I've been reading Walter Wangerin's book, Jesus. I self righteously told myself that I had the gospels so I avoided it for a long time. I had no need of a fresh take on Jesus by Lutheran pastor from the Midwest. I was wrong. I love everything Wangerin has written. This story of Jesus is no exception. I am seeing Scripture in new ways and am seeing things I never saw in the Jesus story before, like Judas…
Judas is not one of the characters in Scripture with whom I could easily identify – until now. He thought Jesus was the answer to everyone's problems. He knew Jesus was going to put right all the wrongs and in the process make Judas somebody special. He knew exactly what he expected from Jesus, and when Jesus let him down, he turned on him.
Recently, I've been thinking about all the people that prayed a prayer, called themselves Christians, and then decided it was all a farce. I could easily have been one of them. My brother is. When Jesus doesn't come through for us we go away sad and even deny his existence. I demand Jesus be who I want him to be. I want him to be this friend that I talk about having a personal relationship with, and then when "he doesn't come through" or "seem to" we jump to the conclusion that he must not exist at all and we slide toward atheism. We become Judasizers.
When I was on staff with InterVarsity Christian Fellowship, was being courted to join the ALP, was traveling the world preaching, and generally was "making it" by being a professional Christian, I knew that there had to be more. I traveled to Chicago to visit a friend who I knew received "pictures" from God. He'd already received one word of knowledge for me, I wanted more. I knew that there had to be more. At one point, riding with a very successful college pastor friend across Portland I said to him, "So when are we going to tell them that everything we have been teaching them is a lie?" Without missing a beat he said, "Sshh, we're not supposed to tell." In moments of honesty many in our profession knew that the reality of what they taught never met the reality of what we lived. That seemed dishonest to me and I wanted more. I was a Judasizer. I wanted God to meet my expectations. I wanted my Christianity to "work for me".
On the wake of my divorce, my therapist, himself a pastor, said to me, "Do you know why you were such a great evangelist? … You desperately needed to see people experience that which you wanted to believe was true."
It is seven years later… I'm a nobody by the church's standards. Few pastors want anything to do with the likes of me. I am tolerated in their congregations. I seem to be a pariah to my former colleagues and friends. It is as if they are afraid my sin might be contagious.
And God is my everything. The experience I was willing to travel three hours by car to try to catch is settling on me. Everything I wanted and more is mine. God has made me content. I am somewhere on this journey of discovery of the Immanently Transcendent One. The more I get to see the less I know and that's just fine.
I do know this though. Jesus is the transforming one. He gets really upset and really jealous. He doesn't like it when I try to fit him into my plans rather than trying to fit into his. He wants a lot of my attention. He can't seem to get enough. He doesn't buy the fact that he is there for me. He wants me to be there for him. When he doesn't get enough attention he mopes, at least it feels that way. Jesus moping is a pain in the butt. It doesn't end up working for me.
Maybe there is more of me in Judas than I care to admit. I think I'll keep trying to emulate Peter instead.
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