Facing Deception
A
sermon delivered by Rev. Peter T. Atkinson
April
2, 2017
at
Gordonsville Presbyterian Church, Gordonsville, Virginia
Judges 16: 15-19
Luke 22: 47-53
Let us pray,
Help us to see despite
our eyes
Help us to think outside
of our minds
Help us to be more than
our lives
For your eyes show the
way
Your
mind knows the truth
Your
being is the life.
Amen.
With just two weeks left in Lent, we continue this morning with
our Facing Darkness theme, but we head in a slightly different direction. We’ve
faced apparent danger, we’ve faced disease, ravaging our body, and even last
week we’ve faced death, and you might think, how could it get any worse because
certainly those are the height of facing darkness from a physical standpoint, but
in many ways, we could say that the emotional darkness can be much, much worse.
. . to be here, and to be disillusioned, dismayed, disenchanted, depressed, and
embittered, these often are worse because they like a physical disease can if
it is contagious, emotional darkness hits us deeply and it leaves wounds and
walls of division that sometimes last for generations, and lead often times to
cynicism, which is truly one of the most destructive forces we have in this
world. . . . so today we talk about facing deception, or more truthfully
betrayal. Erick read the story of Samson, betrayed by Delilah, who uses his
love for her as the tool to bring about his destruction, and now perhaps the
most famous betrayal, that of Judas against Jesus. Luke 22: 47-53, betrayed
with a Kiss. . .
47 While
he was still speaking, suddenly a crowd came, and the one called Judas, one of
the twelve, was leading them. He approached Jesus to kiss him; 48 but
Jesus said to him, “Judas, is it with a kiss that you are betraying the Son of
Man?” 49 When those who were around him saw what was coming,
they asked, “Lord, should we strike with the sword?” 50 Then
one of them struck the slave of the high priest and cut off his right ear. 51 But
Jesus said, “No more of this!” And he touched his ear and healed him. 52 Then
Jesus said to the chief priests, the officers of the temple police, and the
elders who had come for him, “Have you come out with swords and clubs as if I
were a bandit? 53 When I was with you day after day in the
temple, you did not lay hands on me. But this is your hour, and the power of
darkness!”
Dante in his masterpiece, the Divine Comedy, places betrayal as
the worst of the sins, placing those who commit betrayal in the deepest ring,
the 9th circle, and he breaks it down to betraying different
categories of people, the worst being betrayal of someone who was your
benefactor. . . and it is here that Dante puts Judas, Judas who betrayed Jesus
with a kiss, and he also puts there Cassius and Brutus, those assassins of
Julius Caesar, and their eternal punishment is to be slowly devoured in the
three heads of Satan. . . incidentally, Satan himself is imprisoned in this
same circle. . . for the Demons in Dante’s vision are not rulers in Hell, but
are condemned there as well, and Satan, the former Arch Angel Lucifer, likewise
was a great betrayer, according to the tradition of him as a fallen Angel. . .
. Do you agree, is betrayal the worst of the sins?
And if so why? Have you ever been truly betrayed? Have you ever
put your trust in someone and they let you down? Sure, but does that fit the
level of betraying, no its more than that, they have to willingly and
purposefully let you down, to smile in your face while they are turning the
knife in your back. . . like the OJays sang about, “They smiling in your face,
all the time they want to take your place, the back stabbers, back stabbers,” or
as the psalmist paints it with that great imagery, from our Call to Worship. .
. their speech smoother than butter, but with a heart set on war, with words
softer than oil, but in fact were drawn swords. . . that really captures it.
When we are talking betrayal, we are talking about a purposeful, possibly
elaborate plan to undermine and destroy while all the time claiming to be 100%
Loyal, your friend, your confidant, someone in whom you have laid your entire
trust, and well-being. It hurts like no other, and it leaves lingering long
term effects. . . it makes it hard to trust someone ever again, it makes you
build walls, it makes you hold back, it creates a prison, it creates this
world, with all of its distrust and cynicism. It perpetuates these cycles, and
these are downward cycles that we desperately need to break.
We need to break them because being cynical and guarded and
distrusting is also a betrayal. . . it is a betrayal of our nature. We’ve come
back to the idea during this series again and again that what it means to be
human is to be compassionate, and to be compassionate is to be trusting, to be
compassionate is to be open and vulnerable, to be compassionate is to be
unguarded, in order to be compassionate we have to be willing to break down the
walls that we build to guard ourselves from harm, but we find it so very hard
to do. Because when we do, we often get betrayed again, betraying our trust,
and we get harder, when we are so desperately trying to soften and care, and
have empathy and compassion. This is some of that radical love stuff that Jesus
talks about in the Sermon on the Mount, when he talks about having love for
your enemies. . . love for your betrayers. . . when he talks about not
returning evil for evil but overcoming evil with good. . . to me this is the
depths of darkness, one of the most challenging things to do, to forgive and
love someone who has betrayed you. . . is it even possible?
Because revenge is so tempting. . . I know it isn’t the best to
quote Bill Cosby because he has seemingly betrayed his comedy with his behavior,
but it is no less funny on its own merit, there was one story he told about a
kid he grew up with called Junior Barnes. . . you see Junior Barnes broke one
of the major rules of kiddom. . . he hit the young Bill in the face with a
slush ball. . . wham, and it was stinging, and hard and cold and wet. . . and
so Bill wants to get his revenge, he goes looking for Junior Barnes, . . .
Junior Bar—arns, but he can’t find him, so he makes the roundest, hardest,
packed as tightly as possible iceball you could imagine, and he goes home and
puts it in the freezer, and he waits, patiently waits, and he says, he went to
great lengths to prove to Junior Barnes that he was his greatest friend, he
laughed at all his joke, ooohh Junior Barnes you are sooooo funny. . . and he
waited until mid July, not a cloud in the sky, 104 degrees, in the shade, he
says Junior Barnes you just wait here, I’ve got to get something from the
house, and he goes in there and opens the freezer, reaches for the snowball,
and his mother had thrown it out. . . but look at the story, one betrayal
created another one. . .
Perhaps one of my favorite movies of all time is The Godfather,
and even the Godfather 2, where Fredo betrays his brother Michael. . . and he
keeps him close. . . and he kisses him, down in Cuba, Fredo, you broke my
heart, and eventually he is on a boat out in the lake fishing by himself and it
explodes. . . one betrayal equals another. . . and the killing of his brother
destroys Micheal, by destroying Fredo, he destroys himself, the tragic spiral,
the cost of the American dream is paid, the saga of an Italian Immigrant just
trying to protect his family, whose choices for survival, lead to success, but
there is always a cost, right, and sure we have to protect ourselves in this
world right, people have got to know that we cannot be betrayed with impunity,
lest it would happen again, lest we be suckers, lest we be gullible fools. . .
but again Jesus’ teaching on this subject is radical. . . love your enemies, do
not repay evil for evil, but over come evil with good. . . . can we even begin?
Do we want to?
When I was at Hampden-Sydney in College we had a strict and
student run Honor Code, and it worked, no one locked their doors, and no one
ever worried, we were building community and trust was at the center of it, and
it was something we prized highly. . . I still prize it, and I would still
prefer to live in such a community. And so often I have sought such levels of
trust at the schools where I have been a teacher, and yes both of them also
have honor codes. . . no lying, no cheating, no stealing, at the center of the
values. . . and so I have always left the room freely while my students take
tests and quizzes. . . sometimes I give them a speech ahead of time, how if the
cost of their honor is so cheap for an extra couple of points on something as
insignificant as a test or a quiz, that they would have to live with it, and I
defined Hell for them, not like Dante, no fire, no brimstone, just the sort of
hell that is about not being able to look at yourself in the mirror because you
would know that your honor was so very, very cheap. . . so yeah, I’d give a
speech like that occasionally, but I’d leave, go get a cup of coffee, go talk
to the librarian, just to go, to let t hem know they were trusted, I thought
that went a long way to teaching and building the kind of community that I so
prized at Hampden-Sydney. . . but I remember on two occasions where that trust was
betrayed. . . the first time that someone ever cheated on one of my
assignments. . . and the time that my ipod was stolen straight from my desk.
What do you think I should have done at that point. . . some would argue that I
should have learned my lesson, that I should have locked my doors, that I
should after that never leave the room, that I should watch my students like a
hawk. . . supervisors at the school have told me that. . . but if I were to do
that it would be me who would suffer, and suffer much more than the loss of an
ipod. . . I’d suffer the loss of my faith, my hope, my sense of community, my
sense of compassion. . . awe but come on man, what are you saying? It sounds
foolish to me. . . and perhaps it is, but it truly comes down to what you value
in life. . . and what you allow people to take from you. . . if you look back
on your life, what have you allowed the people who have betrayed you to take
from you, often it is much more than the betrayal itself. . .
But that was just kid’s stuff, tests, and electronics, not really
the high stakes, and certainly nothing to trade against a betrayal. . . but
sometimes it is quite quite worse. IN the last few month I was betrayed
greatly. . . betrayed greatly by someone who has power over me, someone I trusted,
and the cost wasn’t an ipod. . . it was the cost of a major opportunity for my
family. . . and it hurt badly, the kinda hurt that can leave some scars, can
leave you embittered, can leave you faithless, and cynical, disillusioned and
scared, the kind that can make you rethink what you believe in and how you
think of people in general. . . and I’m still not sure how I feel about it, and
I’m still not sure what I’ll do about it if anything, or how in the future I’ll
behave differently if at all. . . will it harden me? I don’t know yet, but in
many ways I hope not. . . because then I will have lost much more than he ever
could have taken away from me on his own. . . God’s will, right? Have you ever
thought that God sometimes works through the Pharaohs of your life the same way
he works through those heroes and rolemodels, teachers and leaders. . .
sometimes it is the people who don’t treat you the best who make you change
direction and find the path that you were always meant to be on. . . and if so
how can you blame them, and what good would it do anyway? I can reason it out
in my head, but in practice it is so much more difficult. God’s will. . . look
at Jesus
Deceived by Judas, but knows it ahead of time and tells him to go
ahead and go through with it, couldn’t he have staved it off, having prior
knowledge. I think back to my situation, I probably could have staved it off if
I had prior knowledge, I probably would have staved it off if I had prior
knowledge, but I’m not sure I should have staved it off if I had prior
knowledge. Jesus does have it and he doesn’t. . . He walks his path. . . but
what about Judas, does he forgive Judas, would he have forgiven Judas if he
didn’t kill himself, and give up entirely?
If
he didn’t give up,
Would
Jesus have
Called
even Judas,
By
name,
To
meet Him in Galilee?
For
all had gone away,
None
stayed,
All
had denied,
even
Peter,
And
Peter was called.
It
didn’t happen,
We
don’t know, but
I’d
like to believe
He
would have,
Removing
all limits to grace.
It truly would remove all limits to grace, but it would do
something more than that as well, it would give us a real and true example of
Jesus overcoming a betrayal, returning betrayal with love and forgiveness,
overcoming evil done against him with good, truly turning the other cheek and
going the extra mile. . . and that would be nice. . . but maybe we do have one.
. . and maybe it is better even than that one because it isn’t forgiving Judas,
it is forgiving us. . . carrying the cross, bloody and beaten, flogged and
tortured, mocked and ridiculed, crown of thorns cutting into his head, Jesus
says, “Father forgive them, they know not what they do. . . “ quite an example
huh. . . perhaps I could say that to the unknown kid that took my ipod, perhaps
I can say that to the man who betrayed and blocked my path, and perhaps I can
say that to myself, for even I, and we all fall into that category if we are
truly honest with ourselves, and if we feel we don’t perhaps, we just have
betrayed ourselves. . . we all betray in some way, but an act of love breaks
the cycle, can break the cycle, and heals us. . .
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