Betrayal

            You’re not going to like this sermon.

I don’t like this sermon.  This sermon is no fun.

Good Friday is a mess.

Oh, it’s a dark spot in our walk through Holy Week. 

Good Friday is cumbersome and cruel. 

Good Friday is dressed in regret, like the feeling that used to smother me when I was a child and I did something wrong and I knew there was no way I was going to get away with it, my mother and my father were going to find out, indeed they likely already knew what I had done, and they would be waiting for me when I got off the bus and trudged down the street to our house.

            I consider my options as I walk.  I want to run away, but that’s no answer.  I am too young to live on my own.  I want different parents who don’t pay attention to my misdeeds, but that’s not going to happen.  They will be sitting at the kitchen table waiting for me when I walk in the door, we will talk, I will confess and then slink tearfully to my room where I will simmer in the dark.

*

Good Friday is a smothering, simmering mess.  Good Friday stands waiting for us at the end of every Holy Week – there’s no use trying to avoid it.  We must face the betrayal and sour regret of Good Friday head on.

            Even so, I am bitter – I do not like the betrayal scene.  Judas knows right where Jesus is going to be.  Judas who was an early friend sells Jesus out and betrays him with a kiss, the kiss is supposed to mean peace but Judas has stolen it and dressed   the kiss in the clothes of betrayal.

 *

 I do not like the betrayal.  I do not want betrayal to be a part of our story.  But Good Friday does not ask what we want.  Good Friday does not care what we want.  Good Friday simply stands in the middle of our way to Easter - a great dark hurdle that cannot be climbed over, passed by, or circled around.

No, Good Friday must be entered into.  We have to walk right through it to make our way to Easter. 

We must eat Good Friday and swallow it whole.  

*

So, here we are – Betrayal is a part of our story -- that is a fact. 

But wait, I think I can wiggle out of this --we didn’t do it, right?  We didn’t betray Jesus in the garden scene.  Judas did and this is just a story.  This all happened long ago, 2000 years ago.  Everything’s okay now, right?  When we kiss we mean it….

            Good Friday says, “No. Betrayal is still part of our story.”

“There are places,” Good Friday, says, “where we have all betrayed God’s intention for our lives in this gift of a world.”

            God’s plan is love.  “Love one another as I have loved you”, says Jesus.

“Don’t crash my Easter hopes”, says God, “go feed my sheep.”

And Good Friday demands that we have a look at where we have betrayed God’s plan for the world.   Where have our sins blocked the spread of love and mercy; where have our sins and misplaced priorities wrecked the hopes of the poor; where have our sins poisoned the waters of justice?

*

Haiti is among our closest and poorest neighbors. 

A few days after I returned from my recent trip to Haiti, I had a meeting at the bishop’s office in Knoxville, which is not far from the shopping mega-plex of Turkey Creek.

            We needed dog food at my house, so on my way home from Knoxville I stopped at the Petsmart in Turkey Creek.  The store was busy even at mid-afternoon on a school day. 

The Petsmart is an enormous place.  The ceiling must be 20-30 feet high.  The footprint of the store is as big as a ball field.  Shelves run floor to ceiling and they are all stacked  and packed full with what must be, at least, hundreds of thousands (is it millions?) of dollars worth of stuff, food, clothes, toys and trinkets for our pets, the animals we own and treat like family.

            As I shopped…human creatures, human sons and daughters of God in Haiti were constructing makeshift homes made out of bed sheets and big blue tarps where they will sleep with their children in downtown Port au Prince tonight.

            I stood stunned, indicted, and convicted in the middle of a massive, massive pet store thinking about the hungry homeless children of Haiti.

            Any and all are most welcome to be mad at me for saying something negative about how we treat and treasure our animals, but know this - I love animals, too.  I have more animals at my house right now than Noah could fit on the ark.  I have had pets all of my life and loved them all, dearly.  My first two best friends were a German shepherd dog named Geoffrey and a silky black cat named Jack.  So, I have plenty of animal loving, pet credentials.

            Good Friday doesn’t care about my pet credentials.  Good Friday demands to know why I am a part of a culture that betrays the needs of human creatures in favor of creating an obscene market for luxury items for our pets. 

Betrayal is a part of our story. 

I want Good Friday to leave me alone.

Good Friday won’t go away.

*

            A recent development in our local community lends itself to this awful Good Friday sermon.  Some of you know that Athens City Schools will cut several teacher positions next year because of budget constraints.  We ask why and the world fires back fast with an easy answer.

            The world says, “well, yeah that’s life.  Times are tough.  What do you expect?  Everyone has to sacrifice.”

            But Good Friday is angry.  Good Friday says, “Are you kidding me!?  This year, this “hardluck” year the movie Avatar grossed over one billion dollars.

Good Friday says, “Times are tough? The NCAA basketball tournament is making millions upon millions right now!”

            Times are what?! shouts Good Friday, tough?!

            We pour millions and millions of dollars into the pockets of athletes whose earning power is based upon their ability to throw a ball down a field.

            Times are what?!

            Leave me alone Good Friday.

            Good Friday won’t let up.

            I am a total flipping music freak.  I love music, but Good Friday shouts at me, “How is it that the Rolling Stones, the Dave Matthews Band and Lady Gaga gross hundreds of millions of dollars on their summer tours while you all allow 40,000 dollar a year teacher’s positions to be cut and burned up quick like gas in a fire?”

            Light it fast -no one will even see the smoke.

            Good Friday asks, why?!

            I hide my face, I try to run away. 

            “Why!?” shouts Good Friday.

            I am forced to say it, “Because betrayal is part of our story.”

            Good Friday has no mercy. 

Good Friday asks the terrible question, “Have you betrayed God’s plan for this world if children are stacked like firewood into overcrowded class rooms with underpaid, overworked, over scrutinized teachers while you support the entertainment industry to the zillionth degree?

Good Friday says, “don’t get me started on the betrayal price of the wars you wage.”

Go on Good Friday.  Leave me alone.

*

I don’t like it, but betrayal is a part of our story.  I don’t want to face it.  I want to run away, ignore it, say it ain’t so, but there is no escaping the Good Friday fact that betrayal is a part of our story.

*

Okay, I know some of you are rolling your eyes.  (I told you that you wouldn’t like this sermon.)  So, you don’t like sports, movies or music.  You don’t own a TV, or a radio and you’ve never been to a ball game.

            Good Friday says, fine, but before you run merrily down the way into Easter ask yourself -- is there anywhere in my life where I have betrayed and forsaken the Christian call to love my neighbor as myself, to love God and show it in thought word and deed with all my heart mind and soul?

            Good Friday says, “Wrestle with that question, sit quietly with it through Holy Saturday.”

            Good Friday says, “After you’ve wrestled for awhile stand up and shout, like you do at those concerts and ballgames, that we need to reorder our priorities and straighten the crooked lines that define our culture.”

            Then Good Friday says, “If you really want to climb on the cross with Jesus put your money, your time, your resources, your zeal and your passion into reversing the betrayal and making things right.”

            Betrayal is a part of our story.  Hope and healing are too, but not yet, not yet. 

For now it’s Good Friday, and on Good Friday we simmer in the dark.