JESUS AND JUDAS
INTRODUCTION
Today, Spy Wednesday, I’d like to talk about commitment.
And after making some preliminary comments about commitment, I’d like to make two points about commitment.
PART ONE: COMMITMENT—
SOME PRELIMINARY COMMENTS
THE QUESTION
I believe that when it comes to commitment, the question isn’t whether I’m committed or not, the question rather is: What am I committed to?
That is the question!
A few weeks ago when I spoke about St. Patrick, I got into this whole issue of where my heart is—where my core is—what am I committed to?
The people we say or think are not committed, might be quite committed to just that: to not being committed—to not being nailed down—to not being tied to anything.
And that very posture is a commitment.
So everyone is committed (in my opinion). So the question once more is: what am I committed to?
AN ASIDE
And as an aside, if a person has a clear commitment and we approve of their commitment and the way its going, we call them dedicated, zealous, and committed.
If we don’t like them and / or their commitment, we call them fanatics, hardhats, hard heads, liberals, conservatives, nuts, what have you.
LIKE FLINT
In today’s first reading, Isaiah uses the image or symbol of flint. He says, “I have set my face like flint....” [Cf. Isaiah 50: 4-9a]
Flint is basic. It’s stone. It’s hard and well defined.
Isaiah sees that once he becomes a prophet he has to be: dedicated, a rock, stable, sharp, clear, well defined, strong.
We make primitive axes and homes out of rock.
So no wonder it’s a good image or symbol of stability and strength. It’s an image of commitment.
When we are committed, we are willing to fight for our cause. We pick up stone axes or we tighten our fists.
When we are committed to putting up a house — we start by searching for stones to build solid walls. Picking the spot, starting to build, is a statement to ourselves that we are planning to stay here, to settle here in that place. We’re settling in. We’re committed.
If we’re not, then we hit the road and keep on searching. If not, a tent is our symbol!
EZECHIEL
There is a passage in Ezechiel where we find the same image that we see here in Isaiah.
It’s from Ezechiel 3: 8 - 9:
“The whole house of Israel is stubborn and obstinate.
But now, I will make you as defiant as they are,
and as obstinate as they are;
I am going to make your resolution as hard as a diamond
and diamond is harder than flint.
So do not be afraid of them,
do not be overawed by them
for they are a set of rebels.”
Then Ezechiel hears the words, “Listen closely....”
LUKE – JESUS FACE IS SET LIKE FLINT
In the gospel of Luke, we find this same message in 9:51. Jesus aimed his face at Jerusalem. Jesus took the road that leads to Jerusalem resolutely.
The people in the north would take a route around Samaria to get to Jerusalem in the south. Jesus went straight through Samaria. His face was set like an arrow towards Jerusalem. He traveled like the crow flies.
That’s commitment.
That’s having a clarity of goal, target, destiny.
COMMITMENT
So commitment is sticking to one’s goal, no matter what.
Isn’t that what Jesus did?
Isn’t that what Judas also did - as we notice in today's gospel? [Cf. Matthew 26:14-25]
Judas had a clear goal.
He thought Jesus was his way to reach it.
When he saw that Jesus was not fitting his goal, his plans, his expectations, then Judas betrayed him.
That’s commitment.
ANDREW GREELEY
When I read Andrew Greeley’s autobiography, “Confessions of a Parish Priest”, I jotted down several comments about commitment that grabbed me.
On page 32 he writes, “I decided I wanted to be a priest in the second grade, have never changed my mind and never had any doubts.”
On page 95: he spells it out, “So when did I decide to be a priest? In Sister Alma Frances’ classroom, in second grade, in the late autumn of 1935 when she asked how many boys wanted to be priests. About half of us raised our hands, and Sister, God be good to her, said that perhaps one of us would make it. Actually two of us did, my close friend Lawrence McNamara, now bishop of Grand Island, Nebraska, being the other.”
On page 121 he says that when he was in the major seminary and experienced what he thought was nonsense, I “kept my own counsel, honored all the rules ... and gave the proper responses to the prefect of discipline and the spiritual director and the rector when they asked me about my fitness for the priesthood.”
On page 136 he asks, and why? Why did he put the best possible face on it? His answer, because “I wanted to be a priest. My instincts told me there was more to the Church than the seminary.”
And on page 71 we hear Greeley say that his commitment is till death. He is talking about being told to stop writing novels. He is often asked that question.
He explains, “Freedom of expression is not a right the Church can bestow and take away. It’s an inalienable right with which we are born. The Church does not grant it, the Church cannot revoke it, I cannot even in good conscience give it up because Church leaders demand it. It is conceivable, though I think unlikely, that I could lose the canonical standing which I now claim. If that happens, so be it. It is also possible, though unlikely, that ecclesiastical authority could laicize me. Both the cardinal and his Roman friends realize, however, that if they attempted to throw me out of the priesthood, I would simply not leave. I would continue to claim to be a priest theologically if no longer in canonical good standing and continue to do exactly the same work as I am presently doing.” (p. 71)
So that’s commitment. Greeley wanted to be a priest since he was a kid and he still wants to be one.
As priest it was helpful for me to read all this – since my story is somewhat similar in wanting to be a priest ever since grammar school.
Here is one last comment from page 96. “Why did you want to be a priest? That question is a lot harder to answer. I can remember the day I decided, but I can no more articulate the reason for the decision today than I could then. I liked the priests, I respected them, I admired what they seemed to do—intervening somehow between God and humans—and I wanted to do the same thing. The impetus and the drive to the priesthood came not from the family, but from me, not exactly against their better judgment, but against some gently spoken reservations.”
“My response to the reservations was typical of the little boy who had run down the hill at Twin Lakes. Why experiment with something else when you’ve made up your mind what you want to do? Why put off ordination for one more year? Why make the course thirteen years instead of twelve?” (p. 96)
Enough of Greeley. I state all that to stress what commitment is—whether it’s Greeley, or Isaiah, or Ezechiel or Jesus.
Now two points about commitment.
PART TWO:
TWO POINTS ABOUT COMMITMENT
FIRST POINT
The question then is not whether we are committed, but what we are committed to.
Now I would make the point that we’ll never really be happy or joyful, until we are committed to what God made us for.
If we chase the wrong star, it’s disaster.
And the line from today’s gospel, jumps off the page. “It would have been better if we had not been born.”
We are born to do God’s plan for us.
God is not an idiot. God made us for a reason. God has plans for us. He has dreams for us and about us.
So that would be my first point. The secret of happiness is to do God’s will, God’s dream for us.
Thy will be done.
When we don’t, we are in living in “Disasterville.”
POINT TWO
And the second point is to come up with answers to this question: “Well then, how do I know God’s will, God’s plan, God’s dream for me?”
And the answer is to ask him. Stop and listen to him.
I mentioned above some words from Ezechiel. Listen closely to them.
We heard in today’s first reading that we should pray each morning that God’s pours his word into our ears.
EMPTY CUP OR GLASS
Each morning when we fill our glass with orange juice or our cup with coffee, simply say, “Here I am, Lord. Pour your words into my ear.”
Or as Ezechiel says elsewhere, “Eat God’s words.”
So how do we know God’s will. Ask him.
This is holy week. Listen to him.
Hear the word of the Lord.
Chew on that word. God’s word will become you.
CONCLUSION
Maybe that’s what Judas stopped doing! Maybe he stopped listening to Jesus somewhere along the line.
Picture on Top - Judas in a study on the Last Supper by Michaelangelo.
