Pilate and Judas are Part of the Story

April 14, 2017

Cate Thorn

Good Friday     Matthew 25:14-26:65

Today we enter the second day of our three day Passion ritual. Last night, should the weather have been a little less threatening, after ritual of washing and stripping church of decoration we would have left in silence into the night. The darkness of Judas’ betrayal.

This morning, in light of new day we gather to listen, to witness to the repercussions of such betrayal. In this place we gather around this labyrinth, an earthed and enacted place of pilgrimage. As we embody our walk with divine presence, wander its pathways, we discover we are our journey.

In our Lenten time of preparation for this Passion season and for Easter we’ve taken time to reflect on water, and in a season of plentiful rain we’ve surely had an enacted experience of water. Each Sunday service, we were invited to walk our way toward the font, placing a stone in water, laying down with it things that burden us, so we might be refreshed, renewed. And in that time we heard from scripture passages about water: in creation stories, of the water of life, of our sacred responsibility to ensure a just share and for its good care.

The Passion narratives and that from today’s gospel have little mention of water. On Easter day, in the other side of death festival, we include water in ritual form, but on this side of death the Passion narrative water is mentioned for foot washing and for Pilate’s washing of hands. Foot washing an act of revelation, example for us to emulate of humility, service, hospitality. Hand washing, an act of interrupt, example for us to shun of denial, refusing justice, abandoning care.

When we hear the faith story of the Passion I suspect we feel called, urged, impelled to act as Jesus did, or be at least willing to follow his example. This is why on Maundy Thursday the service most often includes the ritual washing of feet enacting humility, service. We express our desire to be as Jesus – to serve, in humble act offer hospitality in gracious gesture of washing the feet of our faith filled companions. For as the order of service informed us, “By this act, Jesus radically crossed the boundary of privilege and power that divided teacher from student, and invited us to follow his lead.”

We look to Jesus, God with us, to learn from, to be like and we look away from those in the story who are not like God.

So we’re prepped, to tell, hear, receive this narrative of Jesus’ Passion as a story that tells us of God, about God. Perhaps because this is what we expect the Bible does, it tells us about God, reveals God to us. And the more we understand God the better we can live correctly, be accepted.

So I was interested to come across this piece from Jewish theologian Abraham Heschel. “The Bible”, he suggests, “is primarily not [our human] vision of God but God’s vision of [us]? The Bible is … dealing with [humans] and what [God] asks of [us] rather than with the nature of God.” For “God did not reveal to the prophets eternal mysteries but [God’s] knowledge and love of [humanity]“ [1]

So what might it be like to hear this Easter story as a story of what it is to be human, of what God is asking of us, of our being known to and beloved of God?

Let us consider Pilate in today’s story, the part where water is mentioned. Pilate whose example in the Passion narrative this day we turn from. With bowl of water, we’re told, he washes his hands of this Jesus affair, seeks to absolve himself of any involvement, to not be responsible, not be the one who metes out the injustice he perceives. That Pilate does this, the image and implications it bears are the reason that hand washing is not recommended on Maundy Thursday. We don’t want to align our actions with one who has authority to intercede for justice and chooses not to act, who’d rather wash his hands, to not know, refuse accountability for the consequences of his action.

However Pilate and Judas are included in this story, God’s story of what it is to be human, of what God asks of us. Both are necessary to this story. If Judas and Pilate and those who testified against Jesus in this narrative we tell, had not acted and spoken as they did, we would not have this story to tell. We might have another divine indwelling of creation story to tell but it wouldn’t be this one around which we gather, with our rituals redolent with image and sound and scent.

It wouldn’t be a story which places betrayal, denial, abandonment, refusal to act against injustice front and central. A story which includes the worst that we can do, we humans, one to another and to that which brings us into being, that deep mystery that lies in our heart, at the heart of this event called life.

At Easter and not just at Easter/Holy Week, but all through our journey of faith we’re called to follow, encouraged, urged to be and do, to emulate in thought, word and deed the way of Jesus. Scripture is woven through with rich stories of holy ones, eccentric, fringe dwelling, irregular and some I suspect quite mad but holy ones. We seek them out, look for and to them, that we might hear as they hear, keep close company with the divine as they do. In being and doing enact justice for life to flourish, be honoured, acknowledged, celebrated as divine gift.

We look to be that way, and prefer, perhaps to not look too closely at the way we are. Or rather recognise our falling short as part of our becoming – we are this now but we’ll improve, will become more like we’re meant to be and less like we are. But always hoping and striving for that which we are not renders us not present to now, not mindful of the immense gift of life now, not thankful for this moment, of which there will never be another.

Pilate and Judas, denying disciples and crucifying systems, they’re all included in this narrative of God’s vision of us, of we who are, known by God. Without Judas there would be no crucifixion. Without crucifixion there would be no death, without death there would be no next story told. We wouldn’t be here now, we wouldn’t gather on Holy Saturday, on Easter day and tell of our experience – the other side of death. This is not the day to speak of that. This day we stop and stare, astonished, aghast, heart torn at our participation in putting to death God who dares to show us who we are and who loves all that that reveals.

This narrative we tell is a narrative of life. It is the story of our life. We can know, dwell aware of divine presence now. All that we are is included in this narrative. On this day of denial and abandonment we’re given chance to acknowledge, admit, let it be true that betrayal, denial, abandoning of the good, to serve that which maims and kills is part of us. We participate in this narrative. Until, unless we let this be true, consider how these are in us, we cannot learn how to forsake them, we cannot be aware of how subtly and thoroughly they thread through us. It is then we can bring them before God, we who “know not what we do.” It is then these life denying, abandoning, destroying ways in us can be crucified. It is then we risk not knowing but trusting we’ll be made anew.

It is a curious irony, revealed by this Passion narrative, that our less than perfect human brokenness causes the death of Jesus and reveals Christ, the light of God-with-us, or to quote Leonard Cohen, “Forget your perfect offering, there is a crack in everything, that's how the light gets in.” We would prefer to experience ourselves as whole, not fractured and broken, incomplete, of course but it is the way we are, it’s how the light gets in.

Denial of this, ourselves, really as we are, prevents us enacting, indwelling, being our authentic broken selves. The whole of our life is included in the breadth of divine narrative that breathes us into life. The fractured failing of our lives opens us to be fully present in honest naked vulnerability before the One who loves us into being. When we are this within this narrative of hope, we can be changed, as we let die that way of being and entrust ourselves to the living God.

[1] Abraham Joshua Heschel, Man is Not Alone: a Philosophy of Religion (Farrar, Straus and Giroux, New York, 1951), 129