me, will betray me. The Son of man goes as it is written of him, but woe to that man by whom the Son of man is betrayed! It would have been better for that man if he had not been born.” Judas, who betrayed him, said, “Is it I, Master?” He said to him, “You have said so.”
Readings are taken from Dynamic Catholic’s Bible: RSV Catholic Edition.
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Transcript
Judas and You
So what is it that jumps out at you today? Is there a word or a phrase or an idea that the Holy Spirit is using to capture imagination, or intrigue you, or get your attention? This whole theme of betrayal and this idea of a betrayer and Judas Iscariot. When you hear the name, what do you think? What do you feel? And does it sound like someone's calling your name? Well, probably not. Probably don't think your name sounds like Judas Iscariot. And yet, we've all betrayed Jesus at different times in our lives. To varied extents, varied degrees, we have been the Judas in different situations. And it's easy to 'other' Judas. He's other than me. He's different than me. And as we've talked about many times, one of the challenges of studying the Scriptures, allowing God to speak to us through the Scriptures, is learning to see ourselves in each and every person in the Scriptures. Even if we haven't done something that the person in the Scriptures might have done or might be doing, it's important that we recognize that we are capable, that given the right or the wrong set of circumstances that we are capable of responding in the same way, in very poor ways.
And so here we have Judas. One of the biggest problems when we have a villain is that we typecast that person, stereotype that person, put that person in a box. And when we do that, once we do that, we stop being curious about that person. And all of us want to be understood, and all of us feel misunderstood. And certainly, Judas felt those very, very human emotions. But we should be asking ourselves questions like, "Okay, what was he thinking?" And not in a sarcastic way, but really, what was he thinking? Why did he do it? what did he think it would accomplish for himself, or for the movement, or for the world, or for Judaism, or whatever? But what did he think he was going to accomplish? And many, many other questions like that.
And so, in our own lives, it is equally easy for us to typecast people, for us to stereotype people, for us to put people in boxes. And once we do that, we stop being curious about people. And when we stop being curious about people, relationships, then they begin to erode, because we automatically will feel increasingly misunderstood, and our desire to be understood will be increasingly frustrated. Let's go out in the world and be curious about people today. Have a great day, and remember, Be Bold, Be Catholic.
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