Betrayal: Spy Wednesday
a prayer for the middle of Holy Week
It's my favorite day of Holy Week - - Spy Wednesday.
Spy Wednesday is the day devoted to Judas. We don’t talk about Judas enough and I think that’s too bad. Who hasn’t experienced betrayal? We've all been betrayed in one way or another. By friends. By lovers. By parents. By sisters, brothers, siblings. By those who promised to care for us, both personally and communally. What does Jesus's willingness to include Judas at the table say to us? As you consider these things today, here's a prayer:
Holy One,
We come to you on this Spy Wednesday, the day set aside in this holiest of weeks to remember Judas. Perhaps this year, more than most, we need the sacred space of this day to name the betrayals we have experienced in our own lives.
Those closest to us act selfishly and we have felt the most intimate of betrayals. We know the sting of broken relationships. In the confusion left by lost trust, we question our ability to gauge a person’s character.
Hesitant to risk, we wonder if we can be vulnerable again. Too much is at stake. Help us to heal and not withdraw in fear.
Betrayal comes, too, in the most personal way: when illness comes, even our bodies betray us. We struggle to remain present when pain overwhelms. You who came to us in a Body know this betrayal all too well.
From the deeply personal to the communal, there is this, O God: when our neighbors make choices in their own self interests, instead of in the interest of what is best for our community, we've been betrayed.
Each day news reports come of yet another way that those elected to serve have betrayed our highest of ideals.
Holy One, we experience betrayal all the time. It feels like we can’t escape it.
Grant us some time today, in this holy-busy week, to consider betrayal, those who we have betrayed, and those who have betrayed us, so we might look upon them, and our own disloyal souls, with compassion, the way Jesus looked at Judas.
After all, Jesus invited Judas to that last meal, fully aware of the betrayal that was to befall him.
You keep inviting us to the table, too.
May we feast on that love, instead of choking on our own bitterness.
With your help, we ask on this Spy Wednesday: may it be so. Amen.
As you meditate on betrayal today, here’s a song for you. It’s What About Us by P!nk. It’s my favorite earworm for today.
We’ll conclude tomorrow’s Maundy Thursday service with prayer stations, one of which will be putting coins into the font to remember Judas’s betrayal of Jesus for 30 pieces of silver.
We’re giving the money to two organizations that work on behalf of those who’ve been betrayed by people close to them: one is a domestic violence organization, plus the Trevor Project.
Thanks for this! I've been preaching about Judas since the last Sunday in Lent, and on Palm Sunday, and I will be preaching about him again tomorrow and Good Friday, and am still trying to figure out how to bring him in on Easter.
Maybe with that story of him climbing out of a deep, dark well, falling back, and trying again and again and again, until he finally reaches the top, and there is Jesus, and all the disciples are there, gathered around a table, and Jesus cries out and says, "Welcome, Judas! Now we can begin the feast!"