Wednesday

John 13:21-32; Isaiah 50:4-9a

For those who chose not to do the Passion readings on Palm Sunday, Isaiah 50:4-9a is revisited now, but not in the context of Paul’s letter to the Philippians (“at the name of Jesus every knee should bend in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord”).  Now the emphasis is on the willingness of the servant to submit to the will of God: “I was not rebellious, I did not turn backward. . . I did not hide my face from insult and spitting.”  John’s Jesus knows who will betray him, and clearly indicates who it is by handing Judas the bread after it had been dipped in the bowl – yet the disciples fail to realize what is right in front of their faces: The hour for Jesus’ death, resurrection, and ascension has arrived.

Suppose the kenosis illustrated by the third servant song of Isaiah is not submission to the will of an interventionist God who wants a sacrifice in payment for personal sin.  Suppose instead that this kenosis is active listening to the desire of a relational spirit for the exiled people to live in justice-compassion.  The servant says, “Morning by morning he wakens my ear to listen as those [do] who are taught.”  The servant knows how to “sustain the weary with a word” because the servant has the gift of the tongue of a teacher from this nonviolent God who wants to be reunited with God’s people.  The servant listens and continues to teach reconciliation and distributive justice against the demonic forces that impel the people to collaborate with the empire that has carried them off into exile. 

The disciples could not hear what John’s Jesus was trying to tell them, even when he clearly states that the one who will betray him (literally, turn him over to the authorities) is the one to whom he is going to give the bread – right now – and then he hands the bread to Judas.  He tells him to “Do quickly what you are going to do,” and Judas goes out into the night.  John’s version of the story says that “Some thought that because Judas had the common purse,” Jesus was telling him to buy supplies for their Passover festivities, or make a donation to the poor -- acts of easy piety.  They did not take Jesus’ teachings seriously, and so they had no clue of the danger that he (and they) were in because of the threat that he (and they) presented to the occupying Romans and to the Jewish collaborators in the Temple. 

In The Last Week: A Day-by-Day Account of Jesus's Final Week in Jerusalem, Borg and Crossan write that “. . . it is possible to gain control of the earth by demonic collaboration.  It is possible to fall prey to the ancient (and modern) delusion of religious power backed by imperial violence.”  Judas was not the only follower of Jesus who has been caught up in the mind-set that reduces teachings of non-violent justice-compassion to empty piety.  To live and practice non-violent justice-compassion is to actively counter the imperial forces that seduce us into going shopping, hiring illegal aliens as slave labor, and joining the military because we have been convinced that it is the only way to “be all we can be.”  There is nothing supernatural about Jesus’ conviction that he would be turned over to the Temple collaborators, and likely ultimately executed by the Roman occupiers.  Isaiah’s Servant willingly “gave my back to those who struck me, and my cheeks to those who pulled out the beard . . .”  because “[i]t is the Lord God who helps me; who will declare me guilty?”  Jesus maintains his integrity in the service of justice-compassion, against the normalcy of civilization, relying upon the same kind of faith.

The Elves leave out verses 10 and 11 of Isaiah 50, and they should not because the Servant addresses those very conditions that produce empty piety instead of an active counter to imperial retributive systems.  The Servant wonders “who [among you] walks in darkness and has no light, yet trusts in the name of the Lord and relies upon his God?”  The conclusion is, few if any.  But in a post-modern world, where the interventionist god died long ago, does the Servant’s challenge to faith have any meaning?  The Apostle Paul’s answer still stands: “For I am convinced that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor rulers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord” (Romans 8:38).   When we accept the invitation to participate in the ongoing great work of justice-compassion, we are partners with the kenotic servant God in restoring God’s justice-compassion to the world – which belongs to that kenotic servant God.  And the life and death of the servant-teacher Jesus is the model.

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