Today’s Scripture
Reading (November 18, 2017): Mark 14
William Shatner and George Takei don’t get along. Well, that is true
depending on who it is that is speaking. Takei (Sulu on “Star Trek: The
Original Series”) doesn’t seem to take the rumors of his feud with his former on-screen Captain (Kirk) too seriously.
According to Takei, Shatner only brings up the feud
when he is in need of publicity for a new project on which he is embarking. According
to Shatner, who knows? For the most part, the actor seems to like to remain
silent on the issue – unless he is in need of publicity.
George Takei admits that there is some substance to the feud which goes
back to the Star Trek days. Takei admits that Shatner is a wonderful actor, but that he is also a little
self-absorbed and rarely seemed to understand how to work as a team with the
rest of the cast. The camera always needed to be on him. And Shatner appears to continue that focus, even remarking
that no one cared when Takei came out as gay. (George, we care.)
An old idiom declares that familiarity breeds contempt. The more that we
get to know each other and the more time we spend with each other, the less we
realize that we like each other. It is one of the more common reasons for
divorce. Often I hear one spouse declaring of the other that “I never really knew
you.” The implication is that if I had, I would not have married you. And so
divorce is the only answer. Sometimes feuds between on screen (or off screen)
friends can feel like a kind of divorce.
So what about the feud between Jesus and Judas. It is easy to take sides; Jesus was God and Judas was the
Devil. This is definitely the understanding of the conflict held by the disciples.
But Jesus words remind us of something else. By saying that the betrayer came
from the Twelve and that he is “one who
dips the bread into the bowl with me,” Jesus is reminding us that he and Judas
were friends. And we need to be sure that we don’t take that fact too lightly.
They knew each other well, and yet, something deems to have happened to the
friendship.
John appears to indicate that part of the reason behind the betrayal was
that Judas was a thief. And while I recognize that the accusation is biblical
(John 12:6), we maybe need to be careful about an
indictment that is brought by only one witness, and in this, John stands
alone. Even the Bible warns us that a charge
must be corroborated by two or three witnesses and there is something
unseemly about the idea of stealing from a friend. And what would Judas being a
thief have to do with the betrayal? There are two possible answers. Maybe he was tempted by the amount of money that he
was offered to do the job (although he seems to have gone to the priests with
the offer to betray before he knew that he was going to be paid for that
betrayal). Or his friend Jesus knew that he was stealing and was about to
confront him. As far as feuds go, here lie the seeds for a good one –
and while both Jesus and Judas died shortly after the betrayal, the Christian
Church has taken up the feud with Judas.
But there might be another answer, albeit it would mean that either John’s
accusation was wrong or it was unconnected with the betrayal. We know that even
his disciples and friends did not get Jesus and his mission. They were still
looking for the military advantage over Rome. At it seems possible that Judas’s
betrayal was a way to force Jesus hand toward a military solution. If Jesus were betrayed into the hands of his enemies, he
would be forced to expedite his plans for a military victory over Rome.
Of course, all of this extends out of a misunderstanding between friends –
in this case, entirely on the part of Judas. And Judas didn’t stay around long
enough to understand the real victory that Jesus was planning – a victory that was brought a step closer because
of a friend’s betrayal.
Tomorrow’s Scripture
Reading: Luke 22
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