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Psalm 22.1-18

My God, my God, why have you forsaken me? *
and are so far from my cry
and from the words of my distress?

O my God, I cry in the daytime, but you do not answer; *
by night as well, but I find no rest.

Yet you are the Holy One, *
enthroned upon the praises of Israel.

Our forefathers put their trust in you; *
they trusted, and you delivered them.

They cried out to you and were delivered; *
they trusted in you and were not put to shame.

But as for me, I am a worm and no man, *
scorned by all and despised by the people.

All who see me laugh me to scorn; *
they curl their lips and wag their heads, saying,

"He trusted in the Lord; let him deliver him; *
let him rescue him, if he delights in him."

Yet you are he who took me out of the womb, *
and kept me safe upon my mother's breast.

I have been entrusted to you ever since I was born; *
you were my God when I was still in my
mother's womb.

Be not far from me, for trouble is near, *
and there is none to help.

Many young bulls encircle me; *
strong bulls of Bashan surround me.

They open wide their jaws at me, *
like a ravening and a roaring lion.

I am poured out like water;
all my bones are out of joint; *
my heart within my breast is melting wax.

My mouth is dried out like a pot-sherd;
my tongue sticks to the roof of my mouth; *
and you have laid me in the dust of the grave.

Packs of dogs close me in,
and gangs of evildoers circle around me; *
they pierce my hands and my feet;
I can count all my bones.

They stare and gloat over me; *
they divide my garments among them;
they cast lots for my clothing.

Be not far away, O Lord; *
you are my strength; hasten to help me.

Psalm 22 begins with the cry: “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” This cry of utter despair and abandonment is echoed by Jesus on the Cross. This cry cuts me to the core—if even God has abandoned me, what possible hope is there? Here we are, on Good Friday morning and, to me, this psalm vividly tells the story of Good Friday. Here we plumb the depths of human desolation as we walk with Jesus to his death on the cross.

I have always been struck by the extreme language of this psalm--“as for me, I am a worm and no man”, “all who see me laugh me to scorn”, “I am poured out like water”, “my mouth is dried out like a pot-sherd” (my favorite), “Packs of dogs close me in” and many more. I used to think these verses were too extreme, they certainly didn’t apply to me personally!

But, as I think about it more, I think, yes, the psalm is extreme yet isn’t human life often extreme? This is the gift the psalms give us—all the range of human experience and emotion in all its beauty and horror.

Like others, I may have the illusion that I am protected from these extremes, but I don’t know what is to come. Of course, I have not been immune to suffering, loss and feelings of estrangement. Psalm 22 runs the gamut.

What I find encouraging is that such a despairing psalm keeps going back to the goodness of God. Even at the beginning the psalmist recalls that their ancestors had put their trust in God and were redeemed by God. The psalmist acknowledges God’s care from birth. This is a reminder that God has cared for me all my life, even when I was totally unaware of God’s presence. Or the times when I felt abandoned and alone, even abandoned by God.

For this year of pandemic, I am thinking of last March, when suddenly our lives were constricted, almost everything shut down and we were confined to our homes. We were surrounded by the threat of the coronavirus. I think of the verse “Packs of dogs close me in, and gangs of evildoers circle around me.” The psalmist prays: “Be not far from me, for trouble is near, and there is none to help.”

Late in March both Martin and I came down with Covid. For ten days I ran a temperature. Meanwhile, the quiet was disturbed by the wails of sirens from the ambulances rushing to the hospitals near us.

Several times the ambulance did not go rushing by, but stopped in front of our house and went into the home of our next-door neighbors. Martin witnessed our neighbor Eda being carried out the house by EMS workers. Later, we learned that her husband Roy had died of Covid.

We were lucky; we both recovered. We got through it. Yet, in thinking back, I seemed to be operating on automatic pilot; my fear had shut me down. So this is what the psalm means to me now. The cry: “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?”—it doesn’t mean that God has actually forsaken me, I know that God will never forsake me. Instead, it is the human feeling of being forsaken by God (and by everyone else). It is I, in my fear and aloneness, who has forsaken God. I have shut off the connection, just when I most need the comfort of God’s presence. Over and over, us humans retreat into ourselves in time of trouble. Over and over, we must teach ourselves to be brave and open ourselves to the love that God provides.
This is the journey of the Cross.

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Psalm 142

I cry to the Lord with my voice; *
to the Lord I make loud supplication.

I pour out my complaint before him *
and tell him all my trouble.

When my spirit languishes within me, you know my path; *
in the way wherein I walk they have hidden a trap for me.

I look to my right hand and find no one who knows me; *
I have no place to flee to, and no one cares for me.

I cry out to you, O Lord; *
I say, "You are my refuge,
my portion in the land of the living."

Listen to my cry for help, for I have been brought very low; *
save me from those who pursue me,
for they are too strong for me.

Bring me out of prison, that I may give thanks to your Name; *
when you have dealt bountifully with me,
the righteous will gather around me.

Sometimes scripture comes uncomfortably close. I get this one. You know? It resonated. I do cry to the Lord with my voice. I do pour out my complaint and tell him all my trouble. I can tell the psalmist has an active and healthy prayer life. You get a real sense that this person knows what it is like to be having an ongoing conversation with God.

The psalmist knows God is with them throughout their life, both at this moment when they feel they have nowhere to run to escape their life, and no one who cares for them. And when God deals bountifully with them and all the righteous will gather. To have that kind of deep confidence in God’s enduring presence, and be maintaining such a deep prayer conversation with God is really great.

I don’t know about you, but sometimes I feel so good, warmed and embraced when I am praying and meditating. The way I feel I can best describe it to you is like being in a super cozy blanket. It’s this powerful feeling of safety and being surrounded by God’s love. Recently this feeling has been so grounding for me. I have really appreciated this feeling of being so surrounded by God especially at a time when much of my life feels chaotic and random.

Okay, but then, I am out in the world, often stumbling into a frustrating situation with my children or with the contractors at church and I am so far from that feeling of being surrounded by my cozy God’s love blanket! What happened? Do I just need to sit in a room by myself at all times to maintain that feeling of closeness to God? Or maybe the question is, I know God and feel God so clearly in my quiet prayers, but how do I keep feeling God when my child is having an insane fit about the way pants feel on her ankles and when the construction project has some unforeseen crisis? Because I feel dispirited and hopeless—not warm and fuzzy.

The psalmist reminds me though that there isn’t only one God feeling. It doesn’t have to be surrounded by blanket of warmth and love or nothing at all. The psalmist is feeling God when they’re in the midst of despair, loneliness, and frustration. The palmist isn’t like me, who just wants to be back in some perfect cozy surround, not in my real life feeling. The psalmist is frustrated and they say, “you are my refuge, my portion in the land of the living.” The psalmist doesn’t say “GOD! What do I do, my child is being irrational about pants and I just want to be away from this situation so we can be cozy together.” Nope. The psalmist is in all of the worldly struggles that we might have and in the midst of that, instead of wishing for some other way of being with God, is right with God right then. “You are my refuge, my portion in the land of the living.”

This psalm reminds me that faith can feel many different ways, it can feel like that cozy blanket but it can also feel like “my spirit languishing within me.” And I am reminded that prayerful, and constant conversation with God like the palmist has can grow in me so that I too can have that same feeling of relief, “you are my refuge, my portion in the land of the living.” The palmist might not have started out with this kind of faith. By prayer, commitment to being steadfast with God and maybe even just life experiences, the psalmist (and you and I!) Can indeed grow our faith so that by and by, more and more, our refuge can be in God.

You can listen to the reading and reflection by clicking here.

John 13.21-32

After saying this Jesus was troubled in spirit, and declared, “Very truly, I tell you, one of you will betray me.” The disciples looked at one another, uncertain of whom he was speaking. One of his disciples—the one whom Jesus loved—was reclining next to him; Simon Peter therefore motioned to him to ask Jesus of whom he was speaking. So while reclining next to Jesus, he asked him, “Lord, who is it?” Jesus answered, “It is the one to whom I give this piece of bread when I have dipped it in the dish.” So when he had dipped the piece of bread, he gave it to Judas son of Simon Iscariot. After he received the piece of bread, Satan entered into him. Jesus said to him, “Do quickly what you are going to do.” Now no one at the table knew why he said this to him. Some thought that, because Judas had the common purse, Jesus was telling him, “Buy what we need for the festival”; or, that he should give something to the poor. So, after receiving the piece of bread, he immediately went out. And it was night.
When he had gone out, Jesus said, “Now the Son of Man has been glorified, and God has been glorified in him. If God has been glorified in him, God will also glorify him in himself and will glorify him at once.

During Holy Week, we think about Judas and his role in this drama on Maundy Thursday. It is interesting to note that he is heard from in the periscope that comes before today’s reading from the Gospel of John. Judas wants to know why the perfumed oil with which Mary anoints Jesus feet was not sold for 300 denarii and why the money was not given to the poor. Judas asked this because he had become a thief. Judas was a disciple with an agenda, but he was a necessary disciple. We always think we are picking the best people who will hold up the values of our organization, but there is often someone with ulterior motives. Judas’ was money, as far as we can tell. He could be bought, but what others meant for evil, God meant for good. Judas was always going to play a large part in the story of Jesus. Jesus already knew about Judas. You can feel in your spirit when someone is against you.

Some people like to believe God scapegoated Judas and make him the completion of God’s plan. I believe God was trying to drive another kind of message about betrayal.

Judas was a necessary disciple. Sometimes people come into our inner circle, as great enthusiasts, then turn on us and become the people who get bought. That is what makes Judas so interesting. Her is not an outsider. One cannot be a betrayer if one is an outsider. As an insider, Judas had cared about the plight of the poor—the plight of the disinherited about whom Jesus cared so much. But at some point, he turned his heart and his eyes away from the disinherited and this is what John called out in the gospel. The poor are the disinherited, and they were the focus of Jesus’ ministry. When Judas took the 30 pieces of silver out of the treasury, for what was he using it? When he turns his eyes back to the poor, when he takes the money back, in an attempt to get his soul back and intact, it is too late, for Jesus has already been crucified.

So if we focus on the betrayer without connecting it to Jesus, we only get to ourselves. This necessary disciple turned on Jesus because he could not get his own way or live out his agenda. The turning takes place in us. We betray ourselves before we betray God or other people. Judas followed Jesus, his true heart; he wanted to free the minds of the community, but Jesus’ agenda clashes with Judas’ agenda, as Jesus was not being the Messiah Judas wanted him to be. When Judas stops focusing on why he became a disciple, he betrays himself. We betray ourselves when we stop focusing on why we are followers of Jesus. We actually betray God first, then we betray ourselves and we betray the other. When we do that we betray our soul. That Judas sells Jesus is the mark of the betrayer. When he sells Jesus, he is really selling his own soul.

There are three marks of betrayal here:
The First Mark: When he decides and then takes the money
The Second Mark: When he kisses Jesus in the Garden of Gethsemane
The Third Mark: When he betrays the community

He could have taken the money to save society. That would have been a disappointment, but not a betrayal .

We share the kiss of peace with one another during the exchange of the peace in non-Covid seasons in church, but that is not the kiss of betrayal.

So many agendas get communicated in a wink or a kiss or a handshake or as kick under the table in our present day.

Judas betrayed his community when he turned his eyes away from the needs of the poor. He still stays focused on getting rid of the rulers/oppressors, but he does not include the needs of the disinherited. Judas betrayed when he took his focus off the people God came to save; he only wanted to free the affluent, which is often the agenda of people who get into difficulty.

In those three marks of betrayal everyone suffers. Judas suffered and died. God suffered and died and their community suffered as they found out that the religious leaders did not have their best interest at heart. The saddest part of this experience, for the victims in the community, the disinherited, is that they never get to hear their story verified by the truth.

In this Holy Week, I pray that you might think of Judas in a deeper way than he is usually presented to us. What are the ways that we, in our own life and time, are betraying or have betrayed our God, Our Self and Our Community? You cannot pray for your enemy if you do not know who your enemy is. Whenever we have destroyed all our expectations or others have destroyed them, we look to Christ. Perhaps we need to remember that the betrayal in our lives can be the the thing that awakens us from our comfort zone, moves us to a place that God needs us to be and to the action that will make any evil mischief become God’s work for good.

So let us recognize that from betrayals in our lives can come good, reflect on the ways that we betray our own values, God, the people around us and let us give thanks for the God whose death represents salvation, forgiveness, reconciliation, hope and an extravagant love that will never ever let us go.