THE FIRST MIDWEEK SERVICE
Worship
The Word Has Come Down
Six Midweek Monologues and Services for Lent
Object:
The Witness of Judas Disciple and Betrayer of Jesus
The Story of Judas
Matthew 26:14-15, 21-26, 45-50; 27:3-5
Opening Hymn
"Alas! And Did My Savior Bleed"
The Witness: Judas
I am Judas, one of the disciples of Jesus. I will tell you how I came to know Jesus in a minute. First, I want to object to what the stories about Jesus you call the gospels say about me. I am not the evil man these stories say I am. It is true that I did betray Jesus, but as you will see, I had reasons to do so.
I was one of his disciples; the only one from Judea. The rest were Galileans. Most were related to each other. I was an outsider from the start. Only Matthew, the tax collector, and I had some schooling. I was our treasurer. Jesus trusted me with what little money there was.
The way Jesus called us was strange. He just said to follow him. No details about where or why. Just follow him. But there was something about him that made me go with him.
He was a holy man, dedicated to God. And I loved him as much as the others did.
At first, we were waiting for the Messiah sent from God. We were sure Jesus was him. Instead of helping us get rid of the Romans, he told us we should love them and pray for them.
The people who followed him were tax collectors, prostitutes, and beggars, and he welcomed them. Then there was the law of Moses. He broke it! He said the law was made for humanity -- not that humanity was made for the law. As if God's law is not as important as the people he ate and drank with.
At that point, I don't know whether I believed he was the Messiah or not.
The temple priests wanted to get Jesus for a long time. They were afraid of him. They were afraid he would lead the people against them. And they were afraid to take him on their own. They needed me. And they paid me to help them.
I didn't do it for the money.
They wanted to get him at night without a lot of people around.
Yes. They didn't want any trouble. They needed my help. We found him in the garden that overlooks the city. He was with some of his followers.
The chief priest was afraid of trouble. He sent armed police with me to make the arrest. Jesus didn't resist, but Peter went wild. Then Jesus stopped the trouble and went quietly. The others there -- they all ran -- afraid of being arrested too.
They convicted and executed him. He claimed to be the Messiah, but he didn't help overthrow the Romans. He didn't follow the laws of Moses. He ate and drank with all kinds of sinners. If he was the Messiah, Jesus sure had a strange way of showing it.
Opening Prayer
Pastor: Let us pray:
Congregation: Dear God in heaven, we lay before you our own authority, confusion, and remorse. We pray that your mercy covers all sins, even those as grave as Judas'. Forgive all who refuse the mercy your Son's death brought us. Fill us with such an awareness of your deep love that despair has no place in our lives. In his name, we pray. Amen.
Authority
A Reading
1 Samuel 8:4-18
A Meditation
We are so hungry for someone to take charge of our lives. I know that's not how we usually think of ourselves. But we truly need someone to take charge of our lives, or at the very least find someone or something to rely on. I remember I read a few different novels in the early '80s and to tell you the truth, I don't even remember the names of these novels, but in each case, the main character was a bad guy. They both had similarities. In both cases, these men had been trained in some official capacity to be assassins, but their similarities went deeper than that. Physically, they were both beautiful and they both had iron wills, but they were also completely devoid of kindness. There was one other characteristic that they shared. They were both the product of not only completely different races, but also completely different cultures and each case they had embraced the culture of one parent and had abandoned the culture of the other. Once again, in both cases, this rejection of the authority of one parent had left them, not confused, but embittered to the point of steel.
As I said, I read two novels that told the story of this same beautiful kind of monster. But I don't recall having seen this kind of character emerge in the last twenty years or so. I think he is too horrible to contemplate. Authority is such an integral thing in our lives that it is painful to imagine having to embrace the authority of one parent only at the cost of rejecting the other parent's culture entirely. It is painful, I think, because it is something that the mature person must do.
The word authority comes from the Latin word auctoritas that was used largely as a legal term meaning precedent. So being under another's authority is a great way to escape blame.
What does it mean for a young person to move out on their own? It means to accept authority over their own lives which they had previously assumed was their parents. What is marriage but the transfer or at least the sharing of authority over one's life with someone else? What does it mean to take a job? It means the same thing. It means that for so many hours a day we transfer the authority over our lives to someone else. While we do not become their slaves, we have agreed to do certain tasks during those hours.
But for the Christian, authority means that we obey God before our parents, our spouses, or our employers. That also means we trust God more as well. Authority is painful when our trust and obedience to God conflict with all the other forces that hold sway over our lives. Had poor Judas understood where true authority lay, he would not have allowed the authority of the Jews to confuse him.
Pastor: Let us pray:
Congregation: Direct us, O Lord, in all our doings with your most gracious favor and further us with your continual help that in all our works, begun, continued, and ended in you, we may glorify your holy name and finally, by your mercy, obtain everlasting life, through Jesus Christ, our Lord. Amen.
Primitive Hymn by Joseph Hart sung to "Rathbun" the tune of "In the Cross of Christ I Glory"
Come, ye sinners, poor and needy,
Weak and wounded, sick and sore;
Jesus ready stands to save you,
Full of pity, love, and power.
Come, ye thirsty, come, and welcome,
God's free bounty glorify;
True belief and true repentance,
Every grace that brings you nigh.
Come, ye weary, heavy laden,
Lost and ruined by the fall;
If you tarry till you're better,
You will never come at all.
View him prostrate in the garden;
On the ground your Maker lies.
On the bloody tree behold him;
Sinner, will this not suffice?
Lo! th' incarnate God ascended,
Pleads the merit of his blood:
Venture on him, venture wholly,
Let no other trust intrude.
Let not conscience make you linger,
Not of fitness fondly dream;
All the fitness he requireth
Is to feel your need of him.
Confusion
A Reading
Job 10:2-22
A Meditation
I remember an old sitcom about a young man who was on jury duty. He asked the judge if he could come and visit with him, and you can tell that it's a sitcom because the judge said yes. Only in television would a jurist show such largesse. Who knows, it might even be against the law. In any case, the judge was more than patient when the young man told him that he was confused by the differing testimony that he was hearing. In fact, he said he was glad to hear it. The judge told him that what he was experiencing was not confusion but sophisticated thinking. The world is a confusing place said the judge and only a child or a fool thinks otherwise. So it makes sense that the word confusion comes from the Latin confundere meaning to mix. So that leaves us with a question.
Does Christianity un-confuse them? Do the ethics of Christianity iron things out? And if so, if Judas was one of Jesus' followers, why was he so confused? Was it a problem with authority? Maybe. Perhaps he did not believe himself worthy of the love and forgiveness Jesus offered and wanted to take himself out of Jesus' sphere of influence before his unworthiness was discovered. Or maybe it could be something even more basic. Was it an inability to take in such good news? I have come to believe that incomprehensible blessing is a big reason why Christianity is often so confusing for people.
You will hear it said that people are always trying to get something for nothing. But deep down, they always know that someone somewhere will have to pay for what they get. Everyone, even a child knows that there is nothing for free.
Did Judas' actions result from the fear that eventually all of Jesus' warm talk about love and forgiveness was one day going to have to be paid for? Both of his suppositions were correct. He was not worthy and all of Jesus' love and forgiveness had to be paid for. Not because God demanded it, but because we are confused, eternally confused. We are unworthy and we know it. We do want forgiveness, but we are afraid, desperately afraid that we will, somehow, somewhere, have to pay for the mercy he has given us. The key is to understand that, though we are not worthy, though our lives must be marked with remorse, God's love has freed us from all the nails of our sin by showing us the nail prints in the hands of his Son.
Pastor: Let us pray:
Congregation: Dear God in heaven, comfort us with your presence made sweet in prayer, powerful in witness and purposeful in community. Forgive us when we allow our confusion or our despair to sink us into inaction or worse yet, betrayal. Open our hearts to your presence. In the name of your Son, we pray. Amen.
Remorse
A Reading
Psalm 38
A Meditation
With just a casual glance at the life of Judas, one might feel that remorse is exactly what he should have been feeling after he betrayed his Lord. But remorse is an ugly word; so I looked it up in the dictionary and it comes from the French words meaning to bite again. Remorse is to allow a regret to eat away at you. That is exactly what Judas allowed to happen to him. He did not accept the authority of God and the confusion that caused him to betray brought about the remorse that killed him.
Now, before we go any further, I want to say that anyone can get lost. The faster our world moves, the quicker people can lose their way. It only takes a moment, especially if there is a bridge, some pills, a gun, or as in Judas' case, a rope close at hand. I would advise us all, therefore, against doubting for one moment God's mercy in such a case.
Confusion and competing authorities hold sway in this earthbound plane and none of us are free from them. That is why we must not only accept that fact, but also be open to God's gifts. We must do what we have no choice to do and what Judas did not do. He did not ask forgiveness of his Lord. He did not seek out his family of faith. He gave in to despair. That is what he did do, but what he did not do was even more significant. He did not ask forgiveness of his Lord. He did not seek out his family of faith for support. We need to be that family of faith for each other because whether we admit it or not, we all betray our Savior every day.
Offering
The Prayers of the People
The Lord's Prayer
Closing Hymn
"O Sacred Head Now Wounded"
The Story of Judas
Matthew 26:14-15, 21-26, 45-50; 27:3-5
Opening Hymn
"Alas! And Did My Savior Bleed"
The Witness: Judas
I am Judas, one of the disciples of Jesus. I will tell you how I came to know Jesus in a minute. First, I want to object to what the stories about Jesus you call the gospels say about me. I am not the evil man these stories say I am. It is true that I did betray Jesus, but as you will see, I had reasons to do so.
I was one of his disciples; the only one from Judea. The rest were Galileans. Most were related to each other. I was an outsider from the start. Only Matthew, the tax collector, and I had some schooling. I was our treasurer. Jesus trusted me with what little money there was.
The way Jesus called us was strange. He just said to follow him. No details about where or why. Just follow him. But there was something about him that made me go with him.
He was a holy man, dedicated to God. And I loved him as much as the others did.
At first, we were waiting for the Messiah sent from God. We were sure Jesus was him. Instead of helping us get rid of the Romans, he told us we should love them and pray for them.
The people who followed him were tax collectors, prostitutes, and beggars, and he welcomed them. Then there was the law of Moses. He broke it! He said the law was made for humanity -- not that humanity was made for the law. As if God's law is not as important as the people he ate and drank with.
At that point, I don't know whether I believed he was the Messiah or not.
The temple priests wanted to get Jesus for a long time. They were afraid of him. They were afraid he would lead the people against them. And they were afraid to take him on their own. They needed me. And they paid me to help them.
I didn't do it for the money.
They wanted to get him at night without a lot of people around.
Yes. They didn't want any trouble. They needed my help. We found him in the garden that overlooks the city. He was with some of his followers.
The chief priest was afraid of trouble. He sent armed police with me to make the arrest. Jesus didn't resist, but Peter went wild. Then Jesus stopped the trouble and went quietly. The others there -- they all ran -- afraid of being arrested too.
They convicted and executed him. He claimed to be the Messiah, but he didn't help overthrow the Romans. He didn't follow the laws of Moses. He ate and drank with all kinds of sinners. If he was the Messiah, Jesus sure had a strange way of showing it.
Opening Prayer
Pastor: Let us pray:
Congregation: Dear God in heaven, we lay before you our own authority, confusion, and remorse. We pray that your mercy covers all sins, even those as grave as Judas'. Forgive all who refuse the mercy your Son's death brought us. Fill us with such an awareness of your deep love that despair has no place in our lives. In his name, we pray. Amen.
Authority
A Reading
1 Samuel 8:4-18
A Meditation
We are so hungry for someone to take charge of our lives. I know that's not how we usually think of ourselves. But we truly need someone to take charge of our lives, or at the very least find someone or something to rely on. I remember I read a few different novels in the early '80s and to tell you the truth, I don't even remember the names of these novels, but in each case, the main character was a bad guy. They both had similarities. In both cases, these men had been trained in some official capacity to be assassins, but their similarities went deeper than that. Physically, they were both beautiful and they both had iron wills, but they were also completely devoid of kindness. There was one other characteristic that they shared. They were both the product of not only completely different races, but also completely different cultures and each case they had embraced the culture of one parent and had abandoned the culture of the other. Once again, in both cases, this rejection of the authority of one parent had left them, not confused, but embittered to the point of steel.
As I said, I read two novels that told the story of this same beautiful kind of monster. But I don't recall having seen this kind of character emerge in the last twenty years or so. I think he is too horrible to contemplate. Authority is such an integral thing in our lives that it is painful to imagine having to embrace the authority of one parent only at the cost of rejecting the other parent's culture entirely. It is painful, I think, because it is something that the mature person must do.
The word authority comes from the Latin word auctoritas that was used largely as a legal term meaning precedent. So being under another's authority is a great way to escape blame.
What does it mean for a young person to move out on their own? It means to accept authority over their own lives which they had previously assumed was their parents. What is marriage but the transfer or at least the sharing of authority over one's life with someone else? What does it mean to take a job? It means the same thing. It means that for so many hours a day we transfer the authority over our lives to someone else. While we do not become their slaves, we have agreed to do certain tasks during those hours.
But for the Christian, authority means that we obey God before our parents, our spouses, or our employers. That also means we trust God more as well. Authority is painful when our trust and obedience to God conflict with all the other forces that hold sway over our lives. Had poor Judas understood where true authority lay, he would not have allowed the authority of the Jews to confuse him.
Pastor: Let us pray:
Congregation: Direct us, O Lord, in all our doings with your most gracious favor and further us with your continual help that in all our works, begun, continued, and ended in you, we may glorify your holy name and finally, by your mercy, obtain everlasting life, through Jesus Christ, our Lord. Amen.
Primitive Hymn by Joseph Hart sung to "Rathbun" the tune of "In the Cross of Christ I Glory"
Come, ye sinners, poor and needy,
Weak and wounded, sick and sore;
Jesus ready stands to save you,
Full of pity, love, and power.
Come, ye thirsty, come, and welcome,
God's free bounty glorify;
True belief and true repentance,
Every grace that brings you nigh.
Come, ye weary, heavy laden,
Lost and ruined by the fall;
If you tarry till you're better,
You will never come at all.
View him prostrate in the garden;
On the ground your Maker lies.
On the bloody tree behold him;
Sinner, will this not suffice?
Lo! th' incarnate God ascended,
Pleads the merit of his blood:
Venture on him, venture wholly,
Let no other trust intrude.
Let not conscience make you linger,
Not of fitness fondly dream;
All the fitness he requireth
Is to feel your need of him.
Confusion
A Reading
Job 10:2-22
A Meditation
I remember an old sitcom about a young man who was on jury duty. He asked the judge if he could come and visit with him, and you can tell that it's a sitcom because the judge said yes. Only in television would a jurist show such largesse. Who knows, it might even be against the law. In any case, the judge was more than patient when the young man told him that he was confused by the differing testimony that he was hearing. In fact, he said he was glad to hear it. The judge told him that what he was experiencing was not confusion but sophisticated thinking. The world is a confusing place said the judge and only a child or a fool thinks otherwise. So it makes sense that the word confusion comes from the Latin confundere meaning to mix. So that leaves us with a question.
Does Christianity un-confuse them? Do the ethics of Christianity iron things out? And if so, if Judas was one of Jesus' followers, why was he so confused? Was it a problem with authority? Maybe. Perhaps he did not believe himself worthy of the love and forgiveness Jesus offered and wanted to take himself out of Jesus' sphere of influence before his unworthiness was discovered. Or maybe it could be something even more basic. Was it an inability to take in such good news? I have come to believe that incomprehensible blessing is a big reason why Christianity is often so confusing for people.
You will hear it said that people are always trying to get something for nothing. But deep down, they always know that someone somewhere will have to pay for what they get. Everyone, even a child knows that there is nothing for free.
Did Judas' actions result from the fear that eventually all of Jesus' warm talk about love and forgiveness was one day going to have to be paid for? Both of his suppositions were correct. He was not worthy and all of Jesus' love and forgiveness had to be paid for. Not because God demanded it, but because we are confused, eternally confused. We are unworthy and we know it. We do want forgiveness, but we are afraid, desperately afraid that we will, somehow, somewhere, have to pay for the mercy he has given us. The key is to understand that, though we are not worthy, though our lives must be marked with remorse, God's love has freed us from all the nails of our sin by showing us the nail prints in the hands of his Son.
Pastor: Let us pray:
Congregation: Dear God in heaven, comfort us with your presence made sweet in prayer, powerful in witness and purposeful in community. Forgive us when we allow our confusion or our despair to sink us into inaction or worse yet, betrayal. Open our hearts to your presence. In the name of your Son, we pray. Amen.
Remorse
A Reading
Psalm 38
A Meditation
With just a casual glance at the life of Judas, one might feel that remorse is exactly what he should have been feeling after he betrayed his Lord. But remorse is an ugly word; so I looked it up in the dictionary and it comes from the French words meaning to bite again. Remorse is to allow a regret to eat away at you. That is exactly what Judas allowed to happen to him. He did not accept the authority of God and the confusion that caused him to betray brought about the remorse that killed him.
Now, before we go any further, I want to say that anyone can get lost. The faster our world moves, the quicker people can lose their way. It only takes a moment, especially if there is a bridge, some pills, a gun, or as in Judas' case, a rope close at hand. I would advise us all, therefore, against doubting for one moment God's mercy in such a case.
Confusion and competing authorities hold sway in this earthbound plane and none of us are free from them. That is why we must not only accept that fact, but also be open to God's gifts. We must do what we have no choice to do and what Judas did not do. He did not ask forgiveness of his Lord. He did not seek out his family of faith. He gave in to despair. That is what he did do, but what he did not do was even more significant. He did not ask forgiveness of his Lord. He did not seek out his family of faith for support. We need to be that family of faith for each other because whether we admit it or not, we all betray our Savior every day.
Offering
The Prayers of the People
The Lord's Prayer
Closing Hymn
"O Sacred Head Now Wounded"
