Hearing, and Loving, Judas

Note: I will make reference to Judas’ suicide in this blog. While it is not directly addressed or dealt with in depth, it will be mentioned. Please be aware if suicide is a trigger for you, and do what is best for you and your soul, including skipping this blog.

 “Brothers and sisters, the scripture that the Holy Spirit announced beforehand through David had to be fulfilled. This was the scripture concerning Judas, who became a guide for those who arrested Jesus.  This happened even though he was one of us and received a share of this ministry.” (In fact, he bought a field with the payment he received for his injustice. Falling headfirst, he burst open in the middle and all his intestines spilled out.  This became known to everyone living in Jerusalem, so they called that field in their own language Hakeldama, or “Field of Blood.”)  “It is written in the Psalms scroll, ‘Let his home become deserted and let there be no one living in it;’ and ‘Give his position of leadership to another.’  Therefore, we must select one of those who have accompanied us during the whole time the Lord Jesus lived among us, beginning from the baptism of John until the day when Jesus was taken from us. This person must become along with us a witness to his resurrection.” (Acts 1:16-22)

When Judas, who betrayed Jesus, saw that Jesus was condemned to die, he felt deep regret. He returned the thirty pieces of silver to the chief priests and elders, and said, “I did wrong because I betrayed an innocent man.” But they said, “What is that to us? That’s your problem.”  Judas threw the silver pieces into the temple and left. Then he went and hanged himself.  The chief priests picked up the silver pieces and said, “According to the Law it’s not right to put this money in the treasury. Since it was used to pay for someone’s life, it’s unclean.” So they decided to use it to buy the potter’s field where strangers could be buried.  That’s why that field is called “Field of Blood” to this very day. This fulfilled the words of Jeremiah the prophet: And I took the thirty pieces of silver, the price for the one whose price had been set by some of the Israelites, and I gave them for the potter’s field, as the Lord commanded me. (Matthew 27:3-10)

Those two stories above cannot both be fact.

Now, when I have this discussion with people, I usually have a few people who will argue with me about that. What they will try to do is something called harmonizing. They will tell the two stories together and try to make them line up. But you cannot do that without ignoring key details. Practically the only thing those stories have in common is that the Field of Blood is somehow related to Judas, and Judas came to tragic ends. Oh, and money was involved.

Y’all, at least one of those stories is not factual. But both of them contain truth. 

I think about those two stories often these days. I am really thinking about them now that I have learned about Parler. If you don’t know about it, Parler is a relatively new social media site that is becoming a haven for people who hold fairly extreme conservative beliefs. Many of us became aware of it when a post there by a sheriff in my home state in which he called for people to perpetrate acts of violence against people who voted for Biden resulted in that sheriff getting fired. I don’t care if it is a site for only conservative or only progressive views, that kind of echo chamber is dangerous. It divides us from each other in the worst way. And it may allow us to talk, but in no way does it encourage us to listen and relate to one another, making “social” media an ironic misnomer, something that can arguably be said about all social media right now thanks to algorithms that create echo chambers anyway. And, my friends, if we can’t listen and relate to one another, we can’t love one another either.

But I want to return to these two stories of Judas. As I mentioned, at least one of them is not true. My guess is, though, you have probably only heard one of them. You probably know the story from Matthew. When you read the story from Acts just now, there is a good chance you thought, “No, that’s not in the Bible.” You may have even grabbed it off your shelf or googled it. And there it is. I am, in fact, not making it up. But maybe Luke did. Or maybe Matthew made the other one up. Or maybe they both did. 

Or maybe there were all kinds of rumors flying around about what happened to Judas. And maybe Luke and Matthew heard all of those. And maybe they each assumed that the one that best fit their worldviews, their understandings of God and who Jesus was/is, that was the true story.

So what truths hold up with each story?  Well, Matthew is the most Jewish of the 4 Gospels. It is highly likely it was written in the Holy Land or at the very least for a Jewish population. In that framework, Matthew is fighting for a Jesus understood as the true Messiah, and Matthew would be up against the Jewish powers-that-be who would try to squash that story. Those powers-that-be do not come off well in this story; they are discredited. Also, repentance would be a significant value for a Jewish community. That Judas repents of his decision not only gives credence to Jesus as Messiah, it also fits well in a Jewish worldview.

And speaking of worldviews, Luke writes Acts from a broader perspective.  Luke was most likely writing in a very mixed Greco-Roman context.  In Acts, he is also writing to build up and defend a very young church.  The religious context is one where this small group of followers is a minority in a very crowded faith field. And this field is one where gods perform acts of power on the regular.  If this small group of followers is going to get anyone’s attention, this God needs to be one of power and miracle. One that can move with power and gift people with new languages to spread the world.  But one, honestly, that will face opposition down dramatically.

Both of these stories serve true aims of people of faith.  Both of these stories underpin truths that people proclaim of God. So both of these stories are true.  Neither of them may be fact. At least one of them cannot be.

Also, one of these is deemed “more true” today than the other.  How can I say that? Well, let’s return to the fact that more of you know the Matthean story than the Lukan story. But let’s think about our worldview.  We have probably all been touched by someone who becomes overrun by regret and perhaps ends up with the tragic solution of taking his or her own life.  We understand that reality.  Having someone proudly purchase a field and then burst open and fall dead over that field – that is fairly foreign to our life experiences. So in our context, it makes sense that the Matthean story gets more press.  We perpetuate the stories that have meaning to us, and we ignore the others.

We have the same reality today. There are profoundly competing narratives out there.  Both of these realities cannot be fact. All of these realities cannot be fact.  And yet each of us will fight tooth and nail and argue that our truths are facts.  Here is where I want us to take a nod from the Scriptures.  Why did the people who compiled the Bible include these contradictory stories? They weren’t idiots. They knew there were differences.  In fact, they included four Gospels, not one, and those four have significant differences and even contradictions. But all of these stories have meaning to communities that were all claiming faith in Jesus Christ.  One of the deciding factors on what gospels made the cut was widespread belief and use. 

But I think more importantly than recognizing the popularity of stories is recognizing what we are called to do with these contradictory stories. What does including these contradictory stories call us to do? It calls us to reflect on WHY these stories were included.  You see what I did in dealing with these 2 Judas stories? I looked at the worldviews that made those Judas stories attractive to Matthew and Luke.  Now, admittedly, I do not have those writers and communities to ask. All I have is depth of study. But that depth of study has taught me how to listen deeply. And that is a critical step.  And it is a critical step that we are missing right now.

We have competing narratives, but we keep stopping at the what.  What does so-and-so believe? Well, that is contrary to what I believe, so I am going to dismiss that altogether. 

But what if we instead asked Why? Why does so-and-so believe that?

And maybe those whys would still divide us. But maybe those whys would reveal truths, and truths that are maybe not so far apart.  And maybe those whys would also reveal our fears.  Which is honestly what is driving us all right now. And maybe if we could sit and hear each other’s fears, if we could make space where we authentically expose ourselves like that, then maybe we could make more room for one another.  Maybe then the narratives would adjust.  Maybe then we would get to the point where our two stories were related enough so that they could sit side by side.  And we could be closer to actually making space to love one another.  Because we are so far apart right now, and these narratives cannot stand side-by-side. At all. Because fear is ruling us. Fear. Not love.

Let me close with an example of why the why matters. I mentioned when I teach these stories, I will always have people who want to harmonize them. To make them fit together. That is not the perspective I take, because I understand that truth does not have to be married to fact to be true. But I recognize that does not make sense to a whole lot of people, especially a whole lot of people in the looming shadow of the Enlightenment.  And I also know what truth of theirs is being threatened. If the Bible is not factual, how can it be trusted?  So I don’t blow these people off, these ones who raise objections. Instead, I stop and listen and get to their why.  And I walk carefully. They are afraid.  They are afraid that the Bible may not be true if it is not anchored in fact. That is a very threatening space. So I stop and we have conversation. And I listen beyond the initial story. I listen for what is underneath the story. I get to the why it matters. Because the why is the important thing, not the actual story. And until I get to that, and can then share my why, we are never going to get anywhere. And because I have potentially threatened their faith, which is foundational to their worldview, if I don’t make the time to get to the why, and share my why, we are just going to get farther apart. We will get trapped in our echo chambers. We will not be able to love one another.

So I guess the point of this whole thing is that we should not be so afraid of different narratives.  We should recognize that those narratives can lead to destructive and dangerous places, and we should take that seriously.  But the narratives will clue us in to different whys, and are opportunities to stop, hear each other, and try to get those fears under control. Because if we can’t do that, we will just get farther apart. But if we can, if we can, maybe, just maybe we can love our neighbor like we want to be loved.

If you need a video to help your people wrestle with contradictions and translations in the Bible, click this link.

Photo by Robert V. Ruggiero on Unsplash