BETRAYAL 
AND  
DENIAL

INTRODUCTION

The title of my homily for today is “Betrayal and Denial”. I’d like to reflect a little bit on those two issues: Betrayal and Denial. They are two issues that we sometimes feed on.

They are sitting there, or better, they are dwelling there in our heart - perhaps in the bottom back of our deep freeze. And when we are down or when someone “does it again” - past betrayals and past denials pop up. We take them out of the deep freeze. We thaw them. We let them simmer and then we begin to nibble on them in our hurt.

Some people overeat to compensate for their anger. Some people try to stuff themselves, to plug the hole that leads to their heart, where past betrayals and denials linger and want to come to the surface.

So this morning a brief reflection on “Betrayal and Denial”.

MAJOR ISSUES OF OUR TIMES

They are two major issues that we have all heard lots about in our time. We have seen and heard so much about individuals and communities denying, denying, denying. We have all seen so many betrayals in government, marriages, and in the priesthood and in religious life. So betrayal and denial are two realities we are quite familiar with.


TODAY’S GOSPEL

Today’s gospel is Holy Week material. It’s contains heavy duty heart stuff.

Besides Jesus, today’s gospel has three main characters: Judas, Peter and the Beloved Disciple (not absolutely sure who he is). Now we would all love to be the Beloved Disciple, reclining right there next to Jesus bosom (as in Abraham’s bosom), but the reality is: we are more likely to be Judas as well as Peter. The reality is: where charity and love should reign, often we find experience betrayal and denial.


Today’s gospel begins with Jesus sitting there with his disciples and he is growing deeply troubled. His heart is a washing machine stirring around big issues, especially, these issues of betrayal and denial - two of the major issues of our time and all time.


THE HUMAN HEART

The human heart contains both and a lot more. Isn’t that the message of Jesus? The human heart contains love and it contains sin. And let him or her who doesn’t have sin in their heart start throwing stones and then they will discover they have sin in their heart.

Jesus said go down deep into the garden of the human heart and you’ll find rotten apples and they can ruin the whole barrel - especially if we deny they are there.

So today’s gospel contains warning signals to us. I could be Judas. I could be Peter. Neither role is outside my acting ability.

As we grow from childhood to adolescence to adulthood, somewhere along the line we discover evil. It’s out there. Someone betrays us. Someone hurts us. Some abuses us. Someone hurts another. We are shocked. There is evil in the garden.

And as we grow we soon discover that we too can be evil. We too can be cruel. We can be Peter. We can be Judas.

Problems arise when we deny that inner reality and start to make others - the different or the foreigners or people of some other nationality or color to be the problem - or women as the one who cause rapes or what have you.

In today’s gospel Judas makes the move and we read, Satan moved into his heart. And then the dark innuendo, “It was night.”

Satan is not too far from the tree called me. And he slithers around the tree or hangs in its branches. And that tree is not out there. It’s planted in here, in my heart. And the tree is the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. And we have eaten from both - and we have been graced by good fruit and poisoned by bad fruit.

And the question is: do we accept or deny that reality?

We’ve all had this experience of someone grinding us down. Have we ever admitted doing the same to others?

HOWE’S AND MOON’S EXAMPLES

In their book, The Choicemaker, Sheila Moon and Elizabeth Howe  have great stuff on this issue. Let me cite two examples:

The first example that Moon and Howe  mention is that of a birthright Quaker who was an upholder of pacifism and the doing of good works. In his rigidity, he forced two of his children into revolt and anti-social violence, because he, the father, had never faced his own inner darkness. (p. 84)

The second example is that of a character they call Mr. J. “Let us take a look at Mr. J. On Tuesday he awakens tired, irritable, closed off from his family, and spends the day trying to escape himself by being egocentric, unaware, and inadequate. He doesn’t see what the situation requires from him. He makes erroneous evaluations of himself and of others. He does things that are consciously or unconsciously hurtful, even cruel, both to himself and others. Failures multiply until at last, exhausted, he falls into bed only to lie awake for the endless hours it takes for him to see what he has done. On Wednesday Mr. J. tries to approach everything with more openness and flexibility. His evaluations are more genuine and sensitive, and he manages to engage in many more dialogues than monologues. In short, by trying to avoid his evil he comes to grief, and by recognizing it and assimilating it he acts more creatively and also is more richly fulfilled. As Jesus said, “Whosoever shall see to wall himself in shall be destroyed, and whosoever shall let the walls fall shall find life.” (pp. 89 - 90)

CONCLUSION

So today I’m suggesting that we zero in on our own heart. We need to sit in our own garden. We need to sit under our own tree. We need to inspect and look at your own fruit. And like Newton maybe an apple will fall on your head and we’ll wake up to look at it. Maybe it will be a good apple - maybe it will be a bad apple. We have both in our tree. Next, look around in the grass below the tree called “ME” or stand up and look at the apples on our tree. We’ll find two apples that are two of the biggest issues in our times: betrayal and denial.

When we look at our denials and especially our betrayals, we might want a rope to hang ourselves on that tree. Relax. We don’t have to be Judas. Be Peter. He learned all about forgiveness - three times - probably 70 times 7 times after that. My message would be that there is sin inside our heart, but if we have a choice between Peter or Judas, betrayal or denial, choose denial and not betrayal. Be Peter and not Judas.

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Painting on top: The Taking of  Christ by Michelangelo Caravaggio [1602]