Hand Over

 

Betray – meaning...

    Hand over....

    Unintentionally to show true character

    To indicate what is not obvious

This Irish poet and theologian Padraig O’Tuoma has encouraged me to think differently about betrayal.  Perhaps, our betrayers, sometimes, in some ways, in some sense, are not only out to hurt us but are motivated by other impulses.  He is writing about Judas whom it is often taught was treacherous and greedy handing Jesus over to his executioners for a small bag of gold. Padraig asks us to consider if there might have been other motivations for his betrayal. 

The disciples believed that Jesus was their savior, the Messiah come to liberate them from the oppression of Rome.  Even though Jesus told them again and again in many different ways that his way was different, not one of violent revolt but one of transformation of the self and society through love, that to show this love he would be taken from them and very soon, it was impossible for them to believe this, understand this before it happened.  

Perhaps, Judas, in turning Jesus over to his executioners, thought this would be the way to spark the revolution that would defeat the Empire. It makes a certain amount of sense if we consider that before Jesus was even interrogated that Judas realizing how wrong that he was hung himself on a tree outside the city walls. 

There is a truth to the hubris of betrayers, their vainglorious belief that their lies and deceit are necessary for them and even their targets, that they are righteous.  It is also true that regardless of their confusion that betrayers are also selfish and even greedy in taking what is not theirs through lying, and stealing things, bodies, trust. But it might also be true that the betrayal deeper down points to inner shame, woundedness, confusion about life, brokeness that afflicts us even if we don’t act upon it.  Betrayers “unintentionally show their true character” through their betraying which is small, insecure, scared.  By peeling back the veil of seeming confidence and power, betrayers reveal to us how brokenness operates in the world. 

To be betrayed can rattle you to the core of your being.  What was one thing – perhaps something we were relying upon for our security, love, livelihood - has turned out to be another quite the opposite.  What was solid ground has become a fragile and unstable.  I am not saying betrayers need to be forgiven.  But only to consider that the evil unleashed might come from somewhere that is not evil but smallness, confusion, brokenness.