Thus says God, the LORD, who created the heavens and stretched them out, who spreads out the earth with its crops, who gives breath to its people and spirit to those who walk on it: I, the LORD, have called you for the victory of justice. I have grasped you by the hand; I formed you, and set you as a covenant of the people, a light for the nations, to open the eyes of the blind, to bring out prisoners from confinement, and from the dungeon, those who live in darkness. (Isaiah 42:1-7)
About whom is Isaiah talking? Who is the servant? Jesus? Consider our Bible’s attempted clarification. Four passages have been popularly called “servant of the Lord” poems. They are 42:1-7; 49:1–7; 50:4–11; and 52:13–53:12. Whether the servant is an individual or a collectivity is not clear. More important is the description of the mission of the servant. In the early Church and throughout Christian tradition, these poems have been applied to Christ such as Matthew 12:18–21.
Nevertheless, the servant appears to be Israel. An individual tribe or the nation itself is often referred to as an individual so the idea of Israel being the servant can account for the use of “he” such as “he shall bring forth justice to the nations.” Tradition says otherwise: servant = Christ. Moreover, are we God’s servants bringing light for the nations, opening the eyes of the blind, bringing out prisoners from confinement and from the dungeon those who live in darkness? Are we singing these songs?
Now onto our Gospel reading from John where we focus on Judas who, according to John, was a thief and held the money bag and used to steal the contributions. Did Jesus know?
Six days before Passover Jesus came to Bethany, where Lazarus was, whom Jesus had raised from the dead. They gave a dinner for him there, and Martha served, while Lazarus was one of those reclining at table with him. Mary took a liter of costly perfumed oil made from genuine aromatic nard and anointed the feet of Jesus and dried them with her hair; the house was filled with the fragrance of the oil.
Then Judas the Iscariot, one of his disciples, and the one who would betray him, said, "Why was this oil not sold for three hundred days' wages and given to the poor?" He said this not because he cared about the poor but because he was a thief and held the money bag and used to steal the contributions.
So, Jesus said, "Leave her alone. Let her keep this for the day of my burial. You always have the poor with you, but you do not always have me."
The large crowd of the Jews found out that he was there and came, not only because of him, but also to see Lazarus, whom he had raised from the dead. And the chief priests plotted to kill Lazarus too, because many of the Jews were turning away and believing in Jesus because of him. (John 12:1-11)
First, there’s Mary letting down her hair to anoint Jesus’ feet. Mary took a liter of costly perfumed oil made from genuine aromatic nard and anointed the feet of Jesus and dried them with her hair; the house was filled with the fragrance of the oil. When a woman lets down her hair, that simple gesture suggests intimacy; however, this Mary is not Mary Magdalene who some have suspected was more than just a supporter.
Was that oil worth three hundred days' wages as claimed by Judas? Isn’t that too extravagant just for a foot anointing? Let’s consider that Mary’s brother Lazarus was reclining at the table. Jesus raised him from the dead, according to John. Therefore, the expensive anointing was an appropriate gesture of extreme gratitude. Life is priceless.
Secondly, there’s Judas commenting about the “waste” of oil. This seems like a small point when compare to the other Gospel reference: “one of his disciples, and the one who would betray him.” Who was Judas?
According to Father James Martin in his May 2006 America Magazine article about Judas: “Spy Wednesday: Who was Judas and why did he do it?”
(begin) “One thing seems probable: Judas was not always as villainous as he has historically appeared in art and literature. (Early and late Renaissance painters often portrayed Judas with grotesque, even animalistic, features. Giotto’s painting The Kiss of Judas [1304] shows a simian-looking Judas kissing his teacher.) After all, Judas Iscariot was chosen to be one of the Twelve. This means that Jesus, presumably a shrewd judge of character, must have seen some redeeming qualities in the man. Likewise, Judas himself recognized Jesus as someone worthy of following and initially accepted the sacrifices required to become his follower.
This alone argues for a more sympathetic portrayal of Judas. In other words, how could someone who was supposedly so irredeemably evil decide to leave everything to follow Jesus of Nazareth? And if any of the traditions have any factual basis, and Judas was a passionate man, one can speculate that he could have been one of the more devoted followers of Jesus of Nazareth.
Needless to say, the writers of the Gospels were unlikely to include any material in their narratives that would cast Judas in a positive light. Any evidence of Jesus’ early affection for Judas or any stories showing Judas’s initial devotion to Jesus would probably have been set aside by the Evangelists in their writing and editing. (Similarly, fans of George Washington probably have little interest in favorable portrayals of Benedict Arnold.)
Consequently, the generally accepted understanding of Judas begins with sources that painted him in the darkest tones possible. The writers of the four Gospels were also good storytellers, who knew that for simple dramatic effect, the story of Jesus requires an archvillain. And if a good hero story needs a good villain, a divine protagonist requires the most wicked of opponents.
Later Christian traditions built on these presentations, and were also influenced by nascent anti-Semitism, as the early church began to distance itself from its Jewish roots. St. John Chrysostom, patriarch of Constantinople, writing in the fourth century, used Judas as an example of the wickedness of Jews in general. Chrysostom (the name means golden mouth, a tribute to his skills as a preacher) was one of several saints whose writings were tinged with, and contributed to, the virulent anti-Semitism common at the time. Judas was evil not only because he had betrayed Jesus, but because he was Jewish (my emphasis).
Chrysostom sees the suicide of Judas as foreshadowing the suffering of the Jews, and comments on this approvingly (my emphasis). In his Homilies on the Acts of the Apostles, he writes: This desolation [his fate] was a prelude to that of the Jews, as will appear on looking closely into the facts. That one of the most influential church fathers could write so cruelly shows not only the rapid assimilation of anti-Semitism into Christianity, but the hardening of the Christian imagination against Judas (my emphasis).
These characterizations continued throughout the medieval Passion plays and would influence early and late Renaissance writers and artists. Dante, for example, in the Inferno, places Judas in the lowest circle of hell where the arch sinner is torn apart by a three-headed Satan. In his wide-ranging historical study Judas: Images of the Lost Disciple, Kim Paffenroth, a religious studies professor at Iona College in New York, writes: For Dante, Judas is an example of the worst sin possible, betrayal, and he therefore places him at the center of hell, the worst of human sinners. As Paffenroth notes, most of the medieval Passion plays popular throughout Europe in the 14th and 15th centuries accentuated the ties between Judas and the Jewish people.
Gradually, the role of Judas and the Jewish people in these performances began to eclipse earlier portrayals of multiple devils, thus elaborating and accentuating Jewish evil as completely human but utterly and irredeemably evil. Arguably the most famous of these Passion plays, in Oberammergau, Germany, continues to be staged. And while the Oberammergau play has evolved, it was only in 2000, according to Paffenroth, that any substantial changes were made to the script regarding anti-Semitism.
Over time, the stereotype of Judas as the most wicked of all human beings, as well as layer upon layer of historical anti-Semitism, made it difficult, if not impossible, for later generations to gain any distance from his story and to understand his motivation. The historical Judas was buried under artistic representations of him. As Graham Greene wrote in his novel The End of the Affair, “If we had not been taught how to interpret the story of the Passion, would we be able to say from their actions alone whether it was the jealous Judas or the cowardly Peter who loved Christ?” (end)
I provided all of the above detail and references because of: (1) my respect for Father James Martin, and (2) my great concern and alarm about the rise of antisemitism in America dovetailed with those promoting white supremacy. We are also experiencing Holy Week when we need to better understand our relationship with those of the Jewish faith, especially Jesus, our Christ.
Deacon David Pierce
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